I've just started playing. The level curve is... weird. Until route 2 I've been using just Scorbunny and have avoided all optionals, wild encounters and caught nothing outside of raids, and I'm about equal with Hop's 3-man party. Some route trainers have something that's just straight up more threatening than Hop's entire team; not to mention I'm "on" the curve by doing the bare minimum.
The wild area is also very exploitable, as it gives you Pokemon around level 20 straight away, while my Scorbunny was only level 10.
Some of the graphics are surprisingly nice, and others are exactly as bad as you imagine them to be. Tackle/ Quick Attack have a nice run-up that reminds me of the console games, and I cannot figure out why didn't use the same for Double Kick.
You get rail-roaded, but with less interruptions than Gen 7, and you can skip some batches of text.
The Wild Area is, at least initially, fun to explore, and I got my ass kicked by a level 42 Basculin.
Raids are alright, actually kind of fun, but the stuff they give you is ridiculous. I've got Drill Run, Seed Bombs, Shadow Balls and Tri Attacks just from doing whatever I happened to find.
