Pokémon Sun & Moon Details Revealed on NicoNico Stream

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A stream of Pokémon Sun & Moon (coming next month to the Nintendo 3DS) on Japanese video site NicoNico recently revealed a few small details about the pair of games, which can be found below:

  • Shaking grass returns to the games, but its function may differ and there’s a new animation of the wild Pokémon jumping out
  • The number of Trials has been confirmed as seven
  • Ilima’s trial was previewed and featured the player finding Rattata in a cave, after which they were awarded with a Z Crystal
  • Rotom Dex will show you your Pokédex completion percentage after catching a Pokémon

These small tidbits just make me want to play the games more! Not too much longer to wait…

FEATURED DISCUSSION: Preliminary Sun/Moon Teams

Supporters

Nick F

Smearg

Foil Island

Conglome NERD

alcremie sundae

Radiant Blutle

Zachery

Dragoniteo

Austin John Plays

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1,658 thoughts on “Pokémon Sun & Moon Details Revealed on NicoNico Stream”

  1. Kinda disappointed at the fact that there are only 7 trial captains, I was really hoping there would be 14 trial captains and 4 Kahunas, each one specializing in a different type. But this could be good news in a way, maybe they make it seem like the island challange will be the main focus of the game, but it might just be a small and silly distraction in comparison to the story which should be much greater than any other story in a Pokémon game . I just don’t want the games to be extremely easy or short.

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      • That may have been true in the original greek myths but nowadays them being conflated with mermaids is pretty widespread, so it’s nothing surprising to call it a siren. “Sirène” is french for mermaids, the Sirenia or sea cows were the real-life inspiration for mermaids…

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        • Greek predates the naming of both of those, and you may be getting mixed up with selkies with the sea cow thing.

          Sirens were always avian in one way or another, be it talon-feet or wings like angels.

          It’s only modern times that get the origins mixed up. The Latin siren also refered to the avian kind.

          The sea cow genus is inappropriately named. Whoever classified them either didn’t know mythology very well, or was potentially French.

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          • My point still completely stands though, nowadays the two are widely mixed up, for better or for worse, so this make sense.

            And no I don’t believe I’m mixing anything up with selkies, as far I’m aware it’s a widely held theory that sighting of sea cow tails are one of the main causes for mermaid myths.

            The person who named the Sirenia may have been french, but by that time the naming the modern understanding of “siren” may already have been relevant…(It certainly seems to have been throughout the 19th century.) And they’re only “inappropriately named” if you’re being unnecessarily puristic and antiquated with the semantics of the word “siren”. Sirenians aren’t even the only aquatic taxonomic group named after sirens, a siren is also an North American legless salamander.

  5. If you had to be a Professor of a new region, which Starter Pokemon would you give out as your trio? (They have to be from 3 different gens)
    I’d choose Squirtle, Cyndaquil and Treecko, though it was hard.

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  6. Because someone has to, let’s show some love for Beltigre. I’ll be honest, it took me by surprise too, but I grew to love it over time and seeing how it’ll look in game makes me like it more. So I don’t care how many legs it stands on, I don’t care if it look like a fighter despite being Dark. I think it’s legitimately cool, I won’t acknowledge naysayers who’ll throw the same reasons they don’t like it like half of the internet, even if it is just an opinion. NOW HELP ME SPREAD THAT LOVE!

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  7. I remember reading somewhere that Beltigre’s belt grows hotter and larger the more passionate it gets, than proceeding to crack my ass up visualizing it

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      • See, it has a whole Fantasy element to it, as in the Pokemon themselves, mixed with the Sci Fi, so Science Fantasy fits perfectly.

        It can be argued Zelda is Science Fantasy too but that’s a whole different ballpark.

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        • Not really. The pokemon are really magical in any sense. The games go into great detail in explaining how they function in the world. Even legendary pokemon do have some scientific basis to them, and when things are left vague, its usually due to the fact that their really hasn’t been enough research on them.

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          • And I think that your overreaching what qualifies as Science Fantasy. Yes, in the absolute loosest definition of Science Fantasy; Star Trek can be seen as it, but it clearly isn’t. Its a show that almost never deals with anything of a magical or explainable nature, and even when it does, it does try to apply science and logic to it, where fantasy doesn’t. Same with Pokemon. You CAN say that it has some shared ideas of fantasy tropes, but its clearly doesn’t use those tropes in any traditional way of writing fantasy.

