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!

This game is definitely harder than the past games. First off, you cant EV train as easily as you could in Pokemon X/Y and Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire. I was upset that they took that away. I was a big fan of that feature. However, a big positive for this game was the addition of the Ride Pokemon feature, which basically was their substitution of HMs in the game. As we all know, it can be a pain in the butt to have to carry around pokemon in your party that are your HM buffs, because you dont want to have to teach the HM moves to your team that you use in-game, so this feature was nice. Although, I must say, while the Stoutland Search feature is pretty fun, it can a bit tedious at times because it makes you go kinda slow while youre searching. Something else that I noticed about the game is the addition of strategy to the NPCs. Before, it was pretty easy to overtake a gym (something that this game substituted with Island Challenges) if you understood basic type match-ups, but now the opponents have more complex strategies. After having participated in a few Battle Tree (equivalent of the Battle Maison in past games, where you earn BP, battle points, to get special items or TMs, similar to competitive battling structure) battles and having watched a few online, they are definitely harder. A side note on breeding in the game - there isnt an infinite loop anymore, where before you could just put a dime underneath the control stick and bike around in circles to hatch eggs, there isnt in this game. I saw a video on YouTube by Verlisify where someone found something similar, and while it works, it takes forever. Ill just mention that while there are some new pokemon added in this generation, it seems that they didnt add that many. However, many of them are fun, and while I am not a competitive pokemon player myself, Ive heard that there are some great ones that were added. Overall, the game is fun. Definitely glad I got it. Harder than past games, but thats also what makes it exciting. If youre looking for a challenge, Id recommend this game. If youre looking for a slower-pace, easier pokemon game, Id recommend Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire.

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

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.

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?!

This game took over my life for a solid week and thats totally okay (I actually bought a 3DS just for this game). I finished it with fifty hours of game play and I only wish I had slowed down to extend it. This is sooooo fun! My last Pokemon game (unfinished...) played was Black 2, so going from Black 2 to Sun was probably more eye opening for me than those who have played every game, but oh my gooooood. So worth it, it is just so fun. I love how customizable your trainers appearance is and just how different the game is compared to traditional Pokemon. I really hope Pokemon continues in this route for future games, because its an amazing one!

This is hands-down one of the best Pokemon game Ive played, and the story is arguably one of the better ones of the series. There are a few caveats which keeps it from being 100 but its definitely worth the time of day to experience. Please note that at the time of this review, the access to the rest of the pokemon not available to the Alola region hasnt been patched in yet. PROs: + Better narrative +One of the better designed worlds in the series + The characters in the game are a lot of fun + You can run from the start! Also, Pokemon you ride makes covering distances a lot easier, even in the water later on into the game. + Its Pokemons return to challenging gameplay. Youll have a really bad time doing a Nuzlocke in this game. + The music will give Black & White, and Diamond and Pearl a run for their money. Arguably the highlight of this series. + The battle interface has been streamlined a bit for ease of use. + There are more battle boxes, so you dont necessarily have to constantly edit your team when the usual 2 is used up. + The PC box has been streamlined. Moving items and organizing your pokemon within the box is easier. + Team Skull are one of the most endearing villains in the series. + Breeding Pokemon are a lot easier, and there are visual cues as to when an egg is ready. + The Z moves are a welcome addition to the series. CONs: - Catching rare Pokemon in the water is a horrible experience - The game has one of the longest openings in a Pokemon game. Cutscenes will be very jarring for the first few moments into the game until you eventually get used to it. - NEBBY, GET IN THE BAG! - Festival Plaza, this games online hub, makes it an even more tedious journey to just battle someone online. It takes a lot more button presses/ clicks than usual. Its a step down from the X&Ys more convenient interface. - The Zygarde Core quest is infuriating. Its definitely a worse version of the megastone quest from X&Y - Acquiring megastones in this game requires you to go through the one of most tedious post-game challenges. To make matters worse, theyre also the most expensive.

Hands down the best Pokémon game since HeartGold & SoulSilver. Mixing up the formula REALLY worked for them! The new features are great, lots of old features have been revamped to be significantly less annoying than ever before (EV training, hatching eggs, showing the effectiveness of your moves if youve encountered the Pokémon before, being allowed to choose if you want to send a pokémon into a PC box or replace one of your party Pokémon, etc.), and the characters are all brilliantly written. Here I was thinking I might be finally done with Pokémon after X/Y bored me to the point where I couldnt finish it, but much to my joy I find that theres plenty here to keep me engaged. 20 years later, and Pokémon is still going strong! Whether youre an old fan of the series, or never got to it back in the previous generations, pick up this game. You wont be disappointed!

If you like Pokemon you will love this . The improved way of getting stuff done easier. I hate how they messed up fishing. You have to a group of rocks to fish and it has to have bubble to get any thing but crappy fish Pokemon. The start of the game is slow getting thought and boring but once you get through that it is great. I dont like that some Pokemon can only get when a certain Pokemon calls for help. I hate that you cant throw a pokeball when their is more than one Pokemon in the field. Also that some Pokemon can evolve in one area near the end of the game and that some have to be female. Female that you need are hard to get for those. The map seem clunky.

Did you know there are no more HMs in this game? Yeah, there are no more HMs. If youre not a fan of long (2 minute or so) cutscenes, I wouldnt recommend this generation of pokemon. But if youre craving to have cutscenes in a pokemon game to make it much more of a story-based RPG, then this has ya covered. The first few hours (depending on how fast you get through the intro) are pretty hand-holdy, but they mostly let go and let you explore afterwards. Its a great starting/restarting point in the series, and they dont to expect you to know everything about pokemon.