Pokemon Sword And Pokemon Shield Are Being Review Bombed

After all the controversy spawned by Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield, it comes as little surprise that the titles are being review bombed. The games have amassed hundreds of user reviews on review aggregator Metacritic, and the majority of them are pretty negative. Does this mean the games are terrible? Not exactly. 

Many of these reviews were added before the games released. Upset Pokemon fans used the platform to air their beef with developer Game Freak. Sword and Shield are quite different from previous mainline Pokemon games because of the exclusion of almost half of the world's Pokemon. This fact caused such outrage that #BringBackNationalDex briefly trended on Twitter. The criticism intensified when it came out that, contrary to what Game Freak had said, the new games did not have entirely new Pokemon models. Thus we saw #GameFreakLied trending ahead of launch. 

Some Metacritic user reviews include these hashtags as their reason for giving the games an abysmal score of zero. "Gamefreak lied to their fans.They ruined pokemon game. We need international dex," read one sour review. 

But this isn't to say that every bad review is from a fan who has never touched the new games. There are plenty of negative reviews indicating genuine disappointment in the gameplay. One reviewer, aptly named TheHonestMan, said: "Pokemon Sword and Shield boast expansive landscapes and a sense of ambition... at first. The more the game goes on you become aware of how hastily put together and hollow it really is."

As of the time of this writing, Pokemon Sword has 907 negative user reviews and 294 positive user reviews. Gaming outlets like IGN have given the games generally favorable reviews, sometimes in the upper nineties. It is, of course, up to the individual player to decide if they really like the games, but it has become clear that the controversy surrounding the titles has resulted in a review bombing campaign for Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield.