I think I love this? I was wondering what I would feel at the end of this journey. You have to look back at a couple of nagging issues and ask how much do they deter this?
Lets start with the thing I grew to love but still have to admit has issues… combat. The opening of this game is stiff as hell. You feel limited by all means in terms of execution. Yes this game has you learn things through weapon use, but as opposed to just learning skills like magic etc, you learn things that change how you execute attacks. Think the core combo is too limited, use a weapon that extends your base combo. Want to link your artes to basic attacks, learn the skill for it. Want to learn altered artes? Well learn the skill that you use to pair with your core artes . Want to link artes and altered artes? Theres a skill for that. It’s astonishing how much what you can do in combat evolves and its about tuning execution and links, the game feel drastically evolves, but should you have to deal with the length by which it takes to open up? Does that make up for the enemy jank that shows up in terms of their invincibility and how it can make combat less fluid. Dealing with enemy stagger and your own staggering can make you so frustrated. However when you are able to customize the feel to your style of play, it’s marvelous. It’s crazy that I focused on one character and there are 6 other characters with different touches and focuses to get into. Judith in air options sound so astounding and I still struggled to execute chancels to improve the feel and player expression further. I loved this when it was at its best and think if I had any fighting game skill, I would be in awe further. The feeling of doing a mystic or burste art is really elite gaming.
I also wonder how to feel about the core story here. If you ask me to explain the Adephagos? I couldn’t tell you. If you ask me to explain how aer relates to the adephagos or the Blastia, I might have a few words. Theres a moment in the game where Rita starts setting up the core reason plot and the formula and I just tuned it out. It felt like incredible world building at times, Myorzo is wonderful. Learning the history of the guilds and even why the main villain has beef. But I drifted in and out of it, and I don’t know if I can say plot wise this has anything to chew on.
You know what you can chew on? Characters. This is an elite cast. Yuri Lowell is truly a gaming icon. This is very much a game about how Yuri changes others , rather than how Yuri grows. It’s marvelous to see a JRPG protagonist get their hands dirty in the ways they perceive and engage villains as well as justice. That evolves Karol,Estellise and Flynn. Flynn and Yuri’s dynamic is immaculate. In particular the way that Aurion really starts to wrap the bow on the world, really sets the stage for the emotional beats to be wrapped up with the crew. Seeing Karol and Raven’s arc in the story is just genuinely beautiful. They get sensational emotional beats.
Add on top of this beautiful graphics. Great skits that make you smile and inject the feeling of growth. Some good music (I can’t believe I said that Matoi Sakuraba is very hit or miss for me). Some fun dungeon maneuvering. It leaves me feeling great. Something small is missing to take this adventure over top, but when I think of the ideal JRPG, this is what I will think of. The one thats not trying to be anything outside of the shonen energy and plays the cards straight but smartly straight? This is it.

