Pokémon Moon - Nintendo 3DS

Feels short compared to ORAS or X/Y. They keep adding customization but then no matter what you do your character looks like a little moron. Most of the Alolan Pokemon variants are embarrassing. Its like they went with all the worst ideas the designers had. What if Dugtrio had long blonde hair? What if we made Meowth a gay stereotype? What if Persians head was like 3 times normal size? These are the questions that will be answered in Pokemon Sun/Moon. The difficulty spikes near the end of the game, meaning you have to grind for hours to be strong enough to beat bosses. Pokemon Bank doesnt yet support Sun/Moon so you wont be able to import any of your strong Pokemon to help with this until January 2017. All that aside, its still a Pokemon game. Its fun to run around trying to catch the ones you want. Its fun to battle other trainers, though it gets tedious as in all the games. The story is pretty meaningless as always. I will say theres been significant improvement to the music and graphics since X/Y/OR/AS. Some of the songs are even good, rather than just irritating. Its a bit disappointing that you have to ride whichever pokemon are handed to you as ride pokemon and cant use your own, and there are a few other things youll find lacking after a bit, but its still a decent Pokemon game.

For most of my life, the Pokemon series has had a huge influence on how I spend my free time. From playing pokemon Leaf Green late into the night on weekends, to now playing Pokemon Moon while procrastinating on my college essays. I am happy to say I have added this to my collection. Pros: Pokemon - The usual formula for the most part. Nostalgia value, and replayability as per the norm for the Pokemon series. Deep Story - Most Pokemon games of yesteryear did not have a deep story. Only up until the last two generations did we have major story arcs and prologue style after stories. Cons: Lots Of Change - If you arent a fan of change, you might not enjoy this. They changed things up with this edition of the series. Gyms are no more as you complete trials rather than gain badges. This is the main difference, and one I dont personally find bad, but it can be a dealbreaker for those diehard Pokemon fans. Lag - If you do not have the New 3DS system, you will experience slight drops in performance in certain battle situations. Its not a big issue to me, and one Im looking to fix by buying a New 3DS system in the future. Over all, I am loving the game so far. It is worth your time buying for yourself, your children, or your grandchildren. It is great for all ages, and truly a wonderful gaming experience. 89/100 Packaging and Amazon Purchase Review: Arrived safe and sound in a bubble wrap envelope. The estimated time was spot on, and in the end I am 200% happy with this purchase.

Aesthetically pleasing? Yes. You stop being excited about how great it looks after playing it for a couple of hours and seeing all the flaws. Seriously, there is no sense of accomplishment to this game period. Whoever developed it mustve just went, Hey, lets make this game easy for idiots. Dont bother grinding levels, you dont need it. The game tells you where to go and what to do. Cut scenes galore. I am also really irritated with how it tells you even what moves to USE in battle. Its always been about trial and error, and memorizing from experience how to battle. Besides isnt the whole point to pokemon to become a master trainer? You cant grow as a person much like you cant get better at a videogame if everything is handed to you on a silver platter. Now, the call for help feature....is such a tedious waste of time. Most people are not going to farm shinys for hours on end. And, as far as I can see, thats the only purpose it serves because I can kill everything just fine. It just eats up more of my day when my pokeball fails and another one drops from the sky and tells you that you cant throw it if two are on the field. If the island challenges were a little more difficult, you might actually get some satisfaction from obtaining a z-crystals. The game even gives you dire hits to waste on totem pokemon if you suck bad enough to need it. Your rival in the game is a joke and Gary would be ashamed of him. I read reviews of performance issues but I have a New 3ds so I cant really bi*ch about that. Festival plaza is super pointless other than the daily drawing where you can win an item. Poke pelago is actually implemented seemingly well. Honestly, I think this game is for children only. Teens and adults that are long time fans of the series are going to have much to gripe about. I see a lot of 5* reviews and just assume those people must be the ones you see at work or school that smile all the time and never get gloomy. Overall, its an okay game with untapped potential. I think its definitely a game people should try though your mileage may vary.

