Christopher Scarborough

* GAME SPOILERS * In the way that all Pokémon games are fun, this game is no exception. There are awesome new Pokémon, a cool new fighting mechanic, and the general feel of discovery and growing your team is there. As said however, that’s just Pokémon at its core. Where this game loses all of its points for me is in its sloppy delivery. The moment you load in you start to feel it. The random frame held a millisecond to long here and there, the riding mechanic feels worse than some PS2 games, you’ll even occasionally clip into a wall for no reason, Pokemon will basically Spawn camp you while you’re in battle, the Pokémon you ride can’t decide if it wants to fall or climb, and NPC’s will just walk right through some of the most important fight scenes in the game... like, directly through the fight, through your Pokémon. Illusion shattered. It all just felt REALLY under polished. Something that could have used an extra 6 months of development. Aside from the gameplay, you have a great concept for the game! 3 competing objectives that you as a player get to chose on your own. Super promising idea! But this, again, is shattered by just some subpar- middle school diary dialogue. When Arvens mom is discovered to be dead, they gloss over it and jump to congratulating you for your hard work. If you’re going to include it, add the real emotions. So, if you’re planning on getting this game, get it! It’s a Pokémon game after all. But will it be your favorite? Absolutely not. If you want the discovery this game was trying to give you, play legends of arceus! If you like the generic Pokémon format in the open world, play sword and shield. Pretty disappointed considering you already have all of the mechanics sitting around from legends arceus.