What even is this game? This is a game that is 100% trying to do too much. But what it nails is a GRAND SLAM. Less would be more to take what is amazing here to the next level.
DUELS, DUELS, DUELS. The crème de la crème, this is DESIGN. Seriously every opportunity you get to duel, be it in a side story developing side characters, be it mythic tales, or epic boss fights, these stand out. The mechanics around short stabs, or overhead stabs to deplete stamina to get better hits. The proper reading of timing of parryable or unblockable moments, its a dance, and importantly it tells you to be patient. To study what they are doing . The fact this is tied to either the most emotional moments of the game or to the stellar stories of fables gone by as you write your own? THey create the most beautiful stages and set pieces for these to occur. Everyone moves differently and they way people talk and share mid battle, that you can sense exasperation , sensational. However this isn’t a game about staying a samurai, but about abandoning the samurai principles in war. And that part of the game is not as stunning as this.
This game wants you to see that being an honorable warrior is so much of a disadvantage and that marries with the open world progression. The game is in 3 acts, and the more and more you adopt the title of ghost, the more tools of the ghost you get. That is ninja arts poison , wind chimes, sticky bombs, smoke bombs the gamut. These tools become necessary because the amount of mongols you face either in story missions or just general invasions are overwhelming. It creates the true feeling of an oppressive land and truly speaking to the work you have done. At the beginning when you don’t have much you rely on the stances that deal with different enemy types. In a flow state you are alternating stances(thank the designer who added slo mo so you can change and look at what’s in fron of you) to become more effective at different infantry mid swing. It can be amazing when you create a string of death. You feel like a badass but early on without tools it’s exhausting. But mirroring Jin’s need to become more savage, the more you develop your tools, you become so crafty and a one man wrecking machine. Its a great sense of progression, but it can feel like busy work.
The reason for that is because the world is … eh? Seriously its gorgeous, picturesque but man moving through it can feel like…. Time passed. Maybe because I got tired of the horse ride exposition story moments, maybe its cause the wall climbing is finicky, maybe its cause teh sense of movement in terms of paths is just not memorable. I would fast travel and stop exploring because, the things to see weren’t always an instantaneous moment to moment of newness or resource management. Fox Dens , pillars, the springs etc weren’t engaging enough consistently.
For about half of this game, I used to say it had not sense of space, or location etc. But I was wrong, everything about Jin’s home is truly memorable. It’s memorable because all the compelling stories happen there. I don’t think I would say that most of the supporting cast won me over, Jin, Taka, Yuna and Shimura hold their own. It’s really the people that give locations some memories , but none are truly adorned like where Sakais home is and thats a detriment to the game.
However it speaks to the joy of combat that none of these issues stopped me from playing. Like the thrill of combat, from standoffs to duels to even the ghost mode . its amazing and anything that took me away from that wasn’t a delight. I didn’t like sneaking. I didn’t feel like the tools to become immersed in shadow were strong . I love the wind chimes and hte ability to slow hear to visually get a sense of enemies far from you. But those and cover were the main tools, and it felt finicky to guess how people were seeing you etc. It left me feeling that if this game weren’t an open world but a linear game with dueling set pieces as the main feature, that this would be an all timer for me. Its a great game regardless, just the unbridled joy I got in this game was interrupted by everything else.

What a phenomenal experience. Short and potent. The fluidity of movement?!? This is SLICK. The options available with different throws that are contact sensitive, the air combos that allow you to build meter better than normal combos. Normal combos that are constructed to perfect rhythm? Yess. These levels are REAL in terms of difficulty but definitely designed for repeat playthroughs to know them in and out. Several times with my colleagues we would get wiped, then aware of what’s ahead memorize and just play better knowing the obstacles a second time. The level of triumph at the last level once we figured out how the patterns evolve? It was like night and day. I am excited to play this with new folks continuously to see how possible the challenges are. I think the most surprising thing is that the vehicle sections and levels are actually awesome. It forces you to to change your play style and just some jaw dropping art set pieces. What I appreciate about this game the most is how much it wants you to relate to who you playing with. The fact that reviving somebody is you giving them a pizza? Gut busting hilarious. The fact that you can high 5 to transfer health which turns into a breathing room moment after hectic parts of levels checking on health and each other to share the wealth. You are consistently aware of what your friends are going through struggle wise and certain bosses require strong communication because you will get wiped out. It’s amusing who wins what award at the end of each level! It’s very Perfect Dark! What happens in the breathing moments is a ton of taunting to build specials. This rhythm of destruction, building meter and timing unleashing for crowd controls or minor armor is great. Having permutations attached to dashing and in air allows you to have options regardless of the situation. It’s a builds and crescendos. It’s great that different bosses require different patience and dodging that while the battles involve super management, sometimes you choose not to for situational reasons. The boss fights are truly the highlight, super memorable. I think something designed more unlockables or some limited use projectile to help vary the action would help raise this experience. Truly wondrous.

