The way you start the game is so interesting! For starters, you don't meet your partner, much less form a team with them, until many rather short chapters in. You play as a school kid for what seems like ages before you even meet Amphoros who is the exploration master and that's when you form a team.The connection orb, in the picture behind Amphoros, is really cool in the way of recruitment. As a junior member of the Exploration Society, you aren't allowed to take missions, instead you use your connection orb to assist Pokemon who need your help. After that, the Pokemon that the Pokemon you saved knows will show up on the constellation. For example, Autumn and Kip save an Azurill. That Azurill is aquatinted/friends with Wishcash and Metapod. After you complete their mission, Azurill will be connected to Autumn and Kip, and now Wishcash and Metapod can request help. There is no such things as rewards with the connection orbs, which I think is very interesting. If a Pokemon decides to give you a rewards, you can pick it up via Kangeskan. The reward mainly is that if you connect to a Pokemon, they can join your party instantly. So here I am, trotting around as a lvl 12 Fennekin with a lvl 11 Treeko behind, and after him I have a lvl 55 Dragonite. So it can make your quests easier or harder depending on how you wish to play the game. I've onky started the game, 5 hours in, but I swear, I haven't ever played a more difficult PMD game off the bat. Even in Explorers of Time, it eased me into the game slowly than turned up the heat. This time they just kinda threw you in and started to boil. One last note that I like about this game, is the team preset option. You can only have teams of three unfortunately, but you can have up to five preset teams to play as if one of your Pokemon is 'closed for the day', another somewhat irritating feature. I recommend the game, so buy it people! It's good!