What Pokémon Sword and Shield could learn from the Pokémon Trading Card Game
Hello! To celebrate the launch of Dicebreaker, a glorious place to read about the pleasures of board gaming, table-top and all that jazz, here’s a piece from the editor-in-chief Matt Jarvis.
Interaction sits at the heart of Pokémon’s world. It has done since Red and Green had thousands of us pushing a truck near the S.S. Anne in search of legendary #151, Mew. After all, you’d discovered valuable items in bins, received powerful new moves by talking to random strangers and ventured into new areas by cutting trees, lighting caves, tearing down posters and surfing stretches of water. The Mew truck myth was believable enough to try because it was just another plausible interaction in a game full of them.
A lack of interaction is a major factor in the inescapable feeling of disappointment around Pokémon Sword and Shield. As Chris Tapsell notes in Eurogamer’s review, the new British-inspired region of Galar too often feels like a pantomime backdrop rather than a rich world filled with ways to interact with its environment and inhabitants – both human and Pokémon. For all the discussion and controversy around reducing the number of Pokémon to allow for more detailed animation, Sword and Shield’s battles still largely lack a feeling of proper interaction between Pokémon and the environments they live in. At worst, it feels like things haven’t moved especially far from the rudimentary hopping and flashing sprites of the Game Boy.
Even Sword and Shield’s new Dynamax battles feel strangely disconnected, with the co-op nature of the multiplayer raids wasted on an otherwise standard exchanging of blows that just happens to involve a Honey, I Blew Up The Pokémon spectacle. There’s no opportunity for players to truly feel like they’re teaming up, or that their Pokémon are working together beyond happening to share the same empty void.
Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield Gameplay Trailer – Gigantamax Pokemon are coming! Watch on YouTube
What’s especially frustrating is Sword and Shield didn’t need to look far for a new way to bring a better sense of interaction to battles.
The Pokémon Trading Card Game and the video games have a mostly symbiotic relationship. Each new video game instalment is followed by a matching set for the TCG, bringing the latest changes across to the tabletop, such as Pokémon Sun and Moon’s powerful Z-Move attacks – rechristened as GX attacks in the TCG, devastating moves that could only be used once per game. (The Sword & Shield expansion will introduce VMAX cards featuring the super-sized Dynamax and Gigantamax Pokémon next February.) Sometimes, the TCG leads the way – Poké-Powers and Poké-Bodies existed in the card game before finding their way into the video games as Pokémon Abilities.
