>>57290560The real-time features and semi-open map made the in-game world feel dynamic, so playing with your friends each day felt rewarding and exciting.
Even if all you did on a given day was train a Pokémon up a few levels, it would often still feel like a decent day’s work since you’d have other side objectives to do throughout.
I remember when I got stuck on Whitney, and later Clair, I didn’t get frustrated like I did getting stuck in Gen 1, and that was because of all the side content giving me something to do if I can’t beat a given challenge right away. Just made the whole game feel much richer in the moment.
