Pokémon Sun - Nintendo 3DS

1. There are too many spots that are just... empty. I cant tell you how many times ive gone off exploring on a route and a path leads to nothing. Same with surfing, youll get on lapras and surf around and then.... theres nothing, maybe a few trainers and fishing holes? But thats usually it. this is a new gen, there should be a least a little more detail/things to do. Disappointed in the emptiness this game has. 2. Poke ride is pretty cool... at first. You get a few pokemon to ride at first that are actually helpful. Like tauros has the speed to get places fast, and stoutland has the ability to sniff out items, he also runs pretty fast when hes not sniffing. But when you get mudsdale, its such a pointless addition. All he is used for is to cross a certain path on a rocky route. Thats it. And theres no need to ride him when your out and about afterwards because he is incredibly slow and clunky... So whats the point of him? Theres none and its disappointing. Same with charizard. Why were we not able to ride him when we were able to ride ratios over the Hoenn region LAST generation? This is a new generation, there is absolutely no reason we werent able to fly over the all region. Very disappointed with poke ride. 3. The trial on the first mountain to me, was a joke. The guys literally just says, almost instantly after meeting him and getting there Well, I guess we should do the trial now, right? ...What? No story to lead up to anything? You literally just got to this new place and they are already having a new trial thrown at you with little background story or anything. Lazy and boring story telling. And when youre done with the trail youre pretty much done wit the place and the urge you to go to the next mountain. What what what? Done in 5 minutes? 4. Poke finder lost its fun after the first few times. Its really just kind of boring now and i dont feel the need to go back to any places and take more pictures because the same pokemon are always there and nothing new is happening. 5. The dialogue can be clunky and hard to understand at times. I cant count how many times i had to re read what some of the NPCs were saying to me, especially before and after battles, some of the sentences were just structured to weirdly that I gave up on the 4th time rereading it, and im a 22 year old man. What is the deal with that? Was the localization team drunk or something? 6. The music is a major let down. Coming from Pokemon Y to this, this game has very little memorable tunes. The same route music is used for like the first half of the game. What the heck is that all about? Pokemon Y had a different memorable song for just about each route and hardly recycled music. Very disappointed in the music, a lot of it felt like stock music or something, like there was no emphasis on it. The game just cant touch Pokemon X&Y. The story was better, the graphics were more memorable and charming, the music was better, everything was better. Its not a bad game, but its not good either. I would like the old director/composer back! Junichi Masada why you do this?!

Pokemon is one of the highest selling, most preordered, and anticipated games for the 3DS. And for good reason (sort of). Despite the franchises age, the series seems to outsell itself with every new release. After 20 years, Game Freak has decided it might be time to shake up the formula beyond new pokemon and slight adjustments to type sets/moves. Some changes are welcomed (no HMs) while others are a bit of a head scratcher (can’t fish where you want.) I will give the game the benefit of the doubt as I am only wrapping up the second island, but most of my complaints are true issues throughout the game: 1. No 3D. Absolutely none present in the game. Unlike the previous games where 3D was limited to certain areas, this game has none at all. I have a problem with that considering I am playing this game on a 3DS. Clearly the hardware was too taxed as it is, so 3D was dumped to try and give the game a wider release. 2. This game should have been a New 3DS exclusive. The original 3DS is almost six years old and the New 3DS is almost 2 years old. There are currently only about 3 exclusive games to the New 3DS, this would have been a great opportunity to get people to move on to a new unit. I know I would have. As it is, the game supposedly runs “slightly better” on the new hardware, but that is debatable 3. The game runs poorly. Despite having released two other pokemon games for the system, Game Freak has yet to learn how to properly optimize the game. The game runs fine when walking around the world, but in battle things can get dicey. Totem battles, which happen after every trial, will make the game run slow. When the totem pokemon calls for an ally, it runs even slower. It took damn near 10 seconds from me pressing flame bite for the game to actually show the move on screen. Even single battles can cause the frame rate to dip. That is insane. How are there frame rate issues in a POKEMON GAME. This isn’t Tomb Raider or COD. 4. The game fools you into thinking it might be free roaming, but it is possibly more restricting than the original Red and Blue releases. There are trainers not letting you pass, barriers in the way, wild pokemon blocking you. All in an effort to make sure you follow this extremely linear path to the one place the game wants you to go. At least in Blue/Red you could skip gyms and come back if you wanted. 