That’s not the end of the battle system though. You also pick items such as rocks, sticks, seeds, and orbs that you can use or throw at enemies. The best part of the game is throwing rocks at an escaping Pokemon running for its life away from you. The rock arcs elegantly through the air and then lands squarely in the back of the retreating Pokemon’s head (presumably)  killing them. Or you can do any of these wondrous things! Throw a stick like a dart at them, throw an exploding seed, use an orb to fling them into a wall, use an orb to blow them up, use a long distance attack to kill them, etc. I once let a poor fleeing Pokemon get nearly to the exit of a fairly large room before throwing a stick at them, finishing the job. Enemies can also throw these items at you if they’ve picked them up off the floor.

There also, of course, TMs that you can use to teach your Pokemon moves. If you’re wondering what moves a Pokemon learns or what TM they can learn just look at their Diamond and Pearl move sets. They’re exactly the same. As for evolution, you can’t evolve any Pokemon until you’ve beaten the game and you can’t evolve your starters until you’ve done quite a bit in the post game.

Part way through the game you get the ability to recruit Pokemon. Basically, after defeating a Pokemon there is a small chance they’ll get up and ask to join your entourage. Yup, no Pokeballs, just some good ol’ fashioned physical coercion. You can get/recruit nearly 491 Pokemon. The last two, Shaymin and Arceus do not appear to be in the game.

The music in the game is fairly good. The music that plays fits pretty much every situation in the game. It’s got quite a few upbeat tunes and nothing becomes terribly annoying. Also at the speed I was reading the text, the music matched up quite well with what was going on.

As to whether or not I could recommend this I’m fairly torn. On the one had I absolutely loved the game and couldn’t get enough of it. On the other hand I know this won’t appeal to everyone. I also had very low expectations going into it, so it was probably very easy for me to be impressed. I’d really only recommend it to people who enjoy this type of game. If I did recommend it to someone else, I’d definitely ask them to try it out first to see if they like it. It’s not for everyone.