Pokémon Sun - Nintendo 3DS

Gen 7 feels like the refresher that the Pokémon series has needed for a good while now. With a heavier focus on (a surprisingly mature) story of growing up, varied gameplay and challenges, a memorable cast and some charming new designs, its been a ton of fun for the past few weeks to play. The Ride Pager feature has made team building a breeze without the need to constantly fret over who to give what HM, and the Alola region is absolutely stunning to take in with its vibrant colors and beautiful music. The Z moves are a ton of fun, too, and make for some really wonderful finishing blows in battle. Sun is the most Ive been glued to a Pokemon game since back in 2007 with Diamond! So many little call backs and touches looking back on the series 20 years really hit a first gen fan like me. Game Freak has pushed the nostalgia buttons and its worked. Its not all perfect, though. The Call for Help mechanic is frustrating to deal with: It can make battles an infinite slog where the act of just catching one Pokémon becomes a tiring ordeal. Likewise the story can drag things out more than one might like, especially with how repetitive it can be early on. Plus, the fact that you really cant transfer from your previous gen games yet as of this review (an issue Nintendo and Game Freak have promised to have addressed by early next year) is annoying, but it also makes completing the Dex easier for now. Whether youre an old veteran to the series or someone looking to try a Pokémon game for the first (or maybe even trying to introduce your kids to the series), I highly recommend Sun and Moon!

Im a seasoned old woman and I accept saying sun/moon are the best poke titles yet. That story is C R I S P. The pokemon are all thematically really tight and its a joy to see the biodeversity in Alola. Alola itself is great, its an extremely charming caricature of hawaii and a really good venture away from the typical conventions of states in the pokemon world. Each island might feel small, but their combined area probably rivals the Hoenn map. The only critique I feel I can rightly give is that royal battles shouldnt have been done yet. Theyre unfair, theyre coded poorly, and theres no reason to do them. Also it was a bit of a poor idea for the new gym system and SOS battles to regularly push doubles on the player. Even the new 3ds cant handle it without substantial frame drops. Anyway 9/10 blease give us sinnoh game freak