This is one of those short but potent experiences. What is a fully realized visual style and world makes you truly just enjoy the ismentric vistas that Super Giant designed. It also provided friction in terms of story telling. I loved hearing the narrator speak and provide context to the world, it never stopped making the small breaks in the world not be delightful. Whenever i would stop to interact in the environment and nothing happened but a quip from the narrator I was pleased. However telling the story that way felt less enthralling when I would read text in the computer screen/hear voices. I would no longer be immersed in the world , and I would see it as a hinderance .
The gameplay is rather neat. Combining real time and pause turn into a splendid hybrid. You get 4 different powers, which you can activate in real time or by pause turn. I found using pause turn was the most useful, there is satisfaction in planning attacks. The fact it monitors movement and that when you lose a life you lose an action, and they you collect more than 4 total, it means that you can’t get too attacked to certain moves. It means your strategy and plans evolve based on the new tools you get via levels, and how much health you lost and if your old actions regenerated yet to re-equip. Its a system that really expanded late game that felt restrictive at the beginning. The enemy types really prod you to try different actions and movement approaches to survive. Its a thoroughly engaging game, the only thing is that an action tied to this is the only evade technique. Running away is so fundamental and the dodge button being losable bothered me. There might have been a better in between for dodging being equipable and running being slow. It really turned out to be a real clear question in the final boss. I enjoyed the fight but def felt like things were happening than me controlling the reality perfectly. However my customization really is what won me that fight, and the fact you can subequip actions to each other to modify? Its a deep system.
Honestly because I didn’t really care for the story not involving Red and the narrator and that the gameplay only really felt like it opened at the end, I wasn’t sure if I really was as high on the experience. However that last 45 minutes, including the way the narrative ends ? It is among the most satisfying conclusions to a story, and feeds into my belief short stories can be stronger than long ones.

Let me get this of my chests because there is truly one barrier to this game, its slow. Like seriously boss battles, long battles where you have w/o worry about how long it takes for animations to go , and that being affected by the ATB because actions always have a pause and mis-timing? Eesh. I feel that because I had to liberally use speed to grind and the other mods time to time because of the pacing or the need to grind, it would be insincere just to start waxing poetic. That being said, this is a marvel. Sentimental and consistently effective sweeping you away in just the fairytale tone of it all.

The timing in the ATB is unclear time to time but that often increases the tension of battles. The way that you develop abilities through weapons but have to decide which abilities because some are overpowered, its simple but was even effectively used to allude to personalities of the character beyond just the jobs they ideally represent. Zidane protecting girls ability because he is a flirty sleaze when you meet him. Steiner with cover because of how seriously takes his job. It added such an elegant touch to the growth system. The ways in which certain items allow you to play and change your strategy because you can’t have them all equipped? IO found myself on certain bosses making adjustments.

The cast is truly remarkable. Zidane, Dagger, Steiner, Vivi is the cannon party for how I played but even Freya and Eiko really deliver the story home. Even someone like Quina has sweet moments. Zidane and Daggers romantic subplot just truly warms you as they find a great way to weave the will they wont they into storybeats. Steiner love for job becomes challenged learning about corruption and that duty comes into conflict with another great side character. I think what I really want to emphasize with this game is that the storybeats aren’t accessories but really integrate into gameplay effectively. It feels weird to say that , it should be obvious but the way FF9 does so? WOO

We talking about everything in Burmecia and Cleyra . Freya gets so much character but the way battles happen in towns and how that affects your relationship to the people in towns and that certain things develop because of small choices or just building attachment to the city because of how they integrate tragedy in these places. The cities are not window dressing, events happen there, and that really creates an impact. Or story moments for example the fact that Dagger can’t cast magic because of a major storybeat. Or when Zidane has to reunite and how they have him staggering into battles to reconnect. It is so much about how turnbased battles allow you fudge the immediate environment in order to enhance the storytelling experience.

We also talking about just some of the most beautiful looking locales. Everything Terra related and disc 4 is just stunning. Everything in Oielvert. Like it bears repeating traversing these places and dungeons with some puzzles without a traditional set up in terms of theming is just a breath of fresh air.

FF9 is charming. It’s simple. It’s elegant. It’s heartwarming. The game closes its final act really reflecting on memories and who they belong to and if it matters where they start. Its through connection to others we tap in and learn other memories and through that we can begin to get back to the beginning. This game is heralded as a throwback to how FF started in tone, and its also the finale of Sakaguchi involvement with the series. The throwback to the beginning was an ending. We are left with a memory of what was but also of what is, and that is FF9 is special.

