Alola New Horizons - Pokemon Sun & Moon

Hello beautiful people of the Internet! And not so beautiful ones... hehe. Grab your Hawaiian (Alolan) shirts folks because it's finally time! After years of waiting we finally once again have a new generation of pokemon! We've reached over 800 'unique' creatures now in the Pokemon universe now, and believe it or not, they're actually not all that bad. Despite first impressions and how watching the reveal videos we said "That one looks stupid" to each other countless times, when you play the game you just get that feeling: "Yep, these are definitely Pokemon". After 20 long years Pokemon has finally given us a game that 'feels' epic. A lot of things have changed so without any more of Ren's ramblings, let's get on with the party!

Taking place in the new region of Alola (It's based on like, Hawaii or something if you hadn't already guessed) Pokemon Sun and Moon versions sees you set out on your own Pokemon adventure once again. When you get down to it, Pokemon Sun and Moon were somewhat of a risk for the developers. The games shake up so much compared to the previous main series games we were a bit shaky going into these titles. Gone are the days of defeating 8 gym leaders and challenging the Pokemon League. Now we have trials, type-orientated challenges and puzzles that culminate in a battle against a special Totem Pokemon, with beefed up stats and some super strong moves that can decimate your entire team if you're not prepared. Our first thought that just having to faint a single Pokemon to pass the trial was that it would be too easy, but there's a lot more to the trials than that  and it makes for plenty of fresh new gameplay experience, and a new way of thinking about battles.

Palossand - You scream ridiculous, I scream geniu-
RIDICULOUS!

Sun and Moon are also a lot more story focused than previous games, featuring cinematic cutscenes and a more fleshed out and unique story. That's a really great thing and all, the story is genuinely entertaining and quite gripping, but the game takes FOREVER to get going and I really mean it. I think I was probably a good half an hour into the game when I finally got to battle with my first pokemon, and even after that point progress is really quite slow until all of the tutorials are out of the way. It's all well and good to make change for the better like this, particularly with a formula growing old after 20 years, but honestly I agree, if I was a new player getting into the series for the first time, I might have been put off it very early on not really understanding how much more interesting things would get.

As you would expect a whole heap of other new features have been added to the game, some great, and some not so much. A lot of the new features, as seems to be pretty common for the modern Pokemon game, are all about making the game generally easier for the players, which isn't really necessary considering Pokemon is a pretty lenient series to begin with. During battles you'll now be able to see which of your moves are effective against the opposing Pokemon if you've beaten one already. It's not really a big change considering most people who play have already memorised most type matchups, but there are a lot of more obscure ones that just takes more skill out of the game. Add in 'improved' EXP system and EXP share, which seem to reward more EXP the closer you are in level to the opponent, and all of a sudden the game doesn't really slow you down anymore. With EXP now being acquired much more easily our Pokedexes are full of gaps because we don't really need to go in the tall grass and grind anymore. Just beat all the trainers in an area and move on. Easy. It wouldn't be such a bad thing but honestly it just doesn't feel like you've really worked hard to make your Pokemon strong anymore. they just sorta are now.

R-Raticate... Are you okay? You really let yourself go there buddy...
Haha! He looks just like you now Ren!
Hey!

We're trying to talk less about new features and more about the games but let's be real here. It's Pokemon, what more do you need us to say? Now enough about that, let's talk about the biggest thing since Mega-Evolution: Z-Moves. Z-Moves are over the top super powerful moves that can be used by any Pokemon holding a special crystal of the correct type. The moves do an extreme amount of damage and look absolutely gorgeous. There's one move for each type and some special ones for specific Pokemon. That isn't to say they're a great feature though. You can use them once per battle just like with mega evolution, but turning a whole move into a colourful hellfire of explosions and giant shattering orbs wreaks havoc on pretty much everything. There's no reason to be conservative with these things just unleash them on anything you come across if you know you'll be out of the battle soon enough. You'll never have to worry about wild Pokemon or half of the games trainers with only one Pokemon anymore, because you can just overkill them with no real penalties. Again. Is Pokemon starting to get too easy?

You know, you could always Nuzloke if it's too easy for you Si- NO! NONO. I am not going through the pain of losing my darlings ever again you hear me!? Whoa whoa... Okay okay geez I'm sorry I mentioned it.

All these new wonders together with the now fully 3D (no more square based movement) world do bring with it a number of flaws though. The main one of these is how the game runs on the older 3DS systems. The boot up time is so long you start to worry if the game has crashed, and the framerate drops really noticeably any time there are more than two Pokemon on screen in a battle, which is very often seeing as wild Pokemon can now call in more wild Pokemon for help during a fight. It's a pretty nasty feature sometimes to be honest, but also a really fun and interesting as well.

These guys are actually the best. Finally a complete laughing stock of an 'evil team'

Unusually self aware too, dawg.

Ren, you could have spent your entire life in a fridge freezer and you would never be cool. Shut up

What more can you say, it's a Pokemon game and there's more everything. It's bigger, better and lots more fun than ever before! Pokemon will always be Pokemon, we can't really explain how great it is but if you've played and loved previous instalments you'll love this one even more. It is easily the best game in the series so far, even if your favourite Pokemon aren't available in it just yet. An absolute must for fans of the series.

... You know this doesn't feel like much of a review Ren. I know... Just how do you review Pokemon? It's the JRPG (other than Final Fantasy), and you should know what to expect by now. And hey you couldn't make this into much of a review either you know. Oh just shut up.

But Team Skull though.
Oh my God the best thing to happen to Pokemon ever. So funny.
Yo Sin what up letz go play some Poke-mons like bruh.
Ew why is this filth talking to me...
I-I was making a joke...
Was that supposed to be funny? 

*Sigh* Anyway. Until next time folks!
Alola!!!

Ren Score: 9/10
Sin Score: 8/10