>>58784524I like it as an idea, and it's not like it really takes away from the story, it adds a bit more to the whole Mt. Coronet trek and extends the climax of the story a bit. But mechanically speaking, it's really lacking. The puzzles aren't really hard, there's no actual battling content outside of Cyrus and Giratina, you're mostly meant to marvel at the 3D camera movement and otherworldly aesthetic in a tile-based game, but frankly, that's not that different from Kalos Route 1 existing merely to show off the camera of Pokémon in a more 3D world and nothing else.
How I would have handled it would have been by making it more expansive, like Mt. Coronet size but navigating downward, and have Cynthia accompany you to heal you between double battles. No wild Pokémon, just have more complex puzzles and scripted recurring double battles against Red Chain Dialga and Palkia as you work to defeat them enough times to break the chain and free them, and have a 3D map with checkpoints you can warp back to. Have your final battle against Cyrus, and then Giratina Origin Forme. Have it so that bringing Griseous Orb Giratina to the Spear Pillar in the post-game allows you to open a shadowy portal to return to the Distortion World so you can navigate it again, but have little spacetime portals at former dead ends where you can catch rare Pokémon like first stage starters from other regions or find rare items that have fallen into the void if you meet specific conditions. I just think that the Distortion World deserves to be more than what it ended up being to really deserve its reputation.
