I always was skeptical about this game beforehand because it lacked a third game to release and I feel like Z moves were supposed to be for a hypothetical third game. What blew me away for this game was the charm of the Kalos region and the flat but playful side characters you work with. I enjoyed the region dex and the complementary Gen 1 Starter you receive early in the game can make a great addition for your team. The Evil team is mostly forgettable but the jump to this 3D graphical world and presentation really stuck to me. Mega evolutions I were never sold on originally because I played ORAS years ago and found it pointless to have. Still a great adventure at the end of the day.

If it wasn't for the performance issues I would say this game rekindled the joy of Pokemon I haven't felt since Gen 4. The open world was a little bit improved on from Sword/Shield but the utilization of a legendary unknown creature as your vehicle led to adventuring in new ways or brute forcing my way to tougher regions. I honestly didn't think the story was compelling until the very end where it all came together. I was concerned The Pokemon Company were playing it safe per usual but I enjoyed the twist they used in this game. Terraforming reminds me a little bit of mega evolutions but I didn't hate it.

I was confused throughout most of this game if Ultra Moon and the Alola region was just Kanto but having a beach episode arc. I'm glad it was still able to have its own flavor and personality while utilization Kanto 'Mons. The cutscenes were a little excessive at times as it felt like they were unnecessary every time an NPC moved in an area of the city.

I really enjoyed the Trials over the Gym Leader concept. While the Pokemon Company tried to give the best of both worlds to not shock any old fans who liked the gym format, I think trials of just trying to defeat pokemon with stat boosts or in 2 on 1 scenarios made it just the right amount of challenging for me. Also I rarely grinded for XP in this game which helped with the pacing a lot as you are moving from island to island and fighting a wide cast of characters. The visual effects of this being the last 3DS Pokemon game were marvelous and captured a Hawaii based region pretty well. Overall a unique trial based approach piqued my interest. The bad guys in here reminded me of Team Yell but they weren't pushovers and had some amount of difficulty to them which I enjoyed.

Wow, what a game and storyline they finished the DS era with. While I did miss more of B/W 1's characters and involvement, the new characters weren't horrible. There were times where they did feel dry and flat to talk to but as the story unfolded in a post N world, each frequent side character had their own special moment.
What really shocked me was the amount of pokemon from previous generations combined with the Unova Region. There were A LOT of great options to choose from and I ended up mainly using Emboar and Flygon. Flygon was a force to be reckon with (when it didn't encounter Ice 'Mons) and made Team Plasma look like a team of preschoolers in training. I really wanted to play more of the side adventures of the Battle Scene Park and the challenge mode but my main goal was to complete the main games of Pokemon. If I were a kid and had time to kill and wanted to play something enticing, White 2 would be one of the top choices.