The same can often be said for the new Pokémon themselves. They benefit from some wonderful animation, an elongated involvement with the story, and some genuinely funny cutscenes - yes cutscenes! In Pokémon! And they're good! - and with that added room to grow, those characters flourish. Powerful trainers who maintain a close bond with their island's respective guardian Pokémon, the Tapu, island Kahunas are also some of the best things about Sun and Moon. The trials vary wildly, from collecting hidden ingredients to carefully analysing Pokémon dances, but whilst that all sounds frightfully gimmicky they are executed well, with variation and identifiable character letting them stand well above the sterile, rigid, repetitive grind of the battle-focused Gyms of old.Ĭompleting all of the trials on an island will grant you a battle with that island's Kahuna, meanwhile.
#POKÉMON SUN AND MOON SERIES#
Time and again, Pokémon Sun and Moon surprises with its thoughtfulness, detail, and craft.Ī major change is that, instead of the traditional system of eight Gyms and an Elite Four, the player must now take on a series of seven Island Challenges, each comprised of a Captain, a trial, a powerful Totem Pokémon, and a Z Move-enabling Crystal as a reward. But for every cause for concern, on learning something else had been tweaked or changed, my hesitancy has been proven wrong.
I'm one of the more staunch defenders of HMs, for instance they force you into an old-school, zero-sum tradeoff between the most powerful team and the one which is most well-prepared, and balancing that - finding the best 'HM Slave' and team to go with it - became something of an art in itself for the community, too.
That, I admit, was a little scary for a someone who has lent so heavily on the game's crutches of comfort and familiarity. There's been plenty of talk about how Pokémon games have been trying to get closer to the anime, but Sun and Moon's charming world is the first to really deliver. Gyms and Gym Leaders the Elite Four Day Care HMs out-of-combat moves even recent poster children like Mega-Evolution, the hallowed secrecy of Individual Values, and the series' very operating parable of how we all need to just love our Pokémon have been either re-worked, re-thought, or totally removed. In some cases it's been totally reinvented. Ordinarily, with each new Pokémon game we get more Pokémon to catch, more towns to visit, some more slightly uninspiring sideshows - beauty pageants, athletics tournaments, et cetera - and another ten-year-old on a quest be the very best, just because.īut with Ohmori's direction the sacred formula hasn't just been readjusted. Sun and Moon brings some pleasing-but-predictable tweaks to an otherwise protected central formula. Without willing to set too many Pokéfan pulses a-racing, that overflowing sense of style and character means that Pokémon Sun and Moon are genuine rivals to Gold and Silver as some of the very best games in the series.
It feels curated, crafted, with a cohesive vision in mind that informs everything throughout - from the way your Ride Sharpedo skips over waves like a jet ski to the comical 'whappah' sound effect of a challenging Blackbelt. That man is Shigeru Ohmori, and the result is one of the most characterful, exciting, and fun Pokémon games of them all. The guard changed, however, with the recent Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire remakes and, for the first time in more than a decade, a main series Pokémon game has a new director. Junichi Masuda, a founding member of Pokémon developer Game Freak, legendary creator of the 'Masuda method' and long-term game director and composer, has dutifully watched over some of my favourite childhood memories from the days of the original Ruby and Sapphire right up to the latest generation of Pokémon X and Y. Yet with Pokémon Sun and Moon, things have changed.
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