Pokémon Sun and Moon

What version of Gen 7 are you going to get?

  • Sun

    Votes: 13 41.9%
  • Moon

    Votes: 12 38.7%
  • Both

    Votes: 4 12.9%
  • Neither

    Votes: 1 3.2%
  • There's going to be a gen 7?

    Votes: 1 3.2%

  • Total voters
    31
Re: Pokémon Sun and Moon (Please put leaks and spoilers in spoil boxes!)

the whole team skull in po town part of the game was done perfectly holy shit, from the run down pokemon center to the graffiti everywhere to the mansion exploration that was incredible
team skull best team all teams

now i can use the bug move for my golisopod yay

did not expect the apathetic police officer to be the kahuna either that was a nice surprise. ulaula island is the best island of the three so far

on to team aether

Current Team is same as last time just higher levels
 
Re: Pokémon Sun and Moon (Please put leaks and spoilers in spoil boxes!)

Banjo why are you in this game

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Re: Pokémon Sun and Moon (Please put leaks and spoilers in spoil boxes!)

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Re: Pokémon Sun and Moon (Please put leaks and spoilers in spoil boxes!)

Team Skull is the Best team
 
Re: Pokémon Sun and Moon (Please put leaks and spoilers in spoil boxes!)

Just got to Ula'ula Island and currently going through the Malie Garden. I finally have over 6 Pokemon (and plan to have like 10-12 as a full team by the end of the game probably) so I'm now beginning to rotate members in and out.

Right now, the seven I have are:

Decidueye (Vinny) - level 34
Toucannon (Joel) - level 34
Araquanid (Jessica) - level 32
Salandit (Amber) - level 32
Crabawler (Bruce) - level 32
Golisopod (Molly) - level 31
Sandygast (Malcolm) - level 25; just got him, and is the main trainee atm so he can become a full-fledged member of this team
 
Re: Pokémon Sun and Moon (Please put leaks and spoilers in spoil boxes!)

I beat the game

just
wow

I will post detailed thoughts and whatnot much later
 
Re: Pokémon Sun and Moon (Please put leaks and spoilers in spoil boxes!)

I'm still playing through but I think I've settled on sticking with my crew of Magneton, Arcanine, Masquerain, Starmie, Metang and Vulpix.

Interestingly, the only 'new' Pokemon is Vulpix. I didn't plan this out, it just sorta ended up this way. I chained for a Snow Warning Vulpix so I could give it Aurora Veil and Blizzard. Magneton and Starmie were impulse additions, they took the place of Pooplio and Lurantis because I didn't end up liking either that much.
 
Re: Pokémon Sun and Moon (Please put leaks and spoilers in spoil boxes!)

Man, where do I start?

Aside from being spoilery as hell I've written a veritable novel of my thoughts so its all behind the spoiler tag to keep you from getting cancer from my hot shit opinions.

It's taken me just under a week to finish this game, with my final time invested into the main game being just shy of 50 hours. Although the start of the game was incredibly slow and continued to be slow until the third act (where it went from 0 to 100 real quick), the story, characters, and Pokemon in this game have meshed together so well that, aside from a few minor gameplay criticisms, I can without a doubt say that Pokemon Moon is my favourite Pokemon game of all time.

I guess the first thing you should evaluate in a Pokemon game is the Pokemon themselves? Although the amount of new Pokemon introduced in Alola was quite low, I can't really complain about any of their designs. For a region based on Hawaii, the Pokemon we got were incredibly on point, with some of the best designs for me being Palossand, Shiinotic, Pyukumuku, Shiinotic, Lunala, Alolan Dugtrio, Araquanid, and the greatest of all, Golisopod. Whats more is that it seems these Pokemon were designed to fill specific niches within the Pokemon meta Gamefreak has begun to curb, and none feel out of place or entirely worthless as a result. They're all hella slow though, why? Because fuck your power creep I guess?

As far as the regional dex goes, I can't fully love a game that doesn't let me catch Aron in some way, but compared to the clusterfuck that was X&Y's dex, the Alolan dex is much more tame and the selection of Pokemon is really great (despite there being more Gen 1 Pokemon than Gen 7 Pokemon). However, I will continue to resent the fact that Gamefreak made searching for all Pokemon much more difficult despite giving us an improved minimap and location guide. The in-game identification system is still too vague (unless you resort to QR codes, you still have to search out trainers in dumb locations to be able to view rare Pokemon and their locations in your dex), and rare Pokemon encounters such as Dhelmise are so contrived its a wonder why they even bother making them available at all. It's a massive step down from the DexNav from ORAS, which made searching for Pokemon actually fun and worth doing.

