To start with: Yes, the performance issues exist. Anything too far out from your character has incredibly choppy animation, and it's very noticeable. There's also a lot of slowdown in battle and obnoxiously long load times in the box screens.

That being said, I didn't really care about any of that. The game is, frankly, a lot of fun. It's exciting to be able to play in the same instance of the world as my wife. The new Pokémon are, generally speaking, well designed and fun. The game has an actual, honest to god story. Multiple stories, even! And for the most part, they're pretty good. There's a few missteps, but the writing is solid, and funny, and just in general fun. The only reason Legends is my favorite Pokémon game this year is because the gameplay was better, and even that's a close one. If the next mainline entry has Legends gameplay and this level of writing, it'll be fantastic.