This game does not utilize 3D capabilities. The overall quality feels a bit unfinished. The story gets an incredibly slow start. The Rotom Dex is more annoying than Clippy and Navi combined. Every other line of Team Skulls dialogue makes me cringe because their body language is like the choreography for a rap video on meth, and they stereotype gang culture with African American Vernacular English so it comes off as a bit racist even with white characters saying it. The gameplay has been changed a lot since the previous generation. Some of the essential basic features that have been there since gen 1 have been removed, so its hardly even Pokémon anymore. There are no gym battles. There arent even gyms. There are no HMs, and the replacement for them doesnt even make any sense. There are no bikes, probably because the writers decided everyone would be happy with riding a Pokémon. You can no longer transfer Pokémon up from previous generations, except Bank(a service you have pay for annually) will enable that starting next month, but Pokémon cant hold items when transferred through Bank, so I will lose all of my rare items that I worked hard to earn and find. Online gameplay is flooded with cheaters that Nintendo refuses to do anything about. Even well-known players in official tournaments are obviously cheating and harass anyone who mentions it. The only reason I havent sold the game is because I still do link battles with my partner.

I havent finished it yet but so far, this is my least favorite Pokemon game. I dont know how they could have went from Pokemon X that I LOVED to this. *It is soooo slow. People talk to me for forever and then I do one thing and they come up and talk to me for forever again. I cant just play the game! Also, the screen goes black for a little too long sometimes when the picture changes, and the battles are slow. *There are no gyms. There are trials. Renaming things wouldnt be so bad but the trials arent even a challenge. I feel like the whole game is just one big walk down a twisting route, where trainers get progressively harder to defeat and some trainers give you things. I dont feel like Im making progress. *The map really confuses me. It may not be a big deal for some people but I would get lost on the original maps. I guess thats why they place flags to tell you where to go next. *Too many things you can only do once a day. I feel like Im playing a free download sometimes. *A lot of things that I liked about Pokemon X, like the clothes, and the mini-games where I can play with my Pokemon are lame in this game. I can buy clothes but they dont change every day, they dont seem as cute, and I cant even see the hats! I can still pet and feed my Pokemon, but I cant play with them. *I cant sit in chairs. I cant even walk on top of them. Im used to being able to do that. I also cant look inside trash cans. *There is an A bubble on top of pokeballs... For some reason, this just makes me feel dumb... or that the creators think Im dumb. The only reason this game is somewhat enjoyable is because I am addicted to Pokemon in general. If anyone thinks they can change my opinion, please be my guest. -Katelyn

As an original Pokemon player, Ive grown and experienced it all. And while itll be easy to simply say Sun and Moon have completely departed from the series and created something revolutionary and new like Nintendo has tried to market this generation as, that simply is not the case. Yes things feel fresh up to a point; there are no gyms, no established Elite Four, and a few other minor differences, but at the core of it you still are going from city to city challenging trainers to battles. This is what Pokemon is at its core. You can call it Island Challenges if you want, but they are still Gym battles. The biggest inclusion are the Z Moves which function as a last ditch super power up move. We see this in many games, but not yet in Pokemon, at least not until this year. Pokemon Sun and Moon are great games that are great games because it follows the traditional formula which made Pokemon a household name. All they did was simply tweak the names and paths you go through and that is how it feels fresh. Game Freak has had a successful track record and this generation continues it.

PROS: -3D environment looks really nice -More difficult than expected; I expected this game to be a breeze if it was anything like X and Y, but I surprisingly found myself struggling in certain areas -Trial challenges are a welcome change to the typical Gym leader layout -Instead of HMs, you can summon different pokemon entirely to interact with overworld obstacles. This is great seeing that teaching pokemon HMs that while needed to get through the game, are really bad moves in an actual fight. For example, instead of teaching a pokemon rock smash, instead you can summon a tauros to ride on, and to dash into rocks to break them. POSSIBLE CONS (some of these are subjective and problems that I personally dont like, but I know a lot of people do like them) -SO MUCH STORY - This is a problem that I feel is getting progressively worse with each new pokemon game. I feel like I cant walk two steps without triggering some kind of cut scene that I just DO NOT CARE ABOUT. Containing characters that I DO NOT CARE ABOUT. ESPECIALLY in the opening of the game, which takes waaay to long to finish. Ive talked to a lot of people who do love the story and characters, and I guess its just a To each their own thing, but if you were annoyed at the number of cut-scenes in the last pokemon generation, this is even worse. There are so many side characters that tag along to wherever you go, and will not shut up whenever I just want to go back to playing the game. Especially Hau. I HATE Hau. In-fact Im going to go on a tangent about Hau: Remember how in the first generation (I should mention that I am not a first-gen-fanatic like others, I prefer the 3rd generation and the remakes of the 2nd gen), your rival was the biggest jerk in the world, and you wanted to beat him so bad and it felt so good when you did? Apparently gamers cant handle that kind of conflict, so instead every Rival now are the nicest, most PG, and most boring characters in the game, who pick the starter pokemon that are weak against your starter because a challenge against your rival is too much to ask for. Every time I see this character waiting in the distance with his stupid smug face, waiting for me to get close to trigger a cut-scene that I cant escape, and play a battle that is now a chore because I dont care about this boring character. (In case you didnt want to read this novel above me, allow me to simplify: Too much boring story and too many boring characters that keep you from actually playing the game) -The introduction takes way way too long, and is especially boring and pointless to anyone familiar with pokemon games -Another complaint is the use of way points and a radar map. I enjoy being able to figure out what I need to do in order to progress throughout the game. Its a great feeling when you figure out the next step in your adventure by yourself with little help. In Sun and Moon, you are given a radar map on your bottom screen, and on that radar are way points that tell you exactly where to go which means that there is no room for any exploration in this game, because the game designers felt the need to hold your hand throughout the game, and always point to where you need to go. This makes the cutscenes that explain to the player what they need to do because it doesnt matter what they say, the waypoints will show them where to go anyways. (TLDR) So, overall, Ill say this. If you arent a fan of the newer generations because of the excessive story, and very easy nature, etc. etc., this certainly wont do anything for you, especially with the addition of waypoints. The only thing that I like more in this than X and Y is that some of the Trial pokemon battles are actually pretty tough and may even warrant some grinding. If, however, you really like the new games, and all of the story involved, and you want your adventure to be easy, then buy this game by all means. And even though I trashed this game in most of this review, I will still give it a solid 3 stars. It is still a pokemon game, after all, and you would need to do a great deal to screw up a pokemon game enough to be a bad game.

