For me, is quite dissapointing how the surf animations is still the same, the generic blue ball under you should be the actual pokémon now, the capabilities of the console can do that, and even for the flying animations they will keep the generic blue shadow thing... :/. Beside that, the game looks pretty amazing.
That actually requires more time and money to make each individual pokemon able to learn surf have their own sprite while floating. If so, then Every pokemon for every HM would have to be the same. And if they did that then they would be forced to make the pokemon in the grass actually visible in the wild and if they did that.... so you see? Less headaches this way.