Too much hype?
We’ve spent what feels like an eternity salivating over each new detail revealed about Pokémon Sun & Moon, but what if they don’t meet the enormous expectations fans have built up around the pair of titles. I’m not necessarily saying they won’t, in fact I’m quite optimistic that they’ll be great games, but today let’s look at three worrying signs that these games may not get the amazing reception we hope they will.
1. They revealed too much
Ever seen a movie trailer that reveals an important twist about a movie before its even out? We’ve been seeing those kind of trailers for about 9 months now. There are details we may not know about Team Skull or the Aether Foundation, but it doesn’t seem like there are many characters we haven’t at least glimpsed.
One of the most entertaining aspects of the Pokémon franchise has been discovering and catching new Pokémon, but this time around there won’t be many new faces that haven’t already been used in promotional clips. After Game Freak handed ROM hackers the information on a silver platter it confirmed that we’ve basically seen everything.
Even what could have been a great post-game secret for longtime fans was revealed in the last Sun & Moon information release; imagine how many mouths would have dropped to suddenly see Red and Blue stroll up for a battle, looking older just like the players themselves.
2. Island Challenge still untested
Many fans have wanted some sort of change to the typical gym setup that Pokémon games have been using for the last 20 years, but it remains to be seen whether or not the new Island Challenge format will be an actual improvement. One of the things I’m personally most worried about is the potential for overusing fetch quests which simply require players backtrack and grab an item without much real gameplay.
We’ve already seen that the Pyukumuku “sidequest” lacked any real animation and Mallow was seen asking the trainer for not one, but four items that need to be gathered. Maybe each requires a battle to get, but I want to train Pokémon, not kill 10 rats.
3. Z-Moves are meh
The first time seeing your favorite Pokémon pulling off a special Z-move: amazing. The hundredth time? Probably significantly less so. These once-a-battle attacks have a unique premise, but it isn’t quite clear why players will care to use them if they have to sit through 5-10 seconds of animation when a regular attack would probably wipe the floor with an NPC’s Pokémon.
Apparently these are supposed to give currently non-competitive Pokémon a fighting chance to stand up to top-tier threats, but I’m still unconvinced Eevee will suddenly be able to go toe-to-toe with its Extreme Evoboost (although Baton Passing those stats is a bit mouthwatering).
Judging by the way Mega Evolution was treated, we may not even want to invest ourselves in the system too deeply for fear of it getting yanked away a generation later.
Looking Ahead
There are other things I could have mentioned, such as shoehorned typings (Lycanroc… Lurantis…) or the lackluster Alolan Forms (Meowth, Rattata), but I think the above three are what worry me the most.
Hopefully these will all be unfounded fears and the games will have enough content to blow our minds. We’ll see in two weeks!
I don’t think they revealed too much, rather on the Pokemon front they didn’t create enough new ones. Such a small roster, but still the general spread of those that have competitive value and those that do not means that we likely won’t actually be seeing many Gen 7 Pokemon in competitive play.
In terms of other content, revealing Red is a big deal; however, the character had a much bigger impact in Gen 2 returning, because it was literally who the player character was before. It’s Gen 7 now and there are tons of other former player characters that, if they are included, would still be jaw-dropping. And revealing that Red is in there, teases that maybe other player characters from other Gens with updated teams might be there too. Honestly, Red isn’t even my favorite. I would much rather fight N or Hilda/Hilbert from Unova. And now that might be a possibility, so it’s something to look forward to.
I’m glad there are only 7 Island Challenges, because my concern was that it was going to be repetitive. You can come up with 7 interesting sidequests in the game that aren’t all the same. And the gym system needed a serious change, or at least experimentation, because they were become more and more just hurdles and completely disconnected from the world they were in.
I really hate Z-Moves, primarily because they stopped a good thing, i.e. Mega-Evolutions. And, like you mentioned, they don’t really seem that useful. Sure, a non-competitive Pokemon might now have a shot at a K.O. thanks to a Z-Move; however, unless that is the last Pokemon the opponent has, you haven’t really fundamentally changed the game. Next turn you are still going to have a non-competitive Pokemon. Juxtapose that to a Mega-Evolution, which in many cases, made some Pokemon that were not competitive and moved up them up several tiers. Z-Moves are clearly a Generation gimmick. The only thing we can hope is that it isn’t the same fate for Mega-Evolutions.
