Pokémon season is back! Pokémon Sword and Shield released
Newest entry in franchise unveils Dynamax and Gigantamax forms
by Wen W. Li, Staff Writer
The beginning of the shopping season coincided with the release of the newest Pokémon video game. Pokémon fever has returned, and you may have noticed students with their heads down taking every moment they can to play on their consoles. Last week, Nintendo released the latest game in the series: Pokémon Sword and Shield.
In the 20 years since the original smash hit Pokémon video game was released in Japan, Nintendo has released more than 20 installments in the Pokémon franchise. The smartphone version, Pokémon Go, was an incredibly popular phenomenon released in 2016. Pokémon is an RPG (role-playing game) in which players build their own team for battle and explore the Pokémon world. The main objective of the game is to collect Pokémon and exchange them with other players. There are more than a thousand Pokémon from the series.
Pokémon Sword and Shield is the eighth generation game from the Pokémon series, and it was released for the Nintendo Switch. Some of the features of Sword and Shield include upgraded graphics, new Pokémon and special forms that change the size of the Pokémon during the battle. Although the game includes about 400 new and old Pokémon, Sword and Shield do not have every Pokémon from the previous games.
Since the release of Pokémon in Nintendo 3DS, each game has always included one new unique skill or evolution. For example, Pokémon X and Y (2013) has a feature called “Mega evolution,” which enabled a special evolution for only specific Pokémon. However, Pokémon Sun and Moon (2016) featured a special skill for all Pokémon, called the Z-Move — Pokémon usually have four skills that could use for battle, the Z-Move provides an additional skill for them.
Pokémon Sword and Shield followed suit with special features, Dynamax and Gigantamax are both special forms for Pokémon, designed to replace the Mega evolution and Z-Move. Dynamax forms increase the size of the Pokémon, and every Pokémon will be able to use that during the battle. However, the Gigantamax forms are a special kind of Dynamax, it changes the size and appearance of the Pokémon, and only some Pokémon are able to use the Gigantamax forms.
Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield have distinct features. According to a famous Japanese game strategy website game8.jp, some Pokémon can be caught in one version of the game, although they can be traded. Furthermore, one of the NPC (non-playable characters) will be different depending on the version.
Six million physical copies of Pokémon Sword and Shield have already been sold since its release Nov. 15. The famous game review website IGN gave the game a 9.3 score out of 10.
“Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield are closer to my dream Pokémon RPGs than anything that’s come before,” IGN game reviewer Casey DeFreitas said.
