Pokemon Sun and Moon are out! Alola, MoTK!

[Sonrio]

X and Y sucked yeah. But Sun and Moon have pancake Raichu, so it's easily 10x better.

[commandercool]

You didn't like X and Y? They're paced insanely sure, but I love them. I thought everyone did. There's a lot of superfluous dialogue, but it's super goofy a lot of the time and is actually pretty entertaining. I loved that pointless haunted house. I could generally give a shit about the story, but the weird fluff tends to be great.

[Sonrio]

It was definitely a fun experience the first time, but the story was just so bad. There weren't many new Pokemon too. Coming after a generation with a pretty good story and LOTS of Pokemon hyped it up and that probably is the reason it's not as praised as others.

I still enjoyed it though, I love every Pokemon game. ORAS is probably my fav aside from the original Gen 3.

[MatsuriSakuragi]

X and Y were way too... fillery, if you ask me. Too much length to accomplish too little. Graphically and gameplaywise, it's great, but its story and pacing were painful.

[Raikaria]

You didn't like X and Y? They're paced insanely sure, but I love them. I thought everyone did. There's a lot of superfluous dialogue, but it's super goofy a lot of the time and is actually pretty entertaining. I loved that pointless haunted house. I could generally give a shit about the story, but the weird fluff tends to be great.

I wouldn't care about the haunted house if there was something meaningful as well that happened between Gym 5+6.

But there wasn't. Like; couldn't the factory events have been before Valerie so you didn't have 2 Team Flare events between Valerie and Olympia?

X/Y is very good, don't get me wrong. But it also has flaws and the pacing is probobly the biggest one.

[Mеа]

With every new pokemon game I'm in like a constant flux of confusion as to whether I'm having more trouble remembering the mons and the game itself because I'm getting older and stupider with less flexible gray matter or because I'm enjoying the games less, I can't tell. XY for example I really don't quite remember playing through, nor do I remember much of the new mons. I found the gameplay enjoyable but don't quite remember much else, including much of the plot, I guess that says something. Personally I enjoyed bw and b2w2's plot more (although ccool, why do I get this impression that you weren't terribly impressed by N's story) and I didn't even get much hype before the game, I just stumbled upon the game title reveals somewhere online and was like, hey X and Y, they're moving away from colors. Then the game came out while I was blinking and then I bought, played and cleared it. Iunno, but I'm definitely looking forward to this new one, especially since it's hawaii themed. And, well, that's like my home and stuff where I spent the first 18 or so years of my life.

[MatsuriSakuragi]

I don't think it's a matter of getting older and dumber-- you can only play what is more or less the same game so many times without the premise running dry for you. The earlier gens have nostalgia factors to them that make them more memorable-- I can pick up Pokemon Red any day of the week and not only know where to catch any particular Pokemon, but also know where all the secrets are and know how to execute a handful of glitches.

It's kind of funny really-- I have a 13 year old client who also likes Pokemon, and he waxes all nostalgic over the Sinnoh games and how those are his favorite-- which is fine, but it kind of blows my mind at the same time because to me, Gen 4 is one of the LEAST memorable of all of them. I could pick up Pearl again and have it feel like a brand new game because I don't remember a damn thing about it. (Meanwhile, HGSS was absolutely fucking stellar.)

It also doesn't help that newer generation Pokemon in general are less memorable and less interesting for the most part, either. This isn't a "durrr game freak isn't creative anymore" because lol I sure do love gen1 pokemon like "blob of slime" and "ball" and "upside down ball" to go with my "bag of trash" and "key ring" pokemon-- it's just that you can only do so much before you clearly begin to run out of ideas, and XY was kind of the precipitate of that. It was all more of the same, but made 3D. The gameplay was solid and it did lots of things to make training and breeding less of a hassle, and made it way easier to play competitively and with more people, as well as making trading easier, but the game itself was boring. And ORAS, I never even finished.

All of that said, while I'm not super excited about a lot of the new Pokemon for the same reason of "not very interesting", the game itself seems to be playing out in a somewhat new format as far as how the flow of the story will go, and I'm definitely a fan of the Alolan forms of old Pokemon too-- instead of creating new and probably really bland Pokemon, they bring back old favorites but with new designs-- and the nostalgia factor there is more than welcome. A lot of them feel like brand new Pokemon, with the familiarity of old ones to keep them interesting. Z-moves are also interesting in that it adds a layer of strategy to the game as well, especially if it's a "once per battle" bomb that you have to be aware your opponent could use too.

Overall it seems that Sun and Moon have a healthy balance of new and old to feel fresh but also feel familiar and nostalgic without feeling contrived. That's enough to make me get it.