I’ve bought every single new Pokemon game after Gold/Silver but after X/Y and S&M. This game is the straw for me. I buy to discover the new stuff not the recycled materials like Megas or Alolan formes.
No new evos or megas for existing lines is the biggest thing for me. We might be wrong, who knows, but don’t you dare tell me the best thing they could think of was a Ice/Steel Sandslash who as a mono Ground type only sees the light of day in NU. Or a stupid form of Exeggutor who has an arbitrary dragon typing. I’m just really not impressed by the lack of foresight for the competitive metagame.
I think they’ve put some thought into meta and how to change it up from the stale stuff we see right now.
I like some of the Alola forms and since their typings are so different from the originals, they’re like getting a new Pokemon gameplay-wise. I mean, Ice-Fairy Ninetales isn’t going to learn the same moves as regular Ninetales.
I’m glad there aren’t any gyms, i love them but its nice to change things up after two decades. Wishing there would be more trials tho, only seven is way too little, even with 4 Kahunas to deal with before departing each island to advance.
I am worried the game will be very short and too easy like X&Y.
Google is paying 97$ per hour! Work for few hours and have longer with friends & family! !mj303d:
On tuesday I got a great new Land Rover Range Rover from having earned $8752 this last four weeks.. Its the most-financialy rewarding I’ve had.. It sounds unbelievable but you wont forgive yourself if you don’t check it
!mj303d:
➽➽
➽➽;➽➽ http://GoogleFinancialJobsCash303TopTrueGetPay$97Hour… ★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★::::::!mj303d:….,…..
So far the worst blog post of 2016 in Pokejungle, sorry but if you want to be a killjoy keep it to yourself.
In regards to them revealing too much. Really though the fans themselves have that responsibility. The info is there if you wish you seek it out. But if you genuinely care for a spoiler free experience. Try not following the press releases?
see i completely disagree with your opinion’s. sure their are people out their who just aren’t interested in the z-moves, they care more for mega evolution’s but i for one love them, ofcourse it gives pokemon usefulness, the once not viable pokemon are now viable, because they can either get a strong z move or a strong boost z move, a lot of people have complained in the community itself that we always do the same thing, with the same story, defeat 8 gyms, get the badges, beat our rival/s, go to the league, defeat the E4 and Champion, the villianous team, the legendary cinematic parts, yet when they finally change up the formula, people still complain because it is SO different, okay i can see why people are scared about this new change since it’s not going into a gym and having a full on battle, but having trials is all about the connection between you and your pokemon as a trainer, a friend towards them, and surpassing your goal, i can see how it would be a little bland with just the fetching items quests but im pretty positive that’s not all we get, they wouldn’t just give us a trial of fetching certain items and then getting a z crystal, as we could see in one of the recent gameplay video’s, the first trial you look for the alolan rattata, along with team skull messing things up, that might seem like nothing to you but that sure as hell seems cool to me, and in any case the totem pokemon are almost like bosses for these trials we get afterwards so it’s not completely “boring” for you, i could go on about how much i disagree on your thoughts but i won’t. i just think you think highly of your opinion’s and you will stick to them, but my point in all this is, it might seem like the trials we get seem bland and not well thought out, but thats just what we have seen, we have yet to play them and i think once we do play them, we would most definitely think differently of what we thought before hand, their is only once thing i agree on, alot was leaked and that makes things a little underwhelming but i don’t think we have seen all of it yet, thats what im counting on and hoping for. sorry if ive written a long comment but i just had to tell you my thoughts on my disagreement’s and my own opinions of these games. i think in the end what your saying is just YOUR opinion on these games, and your making it sound like it’s all fact, apart from the leaks part that is, that was right. but still i just really love these games, the starters, the features, the battle tree and league, the trial captains and kahuna’s, the totem pokemon, the pokemon, i love it all. their is NOT one thing i dislike. but in the end that is just my personal opinion.
this article is so negative. don’t get me wrong, you have a few good points i admit but most of them are your opinions alone, way to snatch peoples hype, i think alot of us are still hype for these games, we shouldn’t start judging for whats been already revealed, we should play the games and see how they play out and THEN we can judge, weather they’re good or bad points, we cant just judge by what we already know, once we play them im positive we will think differently about them. im still hype, i love EVERYTHING about these games, the pokemon, the trial captains and kahuna’s. the features, everything looks amazing in my book. im happy with them and thats all that matters to me, but your negative article is really killing the atmosphere….
