It's been a couple days since release (or two weeks for the one-eyed sailors), guess it's time for this thread. So, what do you all think of the game?
Bugs: Ok I'll be honest: I do not have a Nintendo Switch. So I sailed the high seas. My PC is obviously better than a Switch, thus I did not see a single bug that was reported on Twitter, which got me wondering if people weren't just fishing for them. However, the games do have issues, to the point even I felt some ridiculous framerate drops and had to restart the game. The overworld still looks ugly with those poor-ass textures, and every single NPC starts walking at 5FPS once they are more than twenty feet away from you. This is ridiculous, and I have no idea how they managed to do this. However, I did not pay for the game so all in all I am unaffected. Still, I hope they at the very least release a patch to fix the so-called memory leak and all the other weird shit going on, because this game does have potential and feels a lot more alive and "soulful" than Sword/Shield. I honestly think this is the future of the franchise, it just needs proper investment.
Character design: Overall I think I liked every human design in the game. The characters aren't really deep but they all do their job, and their visuals are great... except for Penny and Nemona. Penny feels kinda off-place with her color scheme (and honestly, you know that Eevee backpack is smelly), and I didn't like her using slang too much; what teenager still uses "epic" in 2022 TYOOL ffs. Meanwhile, Nemona went waaaay too far in her battle obsession, to the point I just rolled my eyes whenever she appeared on-screen. A shame, because I liked her design otherwise. Also, why is everyone gay in this game holy shit
Overworld: I don't know how to feel about the utter lack of dungeons and buildings in this game. I mean there is exploration and it's nice and all but I like that feel of finding some bumfuck cave in the middle of nowhere and having to take a look, y'know? The cities also look terrible with no walling whatsoever, Cascarrafa being the worst offender being just beside a desert. Cities feel more like big public squares in the middle of the wilderness than proper urban centers, almost like we were back in PLA times.
Victory Road: Bread and butter and typical pokemon, can't complain much. The Gym challenges were a cool addition, even though they were absurdly easy and didn't even had much connection with, well, anything else. Glaseado Gym having no city was irksome too, it's like GF didn't know where to put the final gym so it was just there.
Geeta's team is honestly underwhelming. Kingambit should have been her ace, Glimmora simply doesn't have that "oomph" expected of the final Champion pokemon. Half the team feels like pushovers too, I'd replace Ava with Baxcalibur (and then make Doctor Garchomp, Ph.D, Hassel's ace), Gogoat with Arboliva (the cooler Grassy Terrain-related pokemon), and Veluza for Palafin (seriously why doesn't anyone have it???). Hell, they could even have made Palafin her lead and ace, if they wanted to be silly. Or even better, given all of them Terastal and let whoever is sent last to be the Tera. It's the Champion, for heaven's sake, let her go bonkers.
Path of Legends: It was a really easygoing path, although it also felt a bit short.This path was tied to Korai/Miraidon's abilities so you couldn't stretch it for too long, I guess. I think my only big issue with it is that the Titan battles were too easy. The HMs should buff the Titan stats like the Totem mechanic, so at least they'd put up more of a fight.
Also, the False Dragon Titan not being a proper double battle was criminal. I understand the game can't handle wild double battles, but then just choose another final Titan that isn't so obviously Doubles-oriented!
Operation Starfall: I really think they dropped the ball on the difficulty of Star autobattles. 30 pokemon in 10 minutes is nothing, I honestly can't see how even a 4yo would have difficulty passing it (even if not at first try). It should have started at, I dunno, 50 in 5 minutes and then a +20/+1min increase per squad defeated. Anything not to make it a walk in the park. The squad boss battles, on the other hand, were top-notch. A total banger. I'm still sad playable Revavroom doesn't get any of the cool abilities, though.
I really thought the climax was dumb while half-watching the leaker stream, but now it does make sense. Penny couldn't beat them because of the damn Code so she had to play by it. Still, the whole Cassiopeia disguise was so poor I'm impressed the game kept it for longer than Clavell's lol. Playing it myself, I don't feel the bullying theme was tacked on, either. It felt realistic even, each of them had a "reason" to have been bullied (but they never showed Penny, I guess?), they wanted to fight back but were blamed by the whole mess, and in the end the Director understood the situation thanks to his investigation so they all got a happy ending (and the bullies still left the academy).
Finally, Penny's Terastal speech in battle was really eggy lmao. "Become what you really want to be" yeah right, of course it's the kid with blue hair
I'll take the final path tomorrow, so I'll finally meet Sada in person. Hopefully the plot/gameplay still holds up.