This is the best sound design I have experienced so far in gaming. From the moment you turn on this game, the way the sound, which is music less but is going on the feel of a skipping black and white film reel? It’s mixed for you to get so entrenched that games with great music dream of doing. That paired with just impeccable shadows? This thing is a mystical aesthetically and with indirect storytelling, it’s a prime example of what defining mood can look like in this medium.
This thing is that both the shadow aesthetics and sounds being only of the environment lend well to the puzzle gameplay. Certain puzzles that require timing can be estimated through great listening to switches/clocks when you can’t see them. Aesthetics cloak so much in shadow that it takes a perceptive eye to notice some features and it makes you feel clever when you discern what the level has been hiding from you. The game ability to continue to evolve and iterate on certain mechanics and introduce them in new ways is often endearing. The game is opaque and often trying to surprise you and can throwing you into near death on a moment’s notice . However the other side is that your penalty for death isn’t much, you don’t often have to redo much there is leniency and that often encourages you both to experiment and then just go to death just to see what the full components of the puzzles are at work. I think the thing that undermines the game sometimes is the physics. So the character is stiff and that often lends to the dread when you have certain moments with a boss. It unnerves you because you have to be pixel perfect. However there are certain puzzles that require understanding of momentum of the player and the physics with stiffness and some hitches in player control really made me feel that certain puzzles I couldn’t figure out without a guide . However the gravity puzzles were often great so the physical also have some boons. This is a great game.

The best part of Horizon is the feel of weapons. The ranged combat is beautiful with great layers. In particular the tearing components. The fact that splitting apart machines into pieces even without damage changes the nature of the fight is compelling. The fact that different arrows really can evolve your play style is great. I am less enthused by the traps this game gives you. While moment to moment useful it often feels like for half the missions setting traps doesn’t work as often, but that could be placed on my planning, but in general I think for missions the traps aren’t as effective. But they are effective in the open world. In particular the fact the machines are animal adjacent means you are hunting wild life with that perspective. In other games the focus being a 6th sense feels like an afterthought. But here for being able to see enemy weakpoint/ study their week points etc, it feels natural.
My biggest critique with Horizon is gamefeel, and I know thats weird to say after glowingly bigging up the combat and tools . However in movement it is clear this game wants to make you feel like you are doing cool things but not that you are doing cool things. Lets take for example, the Tallnecks. They are a cool twist on towers , the fact they move and that you have to make a plan in your environment to figure out how to get on them in order to use them to open the map? Its great in line with the theme of the machines are to be tackled. Howewever when you climb them, the enemy machines stop attacking and getting up is just a scripted jump pattern. It looks cool (like the rappelling down too) but you are a bystander. That event reflects in what is a great idea for playing around with the world design: couldrons. It looks like a puzzle, trying to evoke that in terms of navigation but its just a hallway where you are being funneled to a boss fight in a unique setting. It breaks the monotony and gives you tools to override new enemies but in general it highlights that this game can try to make you passive in the actual moment gamplay.
As for story? I genuinely dont know where I stand. I have spent many a FaceTime conversation talking about it with one of my friends over the last few months and I can’t decide. You can frame Aloy in a couple of ways , as a true tinkerer, a curious person, not personable and a little brash. Those things make for a solid character but the way people treat her is odd. It is one thing for one person to hit on Aloy, its one thing for 2 but when it gets more than that for a person who is still learning to be around people it’s weird. In particular the dialogue wheel they give her is a bit weird in terms of framing her character. It feels like for a game about story, that the wheel for her interrupts the experience. However you can say that any interaction between her and Sylens is great both as just their abrasion causes entertaining friction. Sylens is a great foil to the story theme about knowledge. The story really goes in on the end about the importance of knowledge but that on it’s own it is not enough. I feel that theme runs solid. Do I care about anyone not named Sylens? No. Do I think the world is memorable? Eh. Traversal in this world is an afterthought. Its fine to look at but the journey and what you see isn’t gonna be something I hold onto.
This is a game with great bow combat and ranged tools, but just solid everything else. It makes me want to peep the sequel but I am not sure if I can really think this game supersedes it’s fellow Sony 1st party open world game, Ghost of Tsushima.

