Pokemon Scarlet:
The (in this case literal) red headed stepchild of the Pokemon releases after the (apparently) awesome Legends Arceus. Now off the bat does this game have problems that it arguably should not? Fuck yeah it does. NPCs and environment details move very stiffly in the distance, only smoothing out upon getting close. One story character who wears a pair of absurd boots that would make Square Enix jealous literally has to goose step because they fucked up her walking animation. The new 'overworld' battling for trainers and wild Pokemon gives me flashbacks to some of the shitty early 3D games where you can see through the level geometry if you angle the camera right. There's also a very serious delay in navigating certain menus. Non-technical issues include the truly awful fucking school uniforms you're saddled with and the unintentional creepy ass side effect that it creates when mature age (read: adult) students at Pokemon Hogwarts are forced to wear them: I keep waiting for the Paldean Inquisition to appear and arrest them. Coupled with just a bizarre selection of shit you can wear, its one of the worst character creators in games. Also, word to artists who made the uniforms for Pokemon Scarlet:
This shit here? Its not scarlet. Its barely even plain red.
See this? That's fucking Scarlet. Literally so since to drive the point home, this is Captain Scarlet of Spectrum.
Moving on. The map is not very intuitive to use. Not a deal breaker - I've certainly seen worse - but it can be an irritation.
Now the big elephant in the room: the open world. This is not a concept I'm against so much, but going full on Breath of the Wild was something they really needed to both sit down and think about AND get some external help. Pokemon since day dot has been a fairly linear game with linear progression so totally discharging that was not a decision to be made lightly. One handicap is that the game retains the - stupid and should be discarded - system from Sword and Shield that limits the levels of the Pokemon you can catch by the badges you have. So one the one hand you can explore to your heart's content but the game disallows you to try for a miracle capture if you run across something really cool. Not cool guys.
Another problem this causes, and further design exacerbates, is it makes finding trainer battles difficult. Leaving aside loading pop in, the trainers in Scarlet will not engage you unless you talk to them. In all previous games while it was possible to dodge trainers certainly, if you needed exp you could at least go back down a path to find them. Here you gotta go hunting.
Now the game is not without things I really like. Having three different 'story' paths: Pokemon League, the Titans, and Team Star is really cool: the Titans one is especially nice because its got very universal and relatable and personal stakes. And although it takes a few times, once you get the hang of the game's new battle gimmick - Terastallizing - it can open up lots of interesting possibilities for team composition; one notable example is the third gym leader Iono - electric - has her trump Pokemon as a Mismageous, nominally a ghost type, when it Terastallizes, it becomes electric.
I also like the ostensible rival, Nemona, who has both a very charming character design but I also find her enthusiasm to be your friend highly endearing. Arven (who's story is tied largely to the Titan Pokemon) has a great story with brilliant emotional beats - not as good as Lillie and Gladion in Sun/Moon - but its also smaller in scope.
There's also some neat QoL changes like now I don't need to farm up a heart scale to remember old moves, I can just do it from the Pokemon's summary screen. Although admittedly in Sw/Sh you could just talk to an NPC at any Pokemon Centre but this is handy cos you can do it in the field.
EDIT: I forgot, Koraidon. I love that doofy fucking creature. I just kind of wish he was one of the starters rather than a legendary.
Now with this, I have been considering that perhaps full 3D is not a direction for Pokemon should go in. Or at least, the Sword/Shield and beyond version where Pokemon are visible in the overworld. In fact, if someone from GameFreak held a gun to my head I would suggest thus: do with Pokemon and the HD era, what Castlevania: Symphony of the Night did with CDs and the 3D era. Keep the sprites, tart them up to 4K and use all that lovely space to make the biggest, most badass Pokemon game ever. Seriously if you took all the space required to make Paldea but scaled everything back to the Pokemon Black/White era look, you could probably fit three fucking regions on that Switch cart.