As a note, I personally played Shield so my thoughts will mostly be in reference to that, but I just had a lot I wanted to really discuss after having played and my impressions as I went along. I more or less did this in parts as I went and the order won’t be fully concise, but I will say that I both enjoyed the game, but am still upset by certain choices it’s made along with others I didn’t expect to be issues, but, well, are. While there may be more negative than positive listed below, I am genuinely looking forward to continuing to play certain parts of the game even after finishing it. Also please keep in mind this WILL go into some spoilers.

Starting off, I will say I genuinely do like a handful of the new Pokemon, but I also loved a lot of Pokemon from previous gens too and that doesn’t really fix any of the issues with the Pokedex cut. I never expected every Pokemon to be in the game, but my issue is that I can’t even transfer them when I finish, maybe do a replay with them, and I still don’t really understand why. I don’t play Pokemon for fancy graphics or incredible animation. The models still look pretty similar and even if some Pokemon could maybe not interact in certain modes, that would’ve been okay to me. My issue is just that they’ll be trapped in a box eternally and some of these Pokemon I’ve had for over a decade.

And like, I get that this will change up competitive, especially with all the moves that have been removed as well, but they could just… have a list of Pokemon and moves that can’t be used. Heck, they already do that– I don’t see why anything had to be fully cut for this. It just feels like they are trying to push everything in this little box to play a certain way rather than letting people experience and play how they want.

There’s already a fairly linear story to play through, I don’t think there’s any need to restrict levels people can catch Pokemon at (I know it’s only at the Wild area due to how high Pokemon can be and while that is better than nothing, I still think it’s unneeded– most people will have trouble anyway when a Pokemon can literally just one-hit them), what Pokemon they can use, or just how many moves are in.

I always play through new gens with new Pokemon (or forms) only, so it’s really just that nostalgia value and attachment to the Pokemon I’ve had on past teams that I am losing out on. I don’t mind redoing my entire living dex (I’ve done so enough, though, I’ll probably pass on gender differences of any older Pokemon or at least save that for last, but since they can be transferred to an extent anyway…). The problem is just not having these Pokemon with me anymore– I collected all kinds of ribbons and things on them for a reason.

And while I know people have issues with the permanent experience share (while I enjoy it, I do wish there was a disable option for those who don’t) and changes to make things easier for EVs, it still doesn’t really mean much when some Pokemon will, unfortunately, never be completely viable based off overall stats. Even more frustrating, while I’m not entirely sure why (I would guess maybe the move cuts, but in general, it just feels like there’s less TMs that can be leaned), there just aren’t as many options for moves Pokemon can learn. It feels like they cut things out a lot and as someone who often uses very similar type Pokemon, I usually would try and make my movements have a lot of variety to help cover things like giving an Audino Thunderbolt, Flamethrower, and Surf. Unfortunately, my team will not be able to learn a single Water type move this time. I will have Normal, Fighting, Electric, Fairy, Grass, Fire, Psychic, Ground, Ghost, and Dark covered which gives me about half, but some of those moves aren’t even partially strong and between mixed stats and some of the final teams I had to go up against, overleveling was also practically required. Part of me feels like I should’ve expected it when four of the Pokemon are found in the exact same area, but it’s never been a huge issue before despite my tendency to only end up having a few different actual types and even if I didn’t have the STAB bonus, it still worked out. As a side note, TRs especially feel like a step backwards and it’s frustrating as that was a really nice quality of life feature that feels like it was tossed aside. While it’s nice we can at least trade TRs through our Pokemon, not letting TMs be able to now is just… another hit towards trying to fit everyone in this same little box to play a specific way… Like I’m just waiting for a game where we get a set team and have to deal with it because it feels like people are being forced to compromise more and more due to this. The only fire move I could have my team learn was a TM you can’t get until Post-game which made the fight against Chairman Rose one of my most difficult in the game as I had Pokemon who all could suffer to Steel and nothing to really use against it. I genuinely was scared I was going to lose (and very nearly did if it wasn’t for some quick thinking and good item usage) even with a team about 20 levels higher. Like, just, if some people want to play Pokemon on “hard mode”, let them! Let them have tougher battles and no experience share and enjoy it the way they like. If some people aren’t as into battles and want to play it on “easy mode” and get some higher attacks sooner, let them! Pokemon is a single-player game and multiplayer aspects have always been a side part of the game and those who are super into competitive will be fine even if someone’s lower level Pokemon has like… flamethrower already somehow. And like, if they did uncap stats for those who prefer to play casually so all Pokemon can be viable and they can play how they want as if all Pikachu had the power level of Ash’s Pikachu, just have it be neutralized in versus play. It’s that simple. They already do level cap adjustments in the Battle Tower areas. I don’t understand why people have to essentially get punished if they want to play any way other than this specific way.

