Aninok

I've already backed the first Master Edition. The book itself was so high quality with it's gold stamped embossing, the faux leather binding and the rounded edge. And the recipes are really fun and tasty. She even implemented choose your own adventure Skewer Recipe! Plus the quests she made for extra hearts and stuff beside the backer name are such a cool idea.

I'm so looking forward to this second one ^^

Also, why are the the endings of the shrines still so long? I like letting animations and such playing out, but who in their right mind doesn't press x after having seen the first one taking 30 seconds for long text with a moaning sound effect? This time the statues are even the same all the time, where before the monks were at least positioned differently sometimes.

I'm obviously just being nitpicky with a fantastic game. I just can't understand why they chose to end their shrines this way again.

I love both types of shrines since they use wildly different movesets and can both be broken. But am I the only one who feels like many of the new ones are just like: "Go in there, do one pretty obvious thing, get the jingle (kinda unearned), shrine done"? Often the shrines don't even have an evolution to their ideas, which I would have really enjoyed. Well, BotW had those too, but I'd hoped they would be more fleshed out this time.

In German his artist name is RANOMAT, which is an anagram of Mantaro, his usual german name. It's interesting that they kept the anagram style for each language but not the name.

@chardir Oh yeah, I didn't put two and two together xD

Love the Artstyle and especially the picture of the Piantas playing Boccia. But... what is the Koopa beside Daisy doing?

Is there any kind of reward for catching all unown?

I don't really care about stuff like muddy textures or a lower draw distance. But what bugs me, is that they seemingly threw the trees and enviroments so haphazardly together, that I can see them partially hovering over the ground on a regular basis. It's (somewhat) fine to have the same five tree models for a whole area, but at least put in the effort to make them believably rooted in the ground.

Also, why are the rooms in the town all so, so bland? They had to populate one small village, one that the player is returning to throughout the whole game, and didn't deem it necessary to make it feel lived in and tell environmetals stories?

I really like the game loop so far, catching Pokémon is the most fun it has ever been. It's just a shame I'm reminded of what could have been an even better game from a billion dollar company, every time I notice some budget cuts, oversights or just outright meh level design...

When I first saw it, I wasn't really giving it much thought, since it was buried under so many other announcements. But once it gets started, it's really addicting, trying to find the most optimal strategy for each floor. I would really recommend it.
Also, the soundtrack is banging!

Great review, I agree with everything said, except for one. I don't know if I am particularly emotional or too easily attached to fictional characters, but I was bawling my eyes out for every one of the goodbyes. Even for some of the later, not that sympathetic characters. Just... seeing them accept their fates in their last journey to the Everdoor and the final hug they share with Stella. That was always enough to want them to stay just a little bit longer.

And @BenAV, you are totally right. My game closed four separate times and when I wanted to start one of the minigames, the character responsible for it just started falling through the boat and reappearing above it in an endless cycle. Also, as I was accompanying one of the characters to the little boat, it just said "<spirit>_LastVoyage_Fallback1" which really took me out of the moment xD

But overall, with the gorgeous Animation, Music, Story and Gameplay Loops, this is by far my top game for this year so far.