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Okay, where do I begin?
Pros:
First of all, despite all of the bad, I will say that it is unironically a pretty comfy game. The aesthetic can be pretty edgy, but between well-designed routes (not necessarily in terms of accessibility) and the GlitchXCity music, I found myself enjoying a decent chunk of the game purely on that.
Custom shinies plus the increased odds made hunting exciting and snappy with the bonus of getting something potentially really pretty. See: pic rel.
Terrain and battle mechanics were more often really fun to play with and made each battle unique. More on this later.
The graphics look consistently good, though I wish they would update the character model. It is really outdated.
Cons:
Pokemon selection is incredibly shallow for the sake of artificial difficulty. While it can be exciting to get a rare Pokemon from a side quest, in the end it made team building a slog. It became much more enjoyable when I got Pokemon that I like earlier than intended.
99% of the story is "Bloodedge the Hedgehog" kind of edgy, and involves a lot of over-the-top material such as suicide, excessive cursing for the sake of cursing, sexual innuendos, and the like. Even goes on to have your usual Gardevoir x Trainer trope, but both are pretentious and gets lemon-scented quick. That aside, a Pokemon game can be adult themed without any of those things.
The devs overload the game with a multitude of characters and expects you to remember them all by name, while frequently involving as many as possible. Often times there will be dialog scenes with 7 different characters on the screen with no name box. On top of being shallow characters by design and as a result hard to attach to, there's just way too many. At best there are only 3 or 4 characters out of a good 25 that have any substance. Some characters are totally insufferable as well.
The game often mocks the player for doing things it forces them into, such as save scumming boss fights.
(1/2)
