professor_tammi

Well. Time to rant some more. (This is fun.)

There are a bunch of things I'd forgotten or simply didn't feel like mentioning because everyone probably already knows about them, but I'll see if I can write these things down despite that. Sharing knowledge is pretty fun, even if it's common knowledge. So! General gameplay- and design-related stuff:

Moving sprites are really cool, and often very cute as well. (Especially Audino's. This has to be the cutest Unova pokémon. It's even cuter than ~~Joltik~~ Hamsterspider.) According to an interview, part of the reason the sprites are still 2D is because it makes expressing personality easier, which really shows - just look at, say, Snivy (impatiently tapping its feet) or Emolga (I have to admit, the way Emolgas constantly switch between :| and :D-faces cracks me up).
There's a small indicator of the weather on the bottom screen, so you don't have to deal with "rain continues to fall!" every single turn. Thank god.
Battles are, of course, quite a bit faster, even with animations turned on. Unlike Gen IV, pressing A can be used to scroll through the text in-battle.
The encounter rate seems way too high, even when not running, which is actually a bad thing. I've solved it by buying a few dozen Max Repels like I always do, but before I bought those, exploring caves was a nightmare. Ugh.
Speaking of random number-related stuff... the RNG is clearly rigged. I mean, Fury Swipes missing four times in a row? I guess it's the new Stone Edge.
Music: I really, really love the low-HP and leader's-last-Pokémon music. Both are very nice touches! In fact, the game just seems very polished in general.

... and some random observations about my journey through Unova:

I met the massage-lady. Forgot where, but I asked her to massage my Litwick because the idea of someone massaging a candleghost amused me. They'd probably just get burnt. But how do you massage a ghost, anyway?
Oh, I almost forgot to mention this: Prof. Juniper gives you a Lucky Egg as part of the story. Finally! No more Frisk/Thief-ing dozens of Chanseys.
I've come to the conclusion that N is probably a pretty nice guy, but the Shadow Triad guys are only making him seem creepier. As is his theme music. And his battle music. Kind of unexpected, really, since this is a Pokémon game and all.
Team Plasma seem to be the "means to an end"-kind of people. It's the only way to explain their hypocrisy. It's still interesting to ~~hear~~ read about the their opinions, which are strikingly similar to some things I used to see on those old anti-Pokémon sites.
It seems like Cheren's dilemma (WHAT IS ~~LOVE~~STRENGTH?) was resolved! Sort of. He decides that strength can in fact be many different things! (I'm not sure why I'm paying so much attention to the story of a game marketed to 12-year-olds. But it's ok. Being childish is good.)
Bianca, on the other hand, has simply accepted that she will never become a truly strong trainer, which is a little sad. Maybe we'll see what her resolution is after the league? Hopefully.
I've decided against using Braviary, and I'm using Fwoosh the Woobat instead! No trading necessary. And, to be honest, I find Woobats kind of adorable. Their design just grew on me. (Still waiting for this guy to evolve into a Swoobat, who will also be adorable.)
The Icirrus Gym has sliding puzzles. Because it's an ice-type gym. (I love sliding puzzles!) Speaking of which, all gym puzzles are really easy and straightforward this time around. I think I prefer it that way. I've never liked video game puzzles.
The dragon-type gym was a little challenging, I'll admit, as I have no ice-type moves whatsoever. For the most part, I used my incredibly sturdy Carracosta @ Rock Helmet to tank hits, and Lampent's Will-o-Wisp really helped against the physical dragons, ie everything not Deino. Admittedly, a lot of them also had Taunt, which sort of ruined my plans, but eh. It worked out pretty nicely in the end.
Much like in the original RBY, there are 8 gates before Victory Road, each with a guard who checks if you've got the right badge. However, rather unlike RBY, the environments all reflect the gym badge which was used to open the gate (for example, the area after the Legend Badge has two dragon heads, the area after the ice-gym badge is full of snow and ice, etc). Perhaps the most interesting thing about these gates is the music, as a new layer/idk (I'm not good with musical terms, sorry) is added to it every time you pass through one of the gates, which makes for some really impressive build-up!

Tomorrow, I should hopefully have some time to write about the league and post-game stuff.