"Pokemon: Sun and Moon Version" Review

[Note: I want to apologize in advance for the photo quality. The only pictures I could find via google were ones directly from Game Freak, and we all know that Nintendo is a jealous dragon when it comes to its intellectual property. I may be small time, but no depths of petty are too deep for Nintendo. Therefore, every photo in this review is taken from my own copy of Sun Version, so maybe the hammer won't come down.]
My generation's undying veneration (a lyric from a song on my upcoming prog rock album) of Nintendo has led me to believe that people simply cannot be trusted to view anything nostalgic with an open mind. If a new item in a franchise with plenty of nostalgia value comes out, your average reviewer will either score it a 10/10 simply by virtue of its status as a nostalgia item or 0/10 because it deviates too far from the accepted formula. I saw that the reviews of Sun and Moon version were mostly good, which I would typically take with a grain of salt in any case, but given that this is a new Pokemon game, I decided to take it with two grains of salt and try it myself. My reviews always err on the side of subjective, but in my opinion, the taint of nostalgia on a review is the pinnacle of dishonesty. Pokemon is definitely an item of nostalgia for me, so I've decided to tell my story as it pertains to Pokemon so you, dear reader, can see exactly what kind of place this review is coming from. So, if you are seriously on the fence about buying Pokemon Sun or Moon version at this point and you legitimately look to my reviews to make these kinds of decisions, read the next few paragraphs, read the rest of the review, and decide for yourself if I'm viewing this game with a clear head, and make your decision from there.
Unlike most people I know, I didn't start my Pokemon journey with Red and Blue. I was barely above toddler age at the time, so one can hardly blame me. Really, my first proper Pokemon game (i.e. not puzzle challenge or the like) was Chrystal version. At the time, I was still pretty young, so I didn't quite grasp everything I needed to grasp about the game (It took me a few years to get past the first few gyms simply because I had no idea what to do next). I remember it vividly: I had been obsessed with Pokemon from the anime/cartoon for a while. Christmastime came around, and at the time, my grandparents lived in Odessa, Texas. My family was down in their tiny house in the panhandle, a thin layer of snow had fallen the night before, there were Christmas decorations, and one of my gifts was Pokemon Chrystal version (I had already been playing puzzle challenge on my special Pikachu gameboy color for a while). I remember the weather being cold, the lighting being fairly dim, being surrounded by the various christmas lights, and firing up Chrystal version for the first time. Because I was still young and still didn't grasp everything I needed to, I thought that you had to go with whatever starter you happened to walk up to and activate (remember, this was in the time where there were just pokeballs on the table and you'd find out which pokemon was in it by activating it, so I thought it was chance which one you got). I happened to walk up and pick Totodile. So, I set out on my adventure with my trusty Totodile, and it was the only Pokemon I actually used, hence why there was some trouble with later gyms. It never mattered to me that we weren't really making progress. For me, this pokemon game was about traveling the world with my friend, Totodile.
The only other Pokemon game that was able to replicate that experience was my next one, Sapphire version. By this time, I was older and actually knew how to play the game, so I chose Torchic. To this day there hasn't been a starter quite as good as Torchic. Really, if I had to choose a favorite Pokemon game, it would be Sapphire version. It was the first game where I had multiple level 100 Pokemon, the first game where I had a fully trained type-balanced team, the first game where I came anywhere near close to finishing the Pokedex. What it had in common with Chrystal was this sense of friendship, of traveling the world with Pokemon that I came to love.
Then came FireRed, and my first full dive into the original games. I had played Yellow version in between Sapphire and FireRed, but the cartridge stopped working before I could get very far, so FireRed was my first real Kanto experience. These words I'm about to write are going to get me a lot of hate, I'm sure, but I've just never found the first generation all that inspiring. Maybe if Red/Blue had been my first game I would have a different opinion, but that is just how it is. I love the generation 1 Pokemon, to be sure, but the Kanto region is just very bland to me. I made it through FireRed, but Sapphire was still king.
