Alright, it's been long enough that initial game biases of Sun and Moon are gone and I've dived around in the postgame a little as well. Time for my opinion on Sun and Moon

This is a split of positives, negatives and neutral opinions on the game, they are marked as so:

+ Positive
- Negative
= Neutral

There will be spoilers, but I'll try not to spoil everything.

+ Starting off with the Alola region itself. It stands out on it's own and has a great world feel, the overworlds feel a lot more vibrant and alive as you explore them, this might be due to the artstyle shift away from the chibi-style of Gen 6, but the region is a lot more memorable this time around.

- As with many pokemon games though, it does start off slow. Pokemon Sun and Moon however feels like a Regigigas with it's Slow Start ability because it takes forever to get going. It's a real long time before you even get to your first pokemon.

- And furthermore, these games really need a "Skip Cutscene" feature as the cutscenes seem to be getting longer and longer, I know you have an interesting plot (Which we'll get to later) but there are some cutscenes that feel a little like... padding in a way. Espicially the Tutorial ones (Which you have to do even if you've played a pokemon game before.) If you want these long cutscenes to continue... add a skip cutscene function in the future please?

+ Now the characters of this game are certainly some of the most interesting the series has ever had. You will remember a lot of them and get many favourites. In contrast to Gen 6, a lot of characters actually do stuff and evolve as the game progresses. Kukui has aspirations to set up a Pokemon World League, Hapu is on a quest to prove herself to the Tapu's to become a Kahuna, Gladion is mostly a jerkish rival, but when the call to action arrives he is on call to help and he mellows out knowing there are more important thing to do (It's a nice touch most of his pokemon are ones that evolve by friendship as well here), And Lillie... well, that's spoilers saying how she turns out, but her arc is one of the series best.

= Now on the new pokemon, this is a neutral because I feel there isn't enough of them, same with X/Y with it's small numbers, and design wise, I don't think it's as good as X and Y was. There are the good ones, Lurantis and Lycanroc have become big favs of mine and you have a really strong starter set and tapu set. But it feels like there's a lot of meh ones as well, a lot of single stagers, some with potential, others not so much. And I'm not huge on the whole Ultra Beasts. It's a mixed bag of it.

- I do have to downvote the Alolan Pokemon though, the concept is a really great one, regional variants make sense. And there's a lot they have fun with like Marowak, Ninetales and Exeggutor... and then there are those where it feels they made the bare minimal effort like Raticate and Persian, along with some baffling design choices on others like Golem and Grimer (Muk has something going for it, but it's not amazing.) I feel they should be more, and...

- ...Why are they all Kanto pokemon? Why are the majority of route pokemon Kanto Pokemon? Why is there so much Kanto in my Alola? For a 20th anniversary game, I wish they celebrated the whole franchise instead of "The one that came out 20 years ago". There's more Kanto Pokemon in this game than there are actual new pokemon! It's maddening. I wouldn't mind if the other generations got equal amount of reference but it feels kanto got 3 times as much as everything else. Save the Kanto love for when you remake Kanto again, if you want to do nostalgia throwbacks, do it equally for all gens, there are 800 pokemon now, stop focusing on only 150 of them.

+ Moving back into positive territory, this game has a really good soundtrack, route themes are little on the small end (It's more islands sharing themes instead of each individual route having one) but the town themes are great (both day and night versions), the battle themes are really good and the cutscene music is great as well, the opening theme (With the WAAAA-OOOOH) gets a special mention here as being one of the most memorable the series.

+ The Trials and the Totem Pokemon, ooh boy was this a breath of fresh air. The totems are very memorable boss fights since unlike regular fights, the AI does have an advantage over you with 2 on 1 matchups, and they will exploit this with tactics (Well, except the first one, that was a tutorial one) Special mention to the Salazzle, Lurantis and Mimikyu ones giving me a lot of hassle, espicially with the Lurantis calling up a Sunny Day so it can fire off Solar Blades none-stop at ya.

+ The difficulty in the game in general is certainly a lot better as well after the stupidly easy Gen 6. It uses the EXP. Share, but also employs the Gen 5 Exp. Scaling system, so you don't have to worry about being super overpowered by the end of the game, you'll roughly be around their levels, maybe even a bit lower like I was (This was with playing with Exp. Share off though, needed to make precautions, but from what I've heard around, the Exp. Share is a lot better this time).

