>>35672395Currently playing through it right now for the first time after playing Emerald's about a dozen.
Right off the bat, there are less options to chose from, which is annoying in its own way. Tower and Factory are identical to their predecessors so that gives you only three new facilities to choose from.
That said, they do have completely new gimmicks to them, which is appreciated since gimmicks are what make the facilities. The Arcade is probably my favorite out of them because of the element of surprise. Each battle is going to be different in some way, making you adapt, and its just fun to see where you land on next. It's kind of like the Pike in that it's partly based on luck, and also a relief in that the luck element can be controlled to an extent and isn't total RNG bullshit like the Palace was.
Castle is probably the hardest because of the CP system being used in place of being healed after every turn, actually making you consider how you spam moves since replenishing that and your health is expensive. It reminded me of the Pyramid in how you had to handle resources, though it was more restrictive in the Pyramid and thus more of a challenge there.
I like that Hall changed some things up and made it 1 vs 1 instead of 3 vs 3 like everything else, and how you can choose what type pokemon you fight against. My biggest issue is that once you start a streak, you have to keep using the same pokemon until your streak is broken, voluntarily or because of a loss. Since I like rotating pokemon while on a streak to give variety, this one annoys me the most.
Due to changes in the movesets of the pokemon used in the Frontier, there's actually less bullshit than there was in Emerald. While quick claws and double team still abound, more sets are offensively oriented instead of relying on gimmicks which makes it easier to progress farther and faster than in the previous Frontier.
