My thoughts on Pokémon Sun & Moon

2016-11-26

My thoughts on Pokémon Sun & Moon

While I won’t call this a review by any stretch of the imagination, I did want to share my experience with the recently released Pokémon Sun & Moon. Pokémon is one of my favorite game franchies, so I was really excited to get the latest entry in the series. With each new iteration, it’s interesting to see how the game evolves and changes, and I think Sun & Moon mark one of the biggest evolutions in the franchise since the original Ruby & Sapphire back in 2003.

Just to understand where I’m coming from, I’m actually not a long-time fan of the game series. I was already in college by the time the first Pokémon games hit the United States (1998). At the time, with all the cutesy marketing around the franchise and the cartoons squarely aimed at younger children, I kind of wrote it off as a kids’ game and didn’t pay any attention to it. A few years ago, though, I was getting into the pet battles in World of Warcraft and really enjoyed that feature. A friend pointed out that the pet battles were a simplified version of Pokémon battles, and this piqued my interest. On top of that, about the exact same time my wife got hooked on Twitch Plays Pokémon. So it was pretty much decided—we picked up the most recent games at the time (Pokémon X & Y). We instantly fell in love. I have 900 hours on my Pokémon Y cart alone, and since then I’ve gone back and tried out HeartGold, Diamond, and both Black & White games. While I have a frame of reference for the earlier games, I’m definitely not as caught up in nostalgia as a lot of other players. Is that a good or bad thing? I’m not certain. Feel free to interpret it how you will.

Anyways, let’s talk about Pokémon Sun & Moon.

One of the most obvious and most stunning improvements is the graphics. I had already experienced Pokémon in 3D for the past few years, but Sun & Moon looks significantly better than both X & Y and Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire. I especially like that the chibi trainers are gone. It now uses the full-sized models both in the overworld and battle screens.

The second thing that really grabs your attention in Sun & Moon is the story. It’s not a revolutionary tale by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s probably the most elaborate story told in a Pokémon game to date. Also, unlike previous entries, you’re constantly involved in the story throughout the game, every step of the way. This is probably where I hear the complaint that the game is “too linear” is coming from. In previous generations, you frequently had long stretches where the game left you alone to explore and catch Pokémon. Sun & Moon, on the other hand, will have you engaging frequently with certain NPCs all throughout the game. Especially early on, I agree it was a tiny bit frustrating when I wanted to to go exploring but kept getting sucked into cut scenes. It evens out as the game progresses, though, and if you look there are plenty of side areas to explore that the game doesn’t direct you toward. Honestly overall I found the story a good move for the game, as it kept me engaged in playing the game instead of just racing to defeat the Elite Four so I could unlock post-game activities like in previous editions.

I haven’t done a tally, but I feel like there are fewer new Pokémon in this generation than previously. A lot of the Pokémon I encountered in Alola were ones I had seen before, and the few brand new ones had already been spoiled by official marketing. I could probably count on one hand the genuine surprises I saw in the game. In the future, I hope the Pokémon Company holds more secrets back so there’s still something to discover when the games are released. Also, I’m kind of irritated that Alola is full of wingull and skarmory. Those two appeared a lot in the previous game (Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire), and I was thoroughly irritated to have to face them so much in the new region. Overall though, the new Pokémon in Alola feature a few cool things and a few not so cool things, and I imagine there’s little something for everyone.

Also, if you’re wondering, I was team Popplio from the beginning, even before I knew it would blossom into a beautiful Primarina.

To be fair, most of the criticisms I have for the game are fairly minor. It’s a solid entry in the franchise, and the fact that they finally abandoned the formulaic “get eight gym badges, defeat Elite Four” really helps it to feel fresh and new. As a player of several of the previous games, I can easily add this to the top of the list with X & Y. I think with the way it eases you into the game, it’s a great starting point for people new to the series (at the expense of mildly annoying veterans for the first few hours).

One of the things that really surprised me about Sun & Moon is how difficult they are. I found playing the last couple of Pokémon games to be pretty simple, and after having leveled my party sufficiently it was pretty easy to waltz through the game. Not so in Sun & Moon; I found myself frequently running from fights I couldn’t win, and I was actually spending copious amounts of money on potions and revives for the first time since I learned to play. When I reached the end of the game, I was even over-levelled by about 10 levels, and I was still having to really think about what I was doing in the last few fights. I was pleasantly surprised that the game actually challenged me. Thankfully the game is also fair in its difficulty, so I’m hoping that’s not actually a turn-off for newbies.

There are a couple more things I want to address. These would probably be the two biggest things I had an issue with in the game.

The first is the call for help mechanic. In the wild, Pokémon can now call for assistance from a friend when you’re battling them, bringing a second Pokémon into the fight unexpectedly. Overall the idea isn’t bad. It adds a little challenge and breaks up the monotony of fighting wild Pokémon. However, as someone who enjoys filling the Pokedex, it was obnoxious to deal with at times, as I’d try to catch a Pokémon, but it’d keep calling for help over and over again (you can’t attempt to catch it unless it’s by itself). I eventually learned to adjust to the new mechanic and ways for mitigating it, but at first I found myself discouraged. This was also the most frequent thing to cause me to run from battles; sometimes I’d just get stuck in an infinite loop of yelping Pokémon, and it wasn’t fun anymore.

My second complaint is fishing. This one is kind of a “two steps forward, one step back” deal. In previous games, you were given multiple rods, and encounter tables varied depending on location and rod used. Now you just have one rod and the encounter tables are based on the levels of the surrounding area, which is nice. Unfortunately, 99% of what you can fish up is Magikarp. In order to get the rarer Pokémon, you either have to deal with a 1% catch rate, or you wait for bubbles to show up in the fishing spots which bump some of the rarer catches to 20% or so. It pretty much means unless you see the bubbles, there’s no point in fishing. And it leads to behavior such as constantly zoning back and forth between two areas to get the bubbles to respawn. It’s really just not a fun design, and I don’t know how that got included in the game in the state that it’s in. Even if this was the mechanic they really desired, they really should have varied the common fishing encounter tables more so that it’s not completely worthless to fish normally.

Anyways, I’m nitpicking now. As I said before, Sun & Moon are solid entries in the series, and I’ve had a lot of fun playing alongside my wife. Personally I finished the game in about 50 hours, so I feel like I more than got my money’s worth out of it, and I plan to keep messing around with the post-game content. You could probably finish it in 30 or so hours if you wanted to, but it’s much more fun to slow down and explore more of the side content.