>>49290448>Tell me someSo again, I was pitching all the mainline games to a friend who is not familiar with them but who was a kid for Pokemania. Alola got points for
-Region itself has a variety of biomes, culture expressed through architechture, etc. that imo makes progression traveling through the game rewarding
-Diversity of species per route/encounter zone means diversity of team building options
-Characters comprise one of the only casts in these games I can remember the majority of, though Hau and Lillie are kind of bland the rest are good
-On that note the ‘evil team’ being just a bunch of dropouts and knuckleheads who love street art post up in an abandoned town that’s always raining is kino, fuck you
-Battle gimmick is easy to understand and a decent intro to thinking about competitive if someone trying the series out gets into comp, plus gen 7 retains previous gen’s gimmick for postgame
-Not gonna claim the story is super compelling but desu it’s easier to recommend than the straight-ahead ‘save the world’ scenarios and
-UB invasion, tho I’d have preferred it got more time in the oven, is a treat
-The gen has a sense of humor about itself up to and including the nostalgia bait
-What nostalgia pandering there is does something new with old material
-Overworld feels less static than e.g. the Wild Area or most of the 2D games’ overworlds
-Campaign is decent, and totem battles and trials are more interesting than standard gyms
-Regional dex is solid, with a lot of charismatic designs / clever concepts executed well; games show you how these creatures fit into the environment socially and ecologically
-instrumentation choices give the region a musical signature
-QoL: SOS chaining for good IVs / abilities, bottle caps, optional affection for fast training, options for rapid EV tweaking
-Transferability of all mons from previous gens
-Infinite replayability trying to identify the Masked Royal
