>>37218163To me, Reborn is comprised of three major elements: the difficulty, the overworld encounters, and all the gym leader fights.
When it comes to difficulty, anything made by Drayano stands out. More challenging than the base games, but always fair.
Recently played through Wilting Y and that was an absolute ball-buster. Turned the easiest game in the series into the absolute hardest without relying on any bullshit. If you lose a fight, it's entirely on you and your tactics; a 10/10 experience. I don't have much to add here that isn't already touched on earlier in the thread.
When it comes to overworld encounters, I'm gonna be honest with ya, there is nothing better than Reborn. That was the bulk of the creative process and it absolutely shows. No other pokemon media has come close to that kind of immersion yet. Like I said, the sidequests and overworld encounters carry Reborn and make the lesser design choices a lot easier to swallow. It really gives you a lot of appreciation for mons that you might've overlooked in other games. Maybe we'll see more of this in gen8 now that Gamefreak has done away with random encounters.
When it comes to fighting lots of gym leaders, Crystal Clear does it best, though I'm loathe to recommend it on principle. You can fight and refight all the gym leaders in Johto and Kanto in any order, and the difficulty curve is consistent and satisfying all the way through, which is more than I can say about Reborn.
Reborn's biggest and most fatal flaw isn't the edgy writing or SJW checklist, it's that it isn't consistent. Quality and challenge spikes and drops all the fucking time and that can be a deal-breaker for most. To me, it's not a game that you can say is totally awful or totally good, simply because of how wildly it fluctuates. It just is.
