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S&M
9 years ago
General
Today I feel like talking about S&M.
And by that I mean Pokemon Sun and Moon. But you knew that already. I mean, what else could S&M possibly stand for, right?
So, yeah. The 7th generation of the Pokemon core series came out last month, to considerable success. I played it for the better part of the last few weeks myself. Having already completed the main story and most of the post-game content, I decided that it's time for me to share my (spoiler-free!) impressions.
Basically, this is the best Pokemon game I've ever played. That's not to say it's perfect, but it came pretty close in my book, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it. Let's break it down, shall we?
-Story and characterization: I think this is the first Pokemon game that actually made a serious effort in making the characters you meet memorable. In the past, gym leaders and the such were confined to their small, self-contained gyms, and the extent of your character's interaction with them was essentially limited to battling them once, claiming their gym badge, moving on and forgetting they even existed. In S&M, however, the gym leader equivalents actually appear several times over the course of the game, and are way more involved in the progression of the game's storyline. In my opinion, this alone makes for a richer and more interesting experience than what past entries had to offer. So, yeah. I really liked S&M's colorful cast of characters. And I fondly remember every single one of them.
-Music: Pokemon games usually feature a great soundtrack, and these new entries are no exception. There's a lot of good stuff here. In fact, I'm listening to the soundtrack right now, as I'm typing this!
-The world: Alola is a fun place to explore. There are lots of sights to see and environments to navigate. The game is visually quite impressive, despite the admittedly aging hardware running it. The fact that the developers finally ditched the old grid-based movement system and gave all characters more realistic human proportions only makes it all better and adds to the immersion factor in my opinion.
-Ride Pokemon: The long awaited replacement of the old and outdated HM system of previous generations. Finally, "HM slaves" are no more. It was about time!
-Festival Plaza: Sure, it's a side thing that can be ignored for the most part, but considering on-line play is tied to it, I feel like it still needs to be said: the Festival Plaza is slow, clunky, grindy, and just plain unfun. An experiment gone wrong. It just feels like an underdeveloped idea that needed more time in the oven.
-Framerates: This game pushes the 3DS hardware to its limits, and that becomes particularly evident pretty much anytime there's more than two pokemon on the battlefield. And let's not even speak about the Battle Royal. You can almost count the frames on those!
-The main character's facial expressions: Or rather, the lack thereof. Your main character can't emote. 99.9% of the time it's just this blank, borderline lifeless stare with a goofy smile plastered on. Even when the world around them is crumbling. Geez, show some emotion! Frankly, it can get somewhat distracting at times, particularly in the more dramatic scenes.
-Camera mode: A mode where you take pictures of pokemon in select spots spread all over Alola. And that's it. It's shallow, adds nothing to the experience, and the reward is... nothing. There's no reward.
-...And that's pretty much it, I think!
Overall, this was a solid entry (the best one yet, if you ask me) in the Pokemon series. Sure, it's heavy on story and cutscenes, but I didn't mind it. I enjoyed these characters and their interactions a lot, and I would certainly not mind seeing them again in a possible sequel.
And by that I mean Pokemon Sun and Moon. But you knew that already. I mean, what else could S&M possibly stand for, right?
So, yeah. The 7th generation of the Pokemon core series came out last month, to considerable success. I played it for the better part of the last few weeks myself. Having already completed the main story and most of the post-game content, I decided that it's time for me to share my (spoiler-free!) impressions.
Basically, this is the best Pokemon game I've ever played. That's not to say it's perfect, but it came pretty close in my book, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it. Let's break it down, shall we?
THE GOOD-Story and characterization: I think this is the first Pokemon game that actually made a serious effort in making the characters you meet memorable. In the past, gym leaders and the such were confined to their small, self-contained gyms, and the extent of your character's interaction with them was essentially limited to battling them once, claiming their gym badge, moving on and forgetting they even existed. In S&M, however, the gym leader equivalents actually appear several times over the course of the game, and are way more involved in the progression of the game's storyline. In my opinion, this alone makes for a richer and more interesting experience than what past entries had to offer. So, yeah. I really liked S&M's colorful cast of characters. And I fondly remember every single one of them.
-Music: Pokemon games usually feature a great soundtrack, and these new entries are no exception. There's a lot of good stuff here. In fact, I'm listening to the soundtrack right now, as I'm typing this!
-The world: Alola is a fun place to explore. There are lots of sights to see and environments to navigate. The game is visually quite impressive, despite the admittedly aging hardware running it. The fact that the developers finally ditched the old grid-based movement system and gave all characters more realistic human proportions only makes it all better and adds to the immersion factor in my opinion.
-Ride Pokemon: The long awaited replacement of the old and outdated HM system of previous generations. Finally, "HM slaves" are no more. It was about time!
THE BAD-Festival Plaza: Sure, it's a side thing that can be ignored for the most part, but considering on-line play is tied to it, I feel like it still needs to be said: the Festival Plaza is slow, clunky, grindy, and just plain unfun. An experiment gone wrong. It just feels like an underdeveloped idea that needed more time in the oven.
-Framerates: This game pushes the 3DS hardware to its limits, and that becomes particularly evident pretty much anytime there's more than two pokemon on the battlefield. And let's not even speak about the Battle Royal. You can almost count the frames on those!
-The main character's facial expressions: Or rather, the lack thereof. Your main character can't emote. 99.9% of the time it's just this blank, borderline lifeless stare with a goofy smile plastered on. Even when the world around them is crumbling. Geez, show some emotion! Frankly, it can get somewhat distracting at times, particularly in the more dramatic scenes.
-Camera mode: A mode where you take pictures of pokemon in select spots spread all over Alola. And that's it. It's shallow, adds nothing to the experience, and the reward is... nothing. There's no reward.
-...And that's pretty much it, I think!
Overall, this was a solid entry (the best one yet, if you ask me) in the Pokemon series. Sure, it's heavy on story and cutscenes, but I didn't mind it. I enjoyed these characters and their interactions a lot, and I would certainly not mind seeing them again in a possible sequel.
- Options in dialogues. It's really amusing to ignore the Team Skull grunts just to see their reaction xD
- Isn't it ironic that now that there's no more HMs in the game, the "replacement" for Fly is Charizard?
I was also bugged by the permanent smile of the player character. At some point everyone was in shock and the character was just like c:
Incineroar's Z-Move lagged.
Even in 2 v 2, the frame rate drop is conspicuous.
The Festival Plaza is pretty sucky but as long as I can get cheap moomoo milks there I'm not complaining too much
Good to hear you're having an overall great time with the game though :)
And yes...the whole 'goofy plastered smile' on the protagonists face even when dealing with a very emotional scene was INCREDIBLY hilarious as well as breaking the entire motion of events for me. How am I supposed to get invested in a scene when my character is just all 'DURRRR I LIKE POKEMANS, GOTTA CATCH EM ALL HUH HUH UH'...
The only last thing I kinda felt 'meh' with the game was the map. It did not feel nearly as big as many other games that I've played. Heck even Johto and Kanto in the Gold and Silver remakes felt bigger...then again those games had two regions which was AWESOME, and totally wish more games did that.
Other than that stuff? The game was enjoyable and fun.