Sydney Arnold

This is going to sound like a lot of complaints, but overall I'm enjoying this game. The art style of the characters and pokemon are fun, the designs for the mega evolutions are really cool and inventive. The menus have a lot of little efficient hacks once you know they're there. The battles are more challenging, the scenery is nice. The customization and selection of pokemon is so fun!! That said, there are a few key points that drive me up the wall. Not literally, because you still have to climb in this game. - The day and night cycles almost ruin this game for me. Aside from the incredibly repetitive interruption in gameplay, it will stop and reset any battle with a wild Pokémon, but your own team is still wrecked. The alphas are tough and hard to catch(not a bad thing in itself), but if it takes too long and the day resets, all that work and 15 ultra balls later, you just get to do it all again. Sans 15 ultraballs and a healthy team. Also if you get too far from their spawn site, they'll run back and be at full health again.. *eye twitch* -A lot of the cut scenes, going back to the hotel and especially the strategy meetings are also so repetitive and don't really further the story. -The music throughout most of the game is great - EXCEPT for the sequences during the mega evolution battles. Good Lord. Between the high frequencies, the wildly sped up, chaodic melodies (if you can even call such noise that) and the pacing of the battle itself, I felt so much anxiety throughout it made me dread each and every mega battle. I eventually just had to mute the sound until it was over. -A lot of the later wild zones are so packed with pokemon that will immediately alert and attack, it takes away from the little exploration you can do. And just forget abour trying to hide. -I was really hoping for the ability to ride pokemon throughout the game, something that made Arceus so wonderful. The rotom smart phone feels lazy and too much like they're trying to stay relevant with a young audience, but misses what is like to literally have pokemon help you through the game -Something they frequently talk about in the dialog. -The new battle style is fun in some ways but can feel clunky, and it really takes away from the casual and strategic gameplay that I've always looked forward to in these games. I'm more inclined to button mash than engage with my team. Even with all these gripes, I'm still having fun and will likely finish the story, but it's not my fav.

After playing Arceus, I was so excited to get to get these games. Arceus was an incredibly thoughtful and fun gameplay experience that reignited a love for the franchise I grew up with, compared to that, Scarlet and Violet felt like a rushed installment to bring in more cash. I did like that there were multiple storylines you could follow, but it was lagging and glitchy in populated areas, and not nearly as pretty or engaging to explore the rest of the world. It just felt empty. No compelling dialog between NPCs, you couldn't go inside most of the buildings outside the school. Even the gym leaders, especially the influencer and "avant garde" leaders made me cringe so hard, this completionist couldn't finish the game.

I've watched this drama 3, maybe 4 times now. The characters are incredibly endearing and the story grows on me each time. I've laughed and cried along with these characters, out of shared joy and shared pain. Dani is one of my heroes, she's resourceful and even with so much to overcome, she doesn't give up. It's hard to call this a drama, or a romance (although it has both), there's so much more to it. Like Dani's The Inner Thoughts of Plants, I will cherish this story for years to come.