This was a thrill ride, and once I engaged with the game on that terms I grew to enjoy the experience. The platforming, maneuvering game me thoughts of a rhythm mini game for inputs. I dug that a ton. I knew that it was clear telegraphing in terms of environmental traversal and linear guidance but I still felt the adrenaline anyways. The combat grew to be satisfying even if repetitive. As for the weaknesses? The game ends on a quick time event, like thats the double edge sword of a thrill ride, that it becomes less about you doing cool things vs seeing Lara in cutscenes do the cool things, and reminded me too much of the earlier times in the game where they removed your action to show action. The story and means of learning the story never intrigued me. I wish some of the puzzle rooms were neater in terms of layout , the environmental interaction is so simple its hard to brainstorm puzzles. I would know what to do, but the execution of doing what the game wants was a little bland but last puzzles did deliver. Overall the rush and thrill of the game was satisfying and well constructed, and def want to peep more in the series.

I dislike how this game feels. The movement of your character being very connected to the movement of your reticle here feels awful. I felt like dodging here was just not great. At first I assumed that means my playstyle for this game was wrong. Which the first 3 levels I changed how I approached where you have to hold a to automate targeting and I began to hit a flow state for that. I began to think I figured out what was expected but some bosses and regular enemies aren’t designed for that .Levels 5 & 6 are much faster shooting galleries that don’t align with the automated targeting. Level 4 feels like the best approach on it. It’s hard to tell which shooting approach is expected at times. Some variety makes sense but it feels that the alternating with different enemies wasn’t as great. I think I might have felt better if hit detection and dodging made more sense to me. There are some bosses with lasers that look far away from me but seem to hit me anyways. In general this didn’t vibe with me. But it says volumes to me if I had a play session of only a level one day and was dreading going to the next one after beating the previous one.

Let start here: Exdeath and Gilgamesh are endless charismatic and memorable villains. Gilgamesh utterly silly writing and his squirming when losing is endlessly entertaining . It’s great that for the second half of the game that when you deal with the main villains , you are just getting great amusement. What makes Exdeath great is his interactions with the world in World 2 & 3.
These two are part of what’s mostly a silly lighthearted romp. Like an actual scene has Exdeath pop out of a twig and fight a sentient turtle. This game does not have much seriousness in its body. There is one boss fight that require the team to like Wiley Coyote create a rope across a cliff as part of the boss introduction . There’s a search in a library, and Barts looks up asses . This game is goofy. In general what this tone does is that it makes it hard to connect to the characters , but Faris , Galuf and Krile standout in great story flourishing moments .
The levity is paired with a job system that has barely aged. This job system has a legacy in some of my fave games and it’s impressive how it opens up strategies and fights. You raise job classes to learn skills which you can add to other jobs and switch around. It feels limiting at first especially because you can only carry one skill. The combos and synergy doesn’t feel wide ranging but man later on it just becomes impressive. Other games allow you to stack more skills so on face value , it feels weak but specifically how the freelancer class works in combination with this systems is where my eyes opened. The freelances gain both the passive skills of the class you mastered and the stats, which allows so much freedom in who your characters are at the endgame! It’s so dizzying . I wish there was a bit more class variety but I think the next time I play, I will challenge myself to seek more utility in the ones I avoided. This is the first time I really pushed my blue mage , and I was thoroughly impressed, speaks to the systems if I felt that learning the skills was truly worth it. I do wish that some bosses didn’t seem easier with magic too or that more physical attacks hit all enemies, battles with statues that can only be beaten by defeating simultaneously becomes a pain without magic.
What’s really holding this back though? Locations. Phantom Village is incredible, it’s lore driven and used brilliantly twice. The dungeons ? The other towns? They are nice and the game has different world visits to try to make them memorable through different versions. But I would say it didn’t accomplish making them memorable . Although, shout outs to the Library of the Ancients though!
Musically it’s great, but I’m only pulling two tracks from here into my personal pantheon of JRPG music (EXDEATH THEME IS BANGING). Also as an aside, if you love pets, this might be the best third best JRPG to really capture that feeling (DQV and the Pokémon franchise got it still). I was hyped to play this game as the ancestor to my fave games and I even see it in the non Bravely games, like FF 9 def has a lot from here, and while I am not confident in saying it has the chutzpah to dethrone my personal faves, I am enthusiastic about this experience. It’s great to see the fore-bearer hold up to its legacy games.