“the only way to enjoy pokeymanz is to go into it as clueless as a blind toddler in a cave blah blah”
I’m so sick of hearing that stated as if it was an indisputable fact. I never went into a Pokemon game blind, and neither did my friends in Primary School, most of us had the strategy guide and those who didn’t visited kids who had it to look at it. And we’ve enjoyed it plenty.
All we know about Team Skull, the Aether Foundation and UB is that they exist. OH NOEZ! Ruined foreverz! It’s not like during the Red and Blue days kids already knew Team Rocket from the anime show or some crazy thing, no siree, not at all!
In some cases, I like knowing more than blind wandering. I got really frustrated when I didn’t realize some evolved by trading or stones (or where to get the stones), or that Meowth wouldn’t learn Payday if you let it evolve before level 30, etc. Or what are version exclusives (recalling my Vulpix hunt in Red -_-)
Also, I totally ruined my LeafGreen Abra by leaving it in the daycare and when he evolved into Kadabra, he couldn’t learn his first move anymore, I had to use a TM.
And TMs in Red, which I went totally blind into? Man, they made me SO mad, because the game didn’t tell us what they did, and you couldn’t reuse them.
That’s why I like some info.
I hope you understood that I am in favour of things being revealed and was just making sport of the adamant attitude some players have that nobody may have info because it “spoils” the game 🙂
Exactly, knowing all that stuff can prevent frustration and can enhance your enjoyment.
If I hadn’t known the evolutions for the starters in Sun/Moon I would have chosen Rowlet and I would have ended up really disappointed with Decidueye.
But thankfully I know them and know that I want Popplio for Primarina.
And yeah I agree on the story, I don’t want to know the story either that’s
why I don’t look at news or threads connected to the story, I was want to know the Pokedex, what types they have, where to find them and how to evolve them.
No hard feelings.
Let the “we must be blind” purists play it their way, and if they accidentally wreck their Abra/Kadabra or end up with an evolved starter they regret, that’s their thing to deal with.
Google is paying 97$ per hour! Work for few hours and have longer with friends & family! !mj177d:
On tuesday I got a great new Land Rover Range Rover from having earned $8752 this last four weeks.. Its the most-financialy rewarding I’ve had.. It sounds unbelievable but you wont forgive yourself if you don’t check it
!mj177d:
➽➽
➽➽;➽➽ http://GoogleFinancialJobsCash176DigitalMatterGetPay$97Hour… ★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★::::::!mj177d:….,….
Apart from the shoehorned typing spoint (whic I disagree with), I think this is absolutely spot-on.
Now don’t get me wrong, I think sun and moon will be amazing, but to me all we’ve seen is very much crushing my hopes that game-freak actually pulled an absolute a-game with this, and instead it seems they’re just doing an XY all over again (games I love, and the backlash for which I resent to some extent, but that I recognise are clearly flawed in certain aspects…flaws I’m now pretty convinced SM is doing nothing to cover), with a little bit more hype, flair, and pizazz.
I’m already very disappointed with the new amount of pokémon, which seems to be reduced purely because we’re approaching a thousand (and don’t give me that quality v quantity bullsh*t, IMO gen V is absolutely one of the best out there), not only that but the fact we’re not even getting cross gen evolutions, not even getting megas, but instead getting those horrendous UBs, and the massive squandering of an amazing idea that is the Alola forms (hats off to GF for that one, it absolutely wouldn’t have been hard to pull it off right, but instead we get a pathetic number, having them all Gen I, shoehorned typings and a third of the being jokémon)… AND THOSE DON’T EVEN ADD UP TO XY’s TOTAL…
But on top of that, we get a what, 80-90% reveal rate, be it pokémon wise, form wise, character wise, feature wise… Leaving only the story and the locations to truly discover on your own (and to be to some extent disappointed by, the way things are going). Frankly I think it’s just criminal, a careless move, an insulting way to treat fans-they didn’t need that degree of reveal to get these sales. And it’s not like these are avoidable leaks-they’re official reveals that are all over the internet within less than a day. I know some people like knowing everything going in, but I’m pretty sure a lot don’t either, and those that do could just look at leaks (which I wouldn’t have looked at if it turned out they were worth avoiding to be pleasantly surprised).
