Laura Rowell

This game is okay-ish, its not very outstanding or anything. Bugs are one thing, and they'll be patched out with time, but I found the game to be underwhelming the whole time. The story is lackluster, divided into three tasks: The classic gym badges, fighting the "gang" of this game, and fighting a special field boss, which is fun the first few times but by the end isn't too fun The gym leaders are cool and unique, the fights were fun and stayed fun throughout the whole game. And each gym has a task you need to do before you can do the gym. The mini games are fun but too short, and not repeatable which leaves each gym feel like you need to savor the one fun aspect in the game. But the gyms themselves aren't striking. There isn't any style differences from one gym to another interior-wise it's just "Hey do this task, cool now fight the leader" none of the gyms pop out at you, which makes it forgettable. The gang isnt anything scary or intimidating, just some kids that were people who didn't fit in, which does make for a compelling story, but it wasn't executed to its fullest potential. The fights were okay but missed out on what made the enemy teams interesting, which would be their goals. Team star wasn't really doing much and their presence in the game was just a hindrance to the other tasks to do. The special field bosses give you mobility upgrades, which is fine but I highly suggest you do this last. Not because it's hard or anything but because the movement you unlock make traveling too easy and makes accessing the northern side underwhelming as any terrain issues you can simply ignore. Nothing interesting happens in the gameplay loop of the main story, collecting gym badges in prior games was memorable because of every obstacle it took to get there. If the city the gym is a part of was in trouble and it prevented you from doing the gym that section became memorable because of the trial you faced to even get to enter the gym. Plus nothing stops you in travel, no special interactions outside of towns. It makes traveling feel empty and lifeless. A big gripe I have is the clothing, it's not interesting enough, the school uniform is fine and all but outfit customization made each city In previous games more fun to explore, clothing shopping was fun. It was disappointing to see that the 4 main outfits you get were barely customizable. This game has the raw mechanical parts to be amazing. Sometimes games just falls through. If they worked harder on making the game shine it could've been amazing. Overall, the things that make this pokemon game fun is present in other mainline pokemon games. Those games are better crafted too. The game was a letdown, but you can still have fun with it so if you're not looking for the perfect pokemon game you play this one and still have a part of the pokemon experience.