Pokémon Sun - Nintendo 3DS

In the Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon games, embark on an adventure as a Pokémon Trainer and catch, battle and trade all-new Pokémon on the tropical islands of the Alola Region. Engage in intense battles, and unleash new powerful moves. Discover and interact with Pokémon while training and connecting with your Pokémon to become the Pokémon Champion! The Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon games for the Nintendo 3DS family of systems represent the seventh and latest installment of the core Pokémon series.

Played this when I was still a teen and I liked it, worth getting instead of the newer pokemon games so I might even go back to collect the older pokemon games just to play them/feel like a kid again. The story was good (can barely remember alot of it but I remember replaying the game alot). Some characters were memberable some werent, dialogue is the same as the older games/newer ones. Setting and new pokemon were fantastic to me but of course some of those things werent.

I bought this for my wife because she is a huge Pokémon fan. She loves it! She is a veteran on the series (childhood game with Pokémon Blue/Red) but finds the improvements to be really nice. She likes the ability to tend your Pokémon after they battle to remove conditions and improve their happiness levels. Its a nice system :). She also points out its a great game to start getting into Pokémon. If you or the person you are thinking of buying this for hasnt played Pokémon before its a great time to get into the game. And if you are a veteran it is still great as always!

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.

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.

Pokémon Sun is really fun to play!

Pokemon Sun was okay. Although I started playing in December I beat the pokemon league in May because there wasnt THAT much motivation to get back to it...and I still have yet to collect the legendaries and defeat Red and the gang and that sort of thing. Now the game itself is quite easy. It was interesting of them to give you a Rotomdex; that is, Rotom is essentially your Fi or Navi or Midna if youre familiar with Zelda games--but that feature also made me a little lazy. Every time I turned on the game Rotom reminded me of where to go since he even has a map with the destination written on it! Thats very coddling in my opinion, and while I become familiar with almost every city and route in other pokemon games while playing through, I still dont quite remember where things are in Sun and Moon because I didnt have to. They point you there anyway. So I will spend about five minutes flying on Charizard from place to place until I realize that I should probably take the ferry/ship to another (guessed) island because what Im looking for isnt here. The best part of the game to me was Team Skull; they were really funny in the sense that Game Freak knew how lightly the bad guys are taken by the players anyway so they took the liberty to show that through their lines. That being said, because of Team Skulls humor I saw early on that Aether Foundation was suspicious. Skull was too non-threatening and disorganized to be the true threat, so even if Aether acted like perfect citizens something felt off. Theres also questions I had about the deeper motives behind Aether funding Skull; I believe theres always something deeper when money is involved between two parties. Then the leaders of those two parties blindly jump into another dimension together with these strange pokemon theyve barely seen? And one is older, has more influence and power than the other? But I keep that to myself. Also, although the dimensional lore and such is being expanded through the events and tidbits from this game, the plot is basically oriented around Lillie. Thats not bad at all--you dont have to be the main/most important character all the time, but yes, Sun and Moon is Lillies story which can be summarized as Mom, what are you doing? Mom, STAHP! And Lillie learning to stand up for herself and stop being a helpless child all the time. Although my character is friends with her and was a catalyst for her growth in the series, I am not attached to her (Lillie) as a player of the game. Maybe if she were in some other series shed be more interesting to me? I dont know. Gladion and Hau were rather one-dimensional too but still nice to have as companions. (It wasnt anything as disarraying as having four friends constantly skipping and flocking around you and calling your name in circles like in X and Y.) But anyhow, I like them more than Lillie. Hau never gets flustered when crazy stuff is happening; he really keeps his cool and remains positive, and Gladion...hes so afflicted and standoffish its funny. But on a deeper note I approve how he got away from his mother and made his own path when she was losing it. Unlike Lillie, he didnt wait around for anyone to save him while suffering in the meantime. He took type:NULL and got OUT of there! Thats my boy. I really like that. Anyhow, moving on to the soundtrack: its not bad at all. Until I went to YouTube looking for the songs I liked, I never knew that there were two versions for most of the songs, so I suppose every time Ive picked up Sun Ive only played at night (I highly favor those compositions over the day version anyhow) and missed the daytime renderings. The music is fine but to me the routes used a lot of the same songs around the same places so I didnt differentiate them as well as I would other Pokemon games. And although the music is objectively decent, I only have about three that I regularly go back to actually listen to out of affection...DEFINITELY not the wild pokemon song though. The totem pokemon version makes it better but the original makes me angry for some reason... What I dont like is the new menu for handling pokemon. In many ways its convenient but I dislike trying to move a pokemon in my party and then remembering OHHH, I have to go out of my way to press Y to move this fool! On the bright side, I really like the options they give you when your party is full. You can exchange pokemon and items back to the PC all in one go! HMs: Its sort of convenient to not have to have an HM slave to perform all of the functions you need to get around the terrain, so I think its an interesting system them procured over in Aloha. Definitely enables you to have only who you trained to be a warrior with you while youre going. Alolan forms: Pretty cool; it brings out observations that we can see in the real world. Not all squirrels, even though theyre all squirrels, occur in the same appearance throughout regions or the world. So that makes it a little more interesting, though I wont comment on Dugtrio nor Golems alolan form...or whatever random stuff they did there. And the oricocos! Oh my god. All in all: not bad. I really didnt want Solgaleo though. I can only remember him as Nebby (should name him that for kicks!) and if only they had given us the choice to catch him or let Lillie have him! He iS hers. Honestly it would be gold to see a girl as clumsy as Lillie have a magestic pokemon like Solgaleo as her starter pokemon in Kanto. They deserve each other; she saved him from his demise and they went through a lot together as a team already. I really, really wasnt interested in having him because...you know...Im not a fan of legendaries anyway. I was more excited when I accidentally stumbled upon Tapu Lele the other day. Though the nature of the guardian pokemon rub me the wrong way too...going around on MY island punishing people as you will...who gave you the right?! Just kidding. I just dont really connect with legendaries in general. And I think she would feel better with him as her partner as her mom rehabilitates. And it was interesting for them to make a legendary that evolves too. That about wraps it up! Pokemon Sun and Moon...pretty okay game, I wont lie. I wasnt motivated to do any more that I had to, though.