After Sapphire and FireRed version, I kind of stopped following Pokemon. The DS came out and the likelihood of getting another system was not high. Years passed and I entered High School and happened to get a Nintendo DS as a gift for an intense upcoming road trip. My entire early gaming life had been made up of Pokemon and bad nintendo handheld games, so I figured if I was going to be using a new Nintendo handheld, I might as well pick up the newest Pokemon. So, I picked up Platinum version and started a new journey. None of the starters really appealed to me, so I picked Chimchar and went from there. I remember Platinum version having the best postgame short of Chrystal, but other than that I thought it was incredibly cheap how 95% of the new Pokemon were new evolutions of existing ones.
On that same road trip, I picked up a copy of HeartGold to experience the remake of my first game's generation. It lacked the personality of the original, but it was definitely a good time to once again roam Johto with Totodile at my side.
The years passed again and I went through college. Senior year was a dark time, and I found myself in need of some kind of escapism. While I was in a Target one day, I saw Pokemon Black version on a shelf. I had heard that the Pokemon in that generation were pretty lame (i.e. an ice cream cone), but I figured that nothing could calm my spirits like a new trip to a universe that had meant so much to me in the past. What I found was easily a close contender for second favorite game. You see, it has always been a rule for me that I play a new Pokemon game using only the Pokemon from that generation. I think it defeats the entire purpose of having a new Pokemon game if you have Pikachu and Gyarados on your team every single time. With Black version you had no choice but to use Pokemon from that generation until the postgame, so it made things much easier. Beyond that, I was stunned at how good the story was. Pokemon and good story do not go together typically, so I was shocked to discover good character development, a deep plotline about Pokemon abuse, and a message about mutual respect that came off as sincere. I also, for the first time since Sapphire, had a starter that I really wanted to use. Roaming Unova with my Snivy wasn't quite as great an experience as Hoenn with my Torchic or Johto with my Totodile, but it was better than it was in Platinum, that's for sure.
I picked up Black Version 2 after that and it was ok...like...really, really ok.
Then, quite recently (this year, in fact), I decided to invest in a 3DS and get Y version. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't exactly groundbreaking either. It made me break my rule about only using Pokemon from that generation because it seemed like the only Pokemon you could mega evolve (and thus get the most out of the game) was the Kanto starter given to you by Professor Sycamore. I went with Froakie for my starter and chose Charmander as my Kanto starter (though I'm typically more of a Squirtle guy). I would say that Y falls a little below the middle for me in terms of quality. I definitely enjoyed every second of it, but not as much as some previous titles.
After beating Y version, I knew it was time to brave the remake of my favorite one: Alpha Sapphire. Let me tell you this: Alpha Sapphire was like a giant kiss from the developers to everyone who played the original. It played up the original's strengths while delivering more of what fans of the original wanted at the time. It rewrote the story to be less about Team Aqua wanting more water just because they like it and more "people have destroyed the oceans, so we're going to restore the oceans to their former beauty". I went out and reassembled my team from the original game: Blaziken, Walrein, Tropius, Delcatty, Aggron, and Gardevoir, and set out once again to try and complete the pokedex.
That brings us to now and to Pokemon Sun and Moon version. In case you didn't pick it up from the previous paragraphs, there are a few things I look for in a Pokemon game that determine its quality:
1) Sense of adventure. A good Pokemon game is one that immerses the player in its world. It presents a region that players really want to explore and installs a sense that you are venturing forth into new territory.
2) Interesting Pokemon. I feel like this one is a no-brainer. Part of that desire to explore should come from wanting to see what kinds of new Pokemon you might come across. A pokemon game is good to me if I feel compelled to fill up as much of the pokedex as I can (including with pokemon from previous generations)
3) Sense of partnership. This one is both the corniest and hardest to pin down. This one is more or less made up of the game's successes and failures in terms of the other two items on this list. There are people out there who legitimately only look at Pokemon as a bunch of numbers, who, upon meeting a new Pokemon, decide whether or not they want to use them based on stats and not their gut. The best Pokemon games, I find, are the ones that try their hardest to convert these people. This one is definitely difficult to pin down because it is almost impossible to determine where one attempt fails and another succeeds. It is hard to say why, for example, Platinum failed on this level while Black did not.
