Should I get Pokémon Sword/Shield based off my preferences?

Haven’t played a Pokémon game since red and blue because I haven’t had a handheld gaming device since then. Was pretty excited about Sword and Shield because I own a switch for my son and myself. I could care less about half the Pokédex missing because I haven’t played since 1996 and I think the graphics are fine. I like RPGs and enjoyed my first go around with Red and Blue. With that being said, should I buy the game based off my preferences?

I gave it a 6/10. Going to copy/ paste what I wrote in Games Discussions Screenshot Thread, it also provides pictures of the game in question so if you're avoiding spoilers? Best not look, and yes I have beat my copy of Shield up to the end-game content-

Will do my best to explain, just to let know if it really was as mild as a few hundred removed monsters and last generation animations I wouldn't be so critical. But it's more than that sadly_

• Sword/ Shield doesn't give the player much room to breath honestly and find that it's biggest weakness. What I mean with this is the game constantly auto-heals your entire party, recommends teleporting you to the next objective frequently (no cutscene just wants you to appear at the next objective)
• The entire party levels from even the most mundane activity. It's as though the people working on this game don't trust the player to know left from right. Or to have a choice who to level and when; it's not just Exp Share either, just camping or capturing levels your whole party. As such with a lot of this extreme streamlining the fundamentals fall apart. This game is still suppose to be an RPG after all, and our choices have been lessened. Worth pointing out I beat the games Champion after ten hours
• Game offers a Wild Area (sandbox zones), one day this feature could be really interesting. In truth it's the only place of any 'challenge' in the SP experience. Even then they added a few odd restrictions onto this, what I mean is the game offers super strong monsters far out-levelling your party. . But you're not allowed to catch them. . Not yet anyway, not till end-game. Which beats the purpose of pushing through such a battle.
• The flood of technical issues is uncommon for this franchise and makes me think Bethesda did the coding. Roaming monsters in Wild Areas fall through the floor and NPCs freeze while climbing ladders. Local play was always essential to these game and it cuts out all the time when I tried with a friend 'lost connection' is frequent and tedious.
• And to close off, over one hundred moves have been removed from the game; fan favorite moves like Double Slap, Bide, and Karate Chop. The replacement moves do not really counter this out in a meaningful way.

Really do believe the game can be fun at times, it's just an inferior game to what we've already had previously on other Nintendo devices.

I'm not going to judge anyone who buys Sword/ Shield (seeing as I clearly did). Think it has its merits, narrow as they are. It fails being a better RPG than its peers, it has very little content. And is structured to guide and over-level you with barely a say. Yet it still does have some of the core appeal of the mainline series. It's not great, barely good. It plays like a rushed game forced to meet a deadline. And that's what we have.

Makes me hate Let's Go even more knowing the time spent on that trash was desperately needed to make this game better.

yes you should.

Thank you!

I finally broke down and got Shield yesterday. So I am really enjoying the game so far, but it is far from perfect. There are a lot of pokemon in the game, Idk the exact number but it looks to be over 400. I have caught 50 monsters so far and haven't been to Milo's gym yet. While the exp share makes things easier, it hasn't leveled me too quickly just yet - though I tend to switch out my monsters from the box a lot.

I think the biggest shock is how incredibly unpolished the game feels from the start. Battles are fine, but it really does feel like the game was rushed a bit and scenes and plot progression are bare bones.

You can waste several hours messing around in the wild zone, right from the moment you reach it early in the game. Teaming up with other players to challenge raid monsters takes too long and isn't that necessary anyway, since the game can provide you with cpu teammates. But it is fun encountering new raid battles, and catching every last wild pokemon. Monsters in the wild generally increase in levels as you walk from area to area, and at first you aren't catching or raising anything past 20.

I think I will still like Sw/Sh going forward. But I see many missed opportunities for making this an even better game.

Hmmm I was thinking of getting it soon, but I might hold off until they patch it up and maybe I can find it on sale somewhere.

@hrt_rulz01: It's a pretty good game. It isn't a huge, giant step forward for the series, but Sword and Shield definitely feel like the next step up from the Sun and Moon games. If you like Pokemon, you'll enjoy these entries. They're by no means perfect, but me and my online buddy both agree it's pretty fun and are having a great time playing through it.

I admittedly have been running into some rough battles recently, despite the game being easier in a lot of ways than the gen 1-5 games. The second gym was actually kind of tough, and the third gym was also a bit rough too. The trainer who battles you at a hotel prior to the third gym was also no slouch. And in the wild, you can get into some challenging fights.

But that may have something to do with my play style. I switch out my monsters a lot and try to get them trained up somewhat evenly. I have caught nearly 110 pokemon as of this writing. And I have put in almost 24 hours of playtime now. Contrast that to another user here who beat the Champion trainer within about 10 hours. I think what you get out of this game, really depends on how you like to play a pokemon game.

Thanks for the info.