>>44241005Cramped region, annoying characters, shit story, Z-Moves are an awful addition, no good sidegame content and the maingame is garbage too. Oh, and you're bombarded with pointless dialogue constantly from said annoying characters throughout the way. Ironically one of the more dialogue-heavy sections of the game, Melemele Island, is the most enjoyable part of it. Maybe it's because every other part of the game looks like shit and lacks the soul OP mentioned. Melemele, unlike the rest of the region, does have plenty of sizeable areas to discover on your own unlike the rest of Alola though. The design of the island is just nice overall, with Hau'oli City being one of the best cities in the series for me, or at the very least best city in the 3D games. The way it seamlessly transitions from area to area feels so natural and well-crafted, reaching the meadow was the last time I enjoyed this game in my playthrough. The totem fight was unique and fresh, which makes sense since it's obviously the first one, but it just showed that it was merely a novelty since none of the others besides the thrift mart were anything special. Lana's was just basic tasks, Mallow's was just a fetch quest, Kiawe was just a dumb meme, Sophocles' was just a gym quiz with less battles, and the Kommo-o one wasn't even a trial.
After Melemele you have some boring island with nothing unique to it and even the volcano being unexplorable, the third island again with nothing unique to it besides some mandatory areas like the thrift mart and Po Town.
The fourth island barely even counts as one. I like off terrain exploration as much as the next person but there's not really anything of significance there outside of the continuously grating story.
The Ultra Dimension or whatever the fuck it's called is a huge pile of nothing. Ultra Beasts themselves really aren't that special. The Lusamine shit was just banal family drama. Aether Foundation is as generic as can be.
