I've pretty much finished the game (aside from going to kick the shit out of Hop one last time), and so, late to the party as ever, here are my thoughts. I'll break this down into good and bad like everyone else has:
The Good
The Pokemon - I really love the new Pokemon this gen. I think this is probably the strongest new wave we've had in a long time. For the first time ever, my final team consisted entirely of Pokemon from the region the game is set in. If you're curious, my final team was Cinderace (first time I've ever picked a fire starter on my first playthrough), Hatterene, Boltund, Corviknight, Drednaw and Obstagoon (technically Zigzagoon and Linoone are Galar forms rather than new Pokemon, but Obstagoon's totally new, so I'm comfortable saying it's a Galar 'mon). Despite the Dexit controversy, I never personally felt like I was missing out on anything because there's still a good variety in the game, but I can see how some folks might. The fact you can catch loads of great Pokemon early on is really good too.
Pokemon appearing in the overworld - This was one of my favourite things in Let's Go Eevee and I was so happy to see it return here. I thought it would only happen in the Wild Area, but it happens everywhere. It's one of those features where I'm going to miss it when I go back to play the older games.
Leveling of wild Pokemon - The fact wild Pokemon scale closer to your team's level was so refreshing to see. Not only did it make late game replacements to your team much more viable because the Pokemon you caught were actually worth a damn, but it also meant the few times I had to grind, it didn't feel nearly as tedious because I netted quite a lot of EXP from taking on strong Pokemon. On the same note...
EXP Candies - Again, this made late replacements to your team much less of a chore to raise. I had to switch out the fairy type slot in my team twice - I started with Eevee, hoping to evolve it into Sylveon, but it was the special Eevee you get for having a Let's Go Eevee save file, and I realised slightly late it didn't evolve. I've documented my woes with Galarian Rapidash further upthread, so I eventually settled on Hatterene, but the one I had in the PC had been caught a while ago at that point, so it was really underleveled. Thankfully, EXP candies meant I could get onto the Seventh Gym without too much dawdling.
Design of some of the towns and locations - I absolutely loved Postwick, Slumbering Weald, Ballonlea and Circhester. They haven't revealed which real-world locations the towns are based on yet (not that I'm aware of anyway), but Ballonlea felt a lot like the New Forest (one of my favourite places in England) and if Circhester isn't based on Bath, I'll be very surprised. Postwick perfectly captured the sleepy English countryside, and I wish more of the region could've followed suit. Beautiful stuff.
The Neutral Zone
This is stuff I was meh about:
Difficulty - Yes, the game's too easy, but I wasn't that fussed because if I'm honest, the last Pokemon game I had trouble with was Soul Silver and that was more because of a lack of EXP and endless grinding rather than genuine difficulty. I still didn't white out until I reached Sabrina. There were some battles I had trouble with in Shield, the most prominent of which was Opal's Togekiss which came dangerously close to sweeping my team. Zacian also one-shotted several of my Pokemon before I took it down, so I will give the game credit for those. The league was a joke though - not even the Kalos league healed your team between every round.
The Wild Area - There are things I like about the Wild Area. It's fun to free roam around a huge environment, and the variety of Pokemon on offer is incredible. I finally caught myself a Steelix after all these years. But there's not enough content to keep things going, and the environment just isn't that interesting when you get right down to it. I think if more minigames had been thrown in, or they'd made the environment a bit more varied and interesting, it really could've been something special.
Story - The story's shit, but I don't play Pokemon for the story, so I didn't really care.
The Bad
The Galar Region - Despite the praises I sung of some of towns/locations above, the Galar region is my least favourite Pokemon region to date, for one simple reason - it feels small. It feels like there's a lot less exploring to do and the way the region's set out is really weird. While most regions go in a circle or a line, Galar is more like a half-pipe. You go up one side of the map, then come back down and go up the other side. It's a bold attempt to try something new, but it ends up feeling repetitive. I also didn't like the overall atmosphere in Galar much, but maybe that's because I'm from England myself and it felt too familiar. After the Alola region (which I loved), this felt like a serious step down in terms of design and has supplanted Kalos as my least favourite region. No more European-based regions please Nintendo, it's just too depressing. Also, England does not have a (sand) desert and I hate desert areas, so this would've been the perfect game to leave it out of.
Graphics/Animations - I'm not a graphics whore, and I usually don't mind too much if there's the odd animation glitch, but I agree with everyone else that this game feels unpolished in that department. Characters will glide to a halt rather than coming out of their step which got distracting after a while, battle animations are very repetitive and the game looks... muddier than Let's Go Eevee which felt much more bright and cheerful by comparison. Also, the way Zacian turns around in that cutscene that was posted here a while back is fucking hilarious. I don't know how that made it into the finished game.
The Postgame - Maybe I was spoiled by Rainbow Rocket and the Delta Episode, but my idea of a postgame is not a walking tour of all the previous gyms with some lame Dynamax battles. However, I will admit I laughed my arse off at the appearance of Sordward and Shielbert (mostly Sordward), and I sort of like how the box legendary is withheld until right at the end of the game, so I will give it some credit.
Dynamaxing - I didn't like this feature at all. It was fun the first couple of times, and watching a Dynamaxed Pokemon explode once it's been defeated is satisfying, but it got old fast. Mega Evolutions did the concept of Pokemon temporarily getting more powerful much better. Dynamaxing feels like a step back and I hope this is the last we see of it.
Conclusions
So those were my thoughts that probably no-one cares about at this point. I did enjoy the game and I'm not sorry I bought it, but it wasn't what it could've been and it's my least favourite Pokemon game I've played recently. To me, this game is sort of like Stranger Things Season 3 - not a jump the shark disaster, but a step down in terms of what's come before. I hope the downward trend doesn't continue, but I fear it may yet do so.
Ah well, back to my Omega Ruby playthrough.
