Fiiiiinally got around to playing this - I promised myself I'd get to it eventually after Ranko played All Things It Devours - and it was a great game! I generally go for more experimental / absurd games, so I wasn't sure I'd enjoy a PMD-style adventure so much, but the many layers of charm and excellent writing absolutely won me over. The writing was my favorite part by far - pretty much every NPC was memorable and felt like a real character, and there was clearly a lot of thought put into matching personalities to Pokemon. A persevering Ledian trying not to be useless, a silly cactus dance squad, a serious and intimidating Indeedee, a group of Falinks running an inn... these were all beautiful little vignettes that made the world feel real!
Another huge plus I wanna point out was that the gameplay felt really balanced (and this is something I've practically never seen in a game jam entry - balance is real hard to do quickly). I chose Mudkip, and so my gameplay experience was charming and fun, and managed to feel epic without actually killing me, which felt like the "right" difficulty for a cozy game like this.
Critical Feedback - not too much, honestly. My main criticism is just that the game felt like a worthy entry in the PMD series... and therefore didn't have much that was really unique or groundbreaking. But, I bet this comes down to a difference in philosophy more than anything else - what you have is an amazing PMD game, and I feel like y'all absolutely hit -your- target. Outside of that, there are quite a few collision errors remaining in 1.4 (and one really funny one where you can walk on water in the Secluded Woods), but they really don't detract from the game! Well done!
![[K]arma Badge](/data/medal/104_1641428355l.jpg)
