Very enjoyable throughout
First, the negatives: I have had the game freeze up on me once, as well as having assets not load in properly. Visually the game is a little lacking and very often you will find parts of the games that appear buggy or visually displeasing. The difficulty and balancing is odd to say the least with a strange feeling of the world being tougher than the player much of the time, and a vast change from the mainline games.
However, I have found the game to be really enjoyable, one of my more favourite games from the franchise. The exploration is fun and often rewarding, finding a new pokemon or an alpha to challenge. Filling the pokedex has a new method, requiring you to actually work on researching them, although at times can be a chore, does feel really engaging, and you are rewarded well for doing so. I found myself making notes on what I need to do in order to complete research notes and it feels as though I am really working on researching pokemon.
The story is somewhat formulaic and I can easily see people not enjoying it all to much, but it's still fun and acts as a stepping stone to more exploration of new areas and new encounters. As well as this, new quests to occupy your time too. Some are a little harsh and required some googling to figure out what I was meant to be doing, but for the most part I've also been going out of my way to complete them as it a good way to take a break from the story and it drives you to find more things and fill the pokedex.
The game has flaws, and it took some getting used to in the visual department. The new pokemon designs are questionable at times. But looking past all that is an incredibly fun game that I'd easily recommend for pokemon trainers looking for a fresh take on the games they've loved prior.
Verified purchase: YesCondition: Pre-owned