~7-8hrs into it and these are my first impressions:

pros:
- Love the new format in visuals. Finally feels like 3d. Big leap for this game.
- Love the world design in general.
- Love the island challenge as opposed to gym battles - cause you still feel like you are battling gym leaders/strong enemies while doing some other aditional trials.
- Love the addition of Poke Rides as substitute to HMs. That really takes out one of the annoying aspects of the game.
- Love SOS battles as opposed to the terrible Sky Battles.
- Love trumps hate.

Cons:
- The story is terrible. And this is an even more story-driven than any previous game, so im really not loving that aspect. Team Skull is easily the worst "evil team" in the history of the franchise IMO and the second place is not even close.
- Characters. Dont like most them. Hau is supposed to be your rival? Its the worst rival in the entire franchise. I dont care about that guy. I like to have a rival that teases me and makes me wanna kick his ass.
- The National Pokedex is short and lacking of many competitive pokemons plus almost all of the new Pokemon have terrible base speed for unexplainable reasons.
- No Stan Lee cameo so far.

So I do feel its delivering for me, but the story aspects of it really annoy me (maybe im too old?) I hope it gets better as I progress.

Whats with the bling in that Photo?XD

Meanwhile I'm still Wartung for the damn Game Go release over here....

Whats changed? I haven't been following the game

This.

Even on launch the 3DS resolution was a bit distracting with how low it was. So a nice "HD" release will work wonders for me. Maybe the Vita spoiled me, but since that came out I found the 3DS resolution distractingly low.

I've been saying that Pokemon is stale for a while but these games sound like what I've been looking for. That being said I'm waiting to see if the stars rumors are true.

I'm gonna have to order it... For the first time ever I actually care about the version I want as I'd prefer in game time to reflect my own, but Sun is sold out everywhere heh

This might wind up being the biggest disparity in sales between the two. Ima check a nearby GameStop early tomorrow and see if they have one.

We'll see tomorrow if I agree or not.

For some reason it didn't sway me to get it day 1 (unlike XY or ORAS) but I definitely will pick this game up sometime..

I'm about 5 hours in, but I definitely agree so far. The formula feels familiar without being a clone of the previous games, the difficulty is satisfying, and the character models look fantastic. Time will tell if this changes, but last time I enjoyed a Pokemon game this much was Heartgold...so hopefully the quality stays consistent.

Finally! May have to check it out after all.