fwiw i really really love the first half of the pokemon reviews. I would read entire books about what you had to say lore and inspiration-wise on pretty much every pokemon. i dont play competitively, so the second half is always Just Info to me, but even that has helped me understand the meta as it is, which is also interesting! personally, i would rank the reviews as my favorite thing (and like you said, the sheer scope and the worldbuilding analysis you extrapolate from the pokemon themselves should make you proud) and your If I Ran The Zoo type stuff my second favorite. this is long and rambling but i just have been a long time fan and youre a bright spot on a dark internet and thanks!
[This submission is a response to this]
That’s actually really helpful feedback; thanks! After frankly kind of flubbing generation VII (due in part to unavoidable real-life circumstances, but also due to mismanagement on my part) I want to revise my approach to generation VIII. The first thing is that I don’t think I should write a full narrative-based playthrough journal the way I did for White 2, X and Moon – because that’s fun, and I know a lot of people did enjoy them, but it takes so long, and I think the Pokémon reviews ought to be the highest priority. It would be better, I think, to start those within a month or two of release. And then the reviews themselves I think have become too expansive, and don’t play to my strengths. If I could cut down the competitive stuff (there are better places to go on the internet for that kind of advice; no one needs me for that), and limit that side to just discussion of signature moves and abilities, or moves that cast a particularly interesting light on a Pokémon’s character design, then that, I think, would be a worthwhile economy to pursue. I really want to commit to making sure that this blog’s future includes more of the theoretically dense worldbuilding and games-as-storytelling stuff that inspired “If I Were In Charge,” so trying to slim down the Pokémon reviews and “get them out of the way” is probably a good idea, as long as I can keep the parts of them that my readers value.
Pokémaniacal 
Always nice to hear from people who enjoy what we (well, mostly you, Chris,) do!
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I really enjoy your reviews, but I agree you could probably cut down on the competitive stuff; it’s not what I read them for, I enjoy your musings on the designs and the practical application of how the Pokemon could exist in nature, how it relates to other Pokemon and people, and suchlike. The games are (bit by painstaking bit) building a more complete image of the world (Alola feels like a much more real place than any of the older regions because it’s just so much more fleshed out) and this is what I enjoy about this blog, too. I still do enjoy stuff like the “ten worst Pokemon” and similar though. Keep doing what you do! 🙂
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That’s something I love about Alola too, and if Galar is the same, it’s something I’ll try to spend a lot of time talking about. Thanks for commenting!
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I for one do enjoy your competitive analysis (although if I had to pick I’d pick the other half). I’m aware there’s better places for that but I’m not a competitive player. I feel like someday I might be though and I enjoy passively absorbing that general information, it still feels relevant to their flavor for me and gets me interested in using certain ‘mons in future playthroughs – I tend to not pay attention to stats and move pools much when I’m playing on my own. But ultimately if I have to I’ll let that side go.
Also, perhaps instead of a narrative, you could just write up your reactions as you play through Sword or Shield? It could take significantly less time, and I rather enjoyed, for example, seeing your reaction to encountering Goomy for the first time (probably was a normal reaction, when I started to suspect it was a dragon I was a bit flabbergasted).
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Also, anything you encounter in game that particularly interests you would be interesting to hear along the way. I still worry we won’t get individual entries for Alolan forms – as interesting as new Pokémon are, I feel each Alolan form has a lot of implications worth exploring. Whatever new thing Sword and Shield throws at us, I’d preferring hearing detailed thoughts on those over a narrative added onto the adventure. I mean, assuming it’s good, even just Galarian forms would be better than this armor evolution rumor that I pray isn’t real. *rushes to your Question box*
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I’ve been thinking about doing the playthrough of Sword/Shield the way I did Alpha Sapphire (https://pokemaniacal.com/2014/12/26/so-alpha-sapphire-is-a-thing/) – no narrative, just notes on whatever I found interesting. I also could just Tweet it as I go, since I’m trying to do Twitter again? Or both?
And I’ll definitely write *something* about the Alolan forms but whether it’ll be a big thing that covers all of them or short pieces on each one, I’m still not sure about. There’s actually a *lot* of Ultra Beasts, so even though I feel like I’m very close to the end of Alola, we’ve got another couple of months of that. I also have to write about several of the human characters, as much for my own peace of mind as anything else – Hau, Gladion, Lillie, Lusamine, Guzma… mayyyyyybe Kukui but I’m actually thinking about doing him as just part of an article on “You, the Champion” that covers all the potential challengers. So we’ll see how much time there is.
That question’s probably not gonna be answered in full until next week, but my basic impression is… I have *thoughts*, but it doesn’t even seem that outlandish a rumour.
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