#pokemonmp

Things I really liked in no specific order:

Open world aspects. The story was linear but there was no rush and tons to do and I liked being able to roam.

Mounts, especially the transitioning between mounts. Being able to ride my deer into a river and have it automatically turn into a fish and then back to a deer on the other bank was great.

Ability to take your pokemon out to play and have them yell at each other. Cannot stress enough how much I loved that. For me the best part of pokemon has always been parts that let you enjoy your little critter friends being cute.

Related to that, the fact your pokemon could just fall asleep.

Passive wild pokemon being curious and coming over to investigate you (a munchlax fell asleep leaning against my sleeping typhlosion 😭).

Weather and time of day shifts out in the world.

The agile/strong modes for moves which added a new facet to combat.

Getting new moves for your pokemon was super easy compared to the other games. Expensive, but you didn't have to waste a lot of time trying to figure out which pokemon could learn which move.

Changing your moves on the fly whenever you want with no penalty! Excellent. Encouraged me to try new things.

The clothes options were great. Suits and plaid regardless of gender. Yes please.

No constant stream of trainers leaping out of bushes to challenge you. I could have stood more trainer fights than they had but it was a relief to be able to walk around without crazed trainers challenging you every 5 steps.

The fact pokemon collecting was centered around research rather than combat. I think there's room to push that aspect further in future titles. I'd love to see additional research gameplay mechanics.

Alphas were a cool challenge and I loved seeing super oversized pokemon with murder in their hearts.

Some of the side quests where people were curious about specific pokemon and would give commentary on them when you brought them one. They were always entertaining. Please do not harass my shinx!!! He's just a baby!!!!!

Having played bdsp right before this it was cool to see how they tied together.

The soundtrack was excellent.

My best boy, my sleepy son, my main flamer, Badger Lad

____

Things I didn't like:

The new boss fights. The dodge and throw mechanic was kinda clunky for boss fights that involved a lot of timing (especially the later ones). And they also just weren't that interesting. I sort of missed the gym leader battles. I liked that they were trying something new, but I felt like they hadn't quite hit the right thing yet. I actually wonder if I would have been less annoyed by them if I'd been using a third party controller. The flimsy joycon analog sticks may have made controlling the camera harder than it had to be.

Every pokemon game has that one pokemon who appears way too much and you loathe by the end of the game. In bdsp it was geodude. In arceus it was this asshole

Having to go back to the village first to travel to another zone. Just annoying.

Space time distortions. Mixed feeling actually. They felt like one of those things where there's a good idea in there but it hasn't been implemented quite correctly. The biggest problem with them is they're on timers that start when you enter a zone and there's also a random element involved as well I believe. Leaving the area resets the timer. So if you don't spend a lot of time in a single zone frequently you'll barely ever have distortions form. I saw several people complaining they'd only gotten 1-2 the whole game. This became extremely annoying when I was finishing the dex because there's a handful of pokemon you can only get in distortions and going to a zone to sit on my ass for 20-30 minutes waiting for one was just stupid. I think they would have been better if they'd spawned more often but rare pokemon and upgrade items were less likely.

The bag upgrade thing was just...silly. Bagin is a con artist.

Sneasler's tendency to climb trees instead of whatever I was actually trying to do 😩

Needed gayer hair styles.

I completely despised the controls for cooking in swsh and bdsp because you had to violently rotate the analog stick, so I was glad there was nothing like that here, but I did kind of want to cook fun meals for my pokemon :(

The fact I caught the literal gods of this universe and got almost no reward/research points for them. Seriously professor? You're not even a little impressed? Arceus is barely worth a bidoof in those terms.

There are these four unique pokemon you have to catch to complete the dex (it's a quest you get after you beat the main story) and god were they annoying. The thing was that not only were they a pain but I flat out couldn't tell whether things I was doing were effective. I'd try the same thing twice and get different results for no apparent reason. I was annoyed and wanted it to be over.

You can't have one of your pokemon follow you out in the world 😢. Honestly my biggest complaint. Loved that so much in bdsp. (I also want to put hats on them. nintendo please!!!!).