>>56540337I just got it for my birthday, and I've been playing it a ton since. It's genuinely the best Pokemon game in the franchise, it isn't generic "go fight the gyms and trainers for badges and the champion title" shit, it goes back to the roots of the franchise where the focus is catching pokemon and studying them as well as creating bonds between pokemon and humans.
It is, bar-none, the best Pokemon game I've ever played. It embodies the spirit of adventure that Gen 1 tried to give you and doesn't put you on storyshit railroad like gens 3 onward do where you have to spend 30 minutes sitting through NPcs chattering on about shit you don't care about every 5 seconds and there aren't artificial roadblocks keeping you out of areas.
Like, I was exploring some caves and found a big obvious roadblock. I was like "oh I can't go here until I do the story stuff" but then thought "Fuck it let's throw graveller at it just to see" and lo and behold it came down, I got some iron ore, and was able to keep exploring. This is the good shit, this is what Pokemon SHOULD be. You should be on an ADVENTURE, not a shitty railroad with a poorly-written "story" and godawful NPCs who interrupt you every 3 seconds to spout exposition.