And we kind of hit a step-back quality of life thing for encounters too honestly. I was fine saying bye to random encounters and liked seeing Pokemon right in the over world along with if they were shiny or not in Let’s Go. I also feel bad for those who shiny hunt as that probably helped a bit over running into every single one. It just seems like a weird change when the models are already in anyway and they still have gender differences show up properly– there’s no real reason the shiny ones couldn’t as well. I think I’d be okay with the random encounters being back as long as it was both– like these Pokemon can show up as both Overworld or random encounters, but not one or the other so people could still have that random feeling without having to constantly force it. That said, I am not fond of being chased which ends up making me both anxious and also screaming in real life so can we maybe not do that.

I feel part of the move changes may be because of Dynamaxing which causes moves to change in a similar way that some attacks would change when they became a Z-Move. I rarely used Z-Moves, beyond seeing the animation, and despite my love of Mega Audino, I actually hated Mega Evolutions and would’ve preferred them to just be permanent form changes. I really detest battle gimmicks and Dynamaxing has to be my least favorite so far. It’s not even how long it takes, but how it feels required. If the enemy team used a mega evolution, I could still beat them without doing so as not all Pokemon could mega evolve anyway. Z-Moves could be strong, but you can withstand them enough and half the time, I knocked out the Pokemon before they could use it, but Dynamaxing causes the HP to increase A LOT along with upping the attack power and if you don’t Dynamax as well, your attacks generally feel like doing a lot less. I generally try to ignore the gimmicks, but the game rarely gives me the opportunity to this time and it sucks. While I could maybe avoid it with some stronger Pokemon or maxing them out more, it still feels like too much at times… Not to mention I’m just kind of tired of both the music and cutscenes for the entire thing.

Similarly, going back to what I said before about kind of wanting you to play a very specific way, this feels even more apparent at the sharp level curve around the third and 4th gyms. The game assumes you’ll be going into the Wild area, doing raids, and training off Pokemon plus getting a lot of the experience increases. I purposely wanted to save the Wild area until the end when I wouldn’t have to worry about running into something I couldn’t catch. Which meant despite catching nearly every single Pokemon I could and even fighting all the trainers, I was still about 5-10 levels lower at the time and some of the attacks were brutal. Even doing some emergency leveling to get a bit ahead by going into the raid area, I found myself coming up a bit short.

Raids also have a handful of issues. While you may be able to take on 1 or 2 Stars by yourself, 3 Stars are a coin flip based off what you have available and who you’re up again and 4 and 5 stars are very hard alone or without a full team. 5 Star especially needs a full team of players as the AI is complete garbage. You CAN get lucky and maybe pull it off with two people, but it’s stressful and unlikely. The matchmaking is a mess as well when it comes to trying to match with friends as their raids won’t always show up. Add on the fact that you can put in all that effort and still have the Pokemon escape from the Pokeball at the end and it can be super disheartening. I really do thing if you manage to get a raid done, you should automatically get the Pokemon. You don’t really have second chances (I mean, I suppose you can keep saving and resetting, but I don’t know, I feel really weird about doing that in this game), you already have to depend on your teammates (I’ve had an AI who brought a fire Pokemon to a raid against a Water Pokemon) and while sometimes I’ve gotten lucky or close to winning if all the AI didn’t keep dying (as if a total of 4 Pokemon faint, the raid automatically ends… Which I also think is stupid– I can understand the 10 rounds, but unless the team fully wipes versus the same one or two people keep fainting, I don’t think there should be a fainting element to lose) and people really love to just… rush to Dynamax. I generally check my teammates to see who I think would be the best to and if I don’t think my Pokemon will do it, I’ll pass. And it’s so rare to see it get passed beyond one other person because people just… LEAP to that Dynamax button as if their life depended on it and if the Dyanmax’d Pokemon gets knocked out or is just… clearly underleveled, everyone is kind of risking it and it sucks. I feel horrible when I miscalculate and fail. One of the things I genuinely like about raids is it actually feels REALLY NICE to be able to help friends out (or at least attempt to) or even just random people. There’s something really fulfilling about it and I think I just wish it was possible to do more parties of the same raid if multiple people want to try against whatever pops up like… if someone is late, make a new room. I think that’d be cool. Even once I finish, I’ll probably pop in at times to help people out and that’s probably the first time I’ve ever really had a reason to play more of Pokemon once I finish my own goals.

