As with any Nintendo Direct, I went in ready to be somewhat disappointed.
We didn't see too much during the initial reveal so we knew we still had to see what the battle gimmick was going to be, among other things.
Gimmicks in Pokemon can be make or break for me, Mega Evolution in X & Y made me think of Digimon and I really didn't like the Z-Moves in Sun & Moon (or the horde battles, or the island trials or Alolan types or Moon being night when it was day and vice-versa), but Sword and Shield's Dynamaxing mechanic looks pretty okay.
Dynamaxing seems to be like a hybrid of Mega Evolution and Z-Moves, more limited in battle than Mega Evolution, but every move becomes much stronger like a Z-move... that's fine.
Dynamaxing makes sense within the region too; if Pokemon battles are the main source of entertainment in Galar and held in stadiums then summoning giant Pokemon is a good way to fill up the empty space and bring on a spectacle.
Game Freak seem to be getting a lot out of the Dynamaxing because it will also be used in the local and online multiplayer raid battles, I think those raids will be cool and it's a nice variation on the raids in Pokemon Go.
I also think those raids will lend themselves very well to online events and legendary Pokemon distribution, so that could be a lot of fun too.
All in all, I'm happy with Dynamaxing.
I also love the the animation for the trainers throwing the giant Pokeballs like beach balls, it's very cute!
Now, onto other things.
The one thing I'm not entirely clear on is how the 'wild area' works. I'm loving that we have roaming Pokemon like in Let's Go and that we have a 3D camera, but are there only a couple of these types of areas?
We saw in the reveal and in this Direct that the trainers had wild Pokemon encounters with none-roaming Pokemon in tall grass, so maybe it's a bit of both?
The official word seems to be that the 'wild area' is one large open world portion of the map which branches off into cities and other locations... so kind of like Hyrule Field in Ocarina of Time?
Either way I'm excited to see how Game Freak handles a large open world area.
As for the new Pokemon themselves... OH MY GOD WOOLOO IS SO FLUFFY AND I WANT ONE!!
Wooloo is definitely my Galar darling. I want a whole flock. I loved Mareep too but somehow Wooloo is even cuter!
The others were cool too, Corviknight was a particular standout and I like that he is a taxi service, that's one gothic ride.
The legendaries though...
I actually like them.
I think I actually prefer Zamazenta over Zacian.
Zacian reminds me of the wolf from Dark Souls that attacks you with his dead master's sword, it looks pretty clumsy with having the sword in its mouth the whole time, I figured it would have had a sword for a tail or something but clearly not...
Zamazenta has a cooler name in my opinion and actually looks like how I expected it to look, a wolf with a giant lion-like mane posing as a shield, he actually kind of reminds me of Mega Houndoom.
I like him but both Zamazenta and Zacian look cool so I'm happy as far as legendaries in Sword and Shield go, it has been a while since I've liked both legendaries in a generation.
The characters were a little disappointing, it's nice to have another female professor and her assistant Sonia is waifu material (I can hear the DeviantArt fetish scene exploding as we speak) but Leon and Hop are a little meh.
Leon reminds me of Lance from Indigo's Elite Four and I think I'd have preferred him to be Lance but maybe he'll be written well enough for me not to care and like him regardless.
I'm glad there wasn't any trace of the rumoured armour evolution (because I would have unleashed the Digimon memes) and I'm very glad we didn't see any 'Galar forms', I hate Alolan forms, I like my Pokemon to be definitive.
I'm also happy that there wasn't a big sports-leaning in the content, I was worried in the reveal that everything would have a sport theme to it but that doesn't seem to be the case, phew.
All in all I'm very happy with what I've seen, they showed just enough to hype me but not enough to spoil anything, I'm gonna be looking forward to more news, I'm so glad that I didn't see anything I disliked this time around.
I can't wait for them to start selling Wooloo plushies...