Subject: Okay, I beat the game last night. Have a review!
Author:
Posted on: 2014-11-24 23:55:00 UTC
The story: Considering I'm a bit biased towards the RSE story, I was very pleased at how faithful they stayed to the originals. 4/5, because they lost the opportunity to really do some fleshing out.
The surfing: Got quite a lot of it removed, or at least wild Water Pokémon aren't as likely to jump you. 5/5, much better this time.
The Gyms: Despite my Nuzlockeing of Alpha Sapphire, I never had to grind, never had a single death and didn't break a sweat. No, not even fighting Norman. No, not even fighting the Murdertwins. The levels, Pokémon, and AI all got walloped by the nerfbat so hard I was almost relieved to be scrambling to fight the E4. 2/5, need more difficulty.
The E4: I didn't have any problem until I hit Drake, and that's mostly because I never got my hands on a decent Ice TM. Still, even Steven nearly took out my highest level 'mon, a level 66 Swampert with Earthquake. 4/5, the first was easily beaten by my Dustox and the second two barely hit me.
The postgame: I've only just gotten into this part, but the story kept me rivited and while I wish it was better fleshed out, I still thought it was excellent. There were some nice callbacks to X/Y and it got a bit more into how Mega Evolution works. I'm looking forward to collecting the Mega Stones. 4/5, like in the main story, the plot could be more detailed.
The graphics: While the 3D was gorgeous, the framerate started to lag with bigger 'mons and major cutscenes. Still, there was a bit of an improvement over X/Y. 4/5, because it's hard to take the villains seriously when they look like chibis and the fact that I couldn't use 3D in big battles. Also the lack of character customization was a disappointment.
Overall, I'm going to say 4/5 because while there were some very nice things going for this game, there were some things I think they could have done to make it much better. Definitely a must-have for fellow Pokémon fans.