5. I feel like the probability of random battles has been raised. I can hardly walk through grass a few steps without been attacked. Maybe it is just me, but I am using more repels than ever in this game. I don’t know if it is a result in moving on a 3D plane rather than a grid, but I don’t remember having battles this much in ORAS, X/Y 6. People talk WAY too much. I understand dialog is going to happen, but this isn’t Metal Gear Solid with deep political intrigue and an engrossing story. Pokemon’s story is pretty straight forward, so why do I have to hear three different people talk and then move to another location just to have them talk some more? Even the random NPC characters have nothing interesting to say. I’m usually just trying to get the basic info and move on. Don’t drown me in exposition and unnecessary cut scenes. 7. The game is even easier than ever. A. Experience share is back, which makes leveling a joke. At least you can turn that off. B. NPCs will literally tell you where to go to next. No need to roam and maybe find something cool C. If that isn’t enough, the map will show you with a red circle D. If THAT isn’t good enough, the pokedex will TELL YOU WHERE TO GO YOU DUMMY DUM DUM E. The game tells you type advantages. God forbid you learn something F. People are constantly healing you or giving you free healing items. G. No trainer has more than 2-3 Pokemon. Not ace trainers, not trial trainers, not big Kahunas. You will steam roll everyone 8. I can’t fish where I want. Now you have to find special zones by the water to fish. You can’t just do it wherever, that wouldn’t make sense. 9. Your avatar’s stupid blank face. Every other character in the game can emote, but you are left with this stupid grin on your face that makes me want to punch him. If other people can raise their eyebrows, open their mouth, and make other expressions, why can’t I? 10. There is no audio options to raise or lower background noises and music. Maybe I just want to hear the music and no noise, or vice versa? Or just turn the music down a smidge in the mix from the battle sounds? You can’t. Most modern games give you this option but you can’t do it in pokemon. WHEW, Ok. So what do I like about this game? 1. Despite the terrible optimization and frame rate drop, I will admit the character models and environments are well made and LOOK nice. I am not condoning trading function for pretty polygons, but the art direction is quite nice. 2. I’m glad Game Freak tried to make a move in a slightly different direction with these games. Trial challenges are interesting and fun for the most part. It breaks up the monotony of the game. Granted they are not all that different from gyms, but different enough to give the old fans something fresh 3. You can move freely in all directions. No more grid based movement. I really hated this in the past two games. In the DS and gameboy days I could live with it, but when everything is fully 3d, but you still moved on a grid, that was awful. Great change. 4. No more HM slaves. Long gone is the need to have a pokemon’s move list be deluded with strength, cut, surf, etc. Now you open a menu and you can ride a pokemon past obstacles. It is a bit of a bummer that only one specific pokemon is flagged to be that specific HM (tauros for rock smash) for instance. So you can’t designate who you want. Not too big a deal 5. Pokemon refresh is a mini game of sorts where you can get rid of status ailments like poison with the touch screen. You select a brush or comb and touch the pokemon until they are healed. It is a nice inclusion as you are bound to get poisoned or paralyzed along your trip. 6. The new pokemon are perfectly fine. Haven’t run into anything yet and was disappointed with the design. They fit well with the old monsters. 7. The music is also fine. There is nothing there that will blow your mind – has a bit of a been there done that feel, but there isn’t anything in the soundtrack that will grate your ears. (trumpets) 8. There are other things to mess with like poke alego island and the festival plaza. Honestly I never really messed with these types of things much in the old games, but it is nice to have something separate from the main game to play quickly. So there you have it I guess. The game is a disappointment in my eyes. I think Game Freak will really hit it out of the park with their next release. Hopefully they move away from the old 3DS. This wobbly game will make me weary of future launch day purchases. Never thought that would be a problem with pokemon. I honestly would not recommend this game for the full price. Maybe at 30, anything lower than that and I would say go for it.

