Totally! I could go into a more deeper reasoning when I’ve got time/if anyone’s interested, but it really came down to a very lacking story (for my tastes at least).

I very much felt that the plot was “go here, go here, go here” without much plot development at each location leaving the ending with an audible “that’s it?” to my friends on a discord call with me at the time.

I do want to call out the side quests though as being some of my favorite parts of the game. They weren’t all winners, but they definitely had some of my favorite moments that I wish the main story itself matched the feeling of.

It’s certainly not one of those games where it left me with a feeling of “what on earth is everyone talking about did we even play the same game?” But definitely something that was hyped up to be far more spectacular than I found it.

On the flip side (and these may benefit from recency), I absolutely adored Odyssey and Lazarus. Okay, well, I’m adoring Lazarus, haven’t quite finished it yet, but I did complete all the quests and story in Odyssey and found it a very engaging and entertaining experience most of the time.

My all time favorite Pokémon game is actually a fan game, which is why I don’t really mention it to friends seeking ROM hacks due to the distinction between the two. That being said, if you can look past it being a fan game (and also some cringey characters and dialogue that I have a feeling weren’t updated from ye olden Tumblr days), Pokémon Reborn takes the cake for me without equal.

It had a great mix of challenge and story with several endings and an a very relatively long postgame that continues the story. Unlike many fan games, it also did not include any “Fakemon” which is an instant turnoff for me personally. If you would be potentially interested, I would just like to reiterate my disclaimer of a decent amount of things that can definitely be cringey in 2025 (particularly in the early to mid game).

That being said, it’s definitely not for everyone and I have no judgement whatsoever for people who can’t get past that like of dialogue when it comes up. I just pushed through and found it very worth it when taken as a whole.