Usually I like to think I have a pretty positive mindset to upcoming titles and often find people are too reactionary to reveals not meeting their 100% idealised desires.
In this case I'm kinda torn on what we've seen, fortunately it's still early days.
Firstly, while I in no way expected that BotW style shake up that keeps getting thrown about, I will say that I was expecting something that was a bit further from what immediately appears like a nicer and more polished Gen 7.
Whether they would accomplish this small scale shake up by how the title tackled its map structure/progression/wild pokemon, it was quite immediately deflating to me seeing those tell tale signs of iterating on the base of the last 3DS title.
Gen 7 itself I thought was fine mind you, given the 3DS' limitations it was a great jump from Gen 6 which is really the only time I've felt the franchise ever came close to truly dropping the ball (great online implementation aside).
Here Gen 8 gives me the impression of what Gen 5 was to Gen 4, it's taking what was already there and presumably looks to polish the heck out that, which was fine for a same handheld successor but in turn is less exciting when you have the jump from 3DS to Switch here.
Of course it's hard to truly get a read on how the routes will unfurl, the trailer gives snippets of seemingly early routes that mirror the kind of forking paths contained to one route you'd get on the first island of Alola, otherwise we got the most unrevealing views of a cave and snowy valley that give little away, gonna need to see more on this front.
I am bummed out that we don't seem to be getting a refinement of Let's Go style overworld pokemon, while I appreciate it wasn't a perfect system by any means, I very much appreciated being able to see a selection of wild pokemon roaming, to think of the time saved when hunting for a pokemon by simply being able to see three or four pop up in swift succession instead of going through the increasingly tired process of initiating a random battle, seeing it's not what you want, but having to wait and throw your pokemon out anyway only to run, rinse and repeat.
With the greater amount of NPC pokemon dotted about Alola as well as mechanics like the rustling grass/bushes/tree pokemon, I figured we were going to take steps in a more lively direction when they had the better tech to do so.
And as a card carrying member of "Black/White are the best games" club, I'd have been thrilled for another gen of all new pokes but I think that ship has sailed, it would've been nice however to see more of the early route pokemon for this region or a regional variant (though judging by the trailer, my hopes of snowy Noctowl are already dead). Regardless they'll come soon enough, GF like to reveal their entire new pokemon hand these days before release.
I dig the region, partly because I'm English myself, also because of that rural countryside goodness, this is definitely the aspect of the game I'm most intrigued by, it's always fun to see how GF interprets a real world location through a pokemon world lense. I expect gimmick teas at quaint tea shops, with a kettle pokemon.
The starters do leave me pretty dang underwhelmed, anyone whose seen (and actually remembered) my poke posts over the years knows that I grow increasingly perturbed by the overuse of certain species, especially when they can conceptually step on each others toes.
So I am admittedly salty as heck that as far as fire zodiac starter theory goes we jumped right to yet another rabbit pokemon before another sheep/ram, I'm more irked by another monkey starter, another monkey in general and another grass one at that. It just seems redundant, even if I get that so much variance in species means that this primate may well end up very much unlike your previous pig apes/wise orangutans/sun wukong fire edition. In any case though starters are just a few of the overall package, they can still ramp up in uniqueness upon evolving and there's always plenty more new pokemon to come, it's just a bit of a limp start.
Also I know new pokemon aren't connected to their region entirely, but unless Game Freak thinks "monkey world" in Dorset is a big deal over here in blighty I don't quite get WHY.
Though I wasn't expecting the top of my starter podium to change for me in regards to Gen 7 having the golden combo of wrassle cat and sniper owl.
In the end GF didn't actually give us much to chew on, new battle mechanics remain a mystery along with the other pokemon, villain team of football hooligans? who knows! guess they've still got plenty to reveal, I just think if they were gonna give us more than logos they could've taken a step further, ah well.
Right now my hope is that since this does appear quite iterative, then going back to my Gen 4 to Gen 5 comparison, I hope this uses Sun/Moon's solid base to create a damn fine outing that'll give me those Unova feels. Because if there's one thing I can draw from them not rocking the boat much it's that it gives us a greater chance that the game is more well rounded and not content lacking.
(Cripes, I said more than I expected, why is it always so much easier to gripe than it is to praise? well anyway I'm hoping this offers a more measured take on why one who doesn't expect a radical overhaul can still be kinda underwhelmed with what we've seen thus far)
