I never really stayed in one map for too long but now that you’ve mentioned it I do recall thinking things were taking too long to respawn during some specific mon grinding.

Z-A has definitely fixed this with more intuitive respawn mechanics, but it’s got much more of a focus on battling and less on collecting this time around, so it isn’t for everyone. Much more fun than the main series has been in a while though!

I agree with this so much - the end of act 2 was such a narrative high I was excited to see how they topped it!

And then they didn’t. And then I stopped levelling. It wasn’t the climax to the story I was expecting.

I always struggled to describe what was so disappointing but you hit the nail on the head. Starting act 3 felt like I was sent in time back to act 1 - aimlessly wandering around the map until finally stumbling across the next main story point.