Sun and Moon: The Pokemon games we didn't know we wanted

There is a lot of talk about thinking outside the box, creative teaching, creative expression, injection of new elements into old way of doing things and revolutionary changes in today’s rapidly evolving socio-economy. However, most of these people do not know what they are talking about, and wish that nothing ever changes until the day they die. This interpassive behaviour is a result of the system of thought these people were raised, educated, and trained in; and as someone who had been looking for jobs the past 10 months, I’ve heard this bullshit from potential employers too many times to realise the pattern. There is much to be said about this generation of human beings that demand creativity and uniqueness from the new, yet possess no special skills and talent to survive outside their comfort zone, and are secretly manipulating things with the power of their seniority (obtained not through being more capable but simply because they were born decades earlier when the socio-economy demanded so little from the everyman even dogs could make it to space) to ensure nothing ever changes; but that topic will have to wait till another day.

Because this article is about Pokemon Sun and Moon, the main titles of the 7^th generation of the Pokemon franchise video games, which is closely related to the rant above. Pokemon SM embodies that creativity that I think a lot of fans have been waiting for; it doesn’t do it perfectly, but we are beginning to see cracks in the old formula that lacks a lot of narrative sense. Why do gyms exist? Where do the champion and elite four come from? Why do certain Pokemon look and act certain ways, and why do they have certain abilities or moves? While ORAS represented the end of a tired generation of the stagnated formula exposed through the nonsensical plot and worldbuilding, Pokemon SM elevates the narrative and worldbuilding aspects of Pokemon games to a higher level by doing away with gyms and introducing island trials to fit into the Alolan world. The hastily mashed together Elite Four as a result of narrative reasons creates probably the most memorable end game boss fight in a Pokemon game hands down.

I love Pokemon XY. It is probably still the best Classic Pokemon title (a term that I’ll use to describe the old titles from RBGY to ORAS hereinafter) alongside FRLG, which despite having no nostalgic effect on me (because I didn’t play Red and Blue). FRLG remains one of the best remakes because the team strived to make a better and updated experience instead of simply trying to invoke nostalgia.

This is important here because SM was clearing riding on the success of Pokemon GO and the reignited interest in Pokemon, especially those of the first generation, in previous fans. GO also serves as a bridge between new players and the mainstream Pokemon games using their familiarity with the Pokemons currently present in GO. This is done through the inclusion of Alolan forms of Pokemon exclusively from the first generation, old Generation 1 Pokemons ranging from the gen-rat critter Rattata, to familiar faces like Meowth and Raichu, to some Pokemon that did not require makeovers because they already look amazing like Grimer and Muk. Even though other than the Pokemons of Hoenn, those from Johto, Sinnoh, Unova and Kalos will probably look different if they were living in Alola, the ignorance of this fact reflects the intentional use of familiarisation and nostalgia stirred via Pokemon GO to bring in and bring back players. But the way SM does it is truly creative, and while XY perfected the Classic Pokemon formula, SM brought it outside of its comfort zone and possible created a new order that future Pokemon games can follow, at least for a few more games.  

Now that way XY did it was ok. Allowing one to catch Pokemons from different regions in Kalos was exciting because it is good to see familiar faces and be surprised about what one can find in the grass occasionally. This is also by no means a new method of easing casual players into the games in case they for whatever strange reason only recognise Pokemons up till a certain generation as ‘real’ (this is mostly the fault of Gen 5), but SM brings this to another level. I like having only new Gen Pokemons on my team when going through the main story, that’s just my thing, because why play with a Slowpoke or Wingull just because the latter has a new ability (although we need to touch on this later because I love the change but that’s on a competitive and design level) when I can have a Wishiwashi or a Toxapex (which, by the way, has the coolest new ability in the game) to fill up that water slot? But now the Gen 1 Alolan forms are no longer just ‘something I’ve used before in a past game and therefore their existence has no other purpose other than filling up the dex and the only time I’ll touch them is for competitive’. Alolan Marowak was on my team because it is a Fire/Ghost that rocks Lightning Rod for Electric protection and Bonemerang, which is arguably the best Earth type move in the game. Alolan Muk is now part Dark which negates its Psychic weakness entirely while giving it no new weaknesses. And they look different. That is important. It feels like you are travelling with a new Pokemon and the new flavour text about Diglett and its hair just punctuates the point that it is a different Pokemon.

