A positive step for the Pokemon franchise, one which we'll likely see elements of in Gen 9 but hopefully these ideas and mechanics which will be expanded upon in a full sequel in this style.

I'd like to see some of the Dex research points less generic and more specific to each species, and while the act of catching was surprisingly satisfying (even for the 25th or 26th time on a specific monster) there needs to be another elements added to make the process a bit more involved. By the end of the game I had so many bait or distraction items just sitting unused in my inventory as I waited for each Pokemon to turn around and then throw an Ultra Ball, resulting in an almost guaranteed catch.

There's been a lot of handwringing about the graphics and how they resemble a PS2 game and look, I get that they're not great - especially with the budget that Gamefreak likely have - but I do wonder if people remember what PS2 games looked like. There's obviously work to be done here and more time likely needed to be given to the developers to allow for less hitches and more polish. Thankfully the core of the game works well enough that I was able to quite easily gloss over the pop-in and lack of detail (well, mostly. Some sections, especially those that involved water or dark cave areas were quite distracting).

It's not a perfect game but I had a great time with it, exploring each area was fun and the side missions added a bit of life to your home village and it was nice to see it build up as time went on.

A few stray thoughts:
- To increase a Pokemon's stats outside of leveling up, you're essentially force feeding them rocks and gravel which is a bizarre image. Might be great for a Geodude, but surely less fun for a Chimchar or Eevee
- The overall message of the game seems to be that 'colonialism is good, actually' leaves a bit of a bitter taste, especially with the Galaxy Corp acting as saviours to the two indigenous tribes on a few occasions. Though fair play on making the colonisers from Galar (read: British) because yeah, we are absolutely the worst.
- The game certainly knows the audience it's going for where the main characters first concern at being ripped from their own time into a murky netherealm is seemingly 'oh god, my phone, MY PHONE!'
- 'Set' battle style is great and I think that's going to be an option I change in any Pokemon game I play going forward. Agile/Strong is a nice idea, but it's let down by the turn order info screen disappearing and not giving you information for when an opponent gets two turns in a row and can feel random at times.

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As others have said the first act is really, really good, with Inscryption managing to successfully balance roguelike deckbuilding and puzzle room mechanics. Unfortunately it doesn't manage to maintain that quality as it moves to its next stages - I appreciate the ideas and ambition involved (and there are still some interesting moments to come) but the quality of the card game suffers slightly, especially in the middle.

One of those 'if only' cases where I think something really great could have been created if the first section had been expanded upon and made the focus. This is maybe quite a negative read on a game that I still enjoyed, but I think there were different cards in Daniel Mullins' hand that he could have used to achieve an even better result.