Moving onto graphics, honestly, the towns were beautiful. The trainers mainly worked, but the Pokemon felt rather… bland at times. Like if I dropped a cell-shaded character on a painted background. It didn’t look bad necessarily, just kind of lackluster. Especially in the water.

In general, the Wild Area is a bit less impressive in comparison to the towns, I would guess it’s partially due to how much is IN it in the first place.

Regardless, like I said, while it’s mainly a models thing, a lot of the areas are just really stunning:

The only other thing I’d maybe bring up are some of the “battle arenas” when just battling out in about… Like Hop challenging the main character at the Hot Springs area only for it to put us on the outside Winter path. It was just kind of strange.

I’m also not really the biggest “music” person in games, but the two themes that stood out to me the most were Circhester’s Town theme and one of the Gym trainer victory theme remixes. It just sounded so bubbly.

As for customization, it was kind of mixed. I think they had a good variety for some things like jackets, pants, and skirts, but all the shirts felt pretty plain with mostly just being some variant of a long sleeved or short sleeved shirt for the most part. I would’ve loved something similar to the Tie-Neck Blouse from X/Y. I still feel like X/Y had the most “variety” style-wise– just not much in the color department, which thankfully Sword/Shield does well with, though, I do miss having “light” and “dark” versions of each color while whether you get light, neon, or bright colors seems to vary based off brand and not usually more than one shade of a color. There’s only two dresses and both are hot pink. While I could maybe try pairing a pink jacket with the white dress which looks okay, I just wish I could wear a nice light pink one. There’s a handful of skirt styles, but all are fairly short, even shorter than the dress skirt length, and it’s kind of disappointing. I still found something I like though at least, but god, why couldn’t there be some light pink dresses?

I would say hairstyles are where I was most disappointed and while I at least liked them more than Sun/Moon to an extent (I think they did wavy hair better there than here though), I still think X/Y did the best. Male hairstyles still kind of lack a bit and I’m not sure why they just… don’t include all from past games or something, but as for girls, my main issue is the lack of long hair. I loved the long wavy ponytail from X/Y and know a lot of people who used the long pigtails, but Sword/Shield’s longest hair only goes a bit below the shoulders/barely mid-back with the ponytail likely being that long hairstyle up and that’s it. I genuinely don’t understand why we couldn’t have longer hair.

I also wish we could customize our “challenger” outfit to some extent beyond the numbers. We unlock these other uniforms, but can’t even use them in the battles themselves. I also just… hate the fact that a couple of gyms vary per game. I can deal with version exclusive Pokemon, even if I do find it dumb, but exclusive gyms or anything similar just sucks. We don’t even see those characters at all beyond the gym introduction thing despite some mentioning through League Cards and I have no idea why. Like we really can’t run into them somehow? We still saw the characters in Black/White… It’s just so weird to me, especially as it causes region exclusive league cards too and like… we really can’t run into them to battle them too?

As for the gyms themselves, I found the stadium environment dumb, but did like the different challenges to get up to that point. I also enjoyed how the “Elite 4” worked in this game– it made me think of the Anime. The puzzles were fun too for the most part. The ice/rock one kind of stressed me out a bit.

Moving onto the Online stuff… Surprise Trades are essentially Wonder Trades, so I still enjoy them, but the removal of the GTS sucks and the Link Trade codes don’t really work 100%… Like it’s a neat option if you don’t want to add everyone I guess, but you can easily get someone else and sometimes, it can take a couple of times to get who you want to. I already spoke about Max Raids earlier and still stick to that. Some also just… fill up so fast and while I am looking forward to being more helpful with friends, half the time the thing doesn’t even properly pop up which is a bit of an issue. Though, considering all the maintenance, it seems they are still having some issues with it. While it can be laggy, I do genuinely love running into people out and about. I just don’t know why they didn’t let people’s icons be their trainer, maybe even from their league card, versus having to pick one of the random game trainers to represent you on the Y-Comm.

I would say my favorite part with Sword/Shield would be some of the collection aspects. I love being able to collect all the league cards and fill out the curry dex as well while working on my living dex. Camping is also a lot of fun, though, I wish we could get more toys and even customize our tent a bit more beyond just the color. I also would’ve liked to see our hotel room to be honest… Honestly, I just want both character customization and some kind of room/secret base customization too :( I feel like there were areas it could’ve been… (Also tired of the Eevee for girls, Pikachu for boys thing… I’ve always liked Pikachu more than Eevee, why couldn’t I have a Pikachu plush in my room or even both??). I’m also looking forward to trying to get all the Alcremie variants and that brings me up to my least favorite thing with the Curry Dex and Alcremie Collection: Getting the items you need sucks.