And this is the point I want to focus on, because prior to XY, Platinum was my favourite Pokemon game. SM is currently miles ahead in the lead, but hopefully not for long, because DPP remake is coming up and the signal SM sends is very positive for a possible amazing DPP remake. I predict that there will be Sinnoh forms for old Pokemons. Of all the Alolan form Pokemons in SM, Grimer and Muk are my favourite because their form changes made sense – it is explained that Alola did not have pollutants for Grimer and Muk to feed on so they fed on garbage, and therefore their looks changed and their habits changed. Why they are now Dark type can be better explained but there is sufficient effort there to make the change believable as compared to steel type Dugtrio with glorious hair which looks more like a rejected Kalos Pokemon.

With the success of the new forms, I hope the team moves even more aggressively towards that direction because it is firstly, an excellent step forward in worldbuilding and narrative through grounding the existence of each individual Pokemon in practical reality. Many of the flavour texts in this generation’s Pokedex reveal that Pokemons like Crabrawler are eaten by humans, and many other Pokemons eat each other in the wild. The Alolan Sandshrew lives up in Mount Lanakila learns how to resist the cold. The weakling Pokemon Wishiwashi learns how to fight in a school instead of alone. This is more believable than Wingull suddenly knowing how to summon rain, or Rattata having whiskers for some reason. This brings me to my next point; I like how they are trying to make each individual Pokemon more useful and unique, even if they are not up to competitive standards. In this cast roster of over 800 Pokemons, many old Pokemons have become simply lower-tier clones of new ones, and there are is absolutely no reason for competitive players to take any notice to them. In the best-case scenario, a change is made for a Pokemon to stand out, and at the same time their change also makes narrative sense. Muk has a new ability that is useful in double battles, its new typing bestows upon it Dark-type STAB and Psychic immunity, and I have already said that its change is rather decent from a worldbuilding standpoint. Marowak, a physical Fire/Ghost type pokemon with exclusive access to the Thick Club and Bonemerang, is not just ‘another ground type’ anymore; and the whole island-fire-dancer feel to its new design makes excellent use of its old design to make catching and owning a Marowak exciting again. Pelipper with Drizzle is now being considered in competitive, and despite the ability change being its only change I still welcome it because that means we get to see new faces at tournaments, but I do hope the Pokemon team doesn’t go down this lazy road of just changing one thing, but combine individualistic Pokemon character building, skillset, and ability customisation to try and make at least one form of each of these 800-odd critters stand out. It is hard, but all they really have open up to fan recommendations. A friend just told me how wonderful it would be to have a Pokemon game set in the prehistoric era, and immediately I thought about how Ancient forms of Omastar, Kabutops, Archeops, etc. can help to revamp these lesser used Pokemon both on main game teams and competitive teams and give them more personality, and more love. Personally? Bug/Dragon Mega Flygon, please.

The other formula breaking element in Pokemon SM is the trials. I am completely in love with the Ghost trial, and everyone who has talked to me about the Fire trial told me how much they enjoyed it too. I don’t think they can do much for Sinnoh remake, but I for one won’t mind if they changed the gym systems slightly just to make it more fun. Talking about that, I will be disappointed if they don’t invite me to be on the BW remake writing team, because I have an idea of how to make it better – long story short, the old team just screwed up all that excellent build up the finale by throwing N out of the window and putting in a regular bad guy instead. Which again, is relevant because the writing in SM is pretty excellent for a game that cannot be too dark in case kids get scared. Something the big bad in this game said in the end really resonated with me, and Team Skull is really quite the charming ‘evil’ group once you get past the cringe. The music is excellent. The Pokemon designs are excellent. The trial captains are bursting with personality. There’s really nothing much to say there because those things have been generally good in past Pokemon games (except Gen 5) and there is no surprise there, although I have to say the music is the kind of good that hits you right in the face and sticks in your head. This is without a doubt my favourite Pokemon game. It does everything it is supposed to do well beyond expectations, or to pure perfection, such as the music. Unlike Owlboy that I reviewed earlier this year that was a great game without a core, this game orbits around a strong philosophy of wanting to make each Pokemon unique, and not simply ‘something you play in replacement of another at a lower tier because Smogon said so’. I hope this is the new bar. You can’t just make a ‘good’ Pokemon from now on. It cannot just be as good as XY, or as good as this, we will be expecting more because frankly speaking, SM opened too many doors for amazing possibilities in the future and it will be disappointing if they decided to close them up again. Pokemon Sun and Moon is the only game this year to threaten my current Game of The Year, which I have reviewed on this site before, but I won’t give it my GOTY simply because the Sinnoh remake may just be a step back and whatever SM has done here will be wasted. On its own, it is an excellent game with a lot of polish, except for minor issues I have with SOS battles and the beginning being extremely draggy, which puts it around an 8/10. But as a game in a franchise that will be coming out with more new games that can be equally if not more amazing because of the possibilities this one hints at?

10/10.