the single player is pretty slight and a little bit tiresome by the end, and the online, while less dead than you might expect, is relatively inaccessible since almost everyone still playing this has been doing so for years now and are very good at it. but i still think this is an excellent fighting game at its core. exceedingly simple and intuitive with enough depth to sustain real competitive play. one of the better entry points to the genre i’ve played; you can pick up any character and do rad shit with them right away just mashing while still learning the fundamentals of both 2d and 3d fighters with the phase system which i mostly enjoyed despite the initial awkwardness. also just really satisfying to play a pokemon game that looks and feels this good. obviously they had significant advantages with the roster (some very cool, creative picks in there alongside some of the ones you’d expect) being as limited as it is compared to mainline pokemon games and whatnot but this really puts all the 3d entries to shame in terms of character animation and battles actually looking cool. shame the pokemon company essentially let this die; they really had something here