This is probably the storyline that was the least creative, simply because it has been done to death. I appreciate that they do try to mix things up a bit and shake up the formula, but ultimately collecting 8 badges, doing the E4 and beating the champion is a little stale and for Scarlet and Violet it's no different, but there are small things I enjoyed.
I enjoyed the Gym Challenges, as mundane as they felt they did add character and a feeling of individualism to not only the gym leaders but to also the towns/cities. We were able to somewhat assimilate into the local community and get a feel for how they live, and even if a small detail, it was really magical. It was so much better than just battling 2/3 trainers and then the leader. I don't want to shit on SWSH too much, but following how dire that gym challenge was, it was refreshing. They essentially meshed the Trial challenges from SM with traditional Gym Challenges and, for the most part, it worked. But overall, it was still generally quite stale. I wish they shook up the actual battles more, I enjoyed what they did for Ryme's gym battle where it was a double battle that gave boosts intermittently (Although could've done without them tbh) - and to give SWSH a shoutout, Raihan's gym battle was interesting, as they mixed up his type speciality with a battle type (Weather) rather than just straight up dragon. Hopefully in the future they can maybe retire types all together for Gym Battles, and focus on having weather teams, terrain teams, double battle strategies, Trick Room teams etc, considering VGC is all doubles that focus on these strategies, I'm surprised they haven't embedded these into the main game in a diluted way.
The Elite 4 was also fairly basic battle wise, but I did like how they were introduced to us early on, their characterisations were hit and miss for me, personally. I enjoyed Hassel and Rika but Poppy was literally introduced to us once for 3 seconds and then.. Larry was just there. He was easily one of the more boring gym leaders, so seeing him be the "Gym leader who received a promotion" was.. really uninspiring. Iono, Ryme, Tulip and Grusha were all far more interesting, it would've been better to see one of those as the Gym Leader who came into the role. (Although if I'm totally honest, I would've liked Eri from Team Star to be the E4 member, but it wouldn't have made sense given the story progression)
Now, let's get onto Geeta - as a character, I didn't find her overly interesting - design-wise, sure, she's great to look at, but her team/character were a bit boring. Her team was especially weird - Kingambit and Glimmora made sense, they're solid 500+ BST mons that hadn't been used yet, but then Espartha and Veluza? These two were used by Tulip and Kofu and then two Gen 6 Pokemon (Kalos confirmed?), two not very good ones at that - it really didn't make sense, no great synergy, low BSTs and low attack power.
Personally I would've made her team; Kingambit, Glimmora, Gholdengo, Baxcalibur, Arboliva and Armarouge. A decent coverage team, all above 500BST and would've share members with other leaders/E4 (I would swap Hassel's Baxcalibur with either Tatsugiri or Cyclizar) as a side note, I find it odd how Ceruledge and Armarouge weren't used by any of the relevant characters (Idk about rematches yet)
As for Nemona, I enjoyed her a lot. She was a solid rival, which was very refreshing after the last few generations of absolute flop/unlikable rivals (I actually enjoyed Hop but his character didn't live up to what they were aiming for) Her team, again, was a little odd. I would've removed Goodra and Lycanroc and added Ceruledge and Dachsbun, potentially.
Ultimately it was an okay story, they did what they could, there's still steps they could take to make it more gripping and enticing but you can tell they're trying to switch it up.