Bugs: Ok I'll be honest: I do not have a Nintendo Switch. So I sailed the high seas. My PC is obviously better than a Switch, thus I did not see a single bug that was reported on Twitter, which got me wondering if people weren't just fishing for them. However, the games do have issues, to the point even I felt some ridiculous framerate drops and had to restart the game. The overworld still looks ugly with those poor-ass textures, and every single NPC starts walking at 5FPS once they are more than twenty feet away from you. This is ridiculous, and I have no idea how they managed to do this. However, I did not pay for the game so all in all I am unaffected. Still, I hope they at the very least release a patch to fix the so-called memory leak and all the other weird shit going on, because this game does have potential and feels a lot more alive and "soulful" than Sword/Shield. I honestly think this is the future of the franchise, it just needs proper investment.
Character design: Overall I think I liked every human design in the game. The characters aren't really deep but they all do their job, and their visuals are great... except for Penny and Nemona. Penny feels kinda off-place with her color scheme (and honestly, you know that Eevee backpack is smelly), and I didn't like her using slang too much; what teenager still uses "epic" in 2022 TYOOL ffs. Meanwhile, Nemona went waaaay too far in her battle obsession, to the point I just rolled my eyes whenever she appeared on-screen. A shame, because I liked her design otherwise. Also, why is everyone gay in this game holy shit
Overworld: I don't know how to feel about the utter lack of dungeons and buildings in this game. I mean there is exploration and it's nice and all but I like that feel of finding some bumfuck cave in the middle of nowhere and having to take a look, y'know? The cities also look terrible with no walling whatsoever, Cascarrafa being the worst offender being just beside a desert. Cities feel more like big public squares in the middle of the wilderness than proper urban centers, almost like we were back in PLA times.
Victory Road: Bread and butter and typical pokemon, can't complain much. The Gym challenges were a cool addition, even though they were absurdly easy and didn't even had much connection with, well, anything else. Glaseado Gym having no city was irksome too, it's like GF didn't know where to put the final gym so it was just there.
Geeta's team is honestly underwhelming. Kingambit should have been her ace, Glimmora simply doesn't have that "oomph" expected of the final Champion pokemon. Half the team feels like pushovers too, I'd replace Ava with Baxcalibur (and then make Doctor Garchomp, Ph.D, Hassel's ace), Gogoat with Arboliva (the cooler Grassy Terrain-related pokemon), and Veluza for Palafin (seriously why doesn't anyone have it???). Hell, they could even have made Palafin her lead and ace, if they wanted to be silly. Or even better, given all of them Terastal and let whoever is sent last to be the Tera. It's the Champion, for heaven's sake, let her go bonkers.
Path of Legends: It was a really easygoing path, although it also felt a bit short.This path was tied to Korai/Miraidon's abilities so you couldn't stretch it for too long, I guess. I think my only big issue with it is that the Titan battles were too easy. The HMs should buff the Titan stats like the Totem mechanic, so at least they'd put up more of a fight.
Also, the False Dragon Titan not being a proper double battle was criminal. I understand the game can't handle wild double battles, but then just choose another final Titan that isn't so obviously Doubles-oriented!
Operation Starfall: I really think they dropped the ball on the difficulty of Star autobattles. 30 pokemon in 10 minutes is nothing, I honestly can't see how even a 4yo would have difficulty passing it (even if not at first try). It should have started at, I dunno, 50 in 5 minutes and then a +20/+1min increase per squad defeated. Anything not to make it a walk in the park. The squad boss battles, on the other hand, were top-notch. A total banger. I'm still sad playable Revavroom doesn't get any of the cool abilities, though.
I really thought the climax was dumb while half-watching the leaker stream, but now it does make sense. Penny couldn't beat them because of the damn Code so she had to play by it. Still, the whole Cassiopeia disguise was so poor I'm impressed the game kept it for longer than Clavell's lol. Playing it myself, I don't feel the bullying theme was tacked on, either. It felt realistic even, each of them had a "reason" to have been bullied (but they never showed Penny, I guess?), they wanted to fight back but were blamed by the whole mess, and in the end the Director understood the situation thanks to his investigation so they all got a happy ending (and the bullies still left the academy).
Finally, Penny's Terastal speech in battle was really eggy lmao. "Become what you really want to be" yeah right, of course it's the kid with blue hair
I'll take the final path tomorrow, so I'll finally meet Sada in person. Hopefully the plot/gameplay still holds up.