I started playing this, been having a lot of fun so far.
The survival bits are as standard as they go and that's really fine, but in terms of exploration it's very good right away(none of the common "you have to play 25hours before you can climb on walls"), there's a lot of stuff hidden all over, mini bosses peppered on the map, instanced dungeons with a reset timer and such.
And obviously the pokemons, so far I've been really impressed at how they made almost all the ones I've found somewhat useful, so I already have to make choices in which one I bring with me. Goes from exploration ones(mounts like 10mins into the game is cool, after a few hours I already got a swimming mount and a flying mount too), gathering ones so you can swap to that and just farm and obviously combat ones. I especially like that some of the combat ones can literally be equipped, like the Fire Fox that becomes a flamethrower when you equip it or some Leaf one that goes on top of your head and then machine gun enemies as you're fighting. Did the first boss and thought it was pretty well done too.
Also love the fact you can see the tech tree right away, and you can quickly see all the recipes and items needed this way without having to figure out shit, or the fact chest content are instantly available in craft stations without needing an upgrade(or just outright not existing like some other games), none of the "oh I forgot 1 wool let me go back to the chest and grab it" nonsense.
