Genre: JRPG
Developer: Game Freak
Publisher: Nintendo

This new Pokemon game's graphics could best be summarized with the expression "up-scaled 3DS game": the vast bulk of the world exploration is carried through a fixed camera angle (causing the player to often and uncomfortably run towards the camera!), while the texture and asset fidelity is sometimes Nintendo 64-era! There is a free-roaming zone with rotatable camera right in the middle of the game's world, but it feels awkwardly bolted on as it juxtaposes oddly with the rest of the title's design. Art direction, typically a Nintendo strength, is somewhat hit-and-miss: the game's gem-filled caves are jaw-dropping, but overall there are fewer screenshot-worthy moments throughout than expected.

Right from the game's opening cut-scene, a major gap appears: no voice acting! Watching the character's lips animate but without even the traditional "bhbpzppqhs"-style sounds to accompany feels strange. The title's battle song is incredible: the opening instruments and drums sound like they are straight from a 1990's-style DSP! Unfortunately, none of the other music has that characteristic, and is either totally "safe" and forgettable like seemingly all modern video game tunes, or downright annoying: whose idea was it to use bagpipes of all things?! The game's aural highpoint comes from the gym battles, which have a mix of stadium noises, group chanting, and individual shouts from the crowd which realistically follow the action.

Like the old N-Gage game "Pocket Kingdom", this new Pokemon sees the player constantly accessing super sluggish, excessively-animated menus just to do basic, every-other-moment tasks like switching Pokemon to adapt to type match-ups while exploring. Short-cut keys, or even on-screen HUD elements to allow for rapid party alterations would have gone a long way. This combined with the Switch's usual input latency issues especially while docked makes the pace feel plodding at times! The game supports online and local wireless play, but the network code is exceedingly buggy. Thankfully, the core gameplay loop of exploring "routes" while throwing "Poke balls" to catch the little buggers is still as fun as ever.

The "Let's Go" games were billed as an admittedly ultra-conservative stop-gap between the 3DS titles and the "next big progression" in the series. Unfortunately, that "next big progression" has wound up being nothing more than "Let's Go" part deux: the game's totally linear design, right down to the fixed camera, feels anachronistic in not just this year, but veritably this century, while basic features like the user interface actually feel like a step backwards. On that theme and adding insult to injury to hardcore fans is the fact that less than half of the creatures from "Sun and Moon" are present in this release. Still, when treated in isolation there is some fun to be had in this solidly-designed if not particularly ambitious monster romp.