But all in all I was able to train a team of 6+ awesome Pokemon and catch the thing on the box so really there is no downside.

Moving on to the story/gameplay, two words sum up my experience quite nicely: Holy. Fuck.

I don't mean this in a negative way however, the story still maintained the general goal of Pokemon which is to collect weird monsters, battle those weird monsters against tough opponents to get shiny things, deal with an evil team that wants to destroy the world because fuck your happiness, defeat the final boss and become champion, but at its core was so far removed from previous Pokemon games that I can't help but feel surprised and thoroughly impressed.

Gamefreak tried to convince me that this knock-off Hawaii region had a unique culture structured around Pokemon, coming-of-age island trials and mostly living relaxing lives and well, they succeeded. Alola is such a comfortable and well-balanced region compared to places like Kalos and Unova which were in hindsight incredibly generic and mishmashed. Although the cultures within each island seem unusually distanced (Western cowboy ranch town on one island, Japanese pagoda garden town on the next), each town was a treat to visit. Still can't name towns for shit however, but I guess that means compared to Sinnoh each town served a purpose and didn't have to be flown to a million times.

The Island Trial system replacing the usual Pokemon Gyms was a much-needed and welcomed change-up. Utilizing the natural areas and Pokemon around Alola as a base and creating challenges to go with them is a far cry from the rather insular themed gyms and wacky gym leaders of games past, and whilst the trial captains are still very thematic, they blend into the relaxing aesthetic of Alola so well, and as a result every character was much more memorable. Far better than the literally who gym leaders of X and Y, for sure.

Whilst some of these trials did possess an odd lack of additional Pokemon trainers/encounters, for the most part, the final totem battle made up for this omission entirely. There was not a single totem battle that I felt wasn't a challenge. I hope that if the rumored Pokemon game on the Switch turns out to be a sequel/third version of Sun/Moon, the framerate issues will be entirely resolved, because they were the only downside to an otherwise amazing boss battle equivalent.

The other boss-battle equivalent in this game was Team Skull and Team Aether, and man holy shit was the story behind these teams so incredible.

Team Skull starting out as a Team Rocket knockoff was fitting, and they were much more entertaining than the latter. Guzma's plot to ruin the Island Challenge was a little half-baked (and this eventually served to reveal that Guzma was assisting Aether the whole time), but Po Town serving as the exclusive base of operations for them was unexpectedly amazing, and I can't fault Team Skull members because most of the humor in this game comes from laughably sad lines like 'I'm insecure and wasting my youth here' or equivalent.

Team Aether turned out to be far more dark than anticipated. Infiltrating a utopian paradise for Pokemon ruled by a woman with god complex was a surprisingly grim swerve for the game to take, especially with the added weird shit experiments and cryogenic preservation they performed under Lusamine's orders. The main villain, Lusamine, and her goal to protect all Pokemon even from other dimensions wasn't as stupid as say, Maxie's goal to dry out the oceans, but the way it was presented here was so fucked up. Torturing a Pokemon to send you and your lackey to another dimension, acting on perverted perceptions of love, etc. all played part in Lusamine being a really fucked up villain in the end.

Of course, traversing Poni Island with the newly motivated Lillie to ultimately awaken Nebby as Lunala was amazing, but for once I'm glad the goal of the evil team wasn't to use a Legendary Pokemon's power to destroy the world and instead it was the main characters who summoned the Legendary Pokemon for their need. The fight in Ultra Space was some Mystery-Dungeon level creepiness and the story suddenly shifting focus to Lillie and her family was unusual for a Pokemon game, but entirely welcome.

I won't dwell on the story and the way it was presented for much longer, but I did appreciate the extra effort put into the 3D cutscenes and scripted events compared to the game's predecessor. Lot of emotion and sometimes humour in the way the story was presented ("Come, my hiker!")

