I don't know what to think of this game. I think it's probably the worst mainline Pokemon game overall, at least within the context of the time it was released. The change to an openworld is interesting, at least - but the openworld has multiple problems. It's empty and completely boring. There's no interesting content or anything to find. There's a few small places throughout that are vaugely interesting to explore, but they are few and far between. I'd much just rather have a traditional pokemon game with routes, towns, and dungeons than this bland, empty openworld. Secondly, the openworld nature let's you tackle the game's main objectives in any order, which is a cool idea, but the game lacks any form of level scaling, so there's a very clear setpath that you'll want to take through the game, and if you don't take that path, your experience probably won't be too great. There's no fun in going to an area that's going to vastly overlevel you, or accidently finding gym 6 before gyms 1-5 because you went out and explored.
Don't get me wrong, the core gameplay is fun, as is pretty much every pokemon game. It's fun to battle trainers, catch pokemon, etc - but those are all the bare minimum things. I think the new pokemon designs are generally pretty great, and there's a lot of cool new moves, abilities, and items to utilize in the context of battling and I think that terastilizing is one of the cooler gimmicks they've introduced, but why has the game regressed in so many QOL things? Why are TMs being back to being single use items that you need to grind for? Why is changing a Pokemon's tera type such an insufferable grind? They want people to try the more competitive side of the game, but for every improvement they make in that regrade they introduce more and more tedium that makes it hard to want to deal with it.
If you aren't into competitive battling, or trying to catch them all, this game offers very little outside of the mainstory. For the first time since Gold and Silver, there is no battle tower or battle tower equivalent for solo players to tackle and it just reeks of a rushed game. (Perhaps the DLC they are selling will contain more interesting content for solo players..?)
And I've said all of this and I haven't even touched on the elephant in the room. The horrendous technical atrocity that is this game. I'm not going to beat around the bush here, the game looks, and runs like complete trash. It's not exactly a technical masterpiece, and there's multiple switch games with larger scopes and better graphics that run infinitely better. Why is this the only switch game I've ever played to hardlock my system and make it restart? It's just baffling. The framerate drops, the constant pop-in, objects running at 10-15 fps in the background.. It's all just absurd. The game legit hurt my eyes to look at on my TV.
Even the music, which Pokemon games almost always get right, is probably on the weaker side of things, though I will admit there are some bangers in the soundtrack... but why the fuck is the credits song by Ed Sheeran? It's so absurd it made me laugh.
I guess I should talk about the things that I actually like. I think the storytelling and writing is pretty smart, and generally probably some of the best in the series. I like the characters, and a bunch of the overarching narrative. I don't think it's the best story in the series, but I enjoyed it. The core gameplay loop is enjoyable and deep down, beneath the technical flaws and the bland, boring openworld there's a good game buried there, and that's what disappoints me the most. Despite all the problems I had with the game, I had fun playing it overall, and if Gamefreak was just left to actually cook, they could have something truly great on their hands. Alas, the requirements that they need to churn these games out every 2-3 years will probably prevent that from ever happening, sadly.
Don't get me wrong, the core gameplay is fun, as is pretty much every pokemon game. It's fun to battle trainers, catch pokemon, etc - but those are all the bare minimum things. I think the new pokemon designs are generally pretty great, and there's a lot of cool new moves, abilities, and items to utilize in the context of battling and I think that terastilizing is one of the cooler gimmicks they've introduced, but why has the game regressed in so many QOL things? Why are TMs being back to being single use items that you need to grind for? Why is changing a Pokemon's tera type such an insufferable grind? They want people to try the more competitive side of the game, but for every improvement they make in that regrade they introduce more and more tedium that makes it hard to want to deal with it.
If you aren't into competitive battling, or trying to catch them all, this game offers very little outside of the mainstory. For the first time since Gold and Silver, there is no battle tower or battle tower equivalent for solo players to tackle and it just reeks of a rushed game. (Perhaps the DLC they are selling will contain more interesting content for solo players..?)
And I've said all of this and I haven't even touched on the elephant in the room. The horrendous technical atrocity that is this game. I'm not going to beat around the bush here, the game looks, and runs like complete trash. It's not exactly a technical masterpiece, and there's multiple switch games with larger scopes and better graphics that run infinitely better. Why is this the only switch game I've ever played to hardlock my system and make it restart? It's just baffling. The framerate drops, the constant pop-in, objects running at 10-15 fps in the background.. It's all just absurd. The game legit hurt my eyes to look at on my TV.
Even the music, which Pokemon games almost always get right, is probably on the weaker side of things, though I will admit there are some bangers in the soundtrack... but why the fuck is the credits song by Ed Sheeran? It's so absurd it made me laugh.
I guess I should talk about the things that I actually like. I think the storytelling and writing is pretty smart, and generally probably some of the best in the series. I like the characters, and a bunch of the overarching narrative. I don't think it's the best story in the series, but I enjoyed it. The core gameplay loop is enjoyable and deep down, beneath the technical flaws and the bland, boring openworld there's a good game buried there, and that's what disappoints me the most. Despite all the problems I had with the game, I had fun playing it overall, and if Gamefreak was just left to actually cook, they could have something truly great on their hands. Alas, the requirements that they need to churn these games out every 2-3 years will probably prevent that from ever happening, sadly.