This is the first in what will likely be a consistent series of blog posts where I go over my experiences playing various games. Most of these will likely be about me completing games as I have always enjoyed slowly working my way towards 100%-ing what I play.

The most frequently featured series is likely to be Pokemon as it is one of, if not my favorite, game series staring with my first exposure in generation four and my first playthrough in generation five. Despite my continued love of Pokemon throughout my life I took a long break from playing the games from halfway though generation seven through generation eight. My love for the main series was reignited about two years ago when playing through Violet starting right before the final DLC released, I think about a year late to the release of the game. Since then the series has once again been a major part of my life I have have constantly been looking forward to catching up on all the games I have been missing out on.

Because I did not start preparing this until after I had been finished with the main story for a while, there won't be much detail about my actual gameplay here.

preparing for departure

I was more excited for the release of ZA than I had been for any game in a long time. It was the first Pokemon game I actually had to wait for since getting back into the series through Violet and every new look into it made me more impatient.

I understand that a lot of people were not sold on the game taking place entirely in one city but I was looking forward to the unique setting. It seems the idea of living amongst Pokemon is a constant dream in the minds of fans of the series and having an entire game set in an urban setting would be able to explore this idea closer than ever before. Still I understood the worries about the small map size and honestly expected that the city would simply be made bigger to fit the game world. What I really did not understand were the complaints I would hear about the graphics. I think the game looked fine and couldn't see where peoples' issues were coming from. It isn't a stunning game visually by any means but in my opinion it looked more than serviceable and was a step up performance-wise from Violet, a game I still love despite it's glaring flaws.

arrival

The game itself was more than I hoped for, even with the smaller map than expected. I personally have always preferred small open worlds in games so it was nice to see Pokemon take on that design philosophy. A major complaint that is almost always made about open worlds is that the world feels empty and lifeless. Smaller worlds allow for designers to make better use of the space and ensure that you are never too far from where you want to be.

I also like the presentation of the introduction. With the typical energy of the Pokemon brand being focused almost entirely on how wonderful these little creatures make this world it was genuinely shocking to have so many characters treat the overrunning of the city as a genuine problem, a nice continuation of the energy from the previous Legends game. Additionally the characters introduced were fun and dialogue was cute enough that I actually wanted to sit through more of it. I understand that the introduction is too long for a lot of people but in my experience I never really wanted to do something other than what I was being pushed to do so this wasn't a problem for me.

the story

Throughout the game I grew to love the setting more and more mostly due to the characters met there. They all had a genuine care for the city they called home and it rubbed off. I especially liked the members of team MZ and the Rust Syndicate. Underdeveloped parts of the original X and Y such as AZ's story and the motivations of Team Flare were expanded upon in such a way that it retroactively makes me appreciate the original Kalos more.

The basic progression of the game was repetitive but I never really felt that in the moment. I didn't have the need to grind to get something done as I would always end up with the required ZA royal points before moving on the the next battle and there was always plenty to do between the rogue mega battles.

The sidequests in this game are fantastic. They were always a highlight of any play session. I loved how they took time to put the spotlight on Pokemon that are not highlighted as frequently.

the pokemon

The dex in the base game is fairly basic in my opinion but it includes some fun picks. It is obvious that there was emphasis put on to ensuring that the rest of the Pokemon not available on the switch were included in this game so some fun unexpected choices got the spotlight, like the elemental monkeys and Patrat appearing throughout the city. Still I never really got attached to any one party member, instead amassing over a box worth of members I would switch out frequently. This was despite the fact that I had started giving my Pokemon nicknames for the first time after being pressured to do so by my partner. The DLC dex adds a lot of interesting Pokemon but its a bit too little too late as by the point in the game I was ready to take on the DLC I already had too many Pokemon to keep track of and did not want to add any more.

If I had to pick some standouts in my playthrough they would be Yam the Emboar (my starter), Ordile the Gardevoir (the preorder bonus), Deckard the Ampharos, and an Aegislash that is yet to be named.

I think this game also taught me the value of rarer shinies. It was likely that I would encounter a shiny just walking around the city and they became a lot less valuable to me because of it. It makes me want to do some lower odds hunts.

One major complaint I have is that Pokemon who are transferred into this game from home can no longer go back to the previous games on the switch. When I began playing this series again the freedom of being able to keep Pokemon between all of the games across two generations was exciting. The fact that this won't be the case going forward is disappointing and I am holding out unreasonable hope that Winds and Waves somehow fixes this.

the dlc

My big complaints with the gameplay start with the DLC which I found to require too much grinding and time. The story and characters where about as good as the main game so I still enjoyed them but the gameplay held it back. Despite having a very similar structure to the main game of collecting points to lead up to a special encounter, the act of collecting points was exclusive to the hyperspace distortions so I never had the required points anytime I would need them. This led to lots of breaks in the flow of the game where I had to focus solely on tasks that felt unrelated to what I really wanted to be doing.

I should have felt excited to encounter and collect all the new Pokemon, and thus have at least gotten some points from visiting distortions to fill out the hyperspace dex, but there was one mechanic that made me avoid going into distortions as much as possible. I really didn't like the donuts. It felt as if I would never get back the berries I spent making them when I used them and that I had to reset for the best possible powers just to have a chance to have a donut worth using. The randomness actively took away from the game. A donut could be completely useless or invaluable despite using the exact same berries.

I think the DLC was still worth getting (to be fair I would likely still get it even if I didn't just for the experience of filling out the game's living dex more) but I wish the experience of going into hyperspace felt more rewarding as opposed to feeling as if I was wasting my time and in game resources.

overall experience

Despite my problems with the DLC I still loved my time with this game, which ended up somehow being even longer than the time I have spent in Violet so far despite the smaller dex and my busier schedule. The story was incredible and fun throughout with some really touching moments and interesting characters.

I am really glad that the mainline Pokemon games seem to be going in the right direction with Winds and Waves taking even more time to release than originally expected. The fact that it wasn't given more time just so it could release for the 30th anniversary year and is instead releasing a year after makes me really excited for the future of the series.

I am not quite sure what game I will focus on after this one. I would like to continue with Pokemon games, likely the new Fire Red/Leaf Green release as I haven't been in the mood for more Pokopia yet. That said I've been feeling like working on completing one game that I have tried a few times now so I may restart that one. Who knows. Thank you for reading and I hope you have a good day.