        • Zelda is magic-grade scifi, all the technology is magic powered and usually confined to specific places.

          It’s kind of its own genre.

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    • Yes and no.

      Some of the technology appears to be quite advanced, but only Pokemon-specific techology like the Pokedex, the PC and the Pokemon centre’s heal machine.

      On the other hand, most people don’t own cars, there’s no internet, homes tend to have fewer appliances and a lot of people lead simpler lives.

      Plus the only implausible scientific advancements are the Pokeballs and teleporters, pretty much everything else is plausible.

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          • The one truck, no other cars.
            The truck that moves you in (and magically vanishes into the forest), pretty much nothing else.

            Sun and Moon is the first one to feature them fully regularly (assuming other places are like Hau’oli) and it’s only enough to be comparable to the early 20th century or something.

            All the regions have had more boat travel involved than car travel.

            G5 was the first time we saw a plane, but G7 is the first time we’re going to see a flying plane.

            There’s definately something weird about the tech level.

          • The anime is practically a different universe though. A universe in which the lead cannot win a league.

            The game itself is oddly low on vehicles.
            And why would they have cars anyway? If they’ve had Pokemon since prehistory they would never have needed cars, a lot of Pokemon can outrun cars.

            It’s just weird. The Pokemon world’s tech level makes no sense.

        • Honestly I only ever take the games as an abstraction of what the pokémon world is supposed to be, ie, something closer to the manga or certain aspects of the anime (most of the worldbuilding that isn’t nonsensical or childish). I know this is somewhat artificial, but the fact is gameplay necessities and development constraints mean that we necessarily get implausibly tiny towns, no cars, etc… And that quite obviously can’t be taken as what we’re supposed to imagine the pokémon world is.

          Thus I think the lack of certain technologies seems to me more attributable to the lack of point in them being shown (as you say, they’re no the focus!) rather than an assumed absence, though honestly with no proof of their existence, both points of view are entirely tenable.
          On the other hand, Pharap still has a point: though the anime and manga do have cars, they’re definitely not as prevalent as they are in our world, which is only fitting since as said, they have pokémon which are better than cars in countless respects.

          It’s also as Pharap said a fantasy world full of mostly nice people, as opposed to harsh reality, (though there are limits, we do get villains who occasionally go full homicidal even if they’re barely ever succesful as it wouldn’t fit the franchise, and also a decent amount of past wars hinted to have caused massive amounts of destruction) so that certainly has an effect on the way that world works. On a sidenote it’s interesting to remark that though the anime usually is tamer than the games in terms of evil and violence for obvious reasons, the manga (which is often seen as the most faithful representation of the pokémon universe as intended by the franchise creators, and yes I know those comments mostly applied to the RBY arc but honestly they feel like a mandate that Adventures has thus far respected) often goes a little further with violence, depth and slightly more adult aspects in it’s bid to stay coherent and somewhat realistic. This leads me to wager that if we got a more complete picture of the pokémon world that wasn’t so constrained both by the video game nature of the series, and by it’s intended E for Everyone audience, it would be darker and closer to reality (I think pokedex descriptions are quite probing hints :p ). And as it happens, we have something that gives some amount of traction to that theory, in the form of pokémon Generations!

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          • Yeah E for everyone was honestly hyperbole haha. They wouldn’t want to go fully harmless because that’s monstrously constraining, but they still need to stay at that “fun for all the family” level. Honestly I think more mature spinoffs (something on the manga’s level or maybe even little more mature, but I absolutely don’t mean some edgy violent reimagining, that would just be wrong IMO) would be a very refreshing thing for the series to try.

          • It would, but they won’t because Nintendo likes to maintain its friendly facade and hit as much of the audience as possible.

        • Yes, I probably still wouldn’t leave the house 😛

          Plus I enjoy programming and video games too much.

          Besides being in the Pokemon world and Pokemon being in this world are two different things. Most people in the Pokemon world are nice, this world is full of miserable hateful people.

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    • Electric power plants?! What is this unheard of fantasy? That technology is completely unachievable. Leave me to my butter churning.

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  23. I’d just like to ask for clarification on the 7 trials bit? How exactly does it say that there are seven trials?

    Is there a picture with trial medals in a case and only seven slots? Because if not then 7 trials could really mean a myriad of things. For example it could mean 7 trials for melemele island. It could also mean seven trials for Ilima alone. We simply couldn’t know. If anyone has clarification it would be appreciated.

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