My First Pokémon Game

 What it feels to become a Champion:

Pokémon is a very popular franchise, selling millions of copies with each new addition and reaching an audience of millions with its multiple anime projects. Overall, almost everyone has heard about it, no matter their age or interest in the franchise, me included. I grew up watching the anime on TV and was a big fun of the adventures of Ash and Pikachu, now older I still like to check the new shows from time to time, especially the amazing shorts The Pokémon Company has been putting out on their YouTube channel. When we change the focus to the games, though, I'm a complete newbie. Through my life, my little  experience with them was simply playing a few minutes on my friend's 3DS and GameBoy nothing too deep but finally after many years of seeing my friend's completely addicted into these games i ended up buying one for me. 

I have the Nintendo Switch for a couple of years now, sadly with only a few games because Nintendo really likes to keep them pricy their whole life, but that's a topic for maybe another article. Back to the subject, I have the console and have had a great lot of fun with it, having Fire Emblem Three Houses as probably my favorite game and many other great ones on my wishlist. Pokémon has always been a big curiosity of mine but as someone that isn't a huge fan of turn base games, till this day I'm still trying to beat Final Fantasy X, I always prioritized other purchases. On April, though, everything changed! I had my birthday and found myself with a little more cash than usual and for some reason was hungry for a Pokémon adventure, which led me to buy Pokémon Shield. I was actually interested in Arceus, but sadly it was sold out. 

Since everything is pretty new to me, I wasn't really upset over not getting the shiny new one, and as soon as I got home I put the cartridge on the console and booted the game. Now, the first hours of the game were really fun, Hop was a cool character even if slightly annoying, and Leon was all over the top! Immediately I was surprised by not having the Professor giving us the starter Pokémon and my brother-in-law who was watching me play, as an old school fan, was even more shocked. Overall, everything was colorful and heart-warming. 

Continuing my journey, the game become a big addiction for the couple of days that followed, collecting the Pokémon was enjoyable and searching for my team was a great task where I discarded poor creatures purely based on how cute they look. The game was also incredibly easy, through every enemy and gym I always managed to defeated them with a single try, this without knowing anything about what type counters what, apart from the cliché water vs fire. This was mostly thanks to two elements of the game, first once you fight a Pokémon for the first time the game will memorize what attacks are strong or weak against it, which makes any fight that isn't the first a piece of cake. The second is about the pacing of the game, I get bored easily in turn base because I find it repetitive, so I mostly ignored the various Pokémon in the wild and focused on moving forward in the story. On other games I probably would be penalized for not grinding enough, but here the game gave me enough XP to always be a couple levels stronger than my enemies. This contributed to me having a peaceful and rewarding run where I would simply relax and enjoy the ride. The only real struggle I faced was against Leon, the champion, that kicked my ass once and made me sweat on my second try too. 

Now, I can see some old fans seeking a more hard-core experience not having as much fun with it, to which I find it would have been great to have the option of turning off the memorized attacks or the whole party getting XP. 

Moving to the story, it was simple, nothing too outstanding but still very fun. All the characters, apart from Bede, were very nice and funny, highlight to Sonia who completely stole my heart, cured my depression and made a smile appear in my face with ever appearance. I'm simping for a 2D character, I know, I'm that hopeless and no I won't change or be ashamed. 

But yeah, All I can say for my ride of becoming the greatest champion in the whole Galar is that it was a simple, lovely and addictive. I'm really happy with my first entry in the franchise, and I find myself excited for the next time I'll decide to venture into another journey. Oh, and I'll forever be Salty over the fact I finished the game without ever catching my favorite Pokémon, Mimikyu. ;-;

As usual, if for some reason you ended up reading this poorly written text of mine, thank you very much and feel free to tell me what you think of Pokémon Sword and Shield, and what other game in the franchise would you recommend me checking out. With that, remember that you are loved, and I'm outttttt!