I love and hate the game.
There are a lot of things I love about it. With some exceptions, a lot of the pokemon are actually good looking. Mostly, they're animals or plants of some kind, that are monsters - rather than fucking humanoids all over the place, or weird things like a set of just two gears floating in the sky. That said, there are still some weird ones, but I guess there always will be.
Pokemon seem to have more HP, more defences, less damage, or a mix of all the above. Even 10 levels higher than an opponent, I find I'm often not guaranteed a 1HKO, unless its a super effective move, or a Snorlax body slam. Hell, starting the game a Litten with ember took 4 hits to beat a Rowlette. With its super effective move. I can only imagine had I used scratch like in the originals. I find this makes fights more interesting in total, because even if I've got a main deathbot or something, I can't just 1HKO my way through 30 trainers and only go to the PC for PP. You'll slowly take attrition damage, and this encourages people to use more of their party, more often, and adds more choice to the game in terms of who you use, when and why.
The graphics are nice, and the removal of HMs for the Pokemon summons has been a long time coming. Maybe not the best way to have handled them overall, but still good. The characters, as a broader look, are kind of cool and fun - and in general that plays through the whole game, with the team obviously having had fun making this and making it a less serious game in many aspects.
The slight changeup from Gyms to challenges is also pretty fun. It was getting hard for them to make new puzzles for the gyms I felt, and the formula there was starting to get a bit up tight. As things are now, it feels a lot more fresh and fun.
The downsides though?
Dear god, this game isn't hand holdy, it is literally on-rails. You're not kidding about 2 hours to just get your starting pokemon [As opposed to maybe 10 minutes in red, at most]. And probably 1.5 of those two hours is spent in an incredibly long cutscene. You don't even get to play much, and what little you do get to play, is walking.
I've played a LOT more from then on, and things do get better, but the game constantly interrupts you and stops you in a cutscene.
Its also terrible with false choices. "Go see character x to do x, or see character y to do y", really means "Go see character y". Character x does nothing and just gives you a reason why they can't do anything, despite literally 5 minutes ago the game telling you to go see them and do something with them. The linearity is normal. It hides it FAR worse than previously.
Some of the dialogue and characters is also just downright cringeworthy with how over the top stereotypical it is. Like, holy hell.
Additionally, not a huge fan of the mechanical map design level. It feels like the trend that started with Black/White, of the world being mostly a set piece with no mechanical point, has continued on. There are a couple of cool bits and pieces, but so much of it also seems to just be in the way "But it looks cool" stuff as well. To compensate for this, a lot of it is non-continuous. There isn't an interconnected overworld, there's a bunch of zones that I'm 75% sure probably don't actually piece together properly, and are made the way they are so that things can look cool, rather than feeling like a continuous world. Almost all of the actual exploration of the world is gone, and its just "Look at the pretty! Now follow this very linear path to your next destination". There is some side stuff to do and look around at, but that's very short, and fairly rare.
So, overall, its a new-gen pokemon game. The strengths of the game have been improved, and the weaknesses have gotten worse. Overall its a good and fun game, and I enjoy it, but that doesn't mean its perfect. Its still got its problems.