The Grand Trials of each island were always dramatic and intense, and sometimes unexpected in the case of Nanu being the Ula'Ula Kahuna. Even better was the return of Hala and Olivia as members of the Elite Four, joined by one of the best trial captains and our first Flying type Elite Four member (who was also a golfer, lmao). Either it was a combination of me switching off the expeirence share towards the end, or me having a glaring weakness to rock and flying types on my team, but battling Kukui as the champion was the hardest battle I had in the whole game, and in the whole series as a final champion. Such an incredible battle accompanied by amazing music (as an afterthought I can't really fit anywhere else, the music in this game is superb and has some of the best compositions in any Pokemon game).

As a whole, I feel that a lot of care was gone into writing the characters, lore and story for Pokemon Sun and Moon, and the payoff has been that I have never felt more immersed in a Pokemon game in Pokemon Moon than I have in a long time.

Nobugana (Golisopod) Lv. 60
Robinhoot (Decidueye) Lv. 56
Succ (Shiinotic) Lv. 59
Heartscales (Kommo-o) Lv. 55
Nebby (Lunala) Lv. 60
Blackforest (Salazzle) Lv. 57

shout out to:
Valentine (Dugtrio) Lv. 54
Tubular (Araquanid) Lv. 50

In short, Pokemon Moon is the greatest Pokemon game I've ever played. The end goal was the same as it always has been, to become the Pokemon Champion of a new region and get the thing on the box, but the road to said goal was entirely different from previous installments and thankfully refreshing. I'm looking forward to seeing what Gamefreak does to improve upon Sun and Moon's success in the future.
 
Re: Pokémon Sun and Moon (Please put leaks and spoilers in spoil boxes!)

I find it really interesting that you can avoid a large chunk of the trainors. I mean I wouldn't cause I'm an experience whore, but it's still neat that it isn't completely forced all the time.
 
Re: Pokémon Sun and Moon (Please put leaks and spoilers in spoil boxes!)

How do you increase your Pokemon's enjoyment level on Pokemon Refresh?
 
Re: Pokémon Sun and Moon (Please put leaks and spoilers in spoil boxes!)

I beat the main game I guess, I don't have much in the way of thoughts but there be spoilers

So I beat the elite four and Kukui, Kukui himself didn't really cause any trouble. I got caught off guard by Bloom Doom instead of Decidueye's ghost-type one, and also it was way faster than I expected so Ninetales died but that was about it, I revived it so it wouldn't miss out on exp but nobody else needed to be healed. Starmie almost died but it's either dead or in the red after one attack always so that's not surprising. Metagross almost died but thankfully Snorlax is slow as fuck so it still outsped it at -1. Arcanine was great, Magnezone was good, Masquerain was dope. It probably helped that I one-shot Lycanroc, and leading with Starmie baited it to use Crunch instead of Stealth Rock. Then I just counter-picked accordingly. I only had Aurora Veil in effect for the latter half of the battle too.

I called my Solgaleo Nubby just for the possibility that it might annoy someone. Tapu Koko died to a crit, I had it frozen and everything too. I guess next up is the post-game; the area of Poni that was left out and the UB's. I think game freak must have figured out that having a cute girl companion is clearly the key to a successful game.

I really enjoyed this once the second island began. The first island was honestly quite boring, more enjoyable than x/y but that's not a difficult task to accomplish. Fortunately once they throw you onto the second island and are like 'hey there's three trials go do' then I enjoyed myself more. There was more space between each trial to fuck around in.

Magnemite/ton honestly invalidated a majority of the totem fights so the only ones that stood out to me were Salazzle and Vikavolt. Vikavolt less so because once i realised I had Eviolite Growlithe then things became rather simple. Salazzle died quickly but it took out half my party in that short timeframe.

I've come to the conclusion that I think z-moves were a neat idea but, ultimately not that great. Even mega's were better and I didn't even like mega's, though I am happy that they at least tried to implement them into the main game instead of making them a sorry excuse of a post-game fetch quest. They didn't particularly make any trainer harder than they would've been otherwise I don't think.

I would've used Poke Pelago/Festival Plaza more but I did a system transfer two days ago and changed the time since it was off so I couldn't really use Plaza that much, and I was pushing through the game too fast to really take advantage of Pelago.

Story was good, first time I've ever said those words about a pokemon game lol. Characters were all quite nice and the region itself had a lot of nice areas, I think it ties with Unova as the best region. The Pokemon selection was very nice too. It gets a +100% for finally allowing a Beldum to be caught at a decent time, waited many generations for that. I appreciate not having absurdly large routes or anything just to pad out the distance between areas. A games worth isn't measured by how long it takes to complete. I would still say B/W2 is my favourite Pokemon game but, this one is a nice runner-up.

