Pokemon Moon

I’m a grown man, and I still play Pokemon… Sue me, I grew up with these games. Haha When I was in elementary school I fixed an original Game Boy a kid gave me, so that I could play the first Pokemon game – Red (the best version!). I continued to play that game on long family trips, when we were stuck in the car for hours.

I did that for years. I even had a game-shark so I could cheat and start the game off with Mewtwo. Then I stopped, and never picked up any of the new versions. To me there were only 151 Pokemon. That’s until a couple years ago when the original Pokemon show came on Netflix, and my roommate at the time started watching it. I had such nostalgia that I went out the next night after we binged a ton of episodes, and not only bought the newest game at the time, Pokemon Y, but also a Nintendo 3Ds XL. It was a blast playing through that game. I had the best team! And I challenge anyone who says other wise! I skipped buying and playing Ruby and Sapphire because they seemed too similar to X and Y. However, when I started to read about Sun and Moon I knew I had to play it.

Moon or Sun?

Naturally, I found myself at a Walmart standing in front of the Nintendo games looking at Sun and Moon, not knowing which to purchase. On a whim I sent a buddy the cryptic text “Sun or Moon”. Having know idea what I was talking about he replied “Moon… Because fighting evil by moonlight.” I still have no idea what that means haha, but needless to say I’ve been making my way through Pokemon Moon, and it is great!

Aloha!

This time we find ourselves as a new trainer that’s just moved to the Alola region: collection of 4 islands that resemble Hawaii in the real world. A major change in Alola from every other region in the Pokemon universe is the fact that there are no gyms. Instead we have island challenges. I was weary at first, but this actually turns out to be an awesome change.

The island challenges act just like gym battles, however, they allow for way more variety. As you progress through the game you don’t get bored of doing them. Some of the challenges are silly, but that makes for a fun and memorable experience. For instance, there is a challenge where you are on top of a volcano watching 3 Marowak’s dance, and you have to tell what the difference between the dances are before you can move on to the battle. It was ridiculous but fun haha.

My A-Team (Love it when a plan comes together…)

Incineroar

Formantis

Boldore

Toucannon

Hariyama

Pikachu

Maybe three of these will make up my final team. Not a single dragon Pokemon, good water Pokemon, or starter from any of the other games!

Battle Time!

There also seems to be even more battling in this game. Every where you go there are trainers that want to fight. Even in towns, and I enjoy the fact that you can catch Pokemon in towns now. Another fun mechanic (and annoying at times, but it just adds to the challenge) is the fact that wild Pokemon will call for help. ​

So you’ve been working Oranguru’s health down so you can catch it, and before you can throw the pokeball he calls for help and now it’s two on one. It can make catching Pokemon annoying but at the same time it is a great way to gain even more experience for levelling up your team.

​Favorite Starter

The starters in this game are pretty cool, my Incineroar or Joe as I call him, is a beast. A bipedal cat that is about as tall and heavy as me in real life, and shoots fire from it’s stomach. Pretty badass! However, I prefer my fire/psychic starter from Y. Delphox is just plain OP, and is probably my favorite Pokemon (sorry Charmander). I’ve been hoping I would some how be able to get her in this game. ​

Speaking of starters, I really appreciated the appearance of the very first person to ever give me a Pokemon, Professor Oak. It really helped tie the games together, and truly make it feel like all the games are connected. He is there to study the regional variations of Pokemon, which is also something new for this game. You can get things like an ice Sandshrew… so cool, and a nice touch!

​Conclusion

Overall I would give this game a great rating, and am definitely looking forward to seeing what else it has in store for me. As Greg would say in his podcast, I will definitely ‘hit continue’ on playing this game. Let us know what your thoughts are on the game. Which one is your favorite?