more fun than the real games by leaps and bounds. Dozens upon dozens of gamemodes, teambuilding so easy a child could do it, 0 downtime to get into a match, and it's all free in your google chrome browser. Not to mention all of the quality of life that's actually in showdown compared to the in-game battler, like moveset recording, damage numbers, and the ability to call your oponent slurs over text chat. pokemon is a pretty horrible game to get into competetively but showdown is an incredible way to get started, and a beautiful platform to stay on.

The biggest complaint I have is how showdown is inexoribly tied to pokemon, and how "ou", standard play, is inexoribly tied to tiering policy that can't fix fundamental issues with pokemon (sleep clause, powercreep, kingambit, etc.). i'd love to see someone with power take a more constructive approach to making a meta with real patch notes, rather than a council of wizards unanimously obliterating all sleep moves ever.