Far from a perfect game but refreshingly ambitious enough that I feel I can finally be optimistic for upcoming pokemon games for the first time in years. The gameplay aside from the solid base pokemon team-building and battling is alright. It feels very satisfying to catch a new pokemon for the first time since the exploration aspect actually makes it feel like you're discovering pokemon in the wild rather than randomly getting jumped by whichever 5 pokemon are designated for each route. What isn't satisfying is catching/beating the same pokemon 20 times to fill out its pokedex entry so having to engage in that to reach the next rank was pretty annoying. The strong and agile style moves and the accompanying speed-based turn numbers were a small but nice addition to the standard combat. The boss battles were pleasantly hectic but they could've used a few gimmicks to make them feel more distinct from each other. I also would've liked more trainer battles since beating pokemon in the wild isn't really as enjoyable. The story wasn't anything to write home about, particularly the awkwardly hamfisted detail about the pearl and diamond clan leaders being obsessed with space and time respectively, but I enjoyed the characters not being all buddy-buddy all the time and the surprisingly blunt way they'd talk about how they'd get killed by pokemon if they weren't careful. Also Irida's cute. Visually the game could obviously use an upgrade since pokemon can often look out of place in the world with their stiff animations, but I was happy with how well it performed at least given gamefreak's track record. I really hope they build on this game's foundation in a more modern pokemon setting with plenty of towns and trainers because I think they've finally started taking the series in a good direction.