I finished the main story, and my verdict is....it was pretty dang good! The Pokémon selection was nice and diverse, the Japanese-style world was incredibly well done, and the enemy trainer's party's levels were so well scaled, I wouldn't be surprised if you used some sort of dynamic level scaling to match the player's party. If you didn't, that's all the more impressive! The stat boosts and status effects that enemy trainers activated at the start of each battle was a solid way of increasing the challenge of trainer battles without just increasing the levels of the trainer's Pokémon, thus tempting the player to just grind to be able to overcome the challenge.
If I were to gripe about anything in this game, I would have to say that I don't think Shizen Forest's layout was all that great. Once you walk past the first ledge, you are committed to making it all the way through the forest or blackout trying. Since it isn't a cave, Escape Ropes can't save you here. There are a lot of trainers along this route, all of them unavoidable, so I ended up blacking out halfway through, then came back and barely made it out on the second go around, using items all the way through both times. Also, the part of Shizen Forest that leads back to Shizen Trail is only accessible at the end of the forest, so most players (or at least myself) would just use the Talonflame fast-travel in Tsuchi Village instead, making that part of the forest useless. The rest of the routes, caves, etc. were all much better designed, with no locked-in areas, and also often had sections that allow the player to easily return back to the entrance in case they need to heal or forgot something.
