I've been playing the mainline Pokemon games for almost 25 years now, and beaten at least one version of each generation. I defeated each rendition of the Elite Four and completed most generations' post-game content.

In Pokemon Violet, however, for the first time in all these years... I completed the regional pokedex!

For those not familiar with the series, this entails having caught (or obtained through evolution or trading) every species of Pokemon "native" to the game's region. For the newest game that's 400 Pokemon!

The core gameplay loop in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet is excellent. This generation unlocked something through the simple act of entirely removing random battles from the equation, allowing players to freely roam around and see the Pokemon they're about to fight. That's all it took to make this the most fun game in the mainline series.

And honestly it's saying a lot about this core loop that the game manages to stay fun so long, because a lot of the game kinda objectively sucks. The environmental graphics are garbage, the geography is uninspired (with the exception of maybe 2-3 areas), and while the supporting cast is well designed, all three "stories" in the game essentially just amount to three different series of the "gym battle" formula.

Also, as usual the different "versions" of the game were just the same game with a couple of different Pokemon. I had hoped for a Ruby/Sapphire setup with the whole Future / Past thing, but the story (and locations) were basically identical with the dialog going through a s/future/past/g. I don't know why I expected more from Game Freak in this aspect, but I did. (Maybe because there were 2 professors advertised in the promotional content.)

Hot damn was the Pokemon part good, though. The gyms and story may have just been flat excuses to catch and train more Pokemon, but that's all they really needed to be for a good time. Climbing up the side of a mountain to see the final evolved form of a fairly rare Pokemon wandering around was a dopamine hit. Evolving some of the old returning Pokemon into new forms was super exciting. I spent a lot of time in this game smiling or yelling for my partner to "look at what I caught!" (they have been similarly engrossed in the Scarlet version of the game)

With my pokedex filled I can now put this game away. I don't feel any need to compete online or do these awful level 5/6 raids, so there's not much left for me in Paldea.

When that DLC drops, though, with more Pokemon to catch? Well, my party is waiting.