= I'm going to give a Neutral to the SOS battle system, it's a fun idea that Pokemon can call other pokemon for assistance and that you will have to be prepared to deal with that. What you think may be an easy fight suddenly becoming a lot harder since they call open pokemon after pokemon to make you re-evaluate your tactics and maybe consider running is, in my mind, awesome. You JUST need to make one teeny tiny change, and that is to make sure I can catch a pokemon if there are 2 on the field! If you aren't running Paralysis, the idea of weakening a pokemon to catch it, only for it to keep calling allies to help it for a long time and being unable to capture that pokemon is super annoying. Let us capture the pokemon if there are 2 out, we could do it in the Gamecube games, what's the problem here?

+ Going back to the characters, the Kahuna's and the Trial captains are very memorable, I like how after doing their trial, you can go back to see them and they have a sidequest associated with them (Well, most of them do), having them show up as the Elite 4 as well gets you very familiar with them, so you don't have this sudden "who's that" when facing them for the first time. And Nanu is amazing, I swear he's Adachi from Persona if he wasn't... well, if you've played persona, you know.

+ Team Skull, this is hands down the best villains team in the series. They have unique outfits, unique style, Plumeria and Guzma are strikingly memorable leaders of the joint... and also, they aren't really bent on world domination (Gasp!) when you get to Po Town and find out more about them, it's really well done and makes sense for them, which leads onto...

+ Team Aether and Lusamine, Certainly another different approach from World Domination, they are actually a good team that want to help in pokemon conservation, they just have the little problem that their leader went a little too far on that front. Lusamine makes for a very memorable boss fight and even her underlings, actually having some funding get to have some pretty competent pokemon on their team to fight with.

= A problem with this game is that it's hyper linear. Why is this a neutral? A lot of games are hyper linear. Seriously, since everyone apparantly got confused with Sinnoh, they've been making them that way for awhile now. At best, there's a bonus route to explore when you beat the island, but this is something that would be nice to change in the future.

= Customization is... half and half? There's more colour options for clothes now, but it feels like it came at a cost of actual cloth designs, gen 6 had much more varied stuff. The different throw styles are appreciated though.

= Pokefinder is... just there, it's optional, it's mildly amusing, it's used well in one trial, but it doesn't leave any major impressions. Framerate during it is terrible though.

+ Poke Pelago is a nice way to do stuff when you need to do other stuff. It's nice to just drop in a group of pokemon over night and have them all EV Trained in attack or speed or whatever you need, as well as hatch some eggs in the process. Plus it streamlines the berry growing aspect a lot, you can even got some wild pokemon out of it, it's really good.

= Pokeplaza meanwhile is... a bit more of a mess to be fair? It's the Join Avenue system from Gen 5, but it feels a lot more slower to use and level up. There's only so much one wants to answer a type quiz to level this up. The features are nice, but it feels clunky...

- ...and having the online battling and trading modes here was a mistake. The OSS system in Gen 6 was really good was to communicate with others, many don't even know where they are in this version. This was a mistake and they should bring the OSS back, have it a function of the rotom dex.

+ Oh yeah, Rotom Dex, this is how Fi should have been done. Funny comments, does not halt progress. This is how it's done.

+ The best change is the Poke-ride system, no longer are we bound the HMs, you just call the pokemon you need and go go go. It feels like this a late change in the game, since a lot of routes have 2 paths, one using a poke-ride and a route with tall grass, which makes me think the poke-ride was a late addition, but a much appreciated one.

= Postgame is okay, nothing really insane to do, just your standard infinite battle mode, a plotline with the ultra beasts and where to find them and some fun cameo matches and post-game matches. Be sure to repeat the Elite 4 again by the way, the "champion" aspect of it is really good.

That's basically it for the whole list I think, if there's anything else missing I'll add it in an edit. There's additional past gen features missing like Dexnav, Soaring and VS. Fighter that should return but I can be here all day covering them and it's a thing pokemon has always had a problem with in retention of features. As for this game though? Really solid and great, I'd put it up there with Gen 5 and Gen 4 as my favourite ones. As this gen continues, maybe it can move to first? If you like pokemon, I'd give it a look, it has some pacing issues story wise, espicially with a slow start, but play it through to the end and it's a real grand one.

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Anyway, it's Christmas Eve, and I feel like doing a giveaway since it's christmas, I'm going to think about it more tomorrow, but it will probably involve posting some unposted art and having you respond in a certain way to it for a Steam Game of some kind. More details will be come when it's not late on my end. Just keep your eyes peeled for it.