As expected, Pokémon Sword and Shield are runaway hits. According to businessinsider.com, Pokémon Sword and Shield "sold more than 6 million copies worldwide." Interestingly enough, Pokémon Sword is outselling Shield. This could be attributed to better exclusives, but either way, each game contains the enchanting Galar region waiting to be explored.

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Even with all this success, Pokémon Sword and Shield aren't perfect. With near-instantaneous loading times, Pokémon Sword and Shield provides an immersive experience that is hard to replicate. With all that said, there is still room for improvement, and the Pokémon series has yet to reach its potential. These are 10 improvements Pokémon Sword and Shield need to make.

Updated by Michael Connor Smith on June 25th, 2020: The eighth generation of Pokémon games faced a pretty rocky road up to its release, as it received a pretty hefty amount of criticism from worried fans. While it ended up releasing to pretty positive reception, Game Freak did not take our criticisms to heart, and there are plenty of issues that need to be ironed out.

This list was updated to address the release of Pokémon Sword & Shield's first DLC expansion, The Isle of Armor, as there are some clear issues with the new expansion. Some other notable issues with the base game were also brought up that fans have been keen to point out.

15 Better Graphics

We want to see a game that harnesses the power of the Nintendo Switch, pushing it to its limits. Looking at the photograph above, we can see a few things that are out of place. The mountains in the distance have texture issues that make the scene appear bland. Furthermore, the grass is an open field and the game doesn't render individual blades of grass. The Pokémon Company may have decided to go with flat terrain to distinguish regular ground from tallgrass. Tallgrass contains Pokémon, but they could have added more detail than what is shown. The graphics are subpar for the Nintendo Switch.

14 Buddy Pokémon Animations

The Isle of Armor expansion DLC for Sword & Shield introduced a ton of returning Pokémon and a few new ones and allows them to adventure at your side as they can in previous Pokémon games.

While this feature is always more than welcome in any Pokémon game that it's available in, Sword & Shield's implementation of a "buddy system" can be pretty wonky at times. Many Pokémon aren't suited for different terrain, much like the Falinks above, and it often ends up defeating the purpose of adding more immersion to your grand adventure.

13 Spoken Dialogue

The series has come a long way since its heyday, but the Pokémon series still has a ways to go. The Pokémon Company has, for the most part, played it safe with their main series games. They are careful about making changes, and this can get in the way of creativity.

Pokémon Sword and Shield are outstanding for fans of the series, but it might be hard to draw new players with dated gameplay mechanics. Please, add spoken dialogue as many other role-playing games do. Unfortunately, reading numerous text boxes is eye-straining and tiresome.

12 Better Online

Nintendo has had quite the history of not hitting the mark with the online features in many of their games, but Pokémon's online has always been at least decent due to the simplicity of it. The ease of the PSS in the sixth generation is a great way to quickly and effectively connect with others, but Sword & Shield miss the mark.

Sword & Shield's version of an online system comes in the form of the Y-Comm, and it looks pretty similar to previous online features at first glance. However, the Global Trading System, or GTS, is completely gone this time around, making it much more difficult to get the trades you're looking for. Joining Max Raid battles is also much clunkier than it should be, and it can take ages to connect with another player.

11 More Role-Playing Elements

Fallout 4 may not have been the Fallout game that many people were hoping. Yet, the game did a few things right such as adding spectacular role-playing elements. The amount of customization (with or without mods) makes Fallout 4 an excellent example for Pokémon Sword and Shield.

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Pokémon Sword and Shield need an overhaul to its role-playing elements. Give us a player-driven story where the player can influence the results of the game. The same old Pokémon story is charming, but we're yearning for change. It's what we should have seen when Pokémon came to the Nintendo Switch.

10 Improvements To The Combat System

The combat system of Pokémon Sword and Shield introduced Dynamaxing to the series. Although the idea of giant Pokémon is both entertaining and true to the anime, it's a trivial change.

The Pokémon main series games are part of the turn-based strategy genre. It would be hard to make changes to Pokémon without changing the genre. Giving the game fluid combat would result in something similar to Pokkén Tournament. Still, if the Final Fantasy VII remake can add fluid combat, then Pokémon should be able to as well.

