Im at gym 6 now, so i'll give my thoughts.
Pros:
The game is fun. Ive been having a great time playing it. We will see how that changes over the next few months and years. The wild area is big, but not huge. Its like a large safari park. The pokemon there are the biggest challenge. I did not think i would enjoy the dynamax raids as much as i do. The 3 and 4 star raids are where you really test your skills. But the one and 2 star are good for getting trs. The animations are better than expected. I only play handheld and i have no provlems lagging or skipping or choppiness. And honestly i have my cinderace use pyro ball just for the animation. The pokemon are 8/10. The characters are interesting. I love bedes arc so far. I didnt realize how much i missed a jerk rival til i saw him. Hop is ok. He is what barry and hau should be. All in all its fun and tons of stuff to do. And its not criminally easy. It is about normal difficulty for a pokemon game. You will breeze through until you have 1 opponent that tells you about yourself, and back to breezing. The gym battles are awesome and fun.
Cons:
The animations can be, lacking. The distance you can look can be long or short, but usually short. The randomness and lack of backgrounds can be immersion breaking. The balance of the exp share should be worked on a bit. I didnt dislike it but its difficult to anticipate. Having to find a guy to do sound options was annoying. I could care less about sonia and what she has to say. The short move pools make it so you dont have much to train your pokemon toward after they beat the opponent you need them for. I wish the wild area had explorable dungeons like caves and underwater and stuff. I missed riding your own pokemon in LGPE.
All in all:
This was a lot of fun, but it isnt what it could be. I could care less about the nat dex, but my problem with it was that gf made it seem like we would gain something amazing from it. And a lot of the changes i feel were a step in the right direction to becoming what a pokemon game could be, it falls short into just a good game. It feels like they wasted too much time trying to put in the pokemon they did put in, they struggled to barely finish the game. Like it feels like this could be game of the year if they had another year to finish it. But instead its just good. Tbf its certainly better than gen 1, 4, 6, and 7. Maybe its better than 3 too, i dont know.
Pros:
The game is fun. Ive been having a great time playing it. We will see how that changes over the next few months and years. The wild area is big, but not huge. Its like a large safari park. The pokemon there are the biggest challenge. I did not think i would enjoy the dynamax raids as much as i do. The 3 and 4 star raids are where you really test your skills. But the one and 2 star are good for getting trs. The animations are better than expected. I only play handheld and i have no provlems lagging or skipping or choppiness. And honestly i have my cinderace use pyro ball just for the animation. The pokemon are 8/10. The characters are interesting. I love bedes arc so far. I didnt realize how much i missed a jerk rival til i saw him. Hop is ok. He is what barry and hau should be. All in all its fun and tons of stuff to do. And its not criminally easy. It is about normal difficulty for a pokemon game. You will breeze through until you have 1 opponent that tells you about yourself, and back to breezing. The gym battles are awesome and fun.
Cons:
The animations can be, lacking. The distance you can look can be long or short, but usually short. The randomness and lack of backgrounds can be immersion breaking. The balance of the exp share should be worked on a bit. I didnt dislike it but its difficult to anticipate. Having to find a guy to do sound options was annoying. I could care less about sonia and what she has to say. The short move pools make it so you dont have much to train your pokemon toward after they beat the opponent you need them for. I wish the wild area had explorable dungeons like caves and underwater and stuff. I missed riding your own pokemon in LGPE.
All in all:
This was a lot of fun, but it isnt what it could be. I could care less about the nat dex, but my problem with it was that gf made it seem like we would gain something amazing from it. And a lot of the changes i feel were a step in the right direction to becoming what a pokemon game could be, it falls short into just a good game. It feels like they wasted too much time trying to put in the pokemon they did put in, they struggled to barely finish the game. Like it feels like this could be game of the year if they had another year to finish it. But instead its just good. Tbf its certainly better than gen 1, 4, 6, and 7. Maybe its better than 3 too, i dont know.