While most of the main food ingredients in the Curry Dex aren’t TERRIBLE to earn, one item you can only get rarely through raids and berries are mainly through randomly shaking trees. What berries you get are random and if you shake too much, you get attacked by a Pokemon and lose a lot of, if not all of, your berries. As for the other ingredients, while some are sold randomly, most of it is just randomly gotten through talking to trainers in the Wild Area or randomly stumbling across them, but it’s still all random. Random ingredients, random berries… And with Alcremie, there’s 7 different flavors for a total of 70 different Alcremie variants (Vanilla Cream, Ruby Cream, Caramel Swirl, Lemon Cream, Matcha Cream, Mint Cream, Rainbow Swirl, Ruby Swirl, Salted Cream, and Shiny with each of the 7 decorations) so you need to get 10 of each of these decorations which are only through random Cafe Battles you can do once a day and there are only three total cafes. Even if you somehow lucked out and got 3 sweets EVERY DAY and they were somehow all ones you still needed to do, it would take over 23 days minimum. You also need to hope you don’t mess up as some require spinning over 5 seconds in a different direction or even over 10 seconds at a specific time. The first time I even tried, despite normally spinning no problem, I was so stressed out I immediately failed because it’s such a gamble if you even get these. Like they could’ve just made it so which sweet you gave the Alcremie is which color you get overall and while I do like this way (and the Strawberry is honestly my favorite), it’s just… a lot.

I genuinely think some of the new evolution systems are interesting and cool, but I wish it wasn’t so luck-based. That is my biggest problem. And it quickly gets frustrating.

Other messes are everything with the fossils. While yes, you could just trade to make it easier, you’ll still be a bit short as there are four different fossil Pokemon that are essentially abominations that were brought back to life wrong by combining two fossils and honestly, I feel absolutely awful about it?? I hate this. I hate that they did this. WHY would they do this?? Regardless, you can only get more in your own game through yet another random chance game. I will say the fossils came faster than I expected, but it’s just… why is so much up to random chance? This goes for evolution stones as well and if there is one big complaint I have with the game, it’s how convoluted everything is. Like I’m so tired of paying the Skilled Digging Guide to try and get things.

I feel like maybe if the weather changed more often, that would at least *help* make things feel less hectic or like so much to keep track of, but it doesn’t and it’s just kind of frustrating at times. You get so many PokeDollars too as you play the game and yet, so many items can’t be bought. :/ There are also items that PokeJobs are really helpful to get, but I ended up not doing them often as due to the way I keep my box organized, it would always get messed up upon their return/removal. I kind of wish it was possible for them to just be in their space, but like… locked in the same way a Pokemon pending for surprise trade is versus needing to move everything around again when they return or thinking I’m crazy and didn’t actually catch a Pokemon because I stress too much.

Finally, the story and the characters… I really liked the characters and while some went back and forth for me, I found myself mainly wishing we could hang out with some of them more. I know a lot of people didn’t like Hop and I feel part of it was his determination that he would definitely be the Champion even as he loses to the MC each time. It wasn’t even like… general bragging of being the best, but like “Even though I keep losing I’ll still be Champion” and it came off a bit strange, but I still kind of liked him along with Bede and Marnie as well.

Speaking of Bede, I would just like to say I am absolutely pinker than him, Ms. Opal >___> Anyway, going back to my point… I liked the story a lot and I like how it built up. I think my only real issue is I often picked the options to not immediately battle or ask why, partially in hopes that maybe it wouldn’t force me to like how you can skip the catching tutorial, but also just to see if it varied the story at all, but other than seeing a bit of dialogue difference, it mostly just acted like I picked the “wrong” choice and had me go through the dialogue again. I know it was silly to hope for an option to essentially say “I’m only here because Hop dragged me into it”, but I still kind of got hopeful if only due to some of the choices they gave me.

I kind of wish we had more moments where we COULD respond how we wanted. Maybe it was just our character actually having more expressions and animations, but I felt more attached to them as a character and it made me wish I could do more and act a certain way. Especially during some of the big battle monologues. We very rarely get an option and it’d be nice to get it more.

