Are you serious? I can't believe they removed the touch-screen interface. What would possess them to do that? >_< That was very well received, but then again so was the Follow-Me feature.I like the game so far.
Now, granted, I can't comment on the story much. It does seem like it's pretty story-heavy, and I try to work through translation while I can (I'm on exchange in Japan right now), but sometimes I just wanna play the game. Opening cinematic is cool though.
My only complaints? The removal of the complete touch-screen interface of HGSS is shocking, and it will be dearly missed. I liked not having to hold down B to run. It's a little odd that they removed the whole "Pokemon follow you" thing, but that was more aesthetic than anything else, so it doesn't bug me as much as the touch screen thing.
I'm pretty early on (just after the first gym), so we'll see as time goes on! loving it so far though.
The more I hear about these things that aren't integrated into the games, the more I'm believing that these games were in the works much before Heart Gold and Soul Silver were developed. Granted, the C-Gear (I think?) feature took apparently 4 years to develop, but that's a single feature. I would imagine that doesn't necessarily mean the games were in development for 4 years. It just doesn't make sense they'd remove something as useful as the Touch-screen feature, it's something so well praised and "expected to be there", it's shocking they'd take it out. I'm sure they'll add all these features to the third game though.