Developer/Publisher: Game Freak/Nintendo
Gameplay Stats: More time than I figured, almost complete Pokedex (395/400)
This game is really fun! I'm not really sure if I have anything new to say about this versus others so I'll keep it short. I really like the open world Pokemon game! There is so much to do, I didn't really feel like I was entirely on rails the whole time. I wanted to explore and to do that I wanted to kill more Pokemon titans to upgrade my bike/travel pokemon. While I was exploring my pokes would naturally gain levels so then I needed gym badges to keep my Pokemon obeying my commands in battle. And then Team Star exists I guess, they were my least favorite part of the game.
Terastalizing Pokemon was a very welcome addition! It essentially gives Pokemon a more randomized weakness but you also need to be mindful of their strengths as well. It kind of uncoupled the strengths/weaknesses of the strong "raid" Pokemon in the game. Take a Pikachu (electric type), normally only weak to Ground types. If you give it a Flying tera-type it can change it's type in the middle of a fight to be flying so now those Ground Types moves that it was weak to before don't even hit it. It's really interesting! I like the variety that it adds to the game.
Now that the praise is out of the way, this game runs horribly on the Switch. I don't really know what they were thinking releasing the game in this state... I think Banjo Kazooie has a bigger draw distance. The animations for the Pokemon are extremely stiff, many only having one attack animation despite having maybe 30 moves on average. I guess it's not that rare these days that a game releases in a semi-beta state, but it's a shock coming from Nintendo. They're known for their polish!
Would I recommend this game? If you are interested in pretty much exclusively complicated rock-paper-scissors gameplay then yes, if you are aesthetics minded then no. I am interested to see what kind of post-release support this game will get, maybe it'll be great eventually! But I really hope the series continues to follow this open world formula going forward, it's a lot of fun.
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