Pokemon Sun Hands-On Preview
The Demo for Pokemon Sun released a few days ago on the Nintendo EShop and with it came a wealth of information. As a fan of the franchise who’s been around since the days of Pokemon Red and Blue and has played every installment since you could say I’m pretty excited. Luckily for me, the excitement was definitely warranted. The demo is beautiful. The franchise has never looked better. Everything from the characters to the buildings to the menu screens to the Pokemon themselves are all beautifully designed and fluid. In traditional Pokemon fashion, the music is also delightful catchy with subtle changes to the iconic riffs we’ve all come to know and love.
In the past, Pokemon has shied away from deviating too much from the classic formula. Based on the demo and what we’ve learned thus far from trailers, times have changed. The battle system has been perfected. Each time you battle a Pokemon you learn information on them adding Super Effective or Not Very Effective beside your attacks during the battle. On top of that, you finally get to see your trainer avatar during the battle shouting commands and overall looking really cool. The biggest change coming to the franchise in these installments, however, is the abandonment of the “gym-formula”. In Pokemon Sun & Moon the player is tasked with completing the Alola (this generation’s region of choice) Island Challenge. On the surface this sounds like the same formula with a fresh coat of paint but based on what I’ve seen in the demo, it’s quite different. Rather than simply finding a Gym and beating the pulp out of every trainer in there, “Trial Captains” assign tasks that the player must complete. In the demo, for example, the player is responsible for taking photos of brand new Dragon-Type Pokemon Jangmo-o and Hakamo-o in a Pokemon Snap-style mini-game that honestly, brought back some very nostalgic feelings about the Nintendo 64 classic.
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“Everything from the characters to the buildings to the menu screens to the Pokemon themselves are all beautifully designed and fluid.”
For those of you who are fans of the anime, the demo gives you access to “Ash-Greninja” a form change of the classic Pokemon X & Y starter that resembles Ash’s clutch Pokemon from the animated series. The Greninja given to players also sports the same move-set as the Greninja belonging to Ash (with Cut swapped out for Night Slash). Throughout the course of the full game, players will also be able to encounter “Ash-Pikachu” in six different variants. The Ash-Pikachu’s only difference to regular Pikachu (that we know so far) is that it sports one of Ash’s hats from the anime.
Most importantly of all, the demo is an extremely successful feel good experience. From the hilariously cool Team Skull that harasses you at every turn to the return of Pokemon Catching Contests, I was completely entranced throughout my entire play-through. With a final Pokedex of around 800 monsters, even the most seasoned of trainers is going to be spending hours traversing through the beautifully designed areas to hunt down every last one of those little critters. If the rest of the game is as great as this one hour demo, then Pokemon Sun & Moon are shaping up to be one of the best entries into the franchise.
The only gripe I found with the game as a whole is a very small one. The developers made an interesting decision to make the player press the “A” button to open any doors. For someone like me who’s been playing for 20 years and has never had to press any buttons to enter buildings, this took some getting used to.
For those of you wanting some more details on the games themselves, you’re in luck. Data miners have managed to strip the majority of the information on the full games. The entirety of the Pokedex has been revealed confirming suspicions from the last few months. Overall, the new Pokemon coming are very unique and fun, however, I do feel that a couple of obvious designs (LIKE A DOLPHIN POKEMON, come on, these games are based on Hawaii!) didn’t make it into the game. If you’re someone like me and can’t resist the spoilers, check out the Pokemon Reddit to satiate your cravings.
*** The Demo is Available on the Nintendo 3DS EShop now! ***