This is a must buy game if you have the 3DS, and possibly even a system seller. As a pokemon game compared to the other entries in the series its great! This game improves on many of the features that needed tweeting from x and y, such as a better battle interface, a more interesting narrative (well by pokemon standards), and way better 3D models and textures. All these improvements make this one of my favorite pokemon games to date, and thats coming from someone who has been playing these games for almost their whole life. My only gripe is that during double battles the game does lag if you are using an older 3DS model, and the game does seem to be pushing the technical power of the 3DS. Other than that though I truly think that this is a great game and for nintendo fans it should hold them off till the release of their new console.

I really didnt think I would like what they did to the game, removing the grid-like movement, but it plays very smoothly! I do wish you could move your character with the d-pad as well as the joystick though. (Edit:) After finally getting around to playing the game in its entirety, I can say this is probably the worst of every Pokemon game released. The Graphics are modern, but lack style or memorability, and the difficulty of the game was dropped tremendously (aside from one ABSURDLY difficult fight that felt very out of place). I didnt hate the game, it was just not very good. The worst part about the whole thing was the unskippable dialogue and story scenes which went very slow and were extremely uninteresting. If youre going to buy these games, just skip to Ultra sun or Ultra moon. They fix the story to some extent and make the whole game play and look so much better (though I would place those firmly in second-to-last place out of the franchise).

Let me just say that I adore Pokemon. Ive been watching the show since it first aired in the US, Ive played every main series game since Silver, as well as a few of the offshoot games, Ive collected cards and more-so naturally when I heard an all new region would be released for the 3ds I was very excited, and the hype around the games grew until I could barely wait for the next news. And when it came... Well, at first, I wasnt as impressed as I thought I would be. Mostly because I was super excited to play and the intro scene takes FOREVER. Seriously, I know its necessary for the story but the whole beginning is so slowww. Its kind of like the start to Pokemon Black and White but longer. I actually thought I wouldnt like the game much at all as I started playing. And then the story took off...and I was BLOWN AWAY. This game is beautiful! I love the scenery, the look of the models, the new pokemon...(well most of them, anyway...) and I would definitely recommend it. But the best thing about this game, is the story. This story was so much fun to follow, even if it was a bit obvious at times. I found myself loving Lillie and Kukuis characters, feeling meh about Haus (hes actually around less than you would expect), curious about Gladion and wanting Guzma to be...I dont know, more, prevalent I guess. But the fact the game made me actually want me to see these characters grow and better themselves-thats impressive. Ive gone on a bit too much by now so Ill end this here. I suggest if you like Pokemon, or RPGs, give this at least one try. Also, for the record, UB Gluttony or whatever looks like a heartless boss jumped out of Kingdom Hearts and invaded Pokemon. Its weird and Im not sure how to feel about it.

Big fan, even bigger gamer. Definitely one of my top 3 game purchases of 2016. If youre a fan of the series, this one has brought me the most enjoyment since Heart Gold. They really did try (and succeeded) to improve on features, lore depth, graphics, and even the UI got some improvements. My only gripe and cause of the -1 star: This title does indeed require increased processing power when compared to Omega Ruby (improved animations, particles, & battle effects) and while this is mostly a good thing the frame rate consistently struggles in double & triple battles. I am playing on a 3DS xL and now, since Im a frame rate & double battle junky, Im going to shell out the cash for a new 3DS XL so I can get my frames back.

Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon are the first 7th-generation main series Pokémon games. I have been a Pokémon Trainer for 20 years now, and the reason Im giving them a 4/5 rating is because while they do add significant improvements over the previous games in the series (X, Y, Omega Ruby, Alpha Sapphire), Game Freak has also managed to frustrate players by making some highly questionable decisions and removing certain features from the 6th-generation that, for all intents and purposes, should have remained in Sun and Moon. Ill start with the good points first, then talk about the controversial ones afterwards. --- POSITIVES --- * Graphics have been improved, though this time its not as noticeable as the difference between Gen 5 and Gen 6, mainly because the games are still restricted to using the same 3DS hardware that X, Y, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire were designed on. * Music is very addictive and reminds you of the type of songs used in the Hoenn region. Also, the music changes depending on whether its daytime or night, similar to Gen 4 and the Sinnoh region. * Battle Interface now displays much more information, such as the opposing Pokémons types, the opponents team, if a Pokémon is affected by a non-permanent status condition (confusion, infatuation, stat increases/decreases, weather effects, abilities, etc.). * The creation of Z-Moves allows for a plethora of new strategies, since they are guaranteed to break through the protection moves, like Protect and Detect. At the same time, they give a particular Pokémon an incredibly overpowered move that they would not normally be able to use, like giving Arcanine an Electric-type move with a base power of 170. But the fact that only 1 Z-Move can be used throughout the entire battle means you have to pick the right time to use it, and hopefully not waste it. * Sun and Moon finally fix the Day/Night cycle. For the past 16 years, ever since Gold and Silver were released back in 2000, Ive always questioned why in the games, morning starts 4:00 am ET and night time begins at 9:00 pm ET. This is in stark contrast to what typically happens in the world, especially during winter, when its pitch black until 7:30 am ET, and daylight only lasts until about 5:00 pm ET. In any case, Sun and Moon attempt to rectify this 16-year problem, with daytime starting at 6:00 am ET, and night beginning at 6:00 pm ET, giving 12-hour periods between each cycle. --- NEGATIVES --- * Triple Battles, Rotation Battles, Sky Battles, Horde Encounters and Double Wild Battles have all been removed and replaced by the Battle Royal and SOS Battles. Battle Royals are essentially 4-player battles where 3 players gang up on 1 other player in order to win -- not a very thoughtful or interesting concept. SOS Battles are regular Wild Battles, except the wild Pokémon can call for help and summon an ally, making it a 1 vs. 2 battle. In any case, if you were a fan of any of these 5 different battle formats that existed in Gens 4, 5 and/or 6, youre out of luck in Sun and Moon. * SOS Battles are annoying and frustrating, both for collectors and competitive battlers. For 20 years, weve been taught that in order to catch a wild Pokémon, you have to get its HP as low as possible before throwing a Poké Ball. The problem with Wild Battles in Sun and Moon though, is that the lower the wild Pokémons HP, the higher the chance it will call for help and summon an ally. It can even summon an ally in the same turn that it attacks you. When an ally is summoned, you cannot throw a Poké Ball. To make matters worse, when a wild Pokémon is knocked out, its partner can call for help again before the turn even ends. This can go on and on for several turns, and until youre lucky enough to reach a turn where the wild Pokémon does not call for help (or where the call for help fails), you wont even be able to throw a Poké Ball at all, making it take substantially longer to catch Pokémon. Now, while it is true that you can paralyze or put the wild Pokémon to sleep to prevent calls for help, remember that Electric-types cannot be paralyzed, and Grass-types are immune to Sleep Powder and Spore, so getting around this annoying mechanic is not as easy as it seems. SOS Battles also attempt to simulate the ease of EV Training in Horde Encounters, but the attempt is poorly executed. Every time you knock out a wild Pokémons partner in a SOS Battle, when another Pokémon partner appears, that new partner will have double the Effort Values it normally has. The doubling of the Effort Values keeps continuing through subsequent knockouts, so its possible to fully EV Train your Pokémon after knocking out roughly 7 or 8 partner Pokémon, but its not a guarantee. When a wild Pokémon calls for help to try and summon a partner, it may fail, resulting in a wasted turn. It may also summon a completely different partner Pokémon that doesnt give Effort Values to the same stat youre training in. For example, lets say youre trying to increase your Pokémons Speed stat -- Magikarp provides Speed EVs, but if it calls for help and summons a Gyarados (which provides Attack EVs instead), then youll have no choice but to run away and break the chain of doubling your Effort Values, making it take that much longer to complete your Effort Value training. * O-Powers have been removed entirely. Introduced in Gen 5 and improved upon in