Pokémon Legends: Arceus

I have some complicated feelings about this one. As Pokemon games go, it's certainly novel. It tries a lot of new things and some of them are good! It's a little grindy and there are too many papercuts, but there's a lot of serious QoL. The core gameplay is still great, and while a lot of systems have been simplified, I think they made good choices. On paper, this would be the Pokemon game fans have been dreaming about for years and years. But, it dramatically falls short of its potential. The graphics are dreadful (and you can't _just_ blame the hardware; there are good looking Switch games) and the movement itself feels bad. There's boss battles are mostly button mashing and dodging, which is a weird way to climax a battling/catching game. The story is basically non-existent and all the side quests are just fetch quests. If this weren't a Pokemon game, it would be a bargain bin 5/10. It just hurts because there's _so_ much opportunity here, and this is what they came up with. I'm glad they're trying new things, but would really appreciate a higher quality bar.