So there you are. You know my story as it pertains to this franchise and you know what makes a Pokemon game good in my eyes...
Therefore, you know I'm not coming from a place of nostalgia and that I have concrete reasons for coming to you today to tell you that Pokemon Sun and Moon are the best Pokemon games in years. At time of writing I have completed both Sun and Moon version and am on a third play through with the one starter that I haven't yet played with. Having played through more than once, I can say with certainty that you should absolutely buy either version.
So, dear readers, I bid you Alola and welcome you to join me as I explain why.
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Right from the get-go it is clear that Pokemon Sun and Moon are going to be different from your average Pokemon adventure. You arrive in the Alola region (a string of islands based on Hawaii) from your home in Kanto, and you, your mom, and your mom's Meowth now live in a small house on the outskirts of a major tourist city. After experiencing extreme jet lag and waking up in the middle of the day (or night, depending on the version), Professor Kukui, the professor for this region, comes to visit you and invites you to the village a little ways down the road to get a Pokemon. This is normally where you would visit the professor's lab and find three pokeballs on the table, but it is not so in Sun and Moon. You arrive in the village and learn that new trainers receive Pokemon from the island Kahuna (spiritual figurehead or some such). The Kahuna is nowhere to be found, so in true Pokemon fashion, you are asked to see where he might have gone off to. You end up heading further into the village until you come to a bridge on the outskirts. You see a young woman with a mysterious new Pokemon. The Pokemon is in the center of the bridge, but the young woman is frozen with fear at the start of it. A group of spearow are starting to attack it, but you jump in to save it and fall off the bridge. Before you and this new Pokemon can experience an untimely death, however, you both are saved by a Pokemon identified as Tapu Koko, the island's guardian deity. From there, you, Lillie (the young woman), and Hau (the grandson of the Kahuna and your rival for these games), embark on a rite of passage for Alolan children: the island challenge. Children travel through all four islands completing trials created by island captains. After all the trials of an island are completed, the trial-goer then battles the island's Kahuna and moves on to the next island.
This island challenge serves as the framework for Sun and Moon's story; much as the quest to beat all the gym leaders in previous games would move you from place to place and, as a direct result, put you at key plot points.
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Story is another area in which Sun and Moon are distinctive. In past Pokemon games (even the stellar Black Version), the story has typically been as follows: An outspoken idealist leads a team that has some kind of grandiose goal usually involving the creation of a new world and plans to accomplish this goal by awakening the region's legendary Pokemon. It all goes horribly wrong, naturally, and you are able to battle the legendary Pokemon and save the world from this idealist's plans because you have a pure soul and are truly one with your Pokemon or something equally corny. Not exactly Shakespeare material, but it has almost always been the case. With Sun and Moon, however, the story has almost nothing to do with Pokemon. That may sound like a negative thing, and maybe you will view it that way, but it means that this story avoids the usual pitfalls. Really, I think it was a great decision.
Let me explain: Little kids won't be paying attention to the story at all. They'll be more focused on playing with their Pokemon and they will probably tune out for every cutscene and bit of dialogue. Adults who are playing, even if they don't care about the story, will at least comprehend it. If this is the case, why not make it something memorable?
I say this because the story of Sun and Moon gets really...really dark. So dark, in fact, that I definitely forgot that the target demographic is kids. The story delves into some very deep, very real issues that children face in our world every day. I'm making it sound a lot worse than it actually is, but it is shocking to see just how much darker the stakes are in these games. It is the kind of story that adults can understand and feel something as a result of, but on the off chance that children pay attention, it is the kind of story that can do some good. The story approaches these issues tastefully and without calling attention to them, so I get the impression that Game Freak is trying to educate children who are playing Pokemon; perhaps to get them to equate these issues with evil. If that is the case, I have to applaud Game Freak for it.
Now, I've said that the story is dark and deals with real world issues, but that doesn't mean its depressing. There are still, of course, colorful animals that you play with in order to get to the next story point. However, I just think it was a masterful decision on Game Freak's part to make the story so important and accessible to all ages. The moments in-between story bits are the ones that make up most of the game, however, so they are the points that need to shine. Thankfully, they do just that.
