Pokemon Sun and Moon review: a new dawn for the long-running series
Pokemon is a huge franchise that takes many forms, but at the very heart of it all are the generational video games — released every three to four years — which introduce new creatures and locations to the cross-media juggernaut. The latest games, Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon, in many ways represent the biggest shakeup yet to the famously slow-evolving 20-year-old series. Not all the new ideas land perfectly, but it's enough to breath a lot of life into a franchise which was becoming stale.
Many hallmarks of the series — the bizarre proclamations of the Pokemon-obsessed rival trainers, the ability to battle your friends, the endlessly addictive loop of collecting and raising new monster pals — are still here in Sun and Moon and are charming as ever. But a slew of changes make the new games stand out.
The Hawaii-inspired collection of islands called Alola, on which the games take place, are the perfect setting to show off the various improvements developer Game Freak has rolled out. The most noticeable upgrade is that the action is no longer viewed from the top with paths and buildings laid out in a rigid grid. Instead, players are free to walk or run wherever they choose through winding paths, lush jungles and glistening beaches with a much more, cinematic feel.
The time in the real world still corresponds to the time in the game, but players who have Moon will find themselves on the other side of the clock to those with Sun. That is to say that if it's 3pm in real life, it will be 3am in the game if you're playing Moon. It's a strange concept, but it makes nocturnal creatures a little easier to come by.
The flow of the game has been changed to be less focused on challenging a gym in each area, presenting a series of challenges that differ greatly but always end in a boss battle against a "totem" Pokemon.
Meanwhile the main story concerns a mysteriously powerful Pokemon and a hilarious rap-themed band of rogues called Team Skull, and speaking to random people across the world will net numerous side quests and small stories. Across the board, the game has broken free from some old shackles to more closely resemble a modern adventure game.
Mechanical changes are also numerous, and anyone who's played a Pokemon game before will soon wonder how they put up with some of the old systems that have persisted since the 90s. No longer, for example, do you need to teach 'Hidden Machine' (or HM) moves like 'Cut' or 'Surf' to your Pokemon in order to access different areas of the game.
You'll also find that, when you catch a new Pokemon but you already have six in your party, you'll get the option of switching the new one in instead of having to find a Pokemon Center to juggle your creatures around. These might sounds like slight refinements, but taken together they make for a game with significantly less time spent on boring administrative tasks and tedious work-arounds.
Another point of difference between these and prior games is that plenty of Pokemon from all generations are involved from the start. Sun and Moon introduce a heap of cool new "generation VII" monsters — which as usual run the gamut from adorable to weird to just plain creepy — but the world is filled with familiar faces from gen I–VI as well, plus existing Pokemon who have taken unique 'Alolan forms'.
The latter is a mixed bag (giving Dugtrio blonde hair is a pretty bizarre move, but switching elemental types around means a new lease on life for some monsters like Ninetales), but the careful mix of creatures combined with the refreshed game look and mechanics makes this the first new Pokemon game in ages that doesn't feel like it's running out of ideas.
Case in point: Toucannon is my new favourite Pokemon. It's an interesting new monster with real personality — helped in large part by the improved graphics and the fact it has a handful of its own bespoke moves — and it isn't the only one introduced in gen VII that you could say that for. Of course Toucannon may not have been my new favourite if my old favourite — Raichu — was not given a weird Hawaii-themed makeover in this game, but that's just a matter of taste.
In total, Sun and Moon introduce 81 new creatures, bringing the total known Pokemon count to a staggering 802. Although the main theme of Pokemon remains "catching 'em all", finding a way to corral all those monsters is not something most players will be able to accomplish, and certainly not if this is the only game they have. Fortunately, there are less exhausting goals to reach for.
The Pokemon list (or Pokedex) in this latest game tops out at 301. These are all the Pokemon that can be found in the Alola region, meaning you can get them all by thoroughly exploring Sun or Moon and trading with a player who owns the other version (as some Pokemon are exclusive to one or the other). The latest game splits its Pokedex between the five different islands, which makes finding all the monsters a bit easier to manage. It's a tough but achievable goal.
The remaining 501 only exist in other games, but if you're dedicated enough to want to go back and find them all, or track them down through trades, you'll be able to do so. With an update expected in January, Sun and Moon will become compatible with Nintendo's Pokemon Bank software, providing a pathway to get monsters from all six previous generations into this new game. Note that Bank, which lets you keep a collection of up to 3000 Pokemon from any compatible game in the cloud, comes with a yearly subscription fee of $6.50.
This is a game that's as complicated as you'd like it to be. Beyond the main target of collecting monsters, exploring the narrative, discovering all the different moves and finding out how each species evolves, there are dozens of activities to soak up your spare time. These include new ways to interact with and care for your cuddly friends, new mini-games to uncover rare items and a new carnival-themed area that provides several ways to compete with other trainers nearby or online.
Pokemon games are in a unique spot. They have to change significantly from game to game in order to keep casual fans engaged, have to stand on their own enough to entice new players in and also have to maintain a certain degree of continuity so that dedicated players' collections of monsters work in the new game and will continue to work beyond. Sun and Moon are the first games in several generations that I've honestly felt have nailed them all, and should provide hundreds of hours of entertainment for fans new and old.