I also was disappointed, though not surprised, about how Chairman Rose ended up being the real villain. Team Yell felt more comic relief than anything and it’s always some big important person or someone with a lot of power and well, it panned out. In general, the whole thing felt like a stretch, and I get that Pokemon never has the most sensible plots (I mean, Gen 3 showed that plenty with Team Aqua’s and Team Magma’s goals…), but it just felt weird in the sense of wanting to help these people of this town so much… he wanted to abandon them to ensure the energy lasts to the future without fully understanding how it all worked? And then he just… turns himself in. I loved the entire scene against Eternatus a lot so I’m not necessarily mad, I just kind of would’ve liked if maybe we didn’t have to have some ridiculous over the plot once, especially as I liked both of the characters and they were friendlier than pretty much all the other “villain” heads.

The Post Game was also just kind of strange, but I enjoyed seeing all the characters again. I kind of wish I could’ve pointed out that Hop is the one who dragged the MC on this journey/path in the first place, but oh well. I think my only complaint is we really only saw Marnie after that and Bede’s moment was too short. For the other “rival” characters, it really felt like they were barely around and I would’ve liked to hang out with them more and learn about them without just reading about it on the back of their cards. I also still had so many questions about the Royalty thing– am I a Princess/Queen now?? Do I really have a thrown somewhere? Can I make my title Princess? These are all very important questions.

I will say overall, I think the whole thing with Eternatus and the sword and shield was absolutely my favorite part in the game. The cutscenes were amazing, the characters reactions were great, the music was perfect, I felt so pumped up during it and there isn’t really a similar scene during post-game unfortunately but just like, look at their precious faces and some of these scenes from that moment:

And just kind of a quick fire brief thing with last opinions:
-I’m glad we got some version of a traveling box back along with more “normal” boxes. While I liked a lot of Let’s Go’s sorting options (like being able to sort by Pokedex number… That was so helpful…), I prefer the boxes to a super long menu.
-Something I never expected to say, but I’m kind of glad Pokemon following wasn’t in the game. As much as I usually like it, Let’s Go showed it REALLY doesn’t work well when there’s overworld sprites as it just makes the screen feel really busy and when you’re watching for Pokemon spawns and your own Pokemon just keeps moving around, it can be really distracting. That said, I think a good compromise in the future would be something where smaller Pokemon can still hang out if you choose for them to and/or having it so they could still pop out during cut scenes or areas where there aren’t wild Pokemon. That said, there was an option to just… not have a Pokemon follow you so it still could’ve worked if it did stay around.
-I get that Hop chooses the starter weak to ours, but him already having a Wooloo and challenging us to a battle with 2 Pokemon against 1 was really messed up.
-Honestly, some of the Pokemon cut are just… genuinely surprising and feel more UK-ish than some of the ones in (such as the Lillipup line versus the Pancham line). It just makes the dex cut feel even more disheartening because the reasons don’t add up enough. And I still stand by that we really do have tons of Pokemon already– I would love to see a game focus more on everything built up (or even just a new region) even if there weren’t any new Pokemon or just like… new legendaries. They’ve made so much great stuff, I wish they’d do something using it all rather than scrapping so much of it every new game or doing weird cuts like this.
-If a Pokemmon has a Gigantamax form, all of those Pokemon should– not just some of them. Every Pikachu, Every Gengar, Every Alcremie. Make it through an item maybe if needed, but it’s super frustrating as part of the fun is raising the Pokemon early on and if you just have to catch this fancy already evolved Pokemon, who may likely escape no matter how hard you try, it removes some of the fun bonding journey experience.
-I continue to miss the Dex Nav, especially as they keep adding more conditions for when/how to find Pokemon.
-2% catch rates are absolute garbage. I can kind of give it some flack for high level evolutions, but literally the base evolution (if there is even more than one evolution)?? Seriously?? Raid exclusives also suck considering how random it can be. What frustrates me the most is it’s all luck based. Someone can run into the grass and immediately get it while others can be running into them for hours with no luck. There’s no skill, it’s just endless monotony. Not to mention I swear the game has a higher chance of giving you a Pokemon you’ve caught or seen before than one you haven’t v-v;
-Pokemon Camp is really cute, but I kind of wish I could just watch them more as the… toys are kind of boring and we can’t really pet our Pokemon either. I wish we could add more things for them to do like toys and stuff like Pokemon Amie. Similarly, having our Pokemon say how they hope to be pet when we literally can’t in this game is just cruel.
-As much fun as the Curry dex and cooking with your Pokemon is, I wish the… method was less spammy? A bit simpler or just button pressing timers versus as convoluted as it is.
-Since we can take items away from Pokemon in the box, it’d be nice if we could also give/use/evolve them too, honestly.
-The Bike controls are kind of really awkward? The turning/controls just feel rough and it tends to do a lot of big arches.
-The Wild Area is a gimmicky mess. I think there’s cool aspects to it, it’s really fun to run around and see other trainers and Pokemon popping up in all kinds of environments in like this crazy area full of different biomes, but it’s also super laggy when there’s a lot of trainers and Pokemon, the weather changes by day which while cool at times is significantly less cool when trying to find a Pokemon that has a 2% spawn rate only in random grass (the 5% overworld ones are kind of annoying too, but easier to deal with) or playing Den lotto with Wishing Stars. I do think it’s an interesting idea, but just not really furnished a lot. I think maybe smaller areas spread out with set weathers would’ve worked a bit better.
-As cool as the bike going right into a water-riding-bike thing, I do miss surfing on Pokemon. Or with Pokemon.
-I understand why Sinistea breeding would generally be a forgery because of these… rare tea sets, but it kind of sucks the form doesn’t carry over if breeding a legit one. Similarly, if I give it a legitimate tea pot (Chipped), why can’t it BECOME an authentic one? Like it is possessing my tea pot even if the tea cup wasn’t. As a side note,, while I am glad it’s not a big difference, it sucks that you really have no way to tell without catching it unless you get lucky with how the camera moves during the battle.
-The move relearner, move deleter, and name rater all being together in one NPC in every Pokemon Center was really nice. I hope that sticks around.
-The Joy-con switching around is really cute as is getting the same Pikachu and/or Eevee as whatever gender you had at Let’s Go. I love cute Easter Eggs like that. Also really makes me wish I had pink Joy-Cons. Or that light pink ones existed.
-Kind of how Let’s Go let a random user tag in locally, I kind of wish they took that an extra step this time where if when in a Wild Area, another Switch user could connect to their saved data to play together with the other so users who only have one Switch could still raid and trade.
-I genuinely adore a lot of the new Pokemon designs. Definitely have some brand new favorites that would easily be in my top 10-20, if not top 5.
-Only being able to change our outfits in the Boutique again sucks.
-Why is there no weather key?? Sure, some are pretty obvious, but others I manage to constantly mix up somehow. Or at least flat out say the weather in the details.
-I genuinely wish there were more moments on the train. I really liked those cutscenes and it could’ve been a nice way to just… chat with characters from time to time too.