Final picture in the credits was cute af.

PokemonNicknameLevelAbilityMoves
ArcanineAshe III59IntimidateFlamethrower / Extreme Speed / Wild Charge / Crunch
MagnezoneYes59SturdyDischarge / Flash Cannon / Thunder Wave / Tri Attack
NinetalesChillin59Snow WarningAurora Veil / Nasty Plot / Blizzard / Dazzling Gleam
MasquerainBuffed59IntimidateQuiver Dance / Bug Buzz / Scald / Air Slash
MetagrossSpecs57Clear BodyZen Headbutt / Meteor Mash / Hammer Arm / Bulldoze
StarmieScarleto57Natural CurePsychic / Scald / Ice Beam / Dazzling Gleam

And also the ones that I used for an amount of time at some point;
PokemonNicknameLevelAbilityMoves
LurantisChanp41Leaf GuardLeech Life / False Swipe / Leaf Blade / Swords Dance
PrimarinaPooplio36TorrentSparkling Aria / Scald / Baby-Doll Eyes / Disarming Voice
RuffletPremier29Keen EyeAerial Ace / Shadow Claw / Slash / Rock Tomb
HariyamaMachachacha~25Thick FatKnock Off / Fake Out / Sand Attack / Brick Break
GrimerNachos21Poison TouchPound / Poison Gas / Poison Fang / Bite

I'm glad I didn't get called into work this week since it gave me the chance to play for 10 hours a day in good spirits rather than like 3-4 hours a day where I'm too tired to care.
 
Re: Pokémon Sun and Moon (Please put leaks and spoilers in spoil boxes!)

i got a shiny eevee that is now a sylveon
 
Re: Pokémon Sun and Moon (Please put leaks and spoilers in spoil boxes!)

Lillie said:
i got a shiny eevee that is now a sylveon
ok legit after reading this post i just caught a shiny fearow out of fucking nowhere

WHAT THE FUKC
 
Re: Pokémon Sun and Moon (Please put leaks and spoilers in spoil boxes!)

Ok so despite Gen VI having one of if not the most convenient online features, this gen suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks with it.
 
Re: Pokémon Sun and Moon (Please put leaks and spoilers in spoil boxes!)

Seriously Edo/Turb/TFP/LB/NEX/DF and I have just spent like the last hour or so just trying to add each other to the VIP list.
 
Re: Pokémon Sun and Moon (Please put leaks and spoilers in spoil boxes!)

Alolan Ninetales said:
Seriously Edo/Turb/TFP/LB/NEX and I have just spent like the last hour or so just trying to add each other to the VIP list.
it really is a shit system though i haven't touched the online until about an hour ago and i had to look up a guide to even trade with one of my friends
 
Re: Pokémon Sun and Moon (Please put leaks and spoilers in spoil boxes!)

Golisopod said:
Alolan Ninetales said:
Seriously Edo/Turb/TFP/LB/NEX and I have just spent like the last hour or so just trying to add each other to the VIP list.
it really is a shit system though i haven't touched the online until about an hour ago and i had to look up a guide to even trade with one of my friends
on the plus side this is the most active chat has been since i've started going to it
 
Re: Pokémon Sun and Moon (Please put leaks and spoilers in spoil boxes!)

Very Important Question: how do you pronounce acerola
i've been saying ah-suh-rola but people are telling me that's wrong
 
Re: Pokémon Sun and Moon (Please put leaks and spoilers in spoil boxes!)

Alolan Ninetales said:
Seriously Edo/Turb/TFP/LB/NEX/DF and I have just spent like the last hour or so just trying to add each other to the VIP list.
i've attempted to add nyrie for a little while but i've kinda given up

if anyone wants to try and add me you're free to but idk if that'll work

Acerola said:
Very Important Question: how do you pronounce acerola
i've been saying ah-suh-rola but people are telling me that's wrong
a-seh-ro-la

also i haven't been telling you it's wrong?? i just asked you how you pronounced it and gave 2 common ways lmao
 
Re: Pokémon Sun and Moon (Please put leaks and spoilers in spoil boxes!)

Mimikyu said:
festival plaza is pain
"I'm free!"
 
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