Hello ladies and gents. I beat LGP on Saturday, and wrote a pretty detailed write-up about the game's pros and cons on Gamefaqs. I thought I would share it here as well. Be warned, though: it's a very lengthy read.
Pros
+ Visible encounters. A welcome - and what many would say is long overdue - change. Seeing the actions and habits of Pokemon in the overworld helps give them even more character than they already had. Examples: Shellder using its tongue to swim, Rhydon stomping the ground, etc. I've seen people say that this is a bad change because it allows players to ignore the Pokemon and lose out on experience, but I think this is a flawed perspective for several reasons. For starters, you could always ignore wild Pokemon with little to no consequence. Personally, I've always ran from wild Pokemon I didn't want to use, because killing them doesn't gain you much. Trainers have always been the main source of experience, and they are how you're supposed to check to see how your team is holding up. With the exception of trainers that you are forced to fight - be it due to plot or lack of space - you can avoid them, too. Basically, this argument has applied to trainers since the very beginning, and it hasn't even been an issue.
+ Improved level scaling. The wild Pokemon can actually be found at decent level ranges now, removing the need to use them in battle to level them up. There are all sorts of examples of this. In RBY/FRLG, Tangela could be found around level 23 on Route 20, but in LGPE it can be found around 37-42. Doduo used to be found around the 28 - 31 range, but can now be found in the 34 - 38 range, etc. This is a change I can appreciate, seeing as how wild Pokemon were always a fair bit underleveled when compared to signficant trainers (gym leaders, evil organization leaders, etc.) until BW. This level buff applies to trainers as well, making the game slightly harder than its originals.
+ Improved plot context. Reasons are actually given for you to do what you do, basically. This is a change I can personally appreciate, as a lot of events that occurred in RBY did not provide much explanation. Ever wonder why would TR invade Silph? In this game, it is revealed that they did so to get the Master Ball. Ever wonder why you needed to climb Pokemon Tower to free Marowak's spirit? In this game, you do so in order to help its baby Cubone get closure and escape from TR. The game has also added more events that expand upon the characters a little bit, akin to ORAS. The most notable example of this is how you meet Lorelei outside of Rock Tunnel and kick some TR ass together. Idk about everyone else, but it always annoyed me how gym leaders and the E4 rarely appeared outside of their gyms/Pokemon league, so seeing things like this brought a smile to my face. There are several other examples I could list, but it wouldn't be fun if I spoiled them all, so I won't.
+ Music remixes are amazing. Nearly all of the tracks are straight improvements upon their original counterparts. Admittedly, GF dropped the ball on a few (namely, the TR Grunt encounter theme - just listen to it. It doesn't sound as nearly as sinister as it should), but they are few and far in-between.
+ Gym leader rematches. Not needed by any means, but definitely nice to have.
+ HMs are still gone, no need to elaborate.
+ Kanto's non-linear mid-game is kept intact. Given the recent linear trends present in SM/USUM, I'll say that I was surprised that GF managed to do this correctly. Let me elaborate on this further. In the original games, the world essentially became your oyster after dealing with the events at Pokemon Tower in Lavender Town. Erika, Koga, Sabrina, and Blaine could mostly be challenged in any order of your choosing (do note that Koga must be defeated to reach Blaine, though). This was something I personally enjoyed about Kanto's structure, as while there is a clearly intended sequence of events, there is no one path that is forced upon the player This still applies to LGPE. Now, the game does provide a bit of guidance as to where to go next, but this is fine, and I'd even say is needed for younger players. Immediately upon reaching Lavender Town, you see Trace head straight into Pokemon Tower. This is a hint that you are supposed to follow him, and the game won't let you proceed into the Rocket Hideout in Celadon until you do so. Once you do that, the game basically tells you to go to the Rocket Hideout, get the Silph Scope, and help Cubone and its mother. After that though, it's just like the original RBY. You can fight Erika if you wish, or you could deal with the two Snorlax and deal with Koga, or you could just try handling Sabrina. Once again, there is an intended sequence of events here - and it is made more obvious than the originals due to trainer level scaling - but you are free to tackle the remainder of the game (up until the eigth gym) in any order you wish. Kudos to GF for handling this well.