[Hikarin]

It's kind of funny really-- I have a 13 year old client who also likes Pokemon, and he waxes all nostalgic over the Sinnoh games and how those are his favorite-- which is fine, but it kind of blows my mind at the same time because to me, Gen 4 is one of the LEAST memorable of all of them. I could pick up Pearl again and have it feel like a brand new game because I don't remember a damn thing about it. (Meanwhile, HGSS was absolutely fucking stellar.)

Yeah, everybody I know obsesses over DPPt. I will never understand why. I think, when it comes down to it, people like the game that they started with. Most people I know started with DPPt, and they love it, while I and very few other people I know started with RSE/FRLG and prefer that. Meanwhile, I talk to people in their 20s and 30s and they're all for RBY. I happen to know some 8-year-olds who are into BWBW2.

I have yet to find someone who started with Gen 2 or Coliseum/XD.

but the game itself was boring.

Noob town -> Get Pokemon -> Rival Battle -> Hey, go fight some gyms! -> Sup, Team Generic! I have most of the badges! I'm going to take this power plant that you captured! -> Oh no, they got away, let's go after them! -> They summoned a legendary Pokemon! Time to beat them up and catch the Legendary before they do! -> Let's abuse said Legendary's power to beat the League! -> I'm a Champion, apparently. I'll go roam the region so that nobody who challenges the Elite 4 can fight me and become Champion!

Essentially every single Pokemon game except for Black and White. Black and White is the same, except that it switches beating the E4 and catching the Legendary of the game.

More importantly, there's no real sense of accomplishment when you beat the game (excluding HGSS; that was fun) just due to the difficulty now. I know I've talked about how I hate the difficulty level before, but I felt like pointing it out again. Badges and Trainer Card color don't really say a whole lot about how hard you've worked, just how much you've played. On a related note, what I'm beginning to do right now is get all of the Ribbons, because I feel that those things (that so many people forget about) are a much better indicator of how hard you've worked, memorializing things like clearing the Battle Tower, Mt. Battle, the Battle Maison (which is legitimately hard if you don't cheese it with a Lv. 1 Aron), etc.

At this point, I don't play Pokemon for the story or maybe even the game itself anymore, but for... the Pokemon themselves? New engine builds? I don't know anymore. When I'm being honest with myself, I think I'm just buying it for brand rep, at this point. It has a certain charm that keeps me interested enough to finish each game, but it's rare that I'll remember the whole story afterwards. The only game that managed to do that was Black and White/BW2, but that's just because the characters were memorable. Maybe Ribbons will be my reason, now. I'll make it a point to obtain every obtainable ribbon on a single 'mon.

[Espadas]

Maybe you could try the Nuzlocke Challenge? There are many possible variants and it is meant to change the way you look and play the game.
From personal experience it can be really engaging.

[Giratina93]

Yeah, everybody I know obsesses over DPPt. I will never understand why. I think, when it comes down to it, people like the game that they started with. Most people I know started with DPPt, and they love it, while I and very few other people I know started with RSE/FRLG and prefer that. Meanwhile, I talk to people in their 20s and 30s and they're all for RBY. I happen to know some 8-year-olds who are into BWBW2.

I have yet to find someone who started with Gen 2 or Coliseum/XD.

Noob town -> Get Pokemon -> Rival Battle -> Hey, go fight some gyms! -> Sup, Team Generic! I have most of the badges! I'm going to take this power plant that you captured! -> Oh no, they got away, let's go after them! -> They summoned a legendary Pokemon! Time to beat them up and catch the Legendary before they do! -> Let's abuse said Legendary's power to beat the League! -> I'm a Champion, apparently. I'll go roam the region so that nobody who challenges the Elite 4 can fight me and become Champion!

Essentially every single Pokemon game except for Black and White. Black and White is the same, except that it switches beating the E4 and catching the Legendary of the game.

More importantly, there's no real sense of accomplishment when you beat the game (excluding HGSS; that was fun) just due to the difficulty now. I know I've talked about how I hate the difficulty level before, but I felt like pointing it out again. Badges and Trainer Card color don't really say a whole lot about how hard you've worked, just how much you've played. On a related note, what I'm beginning to do right now is get all of the Ribbons, because I feel that those things (that so many people forget about) are a much better indicator of how hard you've worked, memorializing things like clearing the Battle Tower, Mt. Battle, the Battle Maison (which is legitimately hard if you don't cheese it with a Lv. 1 Aron), etc.

At this point, I don't play Pokemon for the story or maybe even the game itself anymore, but for... the Pokemon themselves? New engine builds? I don't know anymore. When I'm being honest with myself, I think I'm just buying it for brand rep, at this point. It has a certain charm that keeps me interested enough to finish each game, but it's rare that I'll remember the whole story afterwards. The only game that managed to do that was Black and White/BW2, but that's just because the characters were memorable. Maybe Ribbons will be my reason, now. I'll make it a point to obtain every obtainable ribbon on a single 'mon.

