The 5 Best Changes Pokemon Sun and Moon Made

Steven Bogos

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The 5 Best Changes Pokemon Sun and Moon Made

Pokemon Sun and Moon brings with it some much-needed changes to the Pokemon formula.

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Veldel

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My fav change is how Gyms and the like are handled.

I love these trials and Kahuna's they feel more alive and often if you go looking around you can even face them again or have a battle.

I for one love it.


But the best new feature is the fact you can remove your hat now
 

WhiteFangofWhoa

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No more HM Slaves. Free at last!

Just took down the first Kahuna, enjoying it so far. I guess having big Gyms built all over the place would kind of ruin the 'tropical Hawaii islands' effect, so they use the natural environment to create trials instead.

One odd change I noticed is that you can't preview hairstyle changes before paying, which you could in XY. I imagine the environment will bar you from wearing fancy dresses, coats or the like.

EDIT: Just did the Fire Trial. The second dance made me laugh harder than I think I ever have in a Pokemon game. It helps that the Captain in charge remains completely serious throughout.
 

Joccaren

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Personally the Rotom Dex annoys me. The map is a lot less clear about the direction of paths and routes than previous, its slower overall and more finicky, talking to you if you tap a centimetre away from where it wants you too, rather than doing anything useful, and whereas in OR/AS, the touch screen had most if not all of the menu options you wanted right there for you to use... There's nothing there in Sun/Moon, and you've got to actually trudge through an actual menu to get there. Which is painful.

Otherwise I don't mind it, but the map needs a more practical overhaul, and he needs to add buttons for other menu functions around so that you can use them conveniently whenever. May sound like a small thing, but it gets really old after a few hours of preparing to tap to open my pokemon and drag them around, and instead having to stop, tab across to the next screen, move up and left twice, and then open up my pokemon and drag them around.


PokeRide I also have mixed feelings about. The removal of HM bots? God yes. The ability to move around on your Pokemon? Yep, pretty awesome. The fact you're constantly given pokemon you don't own or can't own, and its not your pokemon, its just a generic high level rare pokemon? Not as awesome. I'd prefer all water types be able to surf once you unlock it, all horse types be able to ride and charge, all dog types be able to sniff - ect. once you unlock them, and you can call them from your Pokebox, but you have to have caught them first. It would add a greater sense of personal pride to Pokeride, add more variety, and all round make it a more engaging system than it currently is. Otherwise I do like what they've done with it.


Also got to echo others; the trials are great, and I definitely prefer them to the old gym battles overall. Each one is something a bit different, which keeps things interesting, without always being a really basic puzzle solving exercise. That side of things was definitely well done.
 

Auron225

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Steven Bogos said:
Getting lost was a big problem in previous games, but thanks to the Rotom Dex, your "goal" is always clearly marked, and I always knew exactly where to go.
What? How can anyone get lost in a Pokemon game? There are no open fields or sprawling landscapes - the routes are like corridors. You start at Small-Town, go the only available direction to First-City, and continue following the path from there. Sometimes you need to make a slight detour to Random-Cave or Building but they're never far away, and if you read any NPC dialogue, they always make it painfully obvious where you need to go.

The other changes are nice I'll agree - this particular feature to add "goal" markers seems a bit unnecessary to me.
 

Karadalis

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Sure, changes to make the game more user friendly are great.

But the game is essentially still the same as it ever was. Catch pokemon, levelgrind them, defeat gymleaders, collect badges, defeat Team XYZ, defeat the big 4 and in the end your rival.. hooray youre the champion! Again! Like... for the 16+ time or so...

This progression/story has been the very same since pokemon red/blue... isnt it about time they do more then just the same ol shit with a new paintjob? I mean we have basically been playing the same old game just with new shiny and dongly bits sticking out of it for the last 20 years... everyones getting their knickers in a twist about assasins creed or CoD being the same everytime... but pokemon gets a pass?

