General

New vid:


This one showcases various things like Mints which change a Pokemon's nature, exp candies, how you can feed more vitamins to a Pokemon than before, and access Pokemon boxes anywhere. Pokemon of the same species can also now pass egg moves onto each other in the daycare without breeding, and you can now nickname traded Pokemon that don't already have one.

Plus some more info about raids:

Pokemon Sword and Shield are out!

All the starter evolutions are here:

The Grass types are Grookey -> Thwacky -> Rillaboom, the ape drummers.
The Fire types are Scorbunny -> Raboot -> Cinderace, the rabbit soccer players.
The Water types are Sobble -> Drizzile -> Inteleon, the chameleon spies.

Version exclusives:

Sword Version
Returning Pokemon
-Seedot/Nuzleaf/Shiftry
-Mawile
-Lunatone
-Basculin (Red)
-Scraggy/Scrafty
-Gothita/Gothorita/Gothitelle
-Rufflet/Braviary
-Deino/Zweilous/Hydreigon
-Swirlix/Slurpuff
-Turtonator
-Passimian
-Jangmo-o/Hakamo-o/Kommo-o

New Sword exclusive Pokemon:

Galarian Farfetch'd (Fighting)

Sirfetch'd (Fighting)

Galarian Darumaka (Ice)


Galarian Darmanitan (Ice) & Zen Mode (Ice/Fire)

Flapple (Grass/Dragon) the Tart Apple evolution of Applin

Indeedee male (Psychic)

Stonjourner (Rock)

Zacian (Steel/Fairy in upgraded form)(Fairy in base form)

The fossil Pokemon Arctozolt (Electric/Ice) is easiest to find in this version since you're guaranteed to find both halves of it. Its pieces (Bird fossil and Dino fossil) are more common in Sword too while the others are somewhat rarer.

The Gigantamax Machamp, Coalossal and Flapple raids are exclusive to Sword.
The Gym Leaders Bea (Fighting) and Gordie (Rock) are exclusive to Sword.

Shield Version
Returning Pokemon
-Larvitar/Pupitar/Tyranitar
-Lotad/Lombre/Ludicolo
-Sableye
-Solrock
-Croagunk/Toxicroak
-Basculin (Blue)
-Solosis/Duosion/Reuniclus
-Vullaby/Mandibuzz
-Spritzee/Aromatisse
-Goomy/Sliggoo/Goodra
-Oranguru
-Drampa

New Shield exclusive Pokemon:

Galarian Ponyta (Psychic)

Galarian Rapidash (Psychic/Fairy)

Galarian Corsola (Ghost)

Cursola (Ghost)

Appletun (Grass/Dragon) the Sweet Apple evolution of Applin

Indeedee female (Psychic)

Eiscue (Ice)

Zamazenta (Steel/Fighting in upgraded form)(Fighting in base form)

The fossil Pokemon Dracovish (Water/Dragon) is easiest to find in this version since you're guaranteed to find both halves of it. Its pieces (Fish fossil and Drake fossil) are more common in Shield too while the others are somewhat rarer.

The Gigantamax Gengar, Lapras and Appletun raids are exclusive to Shield as well.
The Gym Leaders Allister (Ghost) and Melony (Ice) are exclusive to Shield.

One caveat though for some buyers - the digital version of Sword/Shield has been causing crashes and SD Card corruption on Switch's with bigger SD Cards (ExFAT format) than a basic 32GB one (FAT32 format). This is Nintendo's fault for having a poor driver for ExFAT cards. If you have the physical cart or haven't added a new SD Card to your Switch you're definitely safe.

More on this issue here:
polygon.com/pokemon/2019/11/15/20966487/pokemon-sword-shield-save-file-corruption-nintendo-switch-exfat-sd-card

For those who are considering getting a bigger SD Card, they should make sure to reformat it in FAT32 format first to avoid any games triggering this issue in the future. One can find out here (it's for a dashcam but the instructions are similar): dashcambros.com/pages/format-memory-card-to-fat32