-The game seems to prioritize online notifications by anyone near you, anyone on your friend’s list, and then anyone in your region/playing the same language followed by maybe those playing in others. While it definitely shows a lot of people just wandering around, it’d be nice to see more notifications and connectivity with all players, especially when playing at times where it’s really early for most people I know.
-I’m so happy that move learning is identical throughout the line versus some Pokemon only learning certain moves at a certain stage and level varying. I don’t have to worry about missing something now.
-I really liked making my own League Card, but I wish we had some of the sparkly color backgrounds that some of the ones we collect have. A lot of the options we had for ours either felt like too busy of a pattern or were literal scenery and it’d have been cool to have some options similar to ones we collected. Regardless, that didn’t change me finding something I really liked.
-It’d be nice if the game said when someone is changing their Pokemon when in a raid with someone.
-I get that the Battle Tower is mainly for those who want to play competitive, but some people still just want to have a powerful team of Pokemon they love and maybe get all the cute collectibles and just, if I want to steamroll through with level 100 Pokemon versus level 50’s, just let me please. I also wish I could use Pokedollars instead of needing to earn BP because again, you earn A LOT of Pokedollars and while I prefer too much to too little in this case, there really isn’t much to spend it on once you finish the story itself and are dressed how you like.
-While I don’t really need voice acting in Pokemon, it was genuinely a bit awkward at times that they did all the mouths moving but… had absolutely no sound beyond awkward occasional sound effects. Even the little text beeps would’ve been fine, but it just felt really weird.
-I AM SO HAPPY WE CAN SIT ON BENCHES AGAIN. I missed sitting. And I love how the… menus fade out when you do this so you can just watch the scene unfold. I also really adore the character idle animations.

Anyway, I have less than 20 Pokemon left for my Living dex so it’s time to get back to it :)

I’ll edit this entry when I’m done.

Edit on November 28th, 2019 at 10PM EST: The Living Dex has been completed!

The video can be checked out here :)