There are pokemon hacks out there that have more engaging storylines then the normal games
 

hentropy

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Seems like they made an already easy game easier with things like the effectiveness chart and Pokemon Refresh, but mostly it was just clearing up annoyances rather than softening difficulty. Getting rid of HMs really is nice though, and the Ride Pokemon and gear is hugely cute as well as useful (Machamp, you're my hero!).

Veldie said:
My fav change is how Gyms and the like are handled.

I love these trials and Kahuna's they feel more alive and often if you go looking around you can even face them again or have a battle.
Call me hopelessly nostalgic, but the removal of Gyms is my least favorite thing about it. The Trials all felt super short and didn't have the same impact as having to solve a puzzle (which wasn't always super easy, just look at that Fire Trial!), fight 4 trainers before the Leader to get your badge. Now all the Trainers are on the routes, and there's a lot of samey water types due to swimmers. Plus, the signature Gym music was so good!

Karadalis said:
But the game is essentially still the same as it ever was....

eThis progression/story has been th very same since pokemon red/blue... isnt it about time they do more then just the same ol shit with a new paintjob?...
It's always a double-edged sword. There are companies that like to shuffle things up and change core mechanics in every installment, Bioware is famous for doing that and they catch little but contempt from the core fanbase for it.

Personally, in a gaming industry that can't just let a good thing be, I'm thankful to Game Freak that they're willing to change up all of their games just enough to make it interesting again without changing the core mechanics and formula that made the thing good in the first place. I even think they may have changed things up too much in this case.
 

Leemaster777

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hentropy said:
Seems like they made an already easy game easier with things like the effectiveness chart and Pokemon Refresh, but mostly it was just clearing up annoyances rather than softening difficulty.
I wouldn't say that Sun and Moon are easier in the slightest, on the contrary, they're probably the most difficult games we've had in the series in quite some time.

The story mode of Pokemon is kinda as hard as you want to make it. For X and Y, I made the whole thing alot less fun for myself by taking advantage of everything that the game throws at you. I used the special event Torchic, I looked up powerful Pokemon I could add to my in-game team, and how to evolve them, and I kept the EXP share item on at all times. Consequently, I found the game a Sunday stroll down easy street from start to finish.

By contrast, this time around, I kept myself purposefully in the dark as much as possible, I DIDN'T use the event Munchlax or Greninja I got, and most importantly, I turned the damn EXP share item OFF as soon as I got it, and never looked back. I've currently downed 6 trials, and 2 kahunas, and even though I've been playing this game for 20 years, some of these trials have been extremely challenging. The grass trial in particular stood out to me as difficult. And I'm enjoying the challenge.

As for the actual article, I pretty much agree with everything, except for the map. The map is DEFINITELY less intuitive to use this time around (except for the story markers, which are kinda handy).
 

hentropy

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Leemaster777 said:
hentropy said:
Seems like they made an already easy game easier with things like the effectiveness chart and Pokemon Refresh, but mostly it was just clearing up annoyances rather than softening difficulty.
I wouldn't say that Sun and Moon are easier in the slightest, on the contrary, they're probably the most difficult games we've had in the series in quite some time.

The story mode of Pokemon is kinda as hard as you want to make it. For X and Y, I made the whole thing alot less fun for myself by taking advantage of everything that the game throws at you. I used the special event Torchic, I looked up powerful Pokemon I could add to my in-game team, and how to evolve them, and I kept the EXP share item on at all times. Consequently, I found the game a Sunday stroll down easy street from start to finish.

By contrast, this time around, I kept myself purposefully in the dark as much as possible, I DIDN'T use the event Munchlax or Greninja I got, and most importantly, I turned the damn EXP share item OFF as soon as I got it, and never looked back. I've currently downed 6 trials, and 2 kahunas, and even though I've been playing this game for 20 years, some of these trials have been extremely challenging. The grass trial in particular stood out to me as difficult. And I'm enjoying the challenge.

As for the actual article, I pretty much agree with everything, except for the map. The map is DEFINITELY less intuitive to use this time around (except for the story markers, which are kinda handy).
Any game can be made harder if you purposefully handicap yourself. It's no doubt that some of the battles, especially at the end and in the post-game are fairly hard, but telling you outright which moves will work and which won't is hand-holding for something that you used to have to figure out for yourself, or try your luck with. Now you only get that same feeling on a first encounter.

