5 Nintendo Switch games for the gamer with ADHD
Pokemon Sword & Pokemon Shield
The OG dopamine flow right here. Pokemon games have spent the last 25 years being a perfect well of small but enjoyable tasks. Evolving, finding hidden stuff, collecting things, getting badges, raids, there’s so much here to get into. You can even learn to make curry and for your Genosect to watch you, knowing it will never know the pleasures of foodstuffs.
I probably don’t need to describe the many flow of a Pokemon game but just in case I’ll do a quick run down. In Pokemon Sword and Shield you enter the Galar region, a place where 400 different Pokemon are just hanging out for you to observe, catch, and fight with. It’s a little sketchy but the cartoons are luckily on Netflix to really help you believe the Pokemon enjoy it.
As you collect them you enter the Pokemon League where you have to battle various gym leaders on your quest to become the Pokemon Champion. Along the way, a really goofy main plot unfolds that involves someone trying to prevent an energy crisis by causing one…or something. Listen, it’s Pokemon.
One of the cool things though with this game is just how many things you can do in short bursts. Maybe you just feel like looking for a blank spot in your Pokedex and figuring out how to find it in the wild. Maybe it’s questing how to track down legendary bird Pokemon. Or finding shinies, rare Pokemon that look like regular ones only with different colors. Or even finding weird bizarre things that they snuck into the game just to surprise people willing to mess around. Sword and Shield are absolutely chockfull of little things that can be done in 30 minutes.
And the DLC adds a lot more things to it. While the first DLC, the Isle of Armor was…alright, it’s the Crown Tundra that really opened up that dopamine buffet. In addition to a fun and lighthearted side story, the Crown Tundra introduces several series of legendary Pokemon for you to find. You can travel the world to find the three legendary birds I mentioned early. Solve puzzles to find the Regis. Catch all the Sword of Justice. All of these are fun little time syncs.
The best though is the new Max Lairs. Through this cave you team up with random players from around the world and enter online dungeons that, upon reaching the end guarantee a random legendary, mythical or Ultra Beast. And if there’s a certain one you find yourself a fan of, you can also save a path to that one if you want to go about shiny hunting it. These lairs are fun, only take about 10-15 minutes to complete and often feel like you pulled something off at the end.
Personally I got both Sword and Shield. It gives me the ability to save a game on Shield but with Sword I can replay the game from time to time if I want the experience of starting fresh with a new team.