as someone who kinda fell off from the official pokemon games after SM (i barely remember anything from USUM, dropped LGPE, and just skipped SwSh entirely) this was a surprisingly fun experience

while i would recommend playing renegade platinum over this, if you're seeking out an official sinnoh experience it's either this or platinum and both have their pros and cons, though i think plat wins out for the most part

i'd say the most major thing BDSP has over plat is the lack of teambuilding restrictions thanks to HMs being entirely separate from pokemon now, but at the same time there's only the DP dex available outside of the grand underground which i feel was a very bizarre and shoehorned-in design choice. don't quote me on this, but it wouldn't surprise me if there were bizarre rules and regulations ILCA had to stick to when developing this game and that was one of them

oh, and while the game as a whole is a lot easier than plat, the E4 actually gave me a really solid challenge on set mode and without using items. whoever at ILCA was in charge of the teambuilding in this game deserves a fucking raise

all-in-all, i think if you really want to play sinnoh physically and don't want to spend absurd amounts of cash on a secondhand copy of platinum, this is a great option. hell, it's probably the best pokemon game to release since sun and moon or even black 2 and white 2