A wise man once said, "if I haven't seen it, then it's new to me." Pretty fun. Just got past the league but thought I'd throw in my 2 cents as someone new to D/P but a long time casual fan. Aside from the items mentioned it's the same ol' formula. [edited for post-game stuff]
Highlights:
- Shared XP. Screw grinding for hours. Honestly don't know why anyone would miss it.
- Contest rhythm game is pretty fun.
- [edit] Post-game:
- Battle Tower: Enter with a team of 3 (singles) or 4 (doubles) and battle until your first loss for points you can spend on stat improving items. Most legendaries are banned.
- Ramanas Park: Haven't really gotten into it yet but it offers the opportunity to catch lots of legendaries. Each game has it's own options (as is tradition, so make sure to check that out before buying).
- Judge App: Evaluates the IVs or base stats for each pokemon. Really simple, but it got me really invested in the stat meta-game (well, not as meta as it used to be) I'd previously written off as being too complex. Wish it was available earlier in the game though.
- Union Room (online): I just think it's a really cool feature to be able to trade and battle online. I know it's not new but I didn't have the DS games and gave up on S/S pretty fast, so it's still kind of new for me. So far I got some foreign pokemon (So maybe I'll get a shiny some day with the Masuda method, who knows? The world is my Cloyster.) and surprisingly someone once traded me back my Haunter, so for the first time I have a Gengar in a pokemon game!
Gripes:
- Wonder Trade (aka GWS) is completely disabled because it's been put on hold likely until BD/SP is added to Pokemon Home, and the game gives no hints as to why it doesn't work or what GWS means, so you just have to look it up to find out what's going on. Pretty blatant flag you released your game too early but that's none of my business. sip [Update: Enabled once Home support was added. Great addition. The globe is totally pointless, but it doesn't detract from the experience.]
- The poffin mini-game. The game doesn't tell you that both sticks register as input. So you can either do it that way to make perfect poffins every time, or make fowl/burnt ones while ruining your controller. It's tedious either way.
- The gyms are all pretty easy. Wish they all had at least one pokemon like Maylene's Lucario. That was the only fight before the elite 4 where I had to use my brain a little. The rival is also just as much a pushover as the rival in S/S. The elite 4 are proof that a type-themed team doesn't have to be easy so idk why the bulk of the game's obstacles have to be.
Meh
- The grand underground. The hideout is just a storage closet for statues that grant bonuses. I was kind of hoping hideouts would be like secret bases in R/S/E, but nope. No fast travel, so it's easy to lose track of where your hideout is. [edit] It's actually a decent place to grind for the league and find some rarer pokemon, and a decent source for mining valuable items (which is nice for coming at the league multiple times with plenty of revives, etc.). Pedestals are literally just decoration for statues (not sure if the game explains that). Statues you don't want to impact the type of pokemon you catch underground just sit in storage. Not worthless (my initial thoughts), just meh.
- Time based pokemon appearances. This is a small gripe, but as someone that only has time to play in the early morning before work and at night after work it's a little obnoxious that impacts what pokemon I can encounter. The silliest one is how drifloom can only be encountered on Fridays (no trainer has it) so I had to wait a week to complete the region's pokedex. Otherwise, it's a fun twist on some mechanics I enjoyed in G/S/C. The safari zone (forgot what this game calls it) changing each day is also a fun twist.