i havent been able to sustain any interest in pokemon for years even though it was a massive part of my childhood/childhood gaming.... so i was apprehensive about giving this a chance. but im v glad i did! it highlighted + improved upon all the novelties that sucked me into pokemon to begin with 🥺 and it was just, genuinely unique in its framing. i wouldn't really call this a "pokemon clone" — its relationship to pokemon is more akin to the one digimon has with pokemon.

maybe my adult struggle with pokemon was just fatigue with the extreme levels of familiarity and unfamiliarity i have with it. a significant part of my enjoyment of this game was discovering a new world, discovering monsters id never seen before, yet also knowing that the number of them is small enough that i wouldn't get Lost In The Sauce, and that it is entirely possible to "catch em all" (or even just "see em all") without making a whole expedition out of it. in comparison pokemons current umpteens of increasingly similar creatures that i havent kept up with since 2009 both daunts and bores me

anyway i will probably play some of the post-game (though i ended up completing some of it already bc of level grinding/wanting to see everything + completely clear out my quest log before going for the finale, until i realizing that maybe im not supposed to do that). i might pick up the dlc too. thats not something i do for most games! but im really interested in the overarching lore and im very charmed by its aesthetic, the 2d-3d pixel art, the cute monster designs.... and idk in general the gameplay scratches the tism Just Right 🙏🏿