Playing Pokémon Sword as a returning player

In 2005, I was 12 years old and road-tripping with my family through Finland. During that summer, I played the absolute hell out of Pokémon Leaf Green on GameBoy Advance. Since then, I've barely touched a Pokémon game for some reason. I drifted away from handhelds and bought Pokémon Colosseum on GameCube which I remember as a dud.

I finally bought Pokémon Sword on Switch. 10 hours in and this is Finland 2005 again. Once you get stuck in the loop of collecting, refining, improving and collecting more it's impossible to stop. The small detail of naming your Pokémon really helps your team take on a life of its own. The simplistic visuals don't bother me at all, it looks and feels like Pokémon.

I'm guessing if you've played every entry since 2005, Game Freaks concept can start to wear, but right now the game is just a well of addictive fun and I'm so glad I returned to the series.