+ Handholding/Direction. This is both a pro and a con. It's good in that GF clearly realized that they did not give players much to go in the original games and updated the story to compensate. Two examples that immediately come to mind here are 1) accessing Saffron City and 2) the Silph Co. invasion. For the first, you actually encouter Brock in Celadon City, who gives you the Tea to give to the Saffron City gatekeepers. In the originals, you simply had to buy a drink from a vending machine and give it to the guard. In FRLG, you have to get the "Tea" key item from an old lady in the Celadon Condominiums instead. The problems with both of these approaches is obvious: they are both unbelievably vague. Yeah, it encourages you to talk to NPCS (not a bad thing), but these are both ridiculous, imo. As for Silph Co., you need the Card Key in order to access locked doors in the building and ultimately make your way to Giovanni. In the originals and their remakes, this Card Key was in a rather inconspicuous location, but here, you automatically find it after defeating Archer (yes, the same Archer that debuted in HGSS) and a Grunt. Again, this is a change for the better. Everyone who has played the original games would know where to find the Card Key, but I could very easily see a new Pokemon player getting frustrated trying to find it.
+ Your partner Pokemon. Pikachu in Pokemon Yellow was damn near useless. Thankfully, this isn't the case in LGPE. Your partners (Pikachu or Eevee) have improved stats than their normal counterparts. Pikachu has a stat distribution of 45/80/50/75/60/120 compared to a normal Pikachu's 35/55/40/50/50/90. The partner Eevee has 65/75/70/65/85/75 as opposed to the typical 55/55/50/45/65/55. These were much needed boosts, as your partner cannot evolve, and they go a long way. Your partner also gets new exclusive moves to use. Eevee gets a better kit than Pikachu (and honestly the secondary effects of its moves are absurd), but your partner still isn't really all that overpowered. They are powerful, yes, but not overwhelmingly so. They still lack power compared to their evolved forms, and it shows, even with their new moves and stats. They have more than enough tools at their disposal to pull their own weight in battle though, which is all I can really ask for. That being said, you are free to box the partner if you wish. It isn't forced upon you.
+ Difficulty. This is both a pro and a con. You see people saying this game is easy, but, if you approach it like a typical Pokemon game (which most people will do, because they don't know any better) things can quickly get rough in the midgame. You see, your main source of experience comes from catching Pokemon as opposed to battling trainers. It's actually a little crazy how lopsided the exp curve is towards catching when Trainer battles was always the main source of exp in past games. Ultimately, if you battle every trainer (yes, even the trainer gauntlet from hell that is the route from Lavender Town to Fuschia City) and catch one of every Pokemon, you'll be fine. By following that advice, my levels were roughly on par with the E4 by the time I reached them. I am definitely eager to play around with this a little more in repeat playthroughs, as I've seen people claiming to be overleveled by following the advice above. This is likely due to capture bonuses, which can increase the exp you get from captures by absurd amounts. Anyway, this exp curve works, but ideally GF either goes back to the SM curve (which is damn near perfect, imo) for the next games.
There is also the matter of Coach Trainers. Think of these guys as those trainers in the gen 7 games who would only challenge you after you beat all other trainers on a route. These guys are a step above the usual raft, and can provide optional challenges for those who seek it.
+ Pokemon accessibility. Breeding and all sorts of other features were removed from this game, but thankfully GF had the foresight to allow you to get multiple copies of nearly all Pokemon in this game. You can find Snorlax in Cerulean Cave, you can find wild Lapras and Porygon, and you can even find Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan in Victory Road. This applies to most fully evolved Pokemon, too. That's not even mentioning how you can find Charizard and Dragonite and the legendary birds soaring in the sky after you beat the game. These Pokemon are normally and rightfully very rare, but you can get them to appear fairly frequently if you abuse lures and the new Combo Catch feature. This is a really cool change that I hope sticks around. We had similar features in BW with rustling grass and ORAS to a lesser extent with the DexNav, but this system is vastly superior to both of them.
+ Remains faithful to its status as a Pokemon Yellow remake, with anime referenes abound. I legit smiled when I saw some of these references. The trainers in Cerulean gym are named after Misty's siblings, and they even kept the gag of Prof. Oak being a lame Pokemon poet. I won't spoil more than those, and I would encourage anime fans to seek them on their own.
+ The UI, with the exception of the Pokemon Box, looks absolutely gorgeous. Everything, from menus to Pokemon sprites, just pops and creates a really vibrant....atmosphere? Atmosphere is not the word I'm looking for, but let's just say that looking at the game just feels good.
