>>46124540Didn't know that. Cool. Certainly explains why the trials were less than impressive most of the time. I like them in concept, but they could be so much better in execution.
If you ask me, Pokemon's big change happened when it went 3D. I don't have a problem with the 3D look or Pokemon not being 2D anymore, all that is fine, but something changed in Gen 6 and it's felt different ever since. Maybe that's just because Gen 6 was the first gen I played all the games for, or maybe it's something else. Whatever the reason, I know the shift you're talking about, I just think it came sooner than you do.
That said, I still like Alola. It's bright, colourful, and just downright gorgeous most of the time. I love that the Hawaiian themes are carried through the entire game, from the story, to the characters, to the Pokemon themselves, making it all feel like one unified package. Trials weren't great, but the Totems could be challenging, and the games were noticeably more difficult than X and Y. Still not that difficult, this is Pokemon, but better. The games have their failings to be sure, but there's clearly some effort put into them, and definitely soul. Even if Alola isn't mechanically excellent (It feels small to me) it feels good. Which is more than I can say for base-game Galar or most of Kalos, for example.
As for the games themselves, it's hard to say. The story puts you on rails now, keeping you on track with map markers and roadblocks, like you said. That is a definite downgrade. But everything else is mostly the same. The story has always varied wildly in quality from game to game, so there's not much point in doing anything with that but rolling with whatever good or bad comes our way. I for one enjoy Alola's story. It's not Unova good, but it's better than Johto or Sinnoh. The increased cinematics as time goes on are pretty neat. I think the games have improved in some ways, but degraded in others. The SwSh dlc gives me hope, but we'll have to see.
