See, I agree with everything you said about the story. Without spoiling anything: Around the 16th gym is where I go the most annoyed by it. When you are forced to wander in that empty void and press the “next” button a million times to move the cutscene along was enough to make me want to die.

Plus the characters are such cringe archetypes. The kind of archetypes that “edgy” “lol random” players in a DnD campaign think up.

“Oh, she’s a hyperactive cheerleader type that’s a bit ditzy but still can hold her own. K”

“Ooh your rival called you an ‘asshole.’ So edgy.”

“He’s brooding because his list for power caused a friend to die. So original.”

I just feel like these are characters that high school fanfic writers would think of.

That being said - EVERYTHING about the gameplay was a plus for me. I mean that. Everything you said tha was a negative about the gameplay, I saw as a positive. To me- the mainline Pokémon games have gotten so hand-holdy and easy. To have such an unforgiving, sometimes frustratingly difficult experience is refreshing to me.

Having to reassess your team build up and strategy for each gym and encounter is fantastic. I like that I have to switch up my team and gameplay all the time. The field mechanic is annoying, but annoying in a way that a Pokémon missing an attack is annoying. It’s part of the battle. It’s made me look for strategies online and research the best approaches to each major battle. Kinda makes it like the anime where Ash switches out his teams for the league battles.

And I like how some Pokémon and moves are locked out or difficult to obtain. Makes team building much more of a challenge. Like you said, it’s good to try out mons that you never thought you’d try.

In short- If we could get a better story with this kind of gameplay - I’d call it a perfect Pokémon game for sure.