This is a frenetic dose of adrenaline , a rollercoaster ride of a rail shooter. This game doesn’t know what breathing is. In true fashion your relationship to the levels change based on new and and fresh run throughs (and you will die, so you will see how you will breeze through levels that gave you challenges before).The way your familiarity develops with the levels simply because the continuous set pieces is just remarkable, I can see myself really remembering the main sequence of this journey one day . Every new boss , every new reaction needed, is just consistently amazing. The way the camera pans and swooped especially in the ship level for you to see the battlefield who’ll in all sorts of fashion? It enhanced the amount of action and effort the player did, you had full control of the coolest parts of what’s happening. And how the levels feel often seamless in terms of traversal? This is splendid level design. The three pronged mechanic of lock on, free and slashing is issued thoroughly throughout. I mostly did the lock on because my skillset wasn’t too high, but man the extra damage you get from free enticed me to switch on harder bosses once I got used to some of their patterns. And having the ability slash back big projectiles with the lock-on never ever stopped getting satisfying. The movement in this game feels immaculate. The only thing that hampered my experience? The second to last level where you had to traverse certain corridors with your jump, the jump to avoid bullet hell stuff is great, but not great for platforming, and I hated those moments. A wonderful game

I have several times, repeatedly dropped this game. When the game is frustrating, it is a nuisance. The early game is a thorough grind, the way that items feel esoteric in meaning even after going to the help menu make items odd. The fact that easier teleportation is gated ? The fact that teleporting for more than half the game requires a runway and you steering? It makes getting lost backtracking a CHORE. The grind that is in the dungeons is real, this is the first game where I avoided exploring the dungeon front to back because I didn’t want to lose progress and would thoroughly try my best to figure out the main path. I hated everything about the actual inventory system. The game can be annoying to all degrees. However most of these weak spots are built out of trying to charm the hell out of it’s player. And when Earthbound charms, it has the second best feeling of whimsy in the business (DQ still owns the title).
Like take for example that inventory system that is brutal, the game gives you so many damn progression items and knows it needs to give you storage approach. Now you could have a place to deposit items easily…. But instead to charm the player you have to call the Escargo delivery folk and after a little movement in the overworld they come to you. It makes you chuckle. Its silly but hella inefficient because of how limited storage is. However this charm can come in more effective ways, the rolling hp bar is so damn simple and brilliant but not something that makes clear sense until later game when you have more HP. When an ally got attacked and is about to lose HP, instead of immediately collapsing it takes a while for the hp to run out (being a rolling meter) and if you heal before then the HP restores based exactly on the number it shows. This even works thoughtfully that if you destroy an enemy , get major fatal blowback if you beat the battle first the HP roll won’t complete and thus you survive. The game even allows you to instantly kill weak enemies , you see those enemies on the overworld too . Earthbound forces you to try to read about its magic and systems because while the core impact from DQ is there the way that shields, psi etc all work, its all done to be odd . The status ailments are often unusual and esoteric. Being homesick, getting a cold , feeling weird having a heatstroke. It makes solving weird but also memorable and distinct.
This desire to charm is experienced in locations and set pieces. When I tell you I dropped the game for years but still remember the the moment on the dinosaur across the sea, the shopping mall incident, the happy village, the carnival, fourside? It means that amidst frustration that Earthbound was able to create what are some of the best one off moments. Magicant man, MAGICANT. That area alone might be a top 3 JRPG sequence for me. We won’t even discuss the fresh and immaculately surreal soundtrack.
The way I put it for every reason to love Earthbound there is a reason to dislike it (BY THE WAY THE MONKEYS DESERVE DEATH). It’s charm was a double edged sword and was a barrier to play it. However on the other hand I think my gaming life is thoroughly better off for it. I definitely believe that a game like this probably plays better upon replays, and when my life is open for that… best believe I will take it. I think I would love it more.
I will end with this, Earthbound is a must play experience, comical, charming and nearly spiritual experience. I have never had an ending like that, although the frustration interrupted it, it might be a dose of optimism that I am grateful that God gave me to experience. Itoi gave us something. Oh and use a guide for your own sanity.

