Pokémon Sun and Moon: Now in Ultra Flavour!

Mines been processing for about 3 days now, just dispatch it Simply Games

You love sending me games early, remember when you sent me Rise of the Tomb Raider 3 days early be nice if you did that with Pokemon.

Now this is a first world problem...

Everyone's finding better shiny Pokémon then me

I think this might be my team:

What about you guys?

And so my journey in the Alola region begins! As stated previously this shall be a softlocke with a mixture of classic rules and new softer rules to acommadate the new nature of the game.

THE RULES (Final Ver.):

Also unlike a normal nuzlocke I will get to choose my starter.

And with that I'm off to start the game! I'll be leaving my journal in spoiler boxes until release date over the pond and keeping a spoiler free (as free as possible anyway) progress update outside only.

masofdas wrote:

What about you guys?

I'm going to decide as I go along, because I want to enjoy as many new monsters/new variants as possible and haven't spoiled them for myself. Life is good.

So far I only know my starter. And I'll probably try to make do without Lunala.

First impressions: Oh my gosh the music in this game is fantastic! The main title screen theme is that awesome one used in the ads with the "heeey-oh" chorus. And the game has cutscenes! I don't know whether they'll pull it off yet, but from the first five minutes it's blatantly clear they're trying to give the game an actual story worth a darn this time. They're even incorporating legendaries in to the game's actual world!

The massive variety in wild Pokemon also seems to have made a return, in the first grass I went in to alone I encountered no less than four different Pokemon, two new (not really a spoiler to say it's Pikipek (which I caught and called Monaca) and Trump Jr. Yungoose) and two retro bugs).

Oh, and good news, the game even made sure to teach us how to catch Pokemon! How nice of them!

Athrun888 wrote:

Oh, and good news, the game even made sure to teach us how to catch Pokemon!  How nice of them!

I'm not liking the 'two retro bugs' either.  I know that the Alola forms make up for it somewhat, but I've seen the number of new Pokémon... and 80-ish still isn't enough.  Better than the 60-something from XY, but still not enough.  Incidentally, is that a reference to the Monaca I'm thinking about...?


But in other news, I saw an advert for S&M (no) on the tube today.  Been ages since I saw a Nintendo advert on the tube!  It was using the new forms of old Pokémon (for example Vulpix, Exeggutor [with its head off the poster]) and referencing it as a follow-up from Go as well.  Very sensible - but again, it's been ages since I've seen a sensible Nintendo marketing decision.

masofdas wrote:

I think this might be my team:

What about you guys?

Yeah it's not bad, but chances are like most people there'll be a few changes

Yeah likely could be shanks as I've not got a Eeveelution in it

Nuzlocke over!  

Lost to the first "boss" (not a totem fight, just a boss fight) in the game not three hours in.  This is almost as humiliating as when I got swept by a Masqurain.  RIP Monaca the Pikipek, Firefur the Litten, and Malfoy the Alolan Rattata.

The details:

And just like that my hatred for Smeargle has reached new levels.  

Blimey, Athers, that is distressingly speedy. Bodes well for my own Nuzlocke...

I reckon you should be fine as long as you get the average team level up to 12 before you head to your first Team Skull encounter.

Just finished my first island trial, and without spoiling anything specifically lets just say something happens straight after that Balla is going to love.

I don't know why but every time I see professor Kukui I get reminded of Kamina from Gurren Lagann.

It's the sunglasses and 'cool' aura.

Mine's being delivered today! I'll not be home, hope it makes it through the letterbox okay...

Yeah, probably. Plus his refusal to put a shirt on, which the game even has a character comment on

Every time he pops up and is about to send us on our way I seriously expect him to start babbling about believing in the him that believes in the avatar.


Speaking of the avatar, can I just say how much I appreciate that for once when given simple dialogue options we're given the chance to not sound like over-excited dills in our response, often having a slightly terse option? This is supposed to be our avatar after all, and Hau and Kukui would absolutely have me sighing in exasperation if I had to directly interact with them.

Also nice they toned down the FRIENDSHIP POWAR OF CLINGING! that was in XY, while it's still there it's restricted to just one character who doesn't constantly cling to you who instead just happens to have set out on the same journey as the player at the same time and is always right behind them. Speaking of XY unspoiled cameo of two of the only characters I actually liked!

