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Not great, but far from being terrible as well. There's still much work to be done surrounding:
>story pacing and forced exploration
While most areas remain small several are sizable enough to give a moderate amount of excitment, but lose their potential due to NPC interactions.
>NPC interaction
Aside from the aforementioned Hop has been incredibly overbearing thus far. The Hau comparisons are fair, but even Hau had a much more laid-back attitude which proved to be more tolerable.
>lore
There's hardly anything to gather in this game. Sonia seems to babble on about the history of Galar every few steps rather than allowing the player to discover secrets on their own. Exposition is in the palm of your hand, always.
That being said the game is an improvement over Sun and Moon. A few decent changes that stuck out to me were:
>overworld encounters
Minimizes the annoyances of traveling through the tall grass
>less restrictions on traveling
Though remaining fairly linear, there are several ways to reach a specific destination rather than a singular path.
>TRs add something nice to the mix
Self-explanatory
>gym leaders seem to be more strategic than their previous kahuna counterparts
If one ignores raid battles and exp candy as form of training, most battles are balanced and incorporate a fair amount of thinking instead of super-effective move spamming.
