The game has a surprising amount of side and post-game content, a solid, coherent art style, great graphics for the system standards, and a good soundtrack before it all went to shit with the Switch era.
Unfortunately, it is held back by various issues. The amount of dialogue and cutscenes is unnaceptable, and the handholding is worse than Gen 5 with all the roadblocks funneling you exactly where to go and the map markers. The region also suffers from the 'theme-park-itis' problem, which has plagued every new region since Unova, leaving it without an identity. If they honed in on the tropical setting more and made stuff like the Tapus more prominent Alola would've been on the same level as Johto/Sinnoh.
As much as I hate Gen 7 and its insufferable fanbase, I can at least admit that it wasn't anywhere near the levels of pure shit that was to come in the preceding years.
Those are my thoughts.