I was as excited as anybody else for a new Pokemon game, especially after X and Y - my favorite games in the series since the original Ruby and Sapphire. However, this game seems like a pretty mixed bag so far. As of this writing, I am not finished with the game, so if my opinions change as I get further, Ill update this review to reflect that. The first thing you may notice is the sheer level of dialogue in this game. It took me almost a half hour of playing to get my starter Pokemon. Why did it take so long? There was just so much dialogue to wade through - and not even interesting dialogue. Half of the stuff it forces you to read is vapid nonsense that feels like filler. I was hoping that it would calm down a bit with the dialogue as I got further, and while it did calm down a little, its still very intrusive. I miss the days of the earlier gens, where the professor gave you a Pokemon and sent you on your way. The next thing I noticed was how much easier this game seems. Just like in Pokemon X and Y, the Exp Share acts as an Exp All, making the leveling of your Pokemon go SO much faster. This might not sound like a bad thing, but when you dont use a Pokemon for an entire town but its still the same level as your most actively-used Pokemon, it just isnt as fun anymore. On top of that, the trainer battles arent any more difficult than wild Pokemon encounters. I grinded out a couple of levels from wild Pokemon early on, and am STILL over-leveled because of that. Its almost as if the game wants you to just skate through everything. Another really annoying feature is Pokemon calling for help. In theory, it sounds cool - Pokemon call for backup, and it makes for more tense/interesting fights, you get more exp per battle, and its just kind of neat. In practice however, it makes me want to throw my 3DS at the wall. Now imagine, youre weakening a Pokemon and it calls for help. You KO that pokemon, and set your sights on the new one. However, before you can do any sort of damage to it, it calls for help. Now you get two attacks landed on you. You manage to weaken one and knock it out, only for backup to be called immediately. This might not be as bad if calling for help took up the enemy Pokemons attack (like switching Pokemon or using an item) but it doesnt - it happens between attacks. This leads to all sorts of annoying situations, such as one that my friend described where he was facing a Magby. It trapped his Pokemon in Fire Spin, used smokescreen to reduce his accuracy to nothing, and then called for help. He could barely attack the Magby, couldnt switch Pokemon, and if he managed to take one out another one replaced it. If the Fire Spin ended, a new one took its place. There seems to be no limit to how many times help can be called for, so as long as their call for help doesnt fail, they can do it endlessly - until you KO both Pokemon, anyways. You also cant catch a Pokemon while there are two out, which creates a whole new frustrating situation where you weakened one Pokemon enough to capture, and it called for help. By the time you take the new one out and are allowed to capture the other one, it calls for help again, leaving you to do the whole process over again. Maybe this doesnt sound so bad reading about it, but by the 5th or 6th time help is called for, youll be ready to pull your hair out. Its not all bad, however. The game has finally FULLY embraced 3D (graphics, not stereoscopic 3D - which there is none of in this game), and it controls like how JRPGs have controlled since the PS1 days. X and Y allowed movement outside of the grid-based design when using the roller skates, but in Sun and Moon EVERYTHING has abandoned the grid. Environments look and feel a lot more natural now, and there are a nice variety of camera angles to go along with this new development. There are also a lot of more streamlined gameplay features that reduce tedium. For example, if you catch a Pokemon with a full party, the game gives you the option to send one of your party Pokemon to the box instead of the one you just caught. You no longer need to go all the way back to town to use the cool new addition to your squad that you caught. You can also heal status conditions outside of battle through a system known as Pokemon refresher. This also makes the game easier, which I didnt like, but I feel like the convenience of not having to constantly run back and forth to a PKMN Center to heal your poisoned Pokemon outweighs the slightly lower difficulty that results. This seems to have replaced the Super Training from X and Y, which comes as a bit of a disappointment to me. I really liked that feature - it made training our Pokemon easier, and gave us some halfway decent mini-games to play. Speaking of mini, we also have a mini-map too now, which is nice. I really wish we had that in Diamond/Pearl, because I always got lost in that mountain in the very center of the map. Of course, there are a bunch of new Pokemon to explore. I mean, at this point we have around 800 - the thrill of a brand new Pokemon isnt as high as it used to be. Actually, for some Pokemon I cant remember if they showed up last generation or not. Still, there are plenty of new Pokemon to play around with, which is always great. On top of that, some of the older Pokemon got a fresh makeover - ranging from simply a color swap to a brand new design all the way to having a new type configuration. There are also a couple of new things that they did in order to spice things up. The biggest change is the fact that Gym leaders are gone, and in their place are island trials. Gyms have been a staple of Pokemon games since day one, so its a bit weird to not have them. However, its time to face the fact that the Pokemon formula has barely changed since day one. Expanded, sure. But changed? The core premise is fundamentally the same, so its nice for things to get changed up a bit - even if the replacement trials are generally easier than the Gyms were. HMs are gone, too. At the end of the day, this is another new Pokemon game. It has a nice, new coat of paint and some new features, but its not all that different from what weve been playing all along. On top of that, this is probably the easiest Pokemon game to date, and there is simply far too much dialogue. Of course, being as beginner-friendly as it is, newcomers and less experienced gamers may enjoy this more. Ive been playing since the original Red and Blue on the Game Boy, so Pokemon is like an old friend to me. Theres still too much pointless dialogue though. (For the record, my favorite games in the series are Gold/Silver, Ruby/Sapphire, and X/Y)

Packaged like new. Delivery was super fast. Cartridge is clean and worked without issue. Stoked to game out!

