God I hope future PKMN games truly have humans as a minority species. Hurling a PokeBall to suck in a monstrous pokemon SHOULD be the way we incapacitate a Pokemon. We should be able to toss a PokeBall at a monster and be able to use that time while it is immobilized to be able to duck behind a tamed Pokemon and be able to battle the wilderness down. There's survival horror there.

Can't wait to play PL:A

 

While the fantasy sounds nice in your head, that's absolutely not how it's portrayed in-game. The game starts off kinda hinting that way, but it takes all of 5 minutes for someone to say the old 'we need to learn to live with the pokemon' etc etc snorefest.

 

I completely ignore natures, EVs, stats, etc. I did competitive battling/breeding for a while a long time back, so I know about it, but it's a lot more fun to play casually. Abilities would be good in a follow-up, but I really don't miss any of the stuff that everyone feels "must be present" in a pokemon battle system.

I feel the turn-order system [FFX-style!] more than makes up for everything taken away.

 

You can ignore EVs and IVs now too, they're basically out of the game. Nature is still a pretty big stat swing though.

And there's something really weird going on with attack and defence in this game. I'm taking more and doing less than what I should be (which is fine, just weird).

 

A neat touch I liked is that when you do the various side quests from villagers to go catch them pokemon, those pokemon will spend the rest of the game out of their pokeballs in the village doing their thing. Not gameplay relevant, but it helps convey the fact that you're changing the villages attitudes as the game progresses.

 

I'm about 30 hours in. Just got the fish (I don't like catching water pokemon on it, feels bad). You might ask how it's taken me so long to get there - I'm basically completing the pokedex in each region before moving on, basically ignoring the story.

This game is definitely much better than the mainlines for me apart for a few really glaring issues that I hope are addressed in a followup:

1. I'm mostly fine and actually like a lot of the changes to the moves in this game, but there's nowhere near enough. There's a bunch of Pokemon I just won't use because it feels like way too many have utterly gutted movepools (rip Flareon with one 65 power stab move....)
2. Abilities need to come back. They add a lot of flavour to a Pokemon - I don't even know how Zoroark works in this game without them, I'll have to see.
3. More specialised balls. Just give me a Water Ball (Did I mention how much I hate catching in the water yet?)
4. Get rid of space-time distortions. They can be kinda fun, but I'd rather them build up the hunting/catching system in the normal world than have these pop up... almost treasure dungeons? It feels like I'm bypassing the system and I'd totally ignore them if it weren't for the evolution items in there.
5. Let. Me. See. All. Quest. Handins. On. My. Map. Without. Tracking.
6. Inventory management is never fun. Ever. Go away.
7. Let me go between regions without returning to the main hub.

Btw, the best thing in this game? Having a 10ft tall gigachad Alpha Rhyperior looks amazing. Especially when the size is visibly a factor. The speed changes too are great (if really fucking annoying when it's 1v3, but at the same time this gives Pokemon like Rhyperior way more value).

 

> I'm mostly fine and actually like a lot of the changes to the moves in this game, but there's nowhere near enough. There's a bunch of Pokemon I just won't use because it feels like way too many have utterly gutted movepools (rip Flareon with one 65 power stab move....)

Is that including the move tutor?

> Get rid of space-time distortions. They can be kinda fun, but I'd rather them build up the hunting/catching system in the normal world than have these pop up... almost treasure dungeons? It feels like I'm bypassing the system and I'd totally ignore them if it weren't for the evolution items in there.

They make sense for bringing pokemon like Porygon or from other regions in. And you get a few items each time but they don't actually break anything money-wise.

> I'm basically completing the pokedex in each region before moving on, basically ignoring the story.

Eek. I can't imagine doing that, since you unlock better movement options and better balls later in the game. After the story is done, the areas also expand with post-game stuff, so you can't actually unlock everything the first time around.

 

That includes the move tutor. The moves just aren't there.

It seems Alphas can learn more from the tutor, but yeah, not enough. You can look at them on serebii. Physical mons are mostly okay though bc if they have arms, they can learn the punches.

Leafeon and Sneasel have pretty good type coverage. My Typhlosion literally only learns Fire and Ghost.

Btw, Umbreon can learn power swap. Does that move just turn him into a beast? Or does it only swap stat boosted stats (like calm mind)?


As for doing the dex, it's not that bad. They need to be done anyway, and when i say 'finish an area,' that just means what i can actually get.

I'm like 1.5 stars off max and i only just beat Arcanine.

 

Porygon is another mon that feels kinda pointless without an ability right?

Man, I'm really missing abilities - more than movesets I think? (though best boy Umbreon feels so sad right now...)