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Gameplay, for the most part, is what you might expect. Think of rock paper scissors but with fifteen other options. There are tweaks to the UI that are definitely welcome, such as a little indicator which attacks are super effective and not very effective against whatever you're battling, but aside from one major new addition, it is the same tried and true formula you are likely used to at this point. However, as I've said, you won't be fighting gym leaders in these games, rather, you'll be undertaking trials. I personally found the trials to be a breath of fresh air. Essentially, each captain has a trial that in some way deals with the type of Pokemon they use. Each trial has its own unique rules and goals, and most of the time you will have no idea what to expect until you actually start. Some trials have you doing standard battling with x amount of wild Pokemon, some will have you doing things like memorizing dance patterns, and some will test your knowledge of Pokemon audio. It means that you have to prove yourself in more ways than just battling. At the end of each trial, you come up against a "Totem Pokemon." This essentially is a buffed-up version of a Pokemon of whatever type you're going up against. Once you beat this Pokemon, you have completed the challenge.
After completing each challenge, you get a "Z-Chrystal," and this drives the major new addition to the series. Much like Mega Evolution in the last generation, you have your pokemon hold a Z-chrystal that corresponds to a type of attack they have, and once per battle they can unleash a high-powered "Z-move." Each Z-move deals quite a bit of damage, and they add a new layer of strategy to the games in that you decide when you need the extra power the most. Other than that, however, Z-power didn't really have much of an impact on the game. I always appreciated using them, but I actually think mega evolution was a better idea. Oh well. Either way, you get new Z-Chrystals when you beat a Totem Pokemon and complete a trial. Despite consistently having a type-balanced team in my play throughs, I have found the Totem Pokemon to be challenging almost all the time. Part of this is due to another new mechanic, one that I actually don't like all that much.
Essentially, wild Pokemon can now call for help. You'll be going up against a wild pokemon or a totem and it will call a companion to come and help it, putting you in a 1 v 2 battle. It is an interesting idea on paper, but in practice it kind of makes me want to tear my hair out. I mean, from a difficulty standpoint it doesn't make much of a difference (except in Totem battles), but it does mean that battles can go on for way longer than they need to. Likewise, you can't catch a Pokemon if you are up against more than one (for some reason), so you can whittle a Pokemon's health down, it''ll call for help, you'll take out the companion, it'll call for help again, and the cycle will continue without you being able to catch the Pokemon you want for ages. It was a minor annoyance, to be sure, but one that impacted my enjoyment. What makes it more annoying is the fact that some Pokemon can only be caught when they show up as a companion for another wild pokemon. So, to complete the Pokedex, rather than going out and looking for the Pokemon organically, there are times where you'll have to sit through wave upon wave of wild pokemon calling for help in order to find one. I remember at one point I was looking for a Pokemon called "Mareenie," which only appears as a companion for Corsola maybe 5% of the time. It took a full two hours to find one, and those two hours spanned maybe five battles. That is just not how looking for Pokemon should be.
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On that note, if you'll remember, one of the things I look for in a good Pokemon game is a host of new and interesting Pokemon that compel me to complete the pokedex. X and Y were flawed in this regard because, for example, there were three new electric types and a single ground type, so the selection was shallow indeed. Sun and Moon are better than X and Y in this area, but unfortunately the selection is still lacking. Game Freak tries to make up for it by including "Alola forms" of Kanto Pokemon with new looks and new types, but if you are like me, they are hardly a suitable substitute. Popplio is my favorite starter in years, so at least in terms of starters it is satisfactory, but beyond that there is still a balance problem. There is, for example, only one new dark type in the entire new roster (not counting Alola forms), and there are only two new electric types. The Pokemon that exist in this new roster are actually pretty compelling, but there just aren't enough of them. By far the biggest sin of all of this, however, is one that I can't take off points for because it is beyond subjective. These games skimped on the water types. Water types are my favorite, and here is what the selection of new water types looks like outside of the starter: A fish that is literally worse than Magikarp and has no evolved form to redeem it, two species that are both part bug, an actually pretty cool species that takes two hours of companion calling to find, a weird fish thing that is part psychic, and a tiny little sea urchin. That is it. That is all the new water Pokemon. Once again, that is still a better selection than in X and Y, but it still shameful when compared to the water type paradise that was Hoenn.
