The good, the bad, the ugly: Gen VII

Exceptionally good: Travelling through Ultra Space and finding the UBs
Bad: Some of the trials
Special: MANTINE SURFING IS MY MEDICINE

 

The good: The incredible story, most of the characters, and the lack of HM's.
The bad: The start was a little slow. But it isn't as unbearable as people say it is, and most of the cutscenes that aren't tutorials are pretty enjoyable. Also, the EV controlling methods are not as good as last gen.
The ugly: Bruxish, Alolan Dugtrio, and Sophocles.

 

Good: Innovative designs and a different take on Pokémon as we got used to it.
Bad: Very handholdy, which sucked the life right outta me.
Ugly: Festival Plaza.

 

The Good: Improved graphics and story. A slightly darker take on the Pokémon games and a nice breath of fresh air. The characters were more fleshed out than the previous generation, too.

The Bad: Island Trials. I'll give it credit for being new, but they were very lackluster. Do some stupid task (the lowest it gets is listening to Pokémon cries. Really?), battle some random Pokémon and get a new crystal to overpower your team further. Also the cutscenes. So many, so long!

The Ugly: Sorry Genwunners, look away.

I get that SM was released on the year of Pokémon's twentieth anniversary, but that does NOT make it an excuse to shove a shitton of Kanto references in. Your character is from Kanto, all Alola forms are Kanto, Kanto mentions, Kanto refernces, Kanto throwbacks, Kanto Pokémon, KANTO KANTO KANTO. I was born after the Kanto games, so I feel absolutely no connection to these references. And the fact that most the original fans have moved on, so there's no point in all this Kanto. I remember only one Hoenn reference and one Johto reference in the whole game...

Also the fact that the game holds your hand so hard and often.

 

The Good:

The visuals speak for themselves. Play something like SM or even USUM and try and go back to playing something like XY and ORAS and the difference is immediately apparent. It's like XY and ORAS are completely outdated as games compared to the Gen VII games. That's really how much the visuals have improved here. The character models feel so much more lively. The characters have more personality and depth to them than any other character in any previous generation. It's because of this that interacting with not only the important story characters but even NPCs feel interesting and fluid. Game Freak really hit several correct notes here.

Gen VII also scores a lot of points in regards to its story. There are some debate that exists as to which version people prefer, but that debate also exists within fifth gen fans that prefer either BW or B2W2 better than the other. It's really just a matter of preference at the end of the day, but I personally prefer what USUM has done with Lusamine's character rather than SM.

Deviating from Gyms was also a nice touch; Trial Captains had more personality and were more fun than any past Gym Leader. Even though Trials were basically just small mini-games, doing them was actually kinda fun compared to just battling Gym Trainers all the time like in past generations.

Also, do I have to mention that Game Freak finally got rid of HMs this generation? PokeRide is definitely an innovative and creative addition. I'm not going to personally nitpick on the desire to ride my own Pokémon in place of pre-determined Pokémon, because I'll take this over HMs anyday.

Mantine Surf is legitimately the best feature to include in a Pokémon game in quite a long time!

S.O.S Chaining is one of the most controversial additions of Gen VII, but to me, since I use it for shiny hunting, it's been insanely useful and I've caught more shinies with this method this generation than any past generation combined.

The bad:

Dive is still not a thing, which annoys me considering how amazing it would've looked in Gen VII graphics. Considering how incredible diving looked in ORAS, it would've been really interesting to see a PokeRide Pokémon dedicating to diving underwater in SM. There's so much water to explore in SM (and especially USUM) that I think this was a massively missed opportunity by Game Freak

Battle Tree is... okay, I guess. It was improved in USUM by adding a bunch of characters that can partner up with you, but in SM it was relatively barebones. Aside from this, SM had basically no post-game whatsoever. What's also extremely questionable is that there are no areas to train up to past 65 or so. Seems like you have to go to Vast Poni Plains or w/e and grind there forever. Why Game Freak didn't think to add a high level grinding area is beyond me.

There also isn't a whole lot you can do with customization, at least compared to the options that you were offered in XY. I haven't done any personal research to ensure that this is the case, but it does feel like you're offered a lot less this generation than last. Not to mention from what I'm hearing from friends of mine, the customization for the male character sucks in comparison to the female protagonist.

The Ugly:

Festival Plaza is rather unintuitive, at the very least compared to the ease of PSS last generation. I do get the general gist of where Game Freak is going with Festival Plaza, because they strive for players to feel connected to each other above all else, and what better way to do that than to have their protagonist avatars appear in your game? The execution, however, could do with a lot of work. It's rather annoying how there isn't a PC in FP so you have to disconnect and reconnect, and the harsh punishment of a temporary ban because of a bad internet connection is... excessive.