9 Difficulty Options

Pokémon games have never had a focus on challenging gameplay and instead provide difficult gameplay through post-game content and online battling. However, Sword & Shield are some of the easiest games in the series to date, and more experienced players might get bored with the main story pretty quickly.

Many fans aren't aware that a Pokémon game has actually had a difficulty setting before in Black 2, but it was only available after completing the game. If Sword & Shield were to add a harder difficulty with subsequent DLC, a lot of players would have a much more enjoyable experience with the game.

8 A Less Annoying Rival

Blue Oak was the original rival, and it's been over twenty years since the release of Pokémon Red and Blue for Game Boy. Fast forward to Pokémon Sword and Shield, and not much has changed. The rival still lives next door, and he's set on becoming a Pokémon Champion.

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Hop is not the antagonist we hoped for. While Blue Oak was the classic snide character we grew to love, Hop doesn't do much to earn our appreciation. Give us an antagonist we love to hate. As a rival, there is not enough depth to Hop's character. Hopefully, in the next games, the rival will be unique and worthy of admiration.

7 A More Intriguing Story

Whether you were fascinated by the story of Pokémon Sword and Shield or not, the story wasn't as riveting as story-driven games like The Last of Us or God of War. The story is very linear without twists or turns of any kind. The Pokémon Company needs to take chances if they want to appeal to more players. A more intriguing story would be the first place to start. Thankfully, the game doesn't leave senseless cliffhangers, but it might benefit from a change.

6 More Battle Variety

Ever since the third Pokémon generation, more ways of battling aside from single battles have been introduced to attempt to reduce its repetitiveness. Although, the majority of battles in most titles are still single battles, which will take up at least 90% of the overall battling.

Now, this isn't to say that Sword & Shield need to go full-on Pokémon Colosseum, but it would be nice to see more trainers engage the player in different types of battles to spice things up. Previous games had triple battles or rotational battles, but these were removed altogether in Sword & Shield, which is a huge shame.

5 A Realistic Goal That's Not "Catching 'Em All"

Trying to "catch 'em all" was a secondary objective in the early Pokémon games. Pokémon Sword and Shield together contain 400 Pokémon—the most in any Pokémon game. Sadly, the goal of catching 'em all is now nothing more than a dream. Only die-hard fans could accomplish such a task.

Naturally, the Pokémon Company should introduce new goals for the player. Sure, there is stuff like catching legendaries, hunting for shinies, and the Battle Tower, but none of these are as enchanting as trying to "catch 'em all."

4 Mass-Releasing Pokémon

Upon its release, there was no way whatsoever so go into a storage box and release multiple Pokémon at once, which created some huge issues for people who like to shiny hunt or breed for Pokémon with a specific ability.

Pokémon Home does technically allow the player to mass-release Pokémon for free through its service, but there's no excuse for not being able to do this normally within Sword & Shield. Compared to other games, this makes the process of Pokémon hunting and breeding take far longer than it should, and this issue should have been fixed a long time ago.

3 An Immersive Open-World

The leaps that Pokémon Sword and Shield made with their Wild Area is an improvement for the series. Being able to rotate camera angles and combat mighty Pokémon and trainers in this area is fantastic.

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If only all areas could take after the Wild Area, where players could freely explore and look around. A more expansive Wild Area would result in a more immersive open-world. If games like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim can do it, why can't Pokémon?

2 Stop Reusing Animations

It's a well-known fact that animators reuse the same animations from previous movies and games to save time. We thought, however, that Pokémon Sword and Shield would be a breath of fresh air with mostly original designs.

Pikachu, Pokémon's iconic character who appeared in the standalone movie Detective Pikachu has a reused animation from a previous game. One argument to justify reusing animations suggests that the Pokémon Company can allocate resources elsewhere. Be that as it may, it hurts to see a clone of Pikachu recycled for a new game.

1 The Pokémon Camp Feature Needs Improvement

The idea of camping with Pokémon in Pokémon Sword and Shield makes us want to gather our marshmallows and folding chairs. It's a neat idea that hasn't fully reached its potential. To witness unique animations of Pokémon, players can head to a Pokémon Camp. The Pokémon Camp is undoubtedly a cool concept. It just needs to be worked on, so it becomes something players want to return to, over and over.

NEXT: Pokémon Sword & Shield: The 10 Most Shocking National Dex Cuts