Pokemon Sword / Shield — Kevin Knezevic, Associate Editor
The Switch has no shortage of great titles to engross yourself in when cooped up at home, but Pokemon Sword and Shield are among the best. What makes Pokemon games–and Sword and Shield in particular–such compelling timesinks is the depth hidden beneath their surface. Even if you’ve already conquered the Pokemon League and cleared the main storyline, there are still a variety of different activities to do. You can take on an endless procession of AI opponents in the Battle Tower, scour the Wild Area for any elusive Pokemon you may have missed, hunt for incredibly rare Shiny monsters, or even try to discover every recipe in the Curry Dex.
The true draw of the games, however, is trying to assemble a competitive team. While you can easily run through every opponent you encounter during the main adventure with any old Pokemon you’ve caught, you’ll need to put much more time and thought into your party if you hope to fare well in online battles. This entails breeding Pokemon with the right natures and base stats, EV training them to improve their stats, and devising the right movesets and strategies for your team. It’s time-consuming but incredibly rewarding, and Sword and Shield have made some smart tweaks to streamline this whole process, making competitive battling more accessible than ever before. (We also have a great series of videos to help you get into competitive Pokemon battling if this all sounds daunting.)
Even if the competitive aspect of the series doesn’t appeal to you, Sword and Shield are great games to play with friends thanks to the new Max Raids–cooperative battles in which you team up with three other trainers to take on Dynamaxed Pokemon. The monsters you encounter in these battles often have a few perfect base stats and their Hidden Ability (which can’t otherwise be obtained in the games), and you get a ton of enticing rewards for winning like Exp. Candy and TRs, so it’s always fun to take part in Max Raids.
Moreover, these raids are the only way to encounter Gigantamax Pokemon, which are rare and just plain cool. I’ve spent dozens of hours jumping into Max Raids with my friends, and I don’t anticipate that changing any time soon so long as Game Freak continues to regularly offer new Max Raid events. The Pokemon series has long lacked a good cooperative mode to complement its competitive hooks, but Sword and Shield have finally remedied that, making them a great way to occupy any idle downtime.
