No Spoilers first impressions:
I've played a little over 3 hours so far, and my first impressions are that this is a simpler and easier pokemon game. The world and route layouts are definitely much more basic so far, and shorter. The distance between pokemon centres is tiny, and with the ease of avoiding any wild encounters you're basically never going to be in a situation where you're wondering if you can make it to heals or if you're going to white out. Every pokemon in your party levelling at first seems great, but then you realise you've only been using one pokemon and crushing, meanwhile pokemon you've never used are getting stronger and stronger too. I'm only 3 hours in so it may suddenly ramp up the difficulty, but at this stage I've never met a trainer I couldn't beat with just my starter pokemon, and unlike other games in the series I also have another 5 pokemon in my party that while they haven't been used much at all, can easily take on other trainers.
Another little annoyance with the whole party levelling is the "X wants to learn this move" spam that sometimes occurs at the end of battles. You will regularly finish battles and get asked that question 3+ times which is a little grating when you just want to carry on. Streamlined in some aspects, but that doesn't feel like one of them.
Graphically the game is good, it feels nice and polished, except perhaps the wild area which looks a little ropy. I've only been playing in handheld mode.
Oh and you also start with an obscene amount of money and get given an obscene amount of pokeballs to being with, so money will never be an issue except for buying the expensive clothes.
So yeah, it's much easier and seems to hold your hand more than previous pokemon games I've played. They really want you to have access to free full heals in various locations. A person before a cave, you talk to them and get your party fully healed. Sure previous pokemon games had centres before dungeons, but in this game the routes are shorter, the dungeons aren't really dungeons and it's easy to avoid all fights, I even managed to run past a trainer (accidentally, I went back and did the battle) so you can avoid trainer fights too if you're in a tight spot, though you'll NEVER be in a tight spot.
So my impressions so far, a nice looking game but too "streamlined" and easy. Pokemon games for a long time have been criticised for not being difficult, but this one really takes the cake.
If you're a pokemon fan you'll enjoy the game and have fun, it's a good experience, but is it a great game? Not so far.
Edit: Oh also the GTS missing is a real bummer, especially considering the online trading that IS there, which is terrible!?!?! As far as I can tell you press the button to do an online trade, then you're put in matchmaking. Like... what? You randomly connect to each other and then see if you both have pokemon to trade the other one wants? You don't enter what you want to trade/get before being matched and connected to someone? It seems like a really stupid system, one that's completely unnecessary because they already had the vastly superior GTS.
| fatslob-:O said: It's a little weird how how this game went under the radar of many reviewers ... |
It didn't go under the radar, Nintendo only gave review copies to 19 outlets. The rest are playing from release day.
Last edited by Barkley - on 16 November 2019
