I recently built a computer with 3070 and played nearly the entire Game Pass library and some new games. Played several Switch games, one of which is MH Rise, which was absolutely excellent though will be much higher rated once the final contents come out. So recently I've not felt a game really blew my mind because, well, most games have reached a production value where they are pretty good to a certain point honestly.
But New Snap... holy crap. This game makes me feel shit I haven't felt playing a game for the longest longest time. I can't even begin to describe how happy this freaking game makes me feel lol.
Sword and Shield were probably 2 of the worst games I've played in my entire life. They were extremely uninspired garbage that made me quit Pokemon altogether, but prior to that, I actually quite loved the series, having grown up with it since gen 1
New Snap rekindled a lot of the love. I'm still not fucking playing the DP remake cuz that legit looks like shit, and Legends I'll have to wait for a review, but man New Snap is in a league of its fucking own.
Remember in the first Snap where there would be puzzles like leading Pikachu or Charmander to some location and making cool Pokemon pop up, or like figuring out how to wake up the Vileplume or finding out how to unlock new areas and stuff? Well what if literally every single freaking Pokemon had a puzzle or 3 like that lol, and so far I've seen about a 100 pokemon. The amount of puzzles and the range of solutions you can do to "solve" the puzzles are insane. Every Pokemon have 4 tier of poses, 1st usually being just a standstill or default pose, 2nd being something related to eating the apples you can throw, though not every Pokemon will eat those apples, for which you'll require other solutions. But the 3rd and 4th poses are entirely freeform. It can be just about anything depending on the Pokemon, and the only way to really find out is to experiment with as many different possibilities as you can. Nothing is so crazy to figure out that you should look at a guide (though I guess if you're going for 100%, you might be tempted down the line). The game shines when you try to figure things out through experimentation.
Also the better you do and the more you repeat levels, you level up that area (each time/circumstances have their own levels too), which they explain as having the Pokemon of that region warm up to your presence. So rarer Pokemon will show up, previous Pokemon will run away less and exhibit new behaviors. The game throws you so much little things to figure out that at least for the first like 10 times you repeat an area, which you will mostly likely do willingly, you'll always find something new, and it will rarely ever be just one or two things.
I've played it for 10 hrs and I've only gotten like 10% of the achievements and even less requests, which I think have pretty strict requirements >.>, but it should speak to the level of replayability of the game.
The game is in an arcade style, so don't expect like some curated beginning to the end. You have to decide for yourself whether or not you just want to get to the "end," or if you want to figure out as many secret behaviors as possible. I feel like some people will go the whole game never having seen a lvl 3 familiarity version of an area, which is painful cuz so much of the Pokemon and their behavior change
Man, it just sucks cuz some people really shit on this game lol. I get it's not for everybody but I feel like it's some different level of soullessness if you felt 0 sense of wonder from this game. I read a topic on here that called it a mobile game? I've played a lot of mobile games, and that's just a blatant fake news. I need more ppl to get on this shit. It's fucking wonderful