The way they integrated Amie in to regular gameplay this time around makes it a feature genuinely fun to use. Now it has you in the actual environment petting and grooming your Pokemon after their battles, and for some reason it just makes it a whole lot more engaging than XY's version (which I believe I used once to see what it looked like before never opening it again)


Overall aside from the annoying handholding (which is also far less annoying than XY's, probably because the characters involved don't make me feel like screaming at them to leave me alone and let me breath ffs) I'm really enjoying the game. It absolutely feels like the genuine direction the franchise should have taken upon reaching the 3DS, and feels the most like a proper JRPG out of all of them (barring the spin off cube' games of course). I hear they dumped having a proper battle facility in post-game which is. . . Unfortunate, given how nice that facility was for testing teams pre-wi-fi, but aside from that the game is fifty steps forward, the four or so steps backwards can easily be forgiven in such circumstances.

I can taste the anticipation - in just a few hours, Pokémon Sun will be mine! MWA HA HA HA HAAA!

And then I'll have to work until 6.

I has it!

Now I just need to find some time to actually play it...

Nearly attacked by a couple of Pidgeys and a Starly on my way to the GAME where I made the pre-order. The queue is both massive and slow-moving, too... maybe it's a sign.

Funny you should say that: a level 5 Pikipek holding a Berry almost took down my entire low-level team.  The birds, man.  Hitchcock was right.


Anyway, I've played an hour, and come across both amazement and annoyance.  Kukui gets on my nerves a bit, so like Athrun I've opted for the snarky responses route.  Being ambushed in the bushes in the early stages is as irritating as it's always been, and the loading times seem more onerous too (I've seen somewhere that they're much better if you have a New 3DS).  And I maintain that there is, in this day and age, no excuse for having an unskippable tutorial.

But!  BUT.

Pretty graphics.  Grand music.  (Kukui's guitar theme adds to his Kamina quality.)  Actual story.  I actually laughed a couple of times at Nebby's antics.  Nice new 'mon.  Levels seem to be set slightly better.

And the moment when Balladavatar picked up Rowlet in his hands and she seemed tickled...




Naming convention is going to be based on Phoenix Wright characters!  So I have:
-Edgeworth the (female...) Rowlet;
-Newman the (female) robin-type thing;
-Hackins the thunderbug;
-#MAGA the Yungoos because I had to. She'll be the one exception, and will obviously get a name change upon evolution!

So, since I got in, I've cleaned up cat faeces, tidied a mess the little ones made, cooked me tea, and am watching Supergirl... all instead of playing Pokémon Sun.

Maybe it's because I'm exceedingly tired. Maybe it's because the guy in the shop said it was "the easiest and most accessible game yet, in terms of getting stuff done".

*this was a video of Tim Vine's Alarm Bells song but it appears to have gone from The You Tube*

(may not be best quality)

I'll crack it open soon.

Some friends and I played about 3 and a half hours just now.

I like it. It looks and sounds great. It's so much more alive than X/Y, actually feeling like a game for the 3DS. I'm looking forward to exploring. and hearing more of the soundtrack. So far, I quite like the trainer battle theme and I love the ambient Pokémon cries in the overworld. It does feel fairly efficient and streamlined so far, easier in the quality of life sense, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything for the difficulty of the overall game, so I'm not too worried yet.
Pokémon I've got so far:

Spoiler:

I'm just playing through the school now.

I've just past the 8hr mark and loving it so far.

I've actually found some of the battles quite challenging when unprepared.  I hope they keep that up.  So tricky to balance, especially given that they've still got the moronic Exp. Share.

I've just taken down the Smeargle - not easy, but fortunately its owner didn't have any recovery potions.  Not at all sure I prefer 'captains' to Gym Leaders yet.

New to my team since last time is my first Alolan monster,

Spoiler:

And the evil team are hilarious.

Zero starts.

I have a Litten called Liselott (a roller blind) and that's where I called it a Pokéday. It's had a more interesting opening than a lot of recent Pokémon games and I'd like to ration it out carefully.

I will fail this mission.