I mean, criticizing Pokemon for being too easy isn't really a criticism, it's always been a fairly easy game even when I was a kid. Still, I'm unconvinced the game really needed to hold your hand more than it already did.
 

EbonBehelit

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I've got a few criticisms to make after having just beaten the Elite Four:

- While the game's story is quite good, the game railroads you way too much - destroying any sense of exploration and wonder.

- Super moves, while cool, are just another gimmick a la Mega-Evolutions.

- Pokemon Refresh is another gimmick, and while it is somewhat more substantial overall than super moves are, it seems to just pan out to a meter that you max and then ignore. Removing status effects is nice in a pinch but ultimately becomes more of a chore than anything else.

- Some of the 'mon evolution mechanics are completely ridiculous, with several Pokemon that you can obtain near the beginning of the game, only to be unable to evolve until pretty much endgame.

- The new Pokemon are a mixed bag, as usual, both in terms of stats and visual design.

As for positives, though:

- I'd say the difficulty was pretty much spot-on tbh: even with the exp. share, my party ended up at the Elite Four slightly underleveled, and I didn't skip a single trainer!

- No more HM slaves is a godsend, and something I was hoping they'd finally do.

- The game feels way more like a proper RPG now, what with how the story and 'dungeons' are structured.

- Rowlett. Alolan Muk. Adorable brick-bug.

All-in-all, I'd say that this is the best new Pokemon game since the original Ruby/Sapphire, and I'm actually enthusiastic about the series for the first time in a long while. Good job, Game Freak!
 

(whitty name here)

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While SM made some nice changes to some things, in many places, it's taken steps backwards as well. Some people might not even notice/care about these things, but I have a small playgroup of semi competitive players who all do a lot of breeding/battling, so this is from our perspective, not from a casual player:

-Early game handholding.
Sun and Moon's first hour, and ESPECIALLY their first half hour is by far the slowest starts any pokemon game has ever had. It takes roughly half an hour to even get your first pokemon and even after that, the tutorial doesn't really end until partway into the second island. Which, can be as far as 2 hours in from what I've seen. I understand Game freak was trying hard to make this one more story driven this time around, but I found myself frustrated by the high quantity of dialogue and simply mashing to get through it instead of reading after the fist little while. I wanted to GO. I wanted to EXPLORE. But I wasn't allowed to because the game wasn't done telling me about how I need to keep my hands and feet inside the ride at all times. I know it's a kids game, but I don't think we give kids enough credit sometimes when it comes to coming to an understanding of a game. sure, some kids are retarded, but this was ridiculous.

-The loss of super training.
Thiss sucks for reasons that Gamefreak may not have originally intended. The primary use for Super training was reset bags to set EVs back to zero, as well as a means of checking on how many eggs have hatched without opening a menu, which allowed you to maximize your O-power time since you were constantly moving. It was also the easiest way to get evolution stones, albeit a sometimes RNG based one. The new way is time based in Poke Pelago so you're more or less stuck waiting multiple hours, hoping that they give you the stone you want before trying again. Super training took maybe a minute every cycle, so it was very easy to super train for a stone for 5-10 minutes and move on.

-Pressing X no longer exits you out of all menus.
A useful thing that I noticed very early on was gone. You're now stuck mashing B and it takes much, much longer depending on how far into the menus you were. Some people like that X and Y buttons have more use in the menus, but being able to rapidly close menus was a small, but greatly enjoyed feature we used.

-Online features have been moved to festival plaza.
GTS, BattleSpot, Wondertrade and other online features are pretty decently out of the way to get to. Before, it was just a matter of pressing one button on the bottom screen and you were there. Now you have to stop everything you were doing and load into a new area entirely, and load again whenever you were done.

