Overall a game for people who like the Trainers, this game can actually be hard to get Pokemon fans hooked. That’s because when you’re playing Pokemon, you’d usually stay for the creatures. Besides that, why else?
-Lots of mechanics are laid out to grasp.
-It suffers from typical gacha downsides.
-It’s endless, so if you’re really behind, it can be hard to catch up.
-Free sync pairs tend to be unusable for the most difficult challenges/modes/events.
-Kind of related to what’s said earlier, it also suffers from story and character nonsense. Since it’s a gacha game, the writers seem to try to find a way to keep the show going on, even though that means the story continuing won’t make sense (e.g. Most of the Villain Arcs), the lore of the core series will be messed up (e.g. the random presences of legendaries, but the issue is probably minimized by the fact some battle facility Trainers own them beforehand), or a character becomes rewritten to a certain extent.
-If your favorite character is unpopular, good luck wishing for them to get a playable sync pair soon. Popular characters usually are the ones who get new sync pairs. If they’re among the most popular ones, they can get multiple, maybe reaching around three or four as of now including their original look.

However, the good things I can think of are:
-The costumes can be cute or cool!
-Characters from different games get to interact, and this may be the first time in forever you can see a character again.
-You can get to know characters better by seeing them in action more!
-It has better odds for limited-time character banners than most other gacha games.

First, let’s talk about gameplay. Again, it took a long time for me to grasp it. It was overwhelming. A lot of explanations on skills and training and battling are given and it can be boring.

My favorite part of the game is the Champion Stadium solely because, as a free to play player, I can clear it with no problem. In other times, like the recent Water Type Event (an event that gives higher multipliers for every water-type sync pair in a team), I struggled because I did not have enough sync pairs raised. The leaderboards in a lot of modes (e.g. the type event I mentioned and the Legendary Gauntlet) are full of people who pay for this game. That's because the Type Event requires a handful of strong sync pairs of a certain type, while the Legendary Gauntlet requires lots of strong sync pairs for a longer win streak. The in-game successful teams list feature is also sometimes unhelpful to me too because they also seem to be sourced from people who pay. For example, a Ghost-weak opponent would have a successful team list full of compositions including Sygna Suit Cynthia paired with Anniversary Lillie, and I don’t have the former. In short, paying for the game gets people far because of more upgrade materials and more sync pairs to use. Admittedly though, I am not the best at strategy games so using the lists as a guide could basically be cheating for some, but I have recently been completing every Champion Stadium at Master Rank and 12-streaking Legendary Gauntlets ever since I started picking up the gameplay. I must say, I’m mostly carried by having the Master Sync Pairs, which I advise for new free to play players to roll for due to the main banner character having a Master Skill that ups the team’s damage deal and reduces their damage taken, 2% higher rates for 5-stars, and additional roll bonuses. I don’t advise playing this game if you have other games you have scheduled to play daily. On days you can’t play, you can simply login every day just to collect the login rewards and then leave.

Next, music. Not too fond of most remixes of core series music, but I don’t mind the originals. If I got it right, the remixes usually take some of or remove buildups to the point the tracks’ energies do not feel the same to me. However, there are exceptions. Some remixes (e.g. Grimsley’s Champion Stadium battle theme and the special remix of the Subway Boss battle theme which song key was given away for free) are great!

The rest… Some stories that try to be inspiring or serious become hilarious to me because of the gacha nonsense the writers make up to explain why the sync pair exists. Ho-Oh appears out of nowhere and Morty immediately comes back in a sygna suit. Hilbert has another Kyurem different from Ghetsis’s and he basically says “there’s nothing wrong with having two” as if the writers are aware its existence is going to be questioned, all to conveniently give N a sygna suit. Oh yeah, and N has both Reshiram and Zekrom for some reason, even implying he had them both for a while now. All these may be explained by the fact that Lear, Pasio’s owner, owns a Hoopa that transports people from different places and time periods. So, this can come off as funny.

Some characters, like Cyrus, are also changed so that the story can continue. In Diamond and Pearl, Cyrus’s goal was to eliminate the human heart. But in this game, he was written to understand the opposing side, unlike in the core series. Perhaps it was for closure? Regardless, this effort is all put to waste in my eyes because the Villain Arcs seem uninteresting and nonsensical to the point I’d be fine with just a short event to replace them.

Another thing I feel like pointing out is that the game loves to pander to people who like to “ship” (the romantic fan pairing of characters) characters—an example I can think of is that Calem, who in this game is based on the rival take on him, is way too much nicer in this to the point it’s hard to believe this is the same guy. In X and Y, he was so infamously passive-aggressive—consistently and intensely jealous of the player character’s strength, but in this game he’s the so-called friendly rival who seems to harbor no aggressiveness towards the protagonist of X and Y in this game who is Serena. He always proclaims how awesome a rival she is, mentions that he and Serena are mistaken to be in a “relationship”, and is present in a handful of story sequences that star the latter to support her or to talk about her. Serena in turn mentions that she is wholeheartedly thankful of him and goes on shopping with him occasionally. That’s not all, Calem’s description in the Trainer Lodge mentions her to be someone he respects more than anyone else could. There’s also others, like Dawn with Lucas, and May with Brendan (I must say for May and Brendan that already existed since OR and AS). It can be a pain. I get that this is pure fanservice and a gacha game tries to attract all sorts of fans, but it can be painful or annoying when it gets shoved to your face all the time.

Sigh. For all its disasters, I love this game. I love some of the costumes, I really loved the Summer Nights & Wishing Stars event and the recent Solve the Mystery two-parter. I like seeing characters from different games finally interact, and a lot of characters who aren’t seen for a long time also return (e.g. The excitement for N was big!). There’s also satisfaction in completing the limited-time challenges that occasionally come with events (again, this can be hard if you do not have limited-time sync pairs). So, yes, if you love the Trainers, I recommend looking up the stories in this game if you cannot play it or do not want to play it.

While I still play the game almost every day because I want the crown rewards and probably future Fame Passes, it may not be enough for all to continue playing the game. There are about to be 4 Fame Passes, and completing them all (especially without a party member to play with during the Party Crown Parade) can be hard and repetitive! Compared to the first free season, it does give away better event rewards, but the events are all the same within the lines of “go as far as you can in every show.” Nevertheless, if I have to say something good, it's that they started adding creative features and that I think the first three Fame Passes have good-ish rewards. And the beans are cute as always!