What's your favorite of the Switch Pokémon games?

[Sheep]

Out of the currently-available main Switch Pokémon games (Sword & Shield, Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee, Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl, Legends: Arceus, New Pokémon Snap), which is your favorite?

 

[Sweet Serenity]

Out of the currently-available main Switch Pokémon games (Sword & Shield, Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee, Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl, Legends: Arceus, New Pokémon Snap), which is your favorite?

Definitely Pokémon Sword and Shield. My dad actually got me Pokémon Sword last year for a Christmas present and ever since then, I've struggled to put the game down. Despite the game omitting some older Pokémon, having a bad story in my opinion, too many cutscenes, wonky day/night system during story mode, and a bad villain team, I loved everything else about it. I loved the graphics, detail in the cities and towns, the music, the wild areas and the fact that Pokémon could appear in the overworld, making traveling in grass, caves, and water much easier and less of a hassle without Max Repel, and the competitive battling scene. While the competitive battling scene is a little lacking due to many moves being cut and many previous gen Pokémon being omitted, it was still great because Game Freak made training competitive Pokémon a lot easier with Nature Mints, Ability Capsules and Patches, Hyper Training, EV vitamins being able to max out EVs completely, and Exp. Candies. A few months later, my dad bought me Pokémon Shield for my birthday. He knows that I love Pokémon, but he had no idea that Sword and Shield are practically the same thing. lol Nonetheless, I wasn't complaining because I was able to play the Galar region again.

Pokémon Brilliant Diamond was the second Pokémon game I got for the Switch and overall, it might be my second favorite on the Switch. The thing is I'm not the biggest fan of Sinnoh because, out of all the regions, I believe it to be the most bland in terms of design and landmarks. I don't know if it's just me, but Sinnoh just seemed to have too much forests, caves, open spaces, and cities that don't really stand out. I did really enjoy the spooky locations though such as Turnback Cave, The Old Chateau, and the Darkrai event. Sinnoh also had too many requirements for HMs. Sure, the remakes incorporated the HM moves into the Pokétch, but it was still sort of a hassle to constantly use. Sword and Shield proved that HMs are 100% unnecessary. Still, I enjoyed it because I did, nonetheless, enjoy the adventure that I had in Pokémon Platinum and the remakes gave me the chance to relive most of that experience on a system with better graphics on my big screen TV, which is great.

Pokémon Legends: Arceus might be my third favorite. I enjoyed the new Pokémon catching system and the ability to partake in quests, but to be honest, I believe the game's overrated. Many fans talk as if it was the best Pokémon game ever made, but in my experience, it gets boring pretty quickly. Catching the same Pokémon over and over again is just simply not fun for me, even as a player that loves catching Pokémon. I also thought that the Hisui region was too bland and empty, which ironically, isn't much different to Sinnoh in my opinion, the land that it is a past version of. lol The game also has no breeding system or competitive scene, which was disappointing to me.

My least favorite Pokémon games on the Switch are those in the Pokémon Let's Go series. I actually picked up the Pikachu version because I wanted to give Pikachu a chance to make up for boxing it all the time in Pokémon Yellow, but the game itself just turned out to be a huge disappointment. I couldn't battle wild Pokémon in the same way as previous games. When playing with the Switch docked to the TV, I had to use one joycon, which was horrible to me, and I hated the catching system. Pokémon on consoles should never be like Pokémon GO. To add insult to injury, the game was extremely easy, which is already bad enough for a Pokémon game, which is known for being easy enough. It's a shame too because Pokémon Let's Go had so many cool features such as being able to ride certain Pokémon and other things, but they were overshadowed by everything else that they did horribly.

Lastly, I do own New Pokémon Snap, but believe it or not, it's still in the plastic. I've just been focused so much on breeding and battling in Sword and trying to finish my Shield play-through that I just haven't opened it yet. Maybe I should get too it soon because the game definitely looks beautiful.

 

[Squirtkipfan01]

Definitely legends atm, such a refreshing take on the series. Scarlet and violet might be in the running though if they pull it off well

 

[ReKoil]

Sword/Shield. I've spent far too long in this game xD

BDSP is pretty good too, but after completing my PokeDex I haven't really gone back to it yet.

LGPE was pretty different, but still enjoyable. Have yet to fire it back up again since I completed the PokeDex though.