-EV training is less consistent.
Even with the inclusion of bottlecaps, which are pretty rare in the grand scheme of things. Horde training was super fast, and took maybe 3 minutes to fully EV train a pokemon once you knew what to do. Now, you have to SOS chain in order to reach the same result. It's slower,and less consistent since SOS isn't a guaranteed trigger every turn. The pelago island for this is also super slow, though I will give points to it since I can essentially set it up before bed and wake up to at least 1 stat maxed out. And if you go the bottlecap way, you're just grinding for bottlecaps instead of grinding for eggs. I still enhoy their inclusion since it means you can clean up the stats of your Hidden Power/Shiny/Hidden ability pokemon so you're not making a choice between optimization and aesthetics/utility. I personally, avoided Hidden Power just because of how much of a pain it was to get, and it often forced to you have less than optimal IVs.

-Egg hatching is just generally inferior to XY/ORAS.
Infinite loops was arguably one of the best additions to gen 6. You were able to hold left or right and just let the eggs deal with themselves, as long as you kept the screen in your peripherals to mash through the hatching animations whenever they happened. The Tauros method in SM requires constant input from the player; if you stop spinning your analog stick in the enclosed area, the tauros stops moving entirely. I will give to them that the breeder being in constant view is nice, since you always know exactly when it is time to pick your egg up, but you also have to get off your tauros entirely to leave the enclosed area, further slowing the process down.

-Clothing variety options are arguably fewer than previous games.
At first I was excited when clothing was being brought back. Player customization was probably my favorite part of XY and I was sad that they took it away from ORAS. The problem I had with it was I felt that male characters got shafted vs female characters at the time in terms of variety, and hoped they added more features to balance it out a bit. Male characters more or less have 4 different types of shirts; Muscleshirts, T-Shirts, polos, and button down t-shirts in this game. So all short sleeved. Vs XYs 5, but it also had a much wide variety. Winter coats, fall jackets, t-shirts, open dress shirt T-shirts combos, etc. Male characters get 3-4 different sets of legwear in this game; Shorts, Capris, Cargo shorts, and cutoff jeans that end at the shins. So shorts, shorts, shorts, and ALMOST pants. Vs shorts and pants of various styles. 2 types of hats; Baseball caps and trilbys, vs XY's 6. SM gets plus points since they added more haircuts and dye colors for males, I'll give them that. But other than from the perspective of "You don't need all those clothing types when you're in Hawaii (Which really shouldn't matter for some things, I spent a lot of time in the Arizona desert and I wore hoodies and jeans during the dry season constantly)" There's really no reason to have gotten rid of those.

-Little to no changes to postgame content compared to previous generations.
There was one short sidequest you can do related to the main plot after beating the game, and one other relation to Eeveelutions. the first one takes about half an hour to an hour to do depending on your luck, whereas the second takes just a little longer than that. Afterwards, what do you have? The Battle Tree, which is simply the Maison again in disguise.

-Loss of Friend Safari.
Friend Safari was a very social part of XY. I remember meeting up with people holding 3DS and we would all get excited becuase we had no idea what each person had. I remember joining online communities to trade friend safari codes just generally having fun with it. That's not here, and the plaza is a very non-interactive substitute.

-Rotom/Town map/Exploration
I have beaten SM TWICE now and I still could not tell you how the bottom screen worked. Sometimes I want to view the map and Rotom talks to me. Sometimes i want to view the map and rotom won't STOP talking to me. The town map itself is also difficult to read in terms of what's traversable and what's not. I felt very on rails this time. There were so many (literal) fences keeping me out of places that really didn't have that much of a level difference, or a story difference. Just as n example, the desert is locked out until you beat the ghost captain's trial, but you have no reason to go to that part of the island once you've actually done it. In fact, not only did the plot lead you in the opposite direction of that area, you never really go back. I only ever did because i was on legendary cleanup after beating the game and noticed I still had undiscovered locations.

-Tilted difficulty curve.
Difficulty is great, if not spot on in some places in this game, and incredibly off in others. Keeping the EXP share on for the entire game will have you roflstomping by being 15-20 levels above curve for 90% of the game, but you'll fall in line with the end of the game with a level 55-60ish party at the end. OR you can keep it off and have it be about perfect for most of the game, then suddenly you'll get a 10-15 level jump from one area to the next and suddenly you're at an incredible disadvantage. Like I said, I played through this game twice, each time having the EXp share on or off.

