"LGP: A mix of good and bad decisions in its design made me realize the series can and should move beyond the limitations of its origins as an old-school handheld game"

Removing battles with wild Pokemon: A surprisingly great design choice in many ways - you no longer build movesets around capturing and fighting wild Pokemon, you end the encounters much quicker, and the catching / collecting aspect is more front and center. Plus, catching them now takes a little bit of twitch skill that adds some excitement back in... but good lord the motion controls are atrocious.The motion controls: Are atrocious. Just really needs repeating. They're horrible. The fact that you can't use a pro controller is the most outrageously dumb decision of the entire game. It plays well when handheld but there's no good control option on your TV.No more random battles: This is something the series has needed for a long time. Traveling through grass is no longer annoying and frustrating, plus you save a ton of time being able to go right for the battle you want. Also gives the world more life (this applies equally to allowing Pokemon to follow on the overworld map)Simplification of EV / chaining system: Fantastic changes on this front. This was one of the most arcane parts of the games that desperately needed a facelift. Candies and catching chains are convenient, easy to understand, and fast.Remaking the original series: As someone who played the original series the day it came out, it's been a nice experience going back to it. I do think it's a cool way to bring mobile players into the series by going back to the beginning and letting them taste the epic simplicity of R/B/Y. At the same time, it's become really evident that the format of Pokemon games is extremely dated and tedious, which somewhat negates the efforts to streamline the experience in other ways.Preserving the 'Old Ways' of handhelds: The original games were developed on what is now a primitive hardware, severely limited in its capabilities to convey information quickly. The new games have a lot of annoying relics of this history: the UI is a mess and text interactions are incredibly slow and get in the way too much - the way that every level up and new move is still reported one by one with the old musical chime between each line is maddening; the two line text bubbles aren't cutting it; the process of learning / unlearning moves is slow.CONCLUSION: It's a much better game than I was expecting. For the future releases, I could still be okay with some of the changes to the series. Lighter wild battles, skill-based ball throwing, stat candies, easy chaining, Pokemon following outside battle.SUGGESTIONS: While I 'get' the appeal of a Diet Retro Remake like LGP, the devs should really move into the 21st century with a better, more streamlined UI. Instead of telling me one-by-one that this and that Pokemon reached level 5, level 6, level 7, learned a move, etc., just display this information all at once on the battle end screen. I'm picturing little summary boxes that appear simultaneously beneath all 6 of your Pokemon that say things like "Leveled up from 5 to 7! Learned Fury Swipes." That way you can skip the insanely tedious process of mashing A for 45 seconds while line after line of text pops up.Battles should be sped up in how quickly it reports lost health after a move is used, how quickly you navigate menus, how quickly Pokemon enter / exit battles. Make the more energetic with more action and speed!Would be very fun to add in freedom of movement when fighting and add in new mechanics to make battles a little more dynamic (but still turn based). Allow your characters to do extra damage by attacking from the back or side, allow for tag team moves that can only be done with correct positioning in multi battles (like aligning two compatible characters in a row or next to each other or on opposite sides of one another).Imagine seamless battles where the game world doesn't transition into the fight screen but just flows right into it. It would be more immersive and much quicker.The devs should keep the core of Pokemon recognizable (fighting, collecting, breeding, adventuring) while allowing the format of the game to evolve so it's more interesting. Some good choices and good lessons from this series. Just please ditch the god awful mandatory motion controls, they are inaccurate, laggy, and uncomfortable. via /r/pokemon https://ift.tt/2AavUCe