The most taken for granted thing in Pokémon history is the fact that humans and Pokémon have amicable relationships for the most part. Dating back to Red Blue it’s not unusual to see a npc with an overworked sprite of a Pokémon, or see kids wearing Pokémon paraphernalia. I just take it as a given, and the remarkable thing about Legends Arceus is that the relationship is not treated as a given , instead humans are fearful of Pokémon . It then is as a result of your charting to complete the Pokédex, that you see the city resident's relationship with Pokémon change. You are actively making the human Pokémon bond happen, and it’s wondrous.
I don’t typically play Pokémon for any completionist sake. I am the person who felt that catching them all is a waste of time, and engaging with this game, I assumed I would have some disdain for the premise but by golly did the team really design a compelling capture mechanic and Pokédex filling system. The way the two work in tandem is this glue that keeps you going. The fact that you fill up the Pokédex by capturing many, seeing different moves, evolving them, feeding them, using certain types of moves on them , catching them in the morning or night etc is so engaging. There are so many parameters at work that any moment you see a Pokémon in the wild that most times engaging it is worth it. Beyond just the natural appeal of seeing new Pokémon, the act of trying to get Pokémon at specific times or to complete your pokedex, you will be rotating your team and always on the look out for Pokémon that you haven’t filled your dex information with. However, the one thing that this system runs into as a weakness? The fact that different species of Pokémon don’t interact or connect to each other.
What Pokémon did to make this focus on filling up the Pokédex fun? The act of catching. It is hands down the thing that I thought I would tire of but never got bored of. I was always trying to figure out give my resources that can affect Pokémon movement from berries to get them distracted to things like snowballs that would make them dazed how to get the best opening. Then I would have decide which poke ball is best for the job, is the pokemon flying or in the water? Use the flying types. Did my apricorns daze them, use the heavy ones. If its neither use the traditional ones. The actual feel of the trajectories of these balls is PERFECTION. It felt snappy and satisfying to throw. Lets not forget to acknowledge the use of stealth items through crafting or how the ball trajectory becomes even more tantamount on the water mount?
I remember starting the game and seeing the act of crafting these balls and thinking, I will get tired of this. I never did, the consistent rhythm of traversal through world gathering items, finding new Pokémon and using optional grass to hide in and ambush them, the process of how mounts slowly add more verticality and exploration to previous explored hubs, compounding the loop of gathering and finding? The loop never got tiring, and would always feel fresh because the way attempted adventure was based on what you saved in your bag at that moment. Thats an accomplishment.
The only thing that is weakened by what is an impeccable system around catching is that sometimes I don’t want to battle. I like battles, I like that the group battle elements come back from Sun and Moon. I think if they did the recruiting element from Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby it would be even better. I like that you can alter your speed or strength once you master a move. I love that alpha pokemon in the wild and trainer battle pokemon will use those chains against you. However, the act of battling is not as satisfying as catching. I want these battle system ported to traditional mainline but something about the process feels inferior to the catching mechanics. I don’t think just reintroducing the items and abilities is the answer, I love those things but battling needs something a bit more.
This review reads like gushing, and honestly it is. I went in with a resistive mind, I been on record saying I don’t want Pokemon to be open world or integrate those elements but I can’t help but think what they nailed here leans into elements of open design I often besmirch. I want my gyms and competitive for sure, but the things done here are wonderful. It feels like the end of an era in terms of storytelling style, and world design. I like the smaller scale implied storytelling, and it works but I feel like to emphasize the relationship between Pokémon and humans going forward, it will require so much more. I will miss this era of Pokémon, but the things accomplished here are so tantamount that I can’t help but wait to see how it’s implemented in a style of a game thats more my speed. The fact that Pokemon made this game so close to my speed is sensational. Obvious warts in terms of visuals and custcenes are here, but I don’t care. The way the spheal rolls, timing jumps of Basculin from the water to slo mo jump catch Pokémon and have that feel better than any bow combat I touched in my life? The triumphs are here. Its missing that Sun and Moon charm and the classic Pokémon structure… but you can never expect where it actually goes, its great to feel like I never knew what was next. I am excited to jump into the post game when time provides. Highly recommend.