-Non-threatening NPCs
Most NPCs in this game have 1-3 pokemon maxmimum. In fact, even in your final rival battle at the end of the game, your rival only has a measly 4. Very rarely did I ever feel like I was in any danger because I just simply had a greater total sum of health than my opponent. Sure, i still had to take type advantages into consideration to not be going to a pokemon center after every other fight, but it wasn't until maybe the final few fights where I actually felt like I HAD to pay attention to succeed.

TL;DR: SM has taken multiple steps forward in some places, and just as many back in others. Overall, I still enjoyed the game, but was disappointed in so many removed features it leads me to question why this is the big-hyped-20th-anniversary game I was looking forward to.
 

Janaschi

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I am loving this game so far.

That being said, there are negatives, too:

1) I dunno why Nintendo thought it a great idea to cheapen the game experience more and more, but I have gotten to the third island now, and for the life of me, I cannot think of a single trainer battle where the opponent had more than 2 Pokemon; that includes both captains and kahunas.

2) You quite literally cannot have a full collection in Sun & Moon right now. Maybe when they add trading-up in January, they will fix this. But as it currently stands, most Pokemon do not even exist in the Pokedex right now. So, you can have certain Pokemon, legitimately, and they won't be registered.

3) Wtf is up with the hand-holding? And why is there so much of it? The extra extra dialogue I can handle - I actually enjoy that. But when a NPC wants me to go somewhere specific, and they literally prevent me from exploring a bit further before coming back to them, that is beyond annoying. Maybe I wanted to catch some Pokemon in that bit of grass a bit further. Maybe I wanted to fight that trainer I can see in the distance. Maybe I just want to explore. Please let me do that, instead of being boxed in by nonsensical invisible walls.

Right now, those are my only issues. Not many, mind you, but they are not exactly small issues in my opinion.
 

Saelune

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I was expecting my gripes about this being the "worst gen" to just be about Alola forms, but this really is the worst gen in every sense of the word. I hated on Gen 4 cause of the awful pokemon, but gameplay-wise, it was superior to Gen 3 in most every area.

But for every 1 thing I find I like, there are a million things that I dont.
 

Saelune

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Kibeth41 said:
Joccaren said:
PokeRide I also have mixed feelings about. The removal of HM bots? God yes. The ability to move around on your Pokemon? Yep, pretty awesome. The fact you're constantly given pokemon you don't own or can't own, and its not your pokemon, its just a generic high level rare pokemon? Not as awesome. I'd prefer all water types be able to surf once you unlock it, all horse types be able to ride and charge, all dog types be able to sniff - ect. once you unlock them, and you can call them from your Pokebox, but you have to have caught them first. It would add a greater sense of personal pride to Pokeride, add more variety, and all round make it a more engaging system than it currently is. Otherwise I do like what they've done with it.
It's a matter that there's in no way enough time to model, animate and program about 300 different models into the overworld for the player to ride on, for such a minor feature.

It's either the player rides on a shadowy silhouette, or they ride on about 6 specific Pokemon. I'd rather just live with the "PokeUber" system, personally. Although I did prefer it in ORAS, using my flute to call Latios.

Saelune said:
I was expecting my gripes about this being the "worst gen" to just be about Alola forms, but this really is the worst gen in every sense of the word. I hated on Gen 4 cause of the awful pokemon, but gameplay-wise, it was superior to Gen 3 in most every area.

But for every 1 thing I find I like, there are a million things that I dont.
My issue with your comments is that you always come to every Sun/Moon related thread to announce that you think it's the absolute worst and you hate it, as if someone isn't yet aware of your opinion. But every time you do, you have this seemingly intentional vagueness. So far all I've seen is "there's too much story and too many Pokemon that I don't like".
And you keep taking such issue with my issues.

I really detest Sun and Moon. Even more so than I thought. I cant help it, I did not make the game. If you disagree with me, fine, but dont get mad at me only because you disagree with me.

