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« on: December 01, 2016, 10:40:09 PM »
So, I've been simultaneously giddy and dreading writing this piece. Without getting into the nitty gritty of things, Pokemon Sun and Moon are awesome. All the Gamefreak developed main line Pokemon games are awesome. If I throw any shade around in the following rambling essay on the merits of Sun and Moon, think of it in the same way as someone might come at say... Mega Man 7 or Rocky 5 or something. my analogy is bad, but... basically this is something i'd rather spend my time playing than a vast majority of what is on the Nintendo 3DS, and at the moment, I feel this game is leaps and bounds better than X, Y, Omega Ruby, and Alpha Sapphire.
If you are here expecting me to go over surface things like the overall style switch to proper proportioned models at all times or surface level changes like the nature of the island challenge or the alolan forme pokemon, you've come to the wrong place. Nintendoworldreport.com (the place that hosts this fine little forum review) has not one but TWO reviews for the flagship titles in the seventh generation of pokemon, and both are fine for the avid consumer.
The purpose of this review is to lay out my in-depth thoughts on the ways that fledgling director Shigeru Ohmori took the franchise and to help those who have already bought the game better quantify their experience through the lens of an individual who is so deeply immersed in the mechanics of these games that they can give you an educated look into what is really going on under the hood. That being said, I feel that's about enough preamble to prepare you for the long and meandering ride ahead of you lot.
The push towards a world lived in.
I would be remiss if I didn't touch on the bit of the presentation that struck the strongest chord with me. It wasn't the machinations of evil teams or the drastic evolution of several of the cast members that resonate much stronger than the group of jobbers that followed you around in X and Y... what struck me the most is that this game finally gets over that bad uncanny valley hump that Pokemon has struggled with for years and years. Pokemon has always felt like an artifice because of the way everyone seems to ramble on about the critters. There's plenty of that here, don't get me wrong. This game though has something that normally isn't a part of this franchise at all besides one specific example in celadon city...
This is a world built for humans. there are clothes stores and salons and restaurants and tourism bureaus and golf courses that don't immediately cater to "Hey, aren't you an animal nut?!? you can totally stay here with your animals and bring your dog in for a haircut too and share food with your pet cat and blah blah blah!" Little things like the Pokemon centers having a spot where you can sit and have a brew for yourself while a creepy old man makes suggestive hand gestures at you while you wait for the nurse to check out your pets adds to this (bonus points if you read the cafe guy's dialogue in the voice of Team Four Star's Mr. Popo or some other silly voice like that). Houses aren't cookie cutter any more. your character has strange commentary on other individual's beds as they try to lay in them... the only copy and pasted rooms in the game are rooms in a hotel chain and the uniform marina terminals at each island. I dunno, I'm just happy to finally see folks give a **** about something in the world of pokemon that isn't pokemon. also, seeing an actual super market in a pokemon game with pokemon branded food items struck this amazing cord with me too.
To understand the meat of what was added in, we must first understand what was cut out.
This is the part of this whole thing where I dig in on the steps backwards that have been taken so i can quantify what exactly is progressive about this game. not since Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald to Diamond/Pearl/Platinum has most of the feature set survived in the generational transition. Some of this is understandable to avoid feature bloat in a bad way, but there's quite a few times where the baby has went right out the window with the bath water.
Player Search System is gone. The replacement for PSS is not adequate nor acceptable. there were a few vestigial parts of PSS I could have lived without, but the easy organization of individuals to interact with at any time right there on the touch screen was Gen 6's greatest accomplishment. connecting with folks to battle or trade was such an incredibly easy thing to do. finding friends online was simple, The O-powers after enough use were potent and effective, and it kept track of folks you interacted with online in case you wanted to interact with them again. this could have been iterated on in a big way, and in stead we got by far Sun and Moon's worst feature to replace such a pivotal advancement in quality of life for Pokemon players.
Super training is gone. This is the second biggest sin. although there is... somewhat okay replacements on this front, Super Training did something very important for my play style. The Mini-game itself was a tad rubbish, what with the inexplicable premise of your pokemon getting mounted to a flying goal and trying to take their sweet revenge on the pokefloats stage from Super Smash Bros. Melee with weaponized footballs. The function of this mini game with being able to distribute Effort values to your pokemon in a way that would actually give the players numbers and with a graph was the first big step in making the gears that make pokemon tick transparent for the player to see, and thus making the mechanics that people bemoan are too complex accessable to the layman. Also, a couple of the bags that the mini-game would reward for your pokemon to cookie clicker to death had some really good effects, like EV reset. There really isn't universally accessible EV reset in Generation 7.