Gen 6, these special powers gave you an easier time catching Pokémon, increased your prize money and the EXP. Points you received from battles, and they even cut the price of in-game shop items by half. All of these helpful powers no longer exist in Sun and Moon. This, coupled with the fact that Sun and Moon use Gen 5s Level-Based Experience System (whereby if your Pokémons level is higher than the opponents level, you get less EXP. Points when defeating it), means it also takes a lot longer to level up your team, especially if youre trying to get them to Level 100. * Questionable decisions have been made regarding the games connectivity features. Unlike in X, Y, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, where the player could be connected online at all times during the game, Sun and Moon force the player to remain in the Festival Plaza area in order to be connected to the internet. This small, restricted area, reminiscent of Join Avenue in Gen 5, doesnt even have a PC for you to organize your Pokémon, yet its the only area in the game where you can go online to trade and battle with other players. A definite step backwards in comparison to Gen 6s online features. * There is still noticeable amounts of lag and frame rate drops during battles, even when using the New 3DS and New 3DS XL systems. When youre battling Totem Pokémon (essentially tougher versions of regular wild Pokémon), after you select an attack, it sometimes takes 4-5 seconds before anything happens. It makes you feel like youre battling an opponent over the Internet and youre waiting for them to make a move, except in this case, its just an in-game computer opponent. In Double Battles, you notice the lag when the camera pans out on an angle to reveal both trainers and both of their Pokémon on the field. Apparently, I read it may be a RAM issue -- between the trainers, their Pokémon and any animated effects currently happening in the background or on the field (like the blades of grass moving), even the New 3DS doesnt have the power to handle it all, graphically-speaking. * PC Box Management has been made less touch-intuitive. When you touch a Pokémon with the Stylus to select it, a menu appears that prevents you from selecting another Pokémon until you close the menu. This was never the case in Gen 6, but from what I remember, it was the case in Gen 5, from which Sun and Moons coding seems to be based upon. It makes it less touch-friendly and if youre just quickly looking at your Pokémon in the boxes, its once again faster using the circle pad on the 3DS, rather than the touch screen, because of this unnecessary change. * Pokémon Contests (arguably the best alternative competition to battling) have again been completely removed from the game. Theyve been replaced by a less-interesting Pokémon Snap picture-taking side game, which doesnt provide the same kind of longevity or replay-ability that Contests or the Battle Frontier did, and neither of them are present in this game. --- FINAL THOUGHTS --- Pokémon Sun and Moon make some significant improvements to the core series of Pokémon games, especially with regards to the new battle interface, but at the same time, Game Freak makes an equal amount of questionable decisions, removing previously good features and including frustrating new mechanics that are counter-intuitive to veteran players and newcomers alike. Unfortunately, if youre like me and want to stay part of the competitive battling community, you have no choice but to put up with the frustrating aspects of these games.

Ill review this by all of the game elements. Overall, this is my favorite Pokemon game in the series (Possibly better than Gen IV, dare I say.)! I defeated all the trials and am working on the Elite Four, therefore I did enough to review this game properly. Characters: 5/5 - At first glance, that characters seem bland, but as you continue on, there are plenty of twists and a lot of character development I didnt expect in this game. Team Skull is very funny and is sort of a parody of previous villain tropes and are, well, gangsters. They arent particularly evil, either, and also have development and become much nicer. Gen V was very developed in my opinion, but I think this has more twists. Music: 5/5 - The music is GORGEOUS. Some of it has a beautiful Japanese sound, and some is very Hawaiian. Team Skulls theme suits them perfectly with a gangster-ish sound.Theres not much else to say, but listen to the soundtrack on YouTube. Its great! Plot: 4 1/2/5 - Its the typical becoming a Pokemon Master and Champion quest, but with the island challenge instead of gyms. You face trials and defeat the island kahunas instead of Gyms. You have to face a villain team, which turn out to be wayy more developed later on and VERY interesting, as well as human. They are also very amusing, and theres this secret of strange beings similar to Pokemon and a mysterious group also trying to get them, that I will not mention further than that. It has a lot of surprises, and I love the legendary in Sun, Solgaleo. Theres also emphasis on Zygarde and its forms, 10% (Doberman look), 50% (the one from X and Y, like a snake) and the Complete form, which is like a mecha robot thing. Overall its a great plot. It didnt seem as great as it was at first, which is why it isnt 5/5. You have to fully play through it to appreciate the plot and characters. Z-moves are also