You want specifics? The Alola forms take pokemon that were fine from Gen 1 and make them silly looking. Dugtrio literally was given a cheesy wig, like...seriously?

I always knew Pokemon was a linear series, but they did it better before. Now it is roadblock after roadblock. The entire game is now Victory Road. It was annoying when the old man made you watch him catch a weedle, and its annoying now.

The clothing sucks. I like customization, and it was pretty good in X/Y. But ofcourse it was removed in ORAS and reduced in quality in this.

I dont like Tropical settings. That one is purely my own taste though.

I dont like the Pokemon you use in place of HMs. I dont miss HMs, but why do I have to use someone else's Tauros? Give me a Tauros, or let me use my own Pokemon.

I dont like the trials. They took what I didnt like about Gym battles and expanded it.

The enemy team is ridiculous. Was always an issue mind you, and its not being fixed anytime soon it seems.

The plot was always bad in Pokemon, except 1, cause the plot was...become the Champion. While going for that you just happen to topple an underwhelming criminal empire, but I like to think you werent even trying to just looking for trainers to fight. Still silly though.

And as another pointed out somewhere on this site, all the neat online features have been hidden away, when it was very useful to have them right at the bottom of the screen.
 

Saelune

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Kibeth41 said:
Saelune said:
And you keep taking such issue with my issues.

I really detest Sun and Moon. Even more so than I thought. I cant help it, I did not make the game. If you disagree with me, fine, but dont get mad at me only because you disagree with me.

You want specifics? The Alola forms take pokemon that were fine from Gen 1 and make them silly looking. Dugtrio literally was given a cheesy wig, like...seriously?

I always knew Pokemon was a linear series, but they did it better before. Now it is roadblock after roadblock. The entire game is now Victory Road. It was annoying when the old man made you watch him catch a weedle, and its annoying now.

The clothing sucks. I like customization, and it was pretty good in X/Y. But ofcourse it was removed in ORAS and reduced in quality in this.

I dont like Tropical settings. That one is purely my own taste though.

I dont like the Pokemon you use in place of HMs. I dont miss HMs, but why do I have to use someone else's Tauros? Give me a Tauros, or let me use my own Pokemon.

I dont like the trials. They took what I didnt like about Gym battles and expanded it.

The enemy team is ridiculous. Was always an issue mind you, and its not being fixed anytime soon it seems.

The plot was always bad in Pokemon, except 1, cause the plot was...become the Champion. While going for that you just happen to topple an underwhelming criminal empire, but I like to think you werent even trying to just looking for trainers to fight. Still silly though.

And as another pointed out somewhere on this site, all the neat online features have been hidden away, when it was very useful to have them right at the bottom of the screen.
I'm neither mad, nor do I take issue with the fact that you dislike the game.

I have an issue with people who just want to boast about how much they hate something to people who can do nothing about it.

Common sense would dictate that if you disliked something, you'd post in a forum that influences the game, and you'd criticize it constructively, so it would influence improvement in future.

There's literally no reason to go to threads on general gaming sites to say "Hey guys, I'm here to announce that I hate this thing... Okay, cya". It seems that you don't want discussion. You don't want improvement. You just want to 'let us know' you hate the game.

For your actual criticisms. I agree with a couple of them. I preferred clothing in X/Y. But it's one of those things which is only as big as development time allows. The clothes weren't transferrable from X and Y. They had to be rebuilt from the ground up. And we only have as many clothes as they had time to make. It's not as if they gimped it from a design standpoint.

Same with Pokeride. There's only enough time for a finite number of overworld models, and animations to go with them.

I personally like how all of the online features have been put into Festival Plaza, and contained in one place. But I too dislike the bottom screen. There's not an overwhelming use for a minimap in a Pokemon game.

But as I've said before with new Pokemon.. If you don't like them, then don't use them. Someone else almost definitely likes them. And there's literally no reason every design should cater specifically to your personal tastes.
Whether or not I use them, cause ofcourse I dont, I still have to face them, and Im a collector, so collect them.

And Im on a gaming site talking about a game. How is it not appropriate to talk about it here?