Triple Battle, Rotation Battle, and Hoarde Battle are gone. Granted, these were modes the games did a poor job of implementing into the main game in a meaningful manner, but both were actually fun, and in Triple Battle's case, the most efficient way to gather EXP thanks to the tweaks to the EXP formula in generation 6. These battle types were not removed because of some sort of fear of feature creep. A combination of poor optimization, listening to the criticisms leveraged against the poor performance of the X and Y engine, and the future-proofing of models that they weren't going to downgrade for the purpose of optimizing the hardware are our main culprits. see, The pokemon Models used by Pokedex 3D, X, Y, OR, AS, Sun, Moon, and Pokemon Go are all high polygon models that were rendered with use in HD in mind. this is so they wouldn't have to make new models when it came time to ditch the 3DS. that being said, the 3DS chugs MIGHTILY under the weight of these things. combined with rendering full environments AND trainers? they simply couldn't figure out a way to make it work wtihout the game devolving into single digit frame rates. Thankfully, they did have the insight to put in something almost as potent as Hoarde battle as far as training your pokemon goes.
Friend Safai, DexNav, Soaring, Mirage Spots are gone. These are all lumped together as ways to get obscure pokemon or get pokemon with hidden abilities and guaranteed perfect individual values. this all got lumped into one mechanic. Friend Safari is the one I was the biggest fan of, as I liked the sheer volume of pokemon that became available through it, and it made me eager for the first time to add 3DS friend codes in since they had a chance to generate Friend Safaris with rare pokemon. REALLY cool feature, but it's well and truly dead for now.
Sky battle, Inverse Battle, destructable environments, panoramic areas, grid based movement are out. These I've lumped together because little to nothing of true value is lost here. Panoramic areas seems like a dumb thing to include, but being able to go to lumiose city and holding right on the D-pad with a party full of eggs while looking away was a good way to hatch eggs. in spite of the more than ever dynamic approach, there's no such area where you can just hold one direction and circle around. all of these do take something from the game, but as I said, nothing of value was lost.
HMs, Flat EXP gain, used key items, Fish Chaining, Poke Radar, National Dex are all gone. These are things for the better. I know, arguing that methods of shiny hunting are gone is something I bemoaned at first, but... all these are things that got flat-out improved upon. fishing in general is better. not having to fill an 800+ pokedex for a shiny charm and just having the national dex as an update coming to Pokemon Bank is fine by me. The liberation of HMs is something EVERYONE is happy for, and heck... not even having to worry about itemfinder, Bike, Vs. Recorder, or the bloody awful Poke Radar is just amazing.
Hoo, that was a lot. The next bit is important though.
SOS; the single most defining game mechanic of Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon.
For something the PR material for this game didn't talk about and reviews don't go into depth, this is the thing that I've spent the most time dealing with. SOS battle is an essential part of this game, and it is the key ingredient to a lot of how Sun and Moon rewards it's most persistent players who look for reward far after the main campaign is over.
So, what is SOS battle? after the first trial on Melemele isle concludes and you've defeated your first totem pokemon who called for help, Ilima will off-handedly make a comment about the pokemon of alola being more inclined to help one another. This is the signal that SOS battle is now possible.
SOS Battle Occurs whenever a wild pokemon feels like they are in great peril. in between turns, they have a chance to make a desperate cry for help! depending on their remaining HP primarily, another pokemon may show up! This could be another member of the species or something in the evolutionary line, something that that species lives a symbiotic relationship with, or a predator, come to take advantage of already cornered prey. As per usual, you can only throw a pokeball if it's a one-on one affair... but allow me to explain deeper what exactly this does other than get you some rare pokemon or annoys the **** out of you because you just can't seem to get out of a battle!
A pokemon who is asleep or frozen will not call for help. if an Adrenaline orb is used out of your bag, it will double the call rate of the pokemon involved. if you faint the original pokemon, the partner can call in help, but only if they were of the same species as the original caller. these are about the only rules to your chances of keeping an SOS battle going or ending it. Oh, and you get none of the experience or Effort points if you run before you faint all enemy pokemon or perform a capture.
