Just finished SV… one of the best games in the series?

SV has become my favourite Pokémon game ever to be honest. I've completed at least 1 of the main series games for every generation too (Yellow, Crystal, Sapphire, FR, Emerald, Diamond, HG, White, Y, AS, Sun, and Sword) and I must be enjoying Scarlet more than any other so far.

The story is told in the best way of the main series games, giving you freedom to engage with the 3 different paths whenever you like (and it helps that all the stories have had interesting twists to keep me engaged, and a lot of them were very emotional). Difficulty-wise, since playing Diamond I can't say any of the Pokémon games have been hard (and I think that's just because I grew past the age of 11, since older games were super easy going back to them). Once you learn the best Pokémon, best moves and type matchups, no Pokémon game is difficult.

The freedom truly is the best part of SV, not just with regards to the story but with the exploration. I don't think a Pokémon game since the Kanto games (after you get the 3rd gym) have given you so much freedom to go wherever you want anytime you want. You want to do nothing but catch Pokémon in SV? You can do that. You want to focus on just 1 storyline at a time, or do them all at the same time? You can do either. You want to focus on exploration and not even bother with the story? Sure, if you want to do that, you can do that - don't even need to battle any Pokémon or trainers if that's truly all you want to do. No other Pokémon game has come close to this amount of freedom. SV makes the majority of every other Pokémon game feel like nothing but hallways and straight lines (with a few exceptions, such as the occasional maze-like caves and the rare moments where you need to backtrack or have freedom to skip gyms). Perhaps it's worth mentioning that the story elements enticing you to do them (so you can use higher level Pokémon, get access to better TMs, and get more options for your exploration) is fantastic too - it doesn't force you to do these storylines, it simply gives you good mechanical reasons to want to do them.

The raids have improved on SwSh's concepts too, and has really made me enjoy the end game. Not to mention, getting Pokémon with the best IVs and natures is easier than ever (so many hours and days spent breeding and running around in circles in Y, which isn't really fun, compared to just raiding whenever I like to get everything I need with exp. candies, mints, ability-changing items and bottlecaps). Even with older games, I found that I'd beat the Battle Tower or each brain of the Battle Frontier once and then never do them again. They weren't bad by any means, but raids have made me want to do them again and again even after completing them at least once - here's hoping they keep making challenging 7-Star raids that encourage me to spend a couple hours making a powerful Pokémon to counter them (even though I admit I'm not a fan of how time-sensitive they are). I would still agree that it'd be nice to have a Battle Tower or Battle Frontier again for another challenge in the end game, but raids still deserve recognition for being fun and challenging.

I'm truly going to struggle going back to older Pokémon games after playing SV. It feels like it's taken my favourite aspect of my previous favourite Pokémon game (Yellow and the absolute freedom after beating the 3rd gym) and made the entire game around that aspect. Perhaps that's not what all Pokémon fans wanted, but it's made for the best experience I've ever had in a Pokémon game.

/r/pokemon Thread