Having never played Pokemon games before, I guess I now see what the hype is about. It seems like a game you can continue playing and optimizing for dozens of hours, and the collectable aspect seems easy to get lost in. I didn't expect to have fun playing this game, but was pleasantly surprised. I thought it would be a cheap knock-off, but it shows that they've put a lot of thought and love into the game, and I think a lot of the quality of life improvements over the 'regular' pokemon games.

If I had one thing to complain about is that in their desire to imitate old game consoles/devices, the amount of buttons they are using is highly limited, which makes some interactions and menus more awkward than they could have been. I get that you had to rely on holding buttons and multiple steps to every menu back when you only had like 4 buttons on a controller, but even the basic x360 controller has a bunch more this game stubbornly refuses to use.

I had fun completing the story mode, and if I had been younger and this was one of the only games I've had, I can see how I would have spent hundreds of hours in it.