I tried to contain the hype. I really did. But Pokémon Moon has absolutely surpassed my hypest of hypes. The immersion. The music. The new battles. ALL OF IT.
And I’m only about five storyline hours in. Crashing Tauros into ALL the NPCs and buying ALL the tank tops takes up a lot of time, for real. Still haven’t decided if you’re going to shell out the cash for the newest generation of Pokémon? These are our first impressions of the latest installment.
First off, getting Pokémon Moon was a great choice for me. If you’re like me and almost always play at night, Moon’s shifted clock lets you finally experience daytime in a Pokémon game. Seriously, my X and Y characters might as well have been Kalos’ Batman, running around saving the world exclusively at night.
Minor Spoilers Ahead
We start out with a pretty girl in a hat who fears a wooden jungle bridge. Pretty standard for any good adventure story. Couriway Town’s “Green Hill Zone -esque” waterfalls got nothing on Alola. And yes, this pretty girl is your demure sidekick who is sad about Pokemon battles because Pokemon might get hurt.
Sigh, Game Freak. For just once couldn’t we have a sidekick that is a stereotype of an angry New Yorker or something? I digress.
The immersion in this game is fantastic. There are ambient Pokémon cries mixed in with the music as you walk around the overworld. I can even comb the snarls out of my Pokémons’ hair.
There are an obnoxious amount of cutscenes in Sun and Moon. These games continue the trend of hand-holding the player through all of the basic mechanics. Pfft. Only Genwunners know the pain of the original Seafoam Islands strength puzzles. Despite the roadblocks, the cutscenes were very immersive and do add to the overall feeling of the game.
Like I said, I’m only a few hours into the game, but I’m already excited to see the rest of the story unfold. With the release of Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, I found that I wasn’t always enthusiastic about continuing the story because I knew what happened already.
Initially, I was very skeptical of the Z-Moves. I’m still kinda on the fence about mega evolutions from Gen 6. Game Freak needed some flashy new mechanic for X and Y, so they were like, “HELL YEAH LET’S MAKE POKEMON MORE EPICCCCCCC!”
Also, some of the megas are kinda weird, like Fabio-Ampharos.
As far as Z-Moves go, I’m sold on the breaking-the-fourth-wall flair text and the baller animations. Who needs Water Gun when you have HYDRO VORTEX? It reminds me of an anime where the attacker has to yell out the name of whatever they’re doing.
Protip
Get your event Munchlax (Mystery Gift via Internet) if you haven’t already. Equip Normalium-Z, the first stone you receive. Use Metronome. Profit. Seriously it’s hilarious to watch the little oaf use random Z-Moves.
You May Like
I’m on my way tomorrow to face the last trial captain on the second island. I have to do adult things like go to work and go to my group exercise class at the gym, but when 6:45pm rolls around, you know where I’ll be.
Plus, I think my Alolan Persian, Kai, is a cutie with her little Garfield face. Yeah, I said it. Fight me.
(Are you looking for the secret code to enter our Pokémon Sun/Moon giveaway? Here you go: EE4EVER. Happy holidays!)
