Some great divergences from a formula that was previously feeling pretty stale. However, you basically see everything this game has to offer within the first few hours, and then the rest is just... more of that. You'll fight wild pokemon and throw pokeballs, sit through the occasional mind-numbingly easy trainer battle ... 20 hours later, I can't say it's even that much more difficult, let alone deep. The open world is a neat idea, but you don't have many ways to interact with your environment and end up simply running point-to-point over and over. It's a framework for a great game sometime in the unspecified future, but I don't know that there's enough here to keep me engaged.

UPDATE: Returned to the game months later and finished it. Frankly, not worth it. Ending was pretty flaccid. Will check out the postgame though, as I hear it's worth seeing.