1. I started off with gen 3, specifically Colosseum and XD. Those games, especially Colosseum, were nasty pieces of work because you had shit for Pokemon. As for Gen 4, Platinum is and always will be my favorite game in the series, but I FULLY understand the mediocrity of D/P. Those games reeked of laziness and BS design (Oh yeah, the fire elite 4 member only has 2 fire types... seems legit), surf speed was abysmal, Team Galactic grunts were the saddest excuse for grunts I had ever seen, etc. If it weren't for the gen 2 remakes and Platinum, I would fully say Gen 4 is the worst gen ever (Though that award goes to Gen 1 in my book, with how poorly balanced and glitchy that archaic mess is)

2. Gen 5 is my favorite overall generation because there's a greater emphasis on story and character development, and vastly superior to X and Y, which felt like a massive step back in every regard except the exterior polish. The gym leaders in gen 5 have actual personality and presence , with jobs outside of just being a gym leader, and N's story arc in B/W, culminating in the final battle in his castle, is my single favorite moment in all the franchise.

[The Greatest Dog]

holy shit

Snorlax

Spoiler:

Pulverizing Pancake

That's reason enough to preorder for me.

[ふねん1]

So there are Pokemon-specific Z-moves after all, interesting. I have to wonder how many of those they'll introduce, like, if it's a similar number to Mega Evolutions or something different. I feel like there won't be a ton of them though since that would make "general" Z-moves kinda redundant outside of coverage.

As for Alolan Rattata? Hello double Fighting weakness. :V

[Mеа]

So there are Pokemon-specific Z-moves after all, interesting. I have to wonder how many of those they'll introduce, like, if it's a similar number to Mega Evolutions or something different. I feel like there won't be a ton of them though since that would make "general" Z-moves kinda redundant outside of coverage.

Not necessarily redundant, it allows gamefreak to give interesting options to less used/popular pokemon while not being forced to greatly buff their stats or have them have to compete for the mega-slot

[Chaore]

my body will never be properly ready for the snorlax hype

[BT]

Not necessarily redundant, it allows gamefreak to give interesting options to less used/popular pokemon while not being forced to greatly buff their stats or have them have to compete for the mega-slot

I dunno what it "allows" them to do, all they're using them for is to hype up Gen 1 mons to increase sales. Sasuga Nintendo.

It's cute that the explanation for Alola Ratatta was basically Darwinism. :V

[ふねん1]

This is a bit late since I was busy this morning, but the newest Sun and Moon trailer is out, and holy crap some of these new reveals are ultra confusing, no pun intended (or maybe it was? :V). I really don't know what to make of some of these new elements, though I still feel mostly optimistic about them. At the very least it's really hammering home the possibility that Sun and Moon will be much more story-focused than previous gens. And as tempting as it is, I kinda want to avoid getting too much into speculation and just let the eventual reveals later on speak for themselves. But don't let me stop the rest of you from speculating away lol - this trailer is like a gold mine for it, after all.

[Mеа]

woah what's going on with that trailer

pretty excited about the aether foundation, we haven't had two villainous(?) groups in conflict since gen3

also didn't someone say that the two cover mons are referencing alchemy? I wonder if the ultra beasts are supposed to be some pokemon/human homunculus abomination, that'd be really cool

[Kasu]

also didn't someone say that the two cover mons are referencing alchemy? I wonder if the ultra beasts are supposed to be some pokemon/human homunculus abomination, that'd be really cool

That could be. It really doesn't help that

Spoiler:

UB-01 seems to be awfully similar to Lillie.

[Janitor Morgan]

That could be. It really doesn't help that

Spoiler:

UB-01 seems to be awfully similar to Lillie.

People are going further with that fact, and thinking that

Spoiler:

UB-01 looks like Lillie, therefore they must be the same

+

Spoiler:

Lillie, Lusamine, and Gladion look kinda like they could be related

+

Spoiler:

all three of them also care about Pokemon quite a bit (Gladion tells you you shouldn't get them hurt for no reason, at least)

-----
=

Spoiler:

Lusamine and Gladion are ALSO ultra beasts

[Candra Software]

Gameplay wise, I don't really like the Mega Evolutions in terms of competitive play. Some of them were even considered Uber by Smogon. I don't mind the designs, though. Maybe I've played Pok?mon for too long since 2007, but X and Y didn't keep me immersed. Things I did like about Gen VI, include Electric types being immune to paralysis, and Drizzle and Drought no longer being permanent.

I can't imagine what the Null type would be like.