On the second point, I thought the trials seemed like a great idea, though the lightweight content they were hinting at was a bit foreboding (minus the totem battles, those are awesome! )… Until we discovered there were only 7 of them, and then my creeping suspicion this whole game bore the usual signature of GF’s usual Half-assed attitude was pretty much confirmed.
We could have had 14, with pretty much equal numbers on each island, but instead we get a number that doesn’t even reach that of gyms… for content which, based on the demo and early game showings, seems pretty basic (fetch quests and that sort). At one point I thought if GF were given more development time they might craft real AAA games that feel like lovingly crafted masterpieces, but a friend of mine pointed out GF might simply not be capable of that as they are by now just designed to churn games that are a level of quality I’d call “adequate”.
On Z-moves, I was always apathetic to them, I never really saw the point of confusing the lore further with super moves in a world where legendary signature moves are a thing… And I think it’s great they’re trying to allow all pokémon to be viable, but I’m just feeling these moves aren’t gonna help the metagame as they’re just gonna give you a free moment of OP each battle, no skill required…
So yeah, I’m still gonna buy the games and enjoy the hell out of them, but I know they’re not gonna blow me away.. They’re just gonna be business as usual, leaving me with a bitter taste of what they could have been if more effort, or more productive effort, was put into them. So the hype is kinda dead a bit. Saying that, seeing the recent leaks is making me kind of impatient to see it all for myself, so that’s something!
As to if they’ll live up to other people’s hype, I guess it depends how sensitive they are to GF’s usual infuriating dev style.
I hope that there is more to do post game rather than just dealing with the 3rd cover legendary, and capturing all legendaries from previous games (ORAS) I wanna go back to Kanto or Kalos.
Honestly… what’s so great about gyms though? Some of them have mini-puzzles but it’s basically “enter, battle, move on”, not really that interactive. I suppose it’s nostalgia and tradition.
megas are coming back and Z moves also should be now a thing for next generations.
We will wait for new megas and new Z-moves.
Atleast things more unpredictable then pure type coverege.
Decidueye needs shadow sneak , phantom force, omnious wind, give him the love he needs.
If they do a 3 game and fix some things people complain and criticize about it will be a good generation.
Buff new starters a little bit up with movesets and abilities. (stats are great if used with partner mon and if extra moives come in)
fix Gengar and allow it to have Levitate or Cursed Body like Bronzor line does and all will be happy.
Take Pallosand and its ability it would need to boost both stats +2 or +1 and that before damage calculation and reduce water type damage atlest by half. (Sandsport- 5 turns reduce damage of water 67,5%)
We Like the new weather casting pokes this generation, hope for more of this and for the terrains.
I’m actually quite disapointed in the pokemon themselves….looking at the pokedex I feel like something is missing…so many pokemon needs evolutions or pre evolutions, and considering he fact that this is based on a tropical island …I would have loved to see more pokemon based on tropical animals rather than some random stuff and unoriginal humanoid pokemon…this new black legendary pokemon is awful…and we thought 50% was bad
Z-moves are good, would like next a stone similar to Mega stones but one that would allow a pokemon to use all its abilities(first,secret and hidden).
Gyms will come back but they need a buff into strategies, more dual typed pokes and more focus on abilities.
The only thing that bothers me if they have buffed Cursed Body(let it automaticaly activate after the pokemon faints and by every physical contact, even if you attack the oponent first)(the same should be aplied to static, flame body and poison touch if you think of it longer and right)???
Gengar in future should be allowed to have both Cursed Body and Levitate(first or secret or hidden abilitiy), like Bronzong, Alolan Marowak and others have. Or somebody of the datamine and leakers makes jokes of us.
and reduce the % to 20% becuse now you have a turn of physical attack of your oponent and one of your own pokemons attack.