>Open world with no strict linear path
I'm okay with this in theory. It wasn't done well here, but if we take a moment and recall, Gamefreak always fucks up the first foray into new territory and does somewhat better afterwards once they understand what they did wrong. RBG to Y, GS to C, RS to E, and so on. The biggest example was Sun and Moon; the original games were bad, but USUM were spectacular in comparison. SV is just that shaky first step, as always.
>Storyline
This was a wild departure from previous games, but reminiscent of Sun and Moon. Paradox Pokemon are basically another version of Ultra Beasts, but more reminiscent of existing mons rather than taking wild chances again. They absolutely failed on balancing the quality distribution though, since most future paradoxes were bland and uninteresting where past paradoxes were significantly more imaginative.
>Soundtrack
Hit or miss like every game. Had an early miss with the hilarious looping audio bug that made the E4 sound bad. Climactic battles had good music though, where it counts. Don't care about Ed Sheeran, but the ending theme was a nice touch.
I hope the sequels for SV improve on all the flaws, at least to some degree.