an interesting, mysterious element that is optional for you to use, and look pretty awesome in battle. The biggest flaw is I never truly had an issue in fights, I never had that difficult of a time, save for the ghost trial with Mimikyu and one character near the way end, but I still pulled through. For people who want a big challenge, they may be disappointed, especially with Z-moves. Graphics: 5/5 - Great graphics. Animations look great, though you may experience lag in some detailed double battles, although it was hardly noticeable for me. The Pokemon look great, including many new ones, such as Rockruff, Lycanroc, Litten, Rowlet, many Alolan forms, Zygarde 10%, Solgaleo, Type: Null, and more. (That right there is my opinion, but there are bound to be Pokemon one would like. There are also Pokemon returning of other Gens.) What else can I say? Everything looks great. New Features/Returning features: 5/5 - Character Customization is back, but expanded upon. You can choose between lots of looks for the player and lots of outfits. Its like X and Y, but even better! You can also change the eye color with contacts and the hair style. Best of all, NO MORE HMS! TMs can be used unlimited times, but HMs are gone! No more rattatas to learn cut, or making a Pokemon lose a likable move because you need to get through somewhere. You have ride Pokemon and the ride pager, which lets you ride Pokemon to walk over rocky areas, destroy or move rocks and boulders, swim over water, and can ride Charizard for fly! You can also ride a Mudsdale instead of riding a bike, which is so cool looking. HMs are just regular moves now. PokeAmie also changed to Pokemon Refresh, which is really good. It encourages bonds between trainer and Pokemon, and makes them do much better in battles. It also is an option to heal ANY status problem without buying those pesky full heals. Yeah, its pretty useful as well as cute. Overall, a wonderful game. I highly recommend it.

Ive been a Pokémon fan since Gen 1 and this game is one of best ones in my opinion. The story is immersive, theres plenty of content to play through, and its a visually stunning game overall. I am in love with this game and would love future Pokémon games to be of this caliber. The only things I noticed that irked me were during double battles theres a bit of lag. The frame rate drops noticeably. Also, theres some slow loading time during screen transitions. However, both of these things werent bad enough that it hindered the gameplay so its cool with me. Overall I would definitely recommend this game to old as well as new players. Theres plenty of content and fun to be found in the Alola region.

To start this review out, Id like to share my thoughts on the games graphics. In past generations on the handhelds, it had very low deffinition and you could see every pixel that made up every image and character in the game. This gave it a retro look no matter how advances the game was since no matter what, everything was blocky to some degree. In the new seventh generation games, the graphics have improves sooo much and became far more realistic that the characters actually look like real humans! Aside from all the sprites finally having proportional heads, I absolutely love the character wardrobe customizations, allowing the player to show their own sense of style in game. The new set of pokemon and the Alolan forms provided fans everywhere with plenty new pocket monsters to play with. The most noticeable factor of this showed to me that gamefreak still has fresh new ideas of partners that players can enjoy to battle and trade with. The legendary pokemon finally acquire a huge in game role as guardians of their islands and are introduced at the very beginning (Nebby get back in the bag!) and continue to be brought up all throughout the in game. We are presented with fresh new abilities and combinations to dominate other trainers and show off new strategies. The introduction of the Z-moves was far more poor than I expected, their only real power lay in the strongest of their attack moves. using a Z-status move didnt as much as half meet my expectations. using Z-protect raises defense by one stage!? At least make it two or raise both defenses so that it makes it more worthwhile. This would open up more strategic possibilities for people who dont have a team full of sweepers, what a waste of a Z-stone if you can only use it once in battle for it to be wasted on this. The battle tree appeared to be a downgrade of Unovas White Tree Hollow, forcing you to play hours and hours of battling unfair opponents who get too many critical hits and at the end of a day of grinding, we can finally get ONE mega stone for sixty four bp... Nothing in Pokémon that I have ever seen has ever been more irritating or DUMB than this factor, even compared to the logic in every Pokémon movie. The Z-Stones and this silly playground we call the Battle Tree are the only things keeping me from giving it five stars. The storyline was surely one of the best of all pokemon games, being very involving and revealing strange characters and plot twists. In a certain sense, It almost feels like Team Skull is just an underpaid version of Team Rocket, which has to be one of the most notourious groups in all the the games. Thats my review, its my opinion like it or not, I would urge anyone who enjoys a game with a good in depth story to try it out.