Battles are fun but definitely were improved upon in later iterations. The lack of * chips could definitely make it more of a hassle to put together a coherent folder. Additionally, I never ended up upgrading my chips for the most part. By the end of the game I was still packing regular Cannon chips because the program advance was useful and I wasn't running into Hi-Cannons.
The story feels like it could have been a bit more coherent, but also it's a GBA game from 2001, so I'm willing to give it some leniency there. Where I don't is that the translation for this was pretty crap. Spelling, punctuation, and general errors are pretty common.
The main gripe I actually have with the game is the "dungeons" and puzzles in them. The IceMan and ElecMan sections are both god awful. While things like the ColorMan portion was tedious, it never felt like it was unfairly bad. The fact that mini-areas based on those dungeons came back at the end of the game and they still were crap is honestly impressive. The only truly good thing about seeing those levels again was that the battery puzzles didn't return. With the high encounter rate and batteries only having enough charge for two attempts to make trial and error a pain in the butt, ElecMan's area is a really low part of the game.
The story feels like it could have been a bit more coherent, but also it's a GBA game from 2001, so I'm willing to give it some leniency there. Where I don't is that the translation for this was pretty crap. Spelling, punctuation, and general errors are pretty common.
The main gripe I actually have with the game is the "dungeons" and puzzles in them. The IceMan and ElecMan sections are both god awful. While things like the ColorMan portion was tedious, it never felt like it was unfairly bad. The fact that mini-areas based on those dungeons came back at the end of the game and they still were crap is honestly impressive. The only truly good thing about seeing those levels again was that the battery puzzles didn't return. With the high encounter rate and batteries only having enough charge for two attempts to make trial and error a pain in the butt, ElecMan's area is a really low part of the game.