The presentation in this game is incredible. The stages were all so beautiful and super attacks were flashy and impressive. The Pokémon themselves could look a bit off-putting or off model to fit in the aesthetic, but overall the game looks great.

I'm a big fan of the variety of Pokémon they chose to. It would have been so easy to just put in the bipedal creatures, but they added in mons like Chandelure or Suicune for some truly diverse fighting styles. Not that the bipedal pokémon aren't unique at all, every Pokémon has a wide arsenal of moves that all feel different. I was only playing this as the week free trial, but if I had the full game I'd love to get to know and use all the Pokémon in the roster.

The missions encourage you to use different Pokémon and supports, or try out different fighting styles (such as using more grabs), while providing some neat aesthetic rewards.

Training mode is pretty well fleshed out. You've got standard tutorials, but also combo examples for every single character, so if there's a Pokémon you're interested in, it's really easy to get to grips with some basics of them instead of blindly mashing buttons in practice.

As for the fighting itself, the phase mechanic is definitely a great way to set it apart from other fighters, and I love it in theory, how it makes you adapt to two completely different fighting styles. In practice it did feel like it happened a bit too much, especially in field mode. It can also break combos in duel phase which got annoying. I definitely got used to the flow of battles, but something just felt a bit off by how it was implemented. Not that I'm sure what alternative I'd suggest.

Overall a fantastic Pokémon spinoff, and if there was ever a sequel I'd definitely buy it.