>>45978816I humbly disagree with you. My argument is that Alola is actually the one of the most soulful regions of the last decade (mind you, that doesn't mean that SM/USUM weren't shit). The worldbuilding of these games were superb and enabled the games to objectively have an identity independent from other regions, be it through trials, the individual island's or even cities' cultures. Alola was furthermore one coherent region, there were no places that felt "out of place" or even forced, as their placement on the map or their actual purpose was always hinted at or bluntly stated. There was an attention to detail unprecedented before, be it through subtle references to Hawaii (for example, Palossand's shiny and Punalu'u Beach) or minor easter eggs and actual side quests like the Eevee Trainers. That said, through extensive handholding and forced KANTOOOOOO everywhere, the region feels uncomfortable sometimes, although that's a mistake inherent to the devs, not Alola itself.
The sad truth is that Alola was finished and it had the right ideas, but was cut short out of accessibility concerns for the adhd children. If they had a less forced plot and if they'd just work on the features of XY instead of autistically trying to fix what definitely wasn't broken (see PSS or Megas), I think SM could have been kino, comfy and soulful, it certainly had the right ingredients for that.