To balance out this negative, there is one positive in Sun and Moon that I have been hoping for for years. It is a positive that I don't think other people view as a positive, and that is this:
No.
National.
Pokedex.
I've hated the national pokedex for years. I beat a game and then all of my progress loses all of its value because now I have a few hundred more Pokemon to catch and they always feel out of place. Thankfully, however, there is no national pokedex in Sun and Moon, so after the postgame you still have a chance of completing the pokedex in this century.
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Another aspect of the pokemon in these games that I need to commend is the fact that HMs have been removed from the game entirely. This means you no longer need to choose Pokemon based on what HMs you might need to use throughout the course of the game. Now you can use whatever pokemon you want without a care in the world. Instead, the functionality usually carried out by HM slaves are now carried out by rentable ride pokemon. You use a Tauros as your speedy method of getting around and smashing rocks, a Charizard to fly, a Lapras to surf, and many others to carry out various functions. This was a decision that I just loved.
In addition to this, there are a whole host of other little "apps" within the game that I didn't always use but enjoyed nonetheless. There is, for instance, Pokemon Refresh. In Pokemon Refresh, you can pet your Pokemon and feed them Pokebeans, but beyond that, you can also heal status problems such as poisoning and paralysis between battles. The more you use this app on your Pokemon, the more affectionate they are towards you. The more affectionate they are towards you, the more likely they are to hold out one hit point in battle or shake themselves out of status ailments organically. These little bonuses can sometimes turn the tide of battle in surprising ways, so it is worth investing some time in. There is also the festival plaza, which I never really used outside of one time. In it you can get rewards of various types, but like I said, I never really paid attention. Then there is Poke Pelago. It is a neat idea: there are uninhabited islands in the Alola regions that serve as your PC box. It is essentially a mobile game minigame kind of thing but with no microtransactions, but you can find rare evolutionary stones and berries depending on how you decide to upgrade individual islands.
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There is, however, one other new addition to Sun and Moon that I need to talk about. Rather than a normal pokedex, your pokedex has a Rotom inside of it that causes it to come to life and speak. This Rotom also houses the town map which is displayed on the bottom screen of the 3DS, and every so often it will come out and comment on the situation at hand. And I freaking hated it. There are few things more frustrating than having to wait to view the town map because Rotom is too busy jabbering away with another not funny joke about the situation at hand. The purpose of this Rotom is to make sure children know where to go, as it makes comments such as "didn't the professor tell us to go to x?" and puts up a red flag to walk towards. I understand how this could be useful, but for pete's sake, couldn't there have been an option to turn it off? As it stands, Rotom was just this annoying mosquito buzzing in my ear the entire time (well...figuratively). I know that it shouldn't be as big a deal as it was for me, but every single time Rotom would start talking I would roll my eyes and wish it would shut up. It was beyond annoying.
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Really, beyond the negatives I've described, the only remaining negatives are nitpicks. For example, I didn't particularly enjoy having to walk using just the circle stick. Sometimes the sound effects were jarring and sharp. There were sometimes framerate drops during double battles (although not nearly often enough to make a difference). I thought it was creepy that the player character constantly had this completely dead look on his face no matter what happened. I thought the solid 40 minutes of cutscenes after I beat the game was a little excessive. These nitpicks didn't take away from my experience, but they were things that I noticed and believe you should be aware of.
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Pokemon Sun and Moon breathe a breath of fresh air into this franchise. It provides a better story, better characters, some interesting Pokemon, and a more refined product altogether. However, it also suffers from having a small selection of these interesting Pokemon and some annoying new aspects. In the end, they do not surpass Ruby and Sapphire, but they are without a doubt the best games to come out since then.
Let us review:

Wild Pokemon companion-calling - 0.3
Meager selection of new Pokemon - 0.5
Freaking Rotom-dex - 0.5

The final score for Pokemon Sun and Moon Version is:
8.7/10 - Quite Good
Excellent work, Game Freak, excellent work.