>>37058287The bonding aspects of the starter Pokémon made the game for me. For the first time, the Pokémon felt closer to real monsters, even if it was mostly just one Pokémon. Ever since I was a kid, I wanted a Pikachu like Ash’s, and the game provides one like that and makes it feel like your own. Following, and more importantly riding and flying on your own Pokémon are great additions. These features might seem useless but overwold Pokemon make it seem as if the otherwise bland GB map is teeming with life that otherwise wouldn’t be there.
Also, being able to catch the majority of the Pokedex in one game is fantastic for autistic completionism. Only 6 Pokémon lines are version exclusive, with every other Pokémon available in the wild. Imo, more mainline games should follow this by having wild starters, multiples of lesser legendaries and evolved Pokémon available in the wild.
My only gripe with the games are really just the rival being a massive downgrade and master trainers being poor replacements for post game. The rival is fairly harmless and still has a reasonable team but what I really liked about R/B was the cocky rival. Trace just doesn’t have any banter.
The game could have really benefited from a Red, Blue, and Green episode with a little bit of exposition on their adventures prior to LGPE, instead of just one off battles with them. Something along the lines of Delta or Rainbow Rocket episode would have been the perfect wrap up to this game in my opinion.
