Easily the best of the modern pokemon games I've played (I haven't played scarlet/violet yet). The new gameplay loop is really fun to the point where this was the first pokemon game I've ever actually wanted to 100%.

I wish the game were more polished overall though. I don't usually care about graphics, but this game gets really bad at times. I can deal with the random pop-ins when flying around the areas, but the weird tracing issues (especially bad when in caves) are just baffling.

I have a few other smaller issues with the game like the random invisible walls in the sky, the main character really can't handle inclines of any size which can be annoying when you're trying to sneak over a tiny incline to avoid scaring a pokemon, and the main character's run speed is a little too slow for me. It's not a big deal when you're out exploring the areas since you'll probably be riding a pokemon, but when you're in town or in a place where you have to travel somewhat long distances and can't ride anything it gets a little annoying, especially when you're trying to get somewhere far away from a teleportation spot.

Overall, I had a really fun time with PLA though and I hope future pokemon games use this as a template (and hopefully future games will be more polished).