I've always been pretty critical of open-world games so I was very skeptical when Pokemon announced that S/V would be one. I think overall the game is more hurt by the open-world aspect than even I expected.

The lack of battles, especially required ones, is so astounding and it's not just an issue due to nonlinear routes, but Team Star barely has any battles at all. Just two per base! Overall there's probably less than 50 required battles in the entire game when there could be 15+ in a Team Flare hideout in X/Y. Not saying 15 quick easy battles is what I desire, but I felt like all of my XP gain came from catching Pokemon which kinda made me not feel like I was bonding with my team which is one of my favorite parts of the game.

Having 3 stories that can be completed in any order leaves me feeling rarely appropriately leveled. If I do something out of order I'll have a tough battle in exchange for a bunch of easy ones later. Or just play a bunch of mildly easy ones. At 20 years old, this is the first Pokemon playthrough I've had where I didn't make me black out at least once. Additionally, the non-linearity of the stories makes them satisfying when they come together, but unsatisfying apart from each other. I think the ending with Penny was satisfying due to the battle music and Nemona's final battle with us was cool as well.

The champion's ace having a 4x weakness and not having the compensation of being Garchomp or Dragonite is an interesting choice, but I like how the Elite 4 was integrated throughout the game. I wish the gym leaders were too, but that's what happens when you have three separate story progressions.

The game is obviously in pretty poor shape which really is a stinker. Some moments- the cutscenes- were graphically great while others were glitchy or bad. My dachsbun glitched through the floor in every battle it was in. The Dragon Titan and the Fairy Team Star areas were incredibly laggy and hard to play.

Finally the ending: The ending was cute. I think Pokemon games typically excel in having a good ending. The gen 5 game where you ran to your mom. The battle against AZ. Lillie leaving for Kanto. The scripted battle in this game was a little lame and felt a little Kirby-esque in having a scripted event after the boss keeps coming back from the dead. But walking off with our friends was cute and that whole segment beforehand with their dialogue was as well. Lots of charming parts of this game including that, and the dialogue was fantastic throughout. It's weird to see how much heart was put into some aspects while others seem to have little to no effort or oversight.

The game was fun, but I don't really want to see them do more of this. I'm in the minority of people who liked walking through tall grass, I know. But I think the open-world will stale even quicker than the linear. Even in its predictability, the linear game always drew me in and kept me captivated, this less so and I suspect I will care even less if they do it again.

ALSO the map fucking sucks. I want to ZOOM OUT and ZOOM IN to where my CURSOR IS WHEN ITS ZOOMED OUT. I don't know why that's too much to ask for.

I think the last two chapters are good but the first few sadly are not. The first chapter was a good trial but the impostor sadly had no bearing on the plot which just seemed like cheap fan service / unnecessary red herring. The second chapter and trial were both bad and long (I think this was the longest trial in the game). The third chapter was terrible as well as the crime and the trial. The fourth chapter tried to be interesting but only because of how confusing the funhouse was; it failed to actually be interesting sadly. The fifth trial and crime and plot was probably my second favorite in the series up to this point and was a great twist killing two characters I wholeheartedly thought would be survivors and doing so in a fantastic way. The ending is a little too out there for me.

Character-wise, I have mixed feelings. Although Nagito and Hajime shine as developed characters, many characters lived for several chapters without anything at all. Nekomaru lived to chapter 4 without getting any sort of personality or development apart from pooping (and his absense in chapter 3 was odd). Soda and Sonia both stalled in development as the game focused on their love triangle. Fuyuhiko's development was extremely front-loaded. I'm not going to pretend like characters who die early should be fully developed, but some of them (Mahiru, Ibuki) didn't even get anything post-mortem, (not even in the confession) unlike Chihiro from the first game. I think Mikan is SO FUCKING ANNOYING and I felt similarly about Gundam (thank god he died). Hiyoko is one of the only genuinely funny characters that this game has ever produced and to kill her off as soon as she was getting the ball rolling on development is sad. Of course, Nagito is a gem and I liked Chiaki and Hajime is certainly more interesting than Makoto.

It was fun to play this with my friends but it doesn't really hold up compared to the first game. Something about the trials felt a lot worse, and the lack of despair from the cast really made them (and the murders) seem low stakes and just another part of the game, not part of the story.