Cons
- Pokeball Plus - This controller feels really nice, but it's just bad. Essentially, it only has 2 buttons: one for A and another for B. To use the Y button, you must shake the controller. I have rarely been able to successfully use the Y button by shaking the thing, which is ridiculous. More importantly, some of the shortcuts available to other controller types aren't even able to be used with the Pokeball. Example: Since the controller has no R button, I have to manually trudge through the Pokemon party menu to move my Pokemon around. It's a neat collector's item, but that's it. There is very little reason to use this controller over the joycons.
- QoL removals - ability to check Pokemon summaries (and replace an existing member with a newly caught mon) has been removed. This is likely due to the addition of the portable box, but it still would've been nice to have. Going into the box and choosing to add the Pokemon to your party takes time, especially since the box UI is really bad. The removal of abilities and held items was unnecessary as well, but I didn't miss them as much as I thought I would. Doesn't really matter either way, they will both return in next year's game.
- Having to see your partner Pokemon perform an action is annoying when you just want to Fly to another town. There should have been controller shortcuts ala SM's shortcuts for ride Pokemon. This likely wasn't added due to controller choices and not having enough buttons to allow for it, but still.
- Names of the new moves. Yeah, this isn't major by any means and isn't Gamefreak's fault, but the quality of these names compared to the rest is just baffling. Baddy bad and Zippy Zap just sound stupid.
- Catch controls. It strikes me as sort of odd how GF screwed this up when catching is much more important this time around. When the Pokemon you're attempting to catch is stationary, things are fine. Things get hairy when the Pokemon start to move around the screen though. The problem is that the game never really tells you how to aim your throws to the sides of the screen. What's worse is that these types of throws are remarkably inconsistent as well. For example, if a Pokemon moves to the right side of the screen, the best approach is actually to flick your joycon to the left. That doesn't always work though, and I'm always left scratching my head as to what the devs intended for the players to do. Legendaries in particular are a test of patience, as they are almost always moving from left to right and vice-versa. Use handheld mode when it comes to catching these tricky mons. It's easier that way. Thing is, I shouldn't be forced to use a particular control set just because of the game's failure to teach me.
- No touch controls in handheld mode. Not a big deal, but a strange omission nonetheless. I mean, really, you'd think adding these would be a given. They could have made it so that catching Pokemon in handheld mode is just like it is in Go - with the flick of a finger. SM even had it so that you could even progress the text by touching the touch screen...no such thing here. Again, it's not a big deal, but for me, it took some getting used to.
- Difficulty. The endgame got kind of easy, which is disappointing after the midgame was somewhat difficult. To be more specific: the E4 + Champion got a major nerf in levels, and their mons only have 3 moves each. Now, the sudden level increase in the originals + FRLG was always kind of jarring, but this was a tad absurd when the game even gives you 5 rare candies (for a total of 10) for defeating the two Coach Trainers in the Power Plant and Seafoam Islands in addition to the 8-9 you can find lying around in the field. That's nearly 20 rare candies, so, assuming you have a full team of 6, you can raise each member by 3 levels and still have 2 to spare. It's worth noting that the Champion's Pokemon had 4 moves each in your previous encounter with him...makes no sense why they removed moves for the final battle. If anything, it should be the other way around.
- Online functionality. This was a major disappointment. GTS and Battle Spot don't exist, and have been replaced by a 3 Pokemon code system. If you want to trade/battle with someone, you have to enter the same 3 Pokemon code as they did, which basically forces you to use some sort of online forum to coordinate. The system works, but it's really disappointing when the systems of the previous games were fine enough on their own.
- Gym entry requirements. A totally unnecessary feature that I pray stays far away from the next games. They aren't too bad at first, but I sincerely believe that Sabrina's and Koga's requirements are designed to halt progress. The former requires a Pokemon at least level 45, whereas the latter requires 50 different species of Pokemon to be caught. These are ridiculous. Sabrina's gym is around the 40 - 43 range, and Koga's gym just punishes the player who doesn't catch any Pokemon. These two requirements are nothing more than time wasters.
That's it! I doubt anyone read all of that, but props to you if you did. Overall? This is a good game, and I'm eager to see how GF will apply what they've learned from these titles to the games coming next year. It has one or two major flaws, yes, but the game is very much worth playing through. Really, I see several people talking trash about this game due to "casualization" when they haven't even played it themselves*. Try it. I promise it's not as bad as you think it is.
*Not sure if people have done the same here. That was directed towards Gamefaqs, specifically, so don't take it personally.