[ふねん1]

Gameplay wise, I don't really like the Mega Evolutions in terms of competitive play. Some of them were even considered Uber by Smogon. I don't mind the designs, though. Maybe I've played Pok?mon for too long since 2007, but X and Y didn't keep me immersed. Things I did like about Gen VI, include Electric types being immune to paralysis, and Drizzle and Drought no longer being permanent.

I can't imagine what the Null type would be like.

Type: Null is a Pokemon, not a type. Don't worry, I was just as caught off guard by the name. Apparently it's an artificial Pokemon, hence the more "science-y" name.

Also a wild Alolan Prof. Oak appeared! They just couldn't help themselves lol.

[Candra Software]

I dunno how I mistook Null for a type, must have been thinking of the Bird type from Generation I. It's Normal type and just looks bizarre, it looks like it's got a helmet and a fish tail. No relation to Ditto perhaps?

[Drake]

That Oak is Professor Oak's cousin named Nariya Oak. He's researching region-form pokemon.

[BT]

Also a wild Alolan Prof. Oak appeared! They just couldn't help themselves lol.

It just feels like Nintendo don't have any self-restraint for any of their franchises these days.

[Raikaria]

It just feels like Nintendo don't have any self-restraint for any of their franchises these days.

No no no, they have loads of self-restraint.

So long as it involves Gen 2; 3; 4; 5 or 6.

I mean I've said it before but I seriously through they had Genwun-pandaed as hard as possible in Gen 6 with almost 50% of Megas in X/Y being Gen 1 and the forced Snorlax and so on. With each Gen 1 Alolan Form I get more annoyed actually. I mean seriously? Are the pokemon of Jhoto; Hoenn; Sinnoh; Unova and Kalos just incapable of adapting to other places or something? Or are they so well adapted that they don't need to anyway? Which is double weird considering Jhoto/Kanto are one landmass and appear in all regards to be the same climate. [A never-released event in HG/SS implies Sinnoh is also on the same continent; perhaps north of the mountain ranges; further supported by Sinnoh being a colder climate with a lot more icy areas and snow]

And now we have Alolan Form Oak as well...

I mean we get it Nintendo. You want to appeal to the older fanbase with the 151.

But at this point; dosen't that include those who were introduced to pokemon with Gen 2 at least now? Gen 1 gets constant love; Gen 3 just got ORAS... and Gen 2? Uh... nope. [Irony is Gen 2's my least favorite; and I constantly moan about Genwunners despite me technically being one since my first game was Blue]

Also; as for Type:Null:

It's a normal-type.
It looks kinda like a horse-thing. Like Arceus. Except it clearly dosen't look natural.
It's called Type:Null. Arceus can be any type based on the plate it has.
It's page on the website says: 'Type: Null was created for a mysterious purpose. In order for it to carry out its mission, its power is intended to rival that of Pok?mon spoken of in myth.'

It's an attempt to replicate Arceus.

[Giratina93]

1. It turns out Alolan Oak is actually Samuel Oak, Professor Oak's cousin.

2. Please end the Gen 1 pandering, Gamefreak. X and Y were obnoxious with it (to the point of it detracting from the actual experience and quality of the games), and Sun/Moon is desperately seeking to outclass those in genwunner pandering.

3. Corocoro brings us some news on Rockruff's evolution and spoilery stuff on some Ultra Beasts: http://www.serebii.net/index2.shtml

[BT]

1. It turns out Alolan Oak is actually Samuel Oak, Professor Oak's cousin.

Nah, Samuel is the original. I think the new one's called Samson Oak.

[MatsuriSakuragi]

*quietly bathes in salty tears of gen 1 hate*

[Mеа]

2. Please end the Gen 1 pandering, Gamefreak. X and Y were obnoxious with it (to the point of it detracting from the actual experience and quality of the games), and Sun/Moon is desperately seeking to outclass those in genwunner pandering.

Was it though? I really don't remember this much. Seemed to me that most of the popular non-new pokemon got mega evolutions and new spotlights. Eg: ampharos, gardevoir, lucario, etc. The gen 1 starters getting new attention was to be expected considering it was mega evo's first unveiling, and gen 3's starters just got their megas as well. With the new crop of people being reintroduced to pokemon through pokemon go, which only has first gen mons, it seems like a pretty reasonable thing to do.

[hyorinryu]

Is Gen 1 love that bad? I thought it was natural for the originals in anything to get a lot of love, kinda like how you see Marth a lot in FE stuff.  Gen 3 got megas too. What happened to Mega Meganium Gamefreak? I want a Mega Butterfree too. One of my favorites. Did he ever show up in the anime again?

I don't know why, but I put this big divide between gen 2 an gen 3. Gen 1 and 2 feel the same to me, but the gen 3 pokemon and on feel different to me for some reason.