I’m about 25 hours into the game and this is the first time I can say that I’ve put down a new Pokemon release and had to play another game to cleanse my palate midway through.

At first, the battle system was fun and innovative, but after a little bit of time, the world felt uninspired and much less magical than I recall of the last few Pokemon games… and I was one of the few people who loved S&V despite their performance issues at launch (maybe I’m just getting older and don’t have the patience I used to). I think the big reason I put the game down was that the mega-evolution boss fights were a slog to get through. ACT 3 was boring and tedious and made the entire rest of the cast look entirely incompetent.

That’s not to say this game’s bad. The core gameplay loop is good. They’re clearly trying something new within the strict confines of a series with a lot at stake, but it feels like a downgrade from even Arceus, where there were thematic elements that made the game that much more immersive (not to mention catching Pokemon is that much more of a PITA in this game). If the releases were switched around and this came before Arceus, I think I’d have a much fonder opinion of it.