Havent played Pokemon since Pokemon Platinum. Along with a lot of new Pokemon theyve got rid of a lot of annoyances. When you catch a Pokemon and have a full party, it will ask whether you want to replace a Pokemon in your party with it sending the other to the PC. The same with Pokemon and eggs that are given to you so you dont need an open spot in your party to receive an egg, they can be sent to the PC. In battles theres a button to use the last used item. Real nice not having to traverse the menus when trying to catch a legendary. Theres also sorting options for the items that I dont remember being able to do back in the day. Movement isnt grid based anymore. Its a bit more fluid and the character models have more human proportions. Still stylized of course but theyre not little sprites or chibi 3D models. Theyve removed the need for HM moves to get through levels. They now give you access to these on demand call whenever Pokemon that you can use in replacement for things like Surf, Fly, and Cut. The beginning has a lot of cutscenes. Theres a lot more cutscenes in this game compared to previous. The story is also quite a bit different than previous games. The evil team isnt as much of a focus. Theyre still there but not as prominent. Overall the quality of life improvements in this game makes it a much nicer experience. I cant wait to see what they can do with Pokemon on the Switch. When a Pokemon game comes out on that, with the added power, Im sure theyll be able to rid of more annoying kinks in the Pokemon formula.

This is the first new Pokemon game Ive played since the original Sapphire back in ~2004, and I enjoyed this game quite a bit. The story and progression is really interesting in this game and there are lots of new and interesting pokemon to catch. The visuals are also very nice for a 3DS game, while still fitting in with what a Pokemon game is supposed to look like. My one complaint with this game, however, is that its extremely easy - to the extent that I would argue this is one of the simplest videogames I have ever played. For most of the game, I was able to 1-hit or 2-hit almost every pokemon, and wipe out every trainer I came across without any challenge. This is mostly because trainers always carry pokemon of a far lower level than what yours likely are, and up until the last act of the game they will only ever have 2 or 3 pokemon, tops. I think there was 1 trainer before the final act of the game with 4. However, to add more challenge into the game, I came up with a few gameplay restrictions that I feel make the game much more fair: - Turn off EXP share when you get it. EXP share is basically easy mode, and the game is much better without it. - Only hold 3 pokemon at a time, and not 6. As I mentioned, trainers never have more than 3 until towards the end of the game, so for most of the game this will simply make fights more balanced. There is no challenge in fighting a trainer with 2 pokemon while you have 6. - Dont use Z-moves. This is a bit sad to give up, since theyre really cool, but some of them are so powerful that it makes the game downright unbalanced to fight opponents who do not have these moves. I find the game better without them, at best restricting them to boss trainers. Playing the game with these three restrictions basically makes a hard mode, that puts you more in line with the opponents you will face throughout the game. I understand the need to open this series up to a new and potentially younger audience, but this is literally the easiest videogame I ever recall playing. These restrictions make the game better for older gamers who can handle a little challenge, or for anyone who preferred the difficulty of the early- to mid-2000s entries.

Fun game and came new nice and quick.