Legends is a nice game, but I tend to play it in bursts so far, rather than continuously.
New Snap is nice too, but once you complete your PhotoDex there isn't really any reason to keep playing it tbh.

 

[Sheep]

SwSh were great despite criticisms - I had issues with them, absolutely, but the character designs and music were top notch. I also really liked some of the Pokémon designs. The region felt rather lively to me even if certain parts, like difficulty and post-game content outside the DLC, were lacking. It's got some of my favorite songs from the game series ever, like Hop and Marnie's battle themes among others!

But yeah... Legends is my pick in the end. Loved the new style of gameplay and bunches of QoL features they added, even if it wasn't perfect. I also really liked Volo, Cogita, and a bunch of other characters. Makes me sad knowing they mostly all passed away in modern times. :') I love you Hisui and hope we get more Legends-style games in the future!!

 

[Nah]

I've never played LGPE or Snap, but of the 3 I have played it'd be PLA. It's absolutely not perfect, but it was--relatively speaking--a breath of fresh air in a series that's honestly been kinda stale for ~20 years. It'd been a while since I enjoyed a Pokemon game as much I did with PLA, and while it's been months since I beat the game and last booted it up, I know that at some point I'll go back to it to get all the Pokemon to research level 10, if nothing else.

 

[90210]

PLA for me. I feel like it fits well with Pokémon in the open world. Can't say the same with Scarlet and Violet though

 

[PageEmp]

Legends, and by a landslide. I think everyone has already stated why this game is just so much fun to play.

 

[Lhinya]

PLA and LGPE. I like the action and exploration in PLA. But if I want to relax I play LGPE. I love its Pokemon designs and the following animations.

 

[KalloFox34]

PLA and SS are definitely my favorites.

 

[edyedy]

For me, PLA > BDSP > SwSh

 

[colours]

swsh > pla > bdsp is my hot take

look, i genuinely like pla, but to this day i still haven't beaten the game yet and i haven't sunk as many hours into the game as i did with swsh so it wouldn't be fair to put it above swsh for me. bdsp is meh, i'm really only playing it these days to shiny hunt shaymin and i'm done with it.

 

[AuroraVulpix]

SV>PLA>SWSH>BDSP>LGPE for me

 

[HeroLinik]

Out of all the Switch games I've played, it would be PLA. It feels like a breath of fresh air in comparison to the other Pokemon games with its departure from the traditional formula, even if there is more of an emphasis on catching and the game is rather short. By comparison, I found SwSh and BDSP to be mediocre, and SV having a lot of potential but squandered by bugs likely resulting from poor deadlines.

 

[Squirtkipfan01]

Definitely legends atm, such a refreshing take on the series. Scarlet and violet might be in the running though if they pull it off well

Update:
Lets go: Boring
Sword and shield: decent
Arceus: amazing
Scarlet and violet: lots of potential, but id just say its good.

 

[XVanitasX]

Sword/Shield. Never even gave PLA a chance, don't like the open world concept for Pokemon. Scarlet/Violet were pretty mid and as I said, not a fan of fully open world. Hopefully they go back to the traditional recipe for the gen 5 remakes and gen 10 games.
EDIT: Forgot about Gen 4 remakes. Those were pretty terrible with the chibi style.

 

[Maserati777]

I've only played Scarlet and Lets Go Eevee

I'd rank Scarlet above Lets Go because you just click a button to throw the ball and the Pokemon can't randomly flee. Also you get tons of balls, not 100% sure how you get more in Lets go but I think its just battling trainers.

 

[Zed01]

It has to be Legends Arceus, it was a nice change of pace and a great experience to play through this game for the first time. My one issue with it is the lack of battles and the fact that it has no replay value compared to other Pokemon games but that first time playing through it was so amazing that it deserves to be my favorite Switch Pokemon game.

 

[moon]

this is really useful, because I'm debating whether to get Arceus or Scarlet now o.o I'll probably get the other one eventually, but it usually takes me a long time to play through a game and they're not exactly cheap so I have to choose where to start my pokémon journey on the Switch... I'm still not sure after reading the replies here tbh haha. maybe PLA though... it seems refreshing.

 

[TinyTeenie]

Pokemon Legends Arceus would be my most favorite while scarlet+violet would be second.