{"id":2425,"date":"2016-12-14T08:24:59","date_gmt":"2016-12-14T18:24:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/workable-level.flywheelsites.com\/?p=2425"},"modified":"2016-12-16T08:24:41","modified_gmt":"2016-12-16T18:24:41","slug":"review-pokemon-sun-and-moon-flips-series-traditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/2016\/12\/14\/review-pokemon-sun-and-moon-flips-series-traditions\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: ‘Pok\u00e9mon Sun’ and ‘Moon’ Flips Series Traditions"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Gavin Arucan<\/a> | Staff Writer<\/p>\n

“Pok\u00e9mon Sun” and “Pok\u00e9mon Moon” are\u00a0the newest\u00a0generation from the long line of popular Nintendo games. Following\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon’s trend of basing each game’s region on real world locations, “Pok\u00e9mon Sun” and “Moon” take place in the Alola region, which is heavily inspired by the Hawaiian islands. Like all of the other main\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon titles, “Pok\u00e9mon Sun” and “Moon” has the player traversing the region, catching\u00a0a diverse cast of creatures, and using them to battle other\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon trainers. However, because 2016 is\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon’s 20th anniversary, “Pok\u00e9mon Sun” and “Moon” remove many gameplay aspects that have been in the games since 1996 and replaces them with refreshingly new content.<\/p>\n

“Pok\u00e9mon Sun” (the version I purchased) provided a unique experience for me within\u00a0just the first few minutes of playing despite the fact that I\u00a0started\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon games since 2004 and have played every generation of the series. Not only is the game set in the islands I am proud to call home, but this is my first time playing a\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon game without knowing much about what it had in store. Usually the\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon games are released a year earlier in Japan than it is in the United States, so by the time I get to play, I already know the entire\u00a0Pok\u00e9dex roster and pretty much the entire game. Nintendo started releasing the games everywhere at the same time with “Pok\u00e9mon X and Y”, but I still ate up whatever news I could find and learned most of the game before I even played it. With “Pok\u00e9mon Sun” and “Moon”, however, I only watched the trailers and avoided all the leaked content that hackers released to the internet. So, for the first time ever, I was experiencing\u00a0a\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon with fresh eyes. As I played through the game, I was actually discovering new\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon that I hadn’t seen before and it brought me back to when I was a 5-year-old playing “Pok\u00e9mon Emerald” on my GameBoy for the first time.\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon has always been a series that pushes\u00a0discovery and exploration, so it felt like I was finally immersing myself in the essence of what\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon is all about.<\/p>\n

But enough of me gushing over my nostalgia for the franchise, what about the game itself? For me, the story is the best part of the game.\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon’s stories have never really been that engaging, with a few exceptions (Platinum and the Mystery Dungeon games being some). I was always more focused on building up a good team and just went through the motions of beating Gym Leaders, catching the Legendary, and defeating the Elite Four.\u00a0While the storyline\u00a0of “Pok\u00e9mon Sun” has a few plot holes and weird writing choices that are probably a result of translation, I was actually enthralled with the story arc of of the side character, Lillie. I don’t think that’s something I can say for\u00a0any<\/em> of the other\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon side characters. They’re always just sort of\u00a0there<\/em> and nothing interesting happens to them. Lillie is far more interesting than any character in the\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon games, including the player’s character who has always just been a blank slate. There are also proper cutscenes in “Pok\u00e9mon Sun” that are very cinematic.\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon has been toying around with the idea of animated cutscenes for a long time, but\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon Sun is the first time it really works well.<\/p>\n

The villainous team, which is now Team Skull, also surprised me. As I was playing through the game, I was pretty disappointed with how the team was handled. You battle the team’s leader very early on in the game rather than near the end and he’s pretty easy to defeat, so I thought the game ruined the buildup to the menacing boss battle that other\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon games had. However, a little past the halfway point of the game, “Pok\u00e9mon Sun” completely turns around the dynamic of Team Skull with the predictable, yet unprecedented, inclusion of a second villainous element. The actual boss battle of the game had me, for the first time, doubting my skills as a\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon trainer. Just a few turns into the boss battle, I found myself muttering, “I don’t think I can win this.”<\/p>\n

Pok\u00e9mon has a tradition of basing their game locations on real places. Many of the games are set in Japan, however they have slowly branched out to cover New York, France, and now, Hawai’i. (Image courtesy of The Pok\u00e9mon Company)<\/p><\/div>\n

Another classic\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon icon has been altered in the new games.\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon Gyms don’t exist in the Alola region and are instead replaced by the trials of the Island Challenge. Instead of battling a set of eight Gym Leaders throughout the game for Gym Badges, you must take on the trials of seven Captains followed by a battle with a powered up “Totem\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon.” The trials range from finding hidden\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon to cooking.\u00a0Each trial gives you a “Z-Crystal” that activates a\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon’s overpoweringly brutal “Z-Move,” so the prizes actually have use in battle outside of just letting you into the Elite Four.<\/p>\n

For any local player, the best part of “Pok\u00e9mon Sun” might just be the representation of the island life in a popular video game. I strange but delightful to see the words “howzit” and “shoots” and be referred to as “cousin” in a video game. Although if “Alola” is\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon’s parody of “Aloha,” wouldn’t that be the equivalent of us greeting each other by saying “Hawai\u02bbi?” The locations are great as well. The islands are shaped very similarly to the Hawaiian islands and there are major towns, cities, and volcanoes where there should be. My absolute favorites have to be “Hau\u02bboli City” as a stand in for Waik\u012bk\u012b and Diamond Head being renamed “Ten Carat Hill.” That’s just brilliant. Although there’s one location that seriously tests my suspension of disbelief in this game about catching monsters in balls: the Elite Four’s\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon League (a foreign concept in the canon of the game) is built atop of Alola’s equivalent of Mauna Loa\u00a0in a matter of a few weeks (or however long it takes you to defeat the Island Challenge). Living in a state in which we can’t even get a rail system built quickly, I cannot accept that the Alolan people would even allow that construction to begin. I’m sorry,\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon, but that’s just too unrealistic.<\/p>\n

Overall, “Pok\u00e9mon Sun” is the best\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon game at least since “Pok\u00e9mon Platinum.” It changes up the status quo and keeps even the most veteran of\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon players on their toes. If you’re a fan of\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon, or even just Nintendo in general, “Pok\u00e9mon Sun” and “Moon” are worthy purchases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Gavin Arucan | Staff Writer “Pok\u00e9mon Sun” and “Pok\u00e9mon Moon” are\u00a0the newest\u00a0generation from the long line of popular Nintendo games. Following\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon’s trend of basing each game’s region on real world locations, “Pok\u00e9mon Sun” and “Moon” take place in the Alola region, which is heavily inspired by the Hawaiian islands. Like all of the other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinions","category-reviews","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}