Ive been playing Pokémon since Pokémon Blue and this is definitely the most fully realized Pokémon world. The cities are larger than ever were towering buildings and some breathtaking interiors. You start on Alola island which is clearly meant to represent one of the Hawaiian islands. I love the usage of the Hawaiian theme in the game. This is the first time I can remember a Pokémon game having such a distinct theme. There is a hula dancing bird and one that looks like a Lei. Im a big fan of Toucannon which has the look that Id wished Archen would have had. Even some of the existing Pokémon like Mirowak have been given a Hawaiian feel, If I have one issue with the graphics its that the camera is fixed which seems a bit archaic. For the longest time I was trying and trying to swing the camera around but tis not meant to be. Long gone are the squatty little game characters replaced by characters that look closer and closer to something youd see in the cartoon. The basic game mechanics remain the same but there are a lot of adjustments and a bit more hand holding. Once you fight a Pokemon creature, from then on the game will let you know whether an attack on the creature will be effective, very effective or ineffective. You no longer have to try and memorize the attack matrix in your head and remember whether a bug attractive is effective against ghost and all the other attack permutations. The game will even let you know how well a Pokémon matches up prior to swapping it in. Kids these days have it so easy. There are a lot of improved features in the game that make life easier. Ive still only scratched the surface of the game at this point being about 15 hours in but so far Im loving it. I cant yet see when any fans of the series would be disappointed in the newest iteration of the game.

I have avidly played Pokemon since the original Pokemon Silver on the GameBoy Color. And let me tell you, Pokemon Sun has shown that the company has come a long, long way. Im not sure I like where its going. I spent hours completing the Pokedex on Pokemon Emerald, I cried during Pokemon Black, I rejoiced with Pokemon HeartGold, and celebrated the release of Pokemon X & Y. Pokemon Sun, however, isnt as good as the others. While Pokemon is arguably a childs game, this game really emphasizes it. 1.) No HMs, like they dont trust us how to use them. 2.) Rotom Dex is annoying with its constant blinking and blurbs - its reminiscent of Yokai Watch in style. 3.) Constant dialogue from start to finish - theres really no time to explore and have fun, because every 100 feet or so, youve got some story character that needs to tell you something. 4.) Names of new pokemon are so childishly simple; Mudsdale for a horse-like pokemon, Rockruff for a dog-like pokemon...like, honestly? Im all for puns, but those are just bad. It all just felt too young, but it is still excellent for what it is and for any newcomer to the Pokemon world. I wish to see, in the future, a game that focuses less on gimmicks and instead embraces what the original games were about: exploration, emotional bonds, and friendly competition. Itll attract all the old fans, like myself, and new fans alike.

This is a great game, though definitely a departure from previous titles in the series. I enjoyed it, but its interesting how much they changed up the formula. I really love how they simplified the format of the HMs and show you which moves are super effective. Im sure the hardcore dont need this, but if youre a casual like me or using a dual-element attack against a dual-element Pokemon this is a real life-saver. Also, I love how they removed the Pokemon Ami games in this version, I spent way too much time farming cupcakes in Gen 6. :)