I've been on a roll with the games the past couple days. I completed not one, but two games in the past 48 hours, and am ready to share my thoughts on each.
The first was Pokémon Legends: Arceus. I've been playing this one on lunch at work for quite some time now, and Wednesday night I finally wrapped everything up. I started kind of stand-offish to this one, the concept of catching the same stuff over and over felt like it would be tedious. However, I ended up really latching on to this game, and did a couple of crazy things I've never done with the series. I don't think I've "caught 'em all" since the original Silver/Gold games, but I decided to do that for this game. There's around the same amount of Pokemon in this game as those games, so it's not quite as ridiculous as the 900+ in the mainline games. Most I found pretty easily, though Munchlax for some reason didn't want to show for the longest time. I also got each Pokedex entry to 10. This was a bit of a waste of time honestly, but I was having fun playing the game and didn't want it to end yet, so I prolonged it. Also, not only did I catch them all, but I have a living Pokedex in my Stable. For those that don't know, that means I have 1 of every Pokemon, and they're in the box in order based on Dex number. I also caught 4 shinies throughout the game - Luxio, Bronzong, Magikarp, and the story based Ponyta (evolved to Rapidash). I got all Rotom forms, and caught all the Unknowns as well. The only things I didn't do were the Pokemon specific trials, and find all the Poems. My final, unbalanced team consisted of Typhlosion, Magnezone, Rypherior, Snorlax, Togekiss, and Garchomp.
Now, here's my main gripes with the game. The biggest one is the combat. Two issues here, the first being that things seemed WAY imbalanced, and that levels mattered very little. I found myself getting repeatedly getting one-shot by Pokemon 30+ levels below me, and most of my team consisting of Alphas with maxed stats. I get that those attacks were often super effective, but they seemed TOO super effective, and would not obliterate me in other games. Also, Speed Style seemed to benefit everyone BUT me. When in battles, if that style was used, the other side almost always got a second turn before I could attack. If I used it, I rarely got that second turn, even with fast Pokemon. It felt like I was just actively choosing to make a move weaker, which was good for catching, but not for a battle strategy. My other minor complaint is with Braviary, I just wish it had full 3D flight. Got used to it as a glider, but the mechanic could be improved. Here's hoping they do in the new ones!
Well, this went on longer than I intended, so I'll post again later with my thoughts on the other game I completed.
Once the story got moving I was hooked pretty quick. 