Ill start by saying Ive been playing pokemon games since red, blue and yellow and am a diehard fan of the series. There are a few things I really like about this game, but overall it is pretty mediocre. Pros : - the ride pager system is awesome. I love not having to lug around HM slaves - you can finally customize your characters appearance. There arent a huge amount of options but I still enjoyed it - rare pokemon are actually rare. I spent about 2 days fishing before I was able to catch a dratini. - lots of breeding system improvements. The breeder no longer levels your pokemon, so no worries about them ruining your prize fighter. And now that natures have hidden effects aside from stat changes I can actually hatch eggs in minutes. Its pretty great - this one could be a pro or a con, but now after you fight a pokemon once the game will tell you which attacks are effective or not. Its convenient but honestly learning your type advantages is such a major part of battling its like having training wheels on. There were times I liked it but overall it felt very handicapped to me. Cons: - I have no idea why so many reviews on here praise the storyline. It is so bland and boring. It basically amounts to my mom is mean help me un-brainwash her. Its probably fine for the younger audience, but for pokemons 20 something fans I doubt many will enjoy it. - WAY. Too. Many. Cutscenes. I seriously wanted to throw my ds the first 2 hours of the game. You cant go more than 5 steps without being stopped for very meaningless chatter. (Lets go eat this masala! Omg this island is great!) - the characters are extremely topical and boring. I was not invested in a single one, I only wanted their conversations to be as short as possible so I could go back to exploring. The pokemon thieves in this game, team skull, are so cringey. Im embarrassed everytime one shows up throwing their arms around. - rival game is weak. I know this isnt the first game to do this but I still hate it. Your rival is super friendly and kind, and to make matters worse he actually picks the starter pokemon that is weak against yours. I miss the days where your rival talked smack and gave you a run for your money. You know, like an actual rival and not some nice kid you routinely smack down in battle - the totem pokemon trials are very odd and make no sense. Im sure they added them to fit the tropical theme but they were so easy and weird. I wouldve much preferred the classic gym courses. - I wouldve been more okay with the map if all the locations werent given such silly names. They all run together for me and I have to Google a buildings location everytime I need to visit one because its very difficult to tell the difference from one city to another - the E4 members are all Kahunas that youve already encountered with the exception of one girl with no explanation of how she managed to get lumped together with the rest. It felt very random and lazy - this is probably my biggest complaint as it basically renders the game unplayable post championship. There is no good way to level your pokemon after the E4. While they have the battle tree you have to defeat red or blue before entering, and unless you just wanna grind E4 over and over and sit through all that cutscenes you literally have no way to level up aside from grinding random encounters. Its pretty unbearable Overall, 2.5/5

I cant give much for a basis because I have never owned a different Pokemon game. But, when I bought this, I pre-ordered it and had no issues when it came to arriving on the correct date. The game is really fun. I know that it is very different from the other Pokemon games as far as doing the island trials and defeating the island kahuna. If you plan on getting a Pokemon game, I have been told that this one is the best one, it is a bias opinion but it is one that I hear a lot. I do recommend this game to anyone who is into the Pokemon franchise. P.S. This Pokemon is really easy to learn and has a nice way of showing and teaching you how to play Pokemon and how the new style of Pokemon on this island work.

One of the better Pokemon games in recent history. It does a lot of things right like no HMs, Lots of cool new Pokemon and old ones you run into pretty often. I have very mixed feelings on the Trials. I would honestly much prefer a gym than the trials but hey at least they are trying something new than just sticking to the usual formula. The biggest negative which is why I knocked off a star is the dialogue is way to overdone here. A lot can be cut out and you would get the same story. Often times the trial people repeat things like 2-3 times and it just ruins the flow of the game a little bit.

Ive been playing Pokémon since the original Red/Blue versions and although Im only 25 hours into Sun, its already one of my favorites. Game Freak did a great job of making it feel new while maintaining what I fell in love with back in the 90s. The only issue I have is that the tutorial is way too long. It Last about the first four hours and holds your hand through the entire time; we didnt need back it 96, and kids these days dont need it either. Still, great game. I have heard it runs pretty poorly on older 3ds and 2ds, so keep that in mind if you dont own a New Nintendo 3DS (as in the name of the device, not if it was previously owned or not)

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. :)

I absolutely love this game. It is probably the best Pokemon game to have come out in a long time. I thought I would miss gym battles, but I ended up really liking the trials (which are basically gym battles but you do other things besides battle Pokemon trainers). I have not come across a Pokemon in this game that was part of the new gen that I didnt like so thats always a bonus! I do find the fact that Pokemon can call for help in this game rather annoying, but it doesnt affect my overall rating. If youve been on the fence about whether or not to pick this game up, I highly suggest you do, even if youve never played Pokemon before!