Generation 7 Thoughts

[Artisan]

This game has some high points and some low. The game really has some nostalgia going for it, with each island being a smaller version of a Pokemon region. In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, they brought back Team Rocket and all the other villain teams in the postgame. Shiny hunting is easy but getting 6IVs is slightly harder. SoS hunting is really rewarding once you set up the right build and teammates for the hunts. Leveling up is quick in the Festival Plaza, which I did not know was something Join Avenue did first. Even teambuilding once you have max IVs is easy because of the Battle Points not just tied to battles but also surfing. Poke Pelago can level up Pokemon if you have some time on your hands. Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon have different wild encounters from Sun and Moon, and Legendaries you can catch in the postgame span every generation.

The big complaints? Lillie is poorly optimized. The game has a bunch of models of her for each sequence. The game can be slow because the battles take long to get in and out of. The difficulty is decent, but maybe a little unfair if your team isn't built well or has low IVs or both. The story felt rushed to throw everything in all at the end. And the VGC meta is insanely unbalanced. Everyone had a Mega Rayquaza because it was the strongest at the time. Landorus and Incineroar usage was way more than anything else. I do think the meta of limiting your team to two Legendaries was a fun thing. The Pikachu and Eevee cups were neat but put extra emphasis on Z-moves. Maybe the Z-Move gimmick was bad because if you had used Protect you could reduce damage by a large margin. My favorite thing about Gen 7 was how strong Trick Room was for Shuckle because he had some nice support. However, even Gen 4 had Power Trick Shuckle so I shouldn't be too happy about it. Shuckle still had a higher attack stat and speed than Mega Rayquaza in that regard, but none of the trainers in the Battle area ever used that strategy. Zygarde felt shoehorned in. The Ultra Beast worlds were neat but the designs weren't my favorite because they didn't fit in.

Overall it's a decent Generation although I liked Gen 6 more for the simpler meta closer to Generation 5 without too many overpowered mons and absurd team strategies to worry about.