Okay, once you just sort of... immunize yourself to the fidelity issues by playing for an extended period (and I mean this both genuinely and also with a bit of deserved spite) this game does in fact kick ass. it really does attempt to take the best assets from SwSh and Arceus and put them in one game to a mixed success.
The new Pokemon and character designs are the same as they were in SwSh (which is to say about 90% great) and I like how they're branching out with the music (the new gym theme is literally my favorite in the entire franchise, mainline and fangames all included). The new Pokemon textures make them the best they've looked in the entire franchise though some... choices were made with literally every other tetxure.
The open world is great, it's between Arceus and SwSh in quality for me. It's obviously better than the Wild Area (which I never thought was 100% BAD, just incredibly rough) but it doesn't feel as well designed as Arceus.
I like the rivals/story leads; Nemona's fine, though her whole character seems to boil down to "Hop, but he's experienced this time and also wanted to marry you," Arval's story legit made me cry, and I haven't done Team Star enough to form an opinion about Penny.
It's clear Game Freak had a lot of kick-ass ideas, and I wish they had been given the time to fully implement them and to make sure this game didn't dethrone Age of Calamity as the worst fidelity game on the Switch. Maybe TPC/Nintendo will give them time/funding to send out patches but I'm not holding my breath.
The new Pokemon and character designs are the same as they were in SwSh (which is to say about 90% great) and I like how they're branching out with the music (the new gym theme is literally my favorite in the entire franchise, mainline and fangames all included). The new Pokemon textures make them the best they've looked in the entire franchise though some... choices were made with literally every other tetxure.
The open world is great, it's between Arceus and SwSh in quality for me. It's obviously better than the Wild Area (which I never thought was 100% BAD, just incredibly rough) but it doesn't feel as well designed as Arceus.
I like the rivals/story leads; Nemona's fine, though her whole character seems to boil down to "Hop, but he's experienced this time and also wanted to marry you," Arval's story legit made me cry, and I haven't done Team Star enough to form an opinion about Penny.
It's clear Game Freak had a lot of kick-ass ideas, and I wish they had been given the time to fully implement them and to make sure this game didn't dethrone Age of Calamity as the worst fidelity game on the Switch. Maybe TPC/Nintendo will give them time/funding to send out patches but I'm not holding my breath.