I'll bet anything it's in that "balance" thing. Because unless you've got a hack for the game, it won't let you do it at all. I literally tried both methods..........throwing a Quick Ball at the start and weakening the Pokemon. I actually had a Ghost-type down to a sliver of health in one of these "too high for me areas" and paralyzed and when I tried to throw a 'ball at it, I STILL got the message that the Pokemon "has it's guard up". wry laugh

You've played FF15, so you might kinda get it. The Wild Area is a LOT like FF15's massive exploratory world. You can walk pretty much anywhere in the Wild Area and it's HUGE--I was surprised when I found out I'd walked around and was near Hammerlocke, which is a good distance Route-wise from Motostoke. But like in FF15, if you get to an area you're NOT supposed to be, the monsters are really out of your range to fight. XD

It is a game that is geared more for beginners--there is far more handholding than is absolutely necessary and they're not really teaching people much about playing a real Pokemon game. If they had taken like 2 or more years to work on the game--they could have done something where you could adjust settings for a beginner or for an experienced players, like many RPGs have. I've played enough RPGs to know you are generally given an "Easy", "Normal" and "Hard" option right at the start (beating an RPG can net you a "Super Hard" option, sometimes)--it changes monster spawns, item drops and EXP given, as well as the difficulty of the battles. GameFreak could have done this, especially for a CONSOLE game--they were still treating it as a "handheld" series game and rushing it out within a year or less.

The game has moments and one of my favorite RPG things is fulfilled by it--the Wild Area lets me wander and explore, which was my absolute part of "Final Fantasy XV". The Pokemon, though............I'm still surprised at things they've given Galar Region Formes. Um, like Stunfisk............and WHY??? I think one of the neat new ones is the Steel-type elephant Pokemon, both of it's evolutions are actually a nice Pokemon-esque design and have an actual reality-based thing. The fact that copper turns green over time--so the first form is "copper" (I dispute that orange is copper) and the evolved form is green, that is a VERY nice touch. You're right about the "too many humanoid" forms, too. I'm not sure if they're going too far with anthropomorphization on things or not, but...........yeah. Some of that overshines the nice, subtle designs.

Hop is indeed a strange one--he is VERY MUCH Ash from the older Pokemon anime. He is so much like Ash that if you found him annoying in the first couple years of the anime, you will find Hop incredibly annoying to you now. XD But............Hop does change through the game, about halfway through, his spirit is kind of broken and you do feel a bit bad for him. The character I don't like is Bede, he's like every other classic "rival trainer" and is too focused on "reaching his goal" to consider the damage he causes in his wake. Yeah, sure, they gave him the tragic orphan history and all, but you really can't care about a tragic orphan when they act like that. In all honesty, as bits and pieces of the history of Galar are revealed to you, I'm like shouting at the game--how did you not know that?! Because the buildup to the end of the world is ridiculously obvious, story-wise. There's no real surprise in it............and if you haven't figured out Dynamaxing is screwing up the world after hearing about the storm that once devastated the region, then you really are a moron. laughs The fact that a storm swirls over a Dynamaxed Pokemon should tell you "that's not good" right away. chuckle

There are things to enjoy, if you just want to wander around and collect things, but this isn't a game to play for a challenge or story--it's a game to collect Pokemon. They've made it so easy to fulfill a PokeDex in a single game alone...........except for the fact there are "version exclusives", you really don't even need to work hard to get full evolution chains. I see Pokemon of "trade evolutions" (Gengar, Machamp, Steelix) roaming in the Wild Area--so, you don't even need to trade Pokemon to get those special evolutions anymore. Basically the only thing you need to train for are the version exclusives. So, they've really also taken away the trading aspect of the game, too. I know that it's most likely because you won't be able to fully do trade until they get "Home" running, so they've basically made it so you don't need to trade.

GameFreak needs to take a couple years to do a game and not rush something out. Pokémon has lasted over 20 years now, so I honestly don’t think people will forget about Pokémon if they take about 2-3 years to make the next game.

Being that this was made as the “first console Pokémon series game” from GameFreak, there were many things they could have done to make it fun for BOTH newbies and classic players. Most RPGs I play anymore have difficulty levels—GameFreak could have done this. S/S unfortunately shows that it was clearly under development for the 3DS when at some point they chose the Switch. I don’t see any believable explanation they built this from the ground up for the Switch! Graphical consideration only went to the Pokémon and NPCs........unfortunately there are times I can see through objects and see their pixels on EVERYTHING for background and environment. That’s no improvement over Sun/Moon, really.

Considering you can catch every Pokémon, barring version exclusives, in a single game—of that 400 PokeDex. It’s made for the lone mobile player who learned about Pokémon from “Go!” You can catch even trade evolutions like Gengar and Machamp IN THE WILD. There’s literally no effort a player intends to make for the game.

With the Global Link ending for all the 3DS family of games and knowing that online battles and trades are THE THING of all modern Pokémon games. I don’t see how this overly simple game will fulfill those purposes, especially as you’ll need a paid Nintendo online subscription and the Pokémon Home app come March. The Pokémon present looks very dim for all the longtime fans, but will Nintendo get enough newbies to make up for it?