Why do people hate these games again? Story is serviceable but probably the worst thing about the game, but the new Pokémon designs are great and just have this soulful feel unlike the previous gen, following pokemon is a fine gimmick and add some much needed soul, and they fully embrace the gimmick, making every pokemon (all pokemon are in this game by the way) be able to follow you, there are more interesting rivals, the evil team is more interesting than any previous iterations, they made six new sprites of every pokemon, they made a front and back sprite for each of the three original johto games and all of the sprites are pure retro kino, and the day/night cycle was added. Also kanto returned and expanded the scope by having a massive second region to explore and battle all the previous gym leaders with a fun journey, and they contain the kanto pandering there, focuses more on the new johto soul in... johto. Theres so much to explore, including a few water routes. There's also the exp share also, luckily, you can turn it off whenever you want, so you can have it on to help a low level team member out a little bit and then turn it off after youre done so you arent as handholded and overleveled. Also, the graphics are a soulful 9-bit and are objectively better than any soulless nupokemon with 3d graphics. Sure the color palette isn’t great and theyre simplistic, but its a good because it’s bad situation. beauty in simplicity. Sometimes, I want a slow flawed in some ways, but still enjoyable remnant of the past to remind me of the soul we had in the old times im comparison to the souless
trash graphics nu-pokemon. In addition, the pacing is great. 9/10, kino, pure heart and soul were put into it. Speaking of the words heart and soul, I won't even touch on the disappointing remakes