So, what are the benefits of SOS? well, I'm glad you asked, Hypothetical reader! for starters, any pokemon that isn't the original caller from the start of the battle will yield double Effort points. this is a multiplier on top of any hold item and pokerus bonus your pokemon give. along with a buff to the individual Power EVing hold items, it makes it possible to max invest in one stat by fainting a mere 7 enemy pokemon! since you're doing it all in one battle as well, you don't exactly need to rely on old methods of going to a specific route where pokemon that give out the EV of choice are the most common encounter.
In addition, the game keeps count of how many pokemon has come in as part of a single battle. as you continue to do this, you will start seeing such benefits as perfect IVs, Hidden abilities, and increased Shiny rate. these were features the friend safari and Dexnav provided, and before that Fish Chaining and the Pokefinder provided. you can now shiny hunt for almost anything you find in the wild now as long as it's willing to call for help and you have smartly prepared your team and your medicine for the long haul without any pause.
SOS battle is now the key to... really, everything you need for competitive battling. Does your pokemon have a way more rad hidden ability then it's normal ones? SOS chain! need to EV a new pokemon? SOS Chain! trying to amass an army of ditto with good IVs? SOS chain! looking for a rare pokemon? SOS Chain! want a shiny without having to rely on the uncanny luck it normally takes to naturally bump into one? SOS chain! Just have the leppa berries ready and be ready to switch off in case your opponent is out of PP and starts to struggle!
The barrier of entry is lower than ever, yet still stands as a nigh impregnable wall.
So many of the game's features SCREAM quality of life improvements meant to get folks playing more than just the main RPG. Many of the new Pokemon seem to be far more carefully crafted to be amazing doubles pokemon than ever before. Nerfs were made specifically to respond to the problems that plagued the Gen 6 Meta (RIP Talonflame, Mega Kangaskahn, Mega Pinsir, Mega Salamence, Mega Gardevior, Mega Altaria, Sylveon...) and more than ever before, it's possible to make your pokemon battle ready beasts.
Poke Pelago lets you idly give your pokemon EVs, make sure you have plenty of berries, and get items like the new bottlecaps passively even when you're not playing. the methods for getting effort values have been made much stronger. hitting Y in your pokemon's summary tells you it's Effort Value spread, and PC boxes give you full, proper summary of your pokemon just by hovering your cursor over them. the Stat Judge NPC has been turned into a function for the PC that gives you nice graphs to understand your pokemon's build. the NPC that tells you your pokemon's Hidden Power type is right there where you breed pokemon. Hyper Training now lets you correct imperfect stats on your pokemon and makes it powerful to have pokemon with perfect stats and with a hidden power type that compliments their movepool.
Yet with all this crazy advancement, they don't do the two most important parts of bridging this gap; Explain in game how all this stuff works and how to exploit it, and give raw numbers for all this! notice for EVs and IVs I said they give you graphs? great, that's a visual indicator of where my pokemon is, but it tells me NOTHING about exactly where they are so I can understand what I need to do to conitnue on. I have to learn about all this sort of stuff from the internet.
Pokemon is the series that conditioned me to look at the internet to learn about a game. over-complex crafting survival sim with obtuse mechanics? look at a wiki! suggested dark Souls builds? there's tons of Youtubers talking about that kind of stuff! Pokemon? goodness, go to the community because Gamefreak aren't going to help you with ****. they'll throw some sort of bullshit RNG at you instead that you either have to brute force or just plain cheat to get to the real meat and potatoes of the game, which is bettering yourself at utilizing your pokemon rather than simply getting builds together that work! So much of Sun and Moon still requires you to put in a ton of time and get lucky. the game gives out bottle caps a woefully slim number of times. for all the things SOS battle increases the chances of, it doesn't set **** in stone and doesn't give you the info to know if you're wasting your time or not with what you're about to throw your ball at... it's why people will continue to cheat.
To be continued...
I realize this hasn't been the best organized, and that's because I'm woefully tired at the moment. I'll be making a second post tomorrow. Perhaps I'll even use less profanity. anyhow, thank you if you struck through and read up to this point.
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? Kunai.
