Things We Didn’t Like About Sun & Moon

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Easily one of the best entries in the series, if not, arguably the best, Pokémon Sun & Moon has taken players by storm. And with only a month since its initial release it’s already broken sale records and danced its way into our hearts – but no game is perfect. Here are some things we didn’t like about our adventure through Alola.

 

The Rotom Pokedéx

Revealed as one of the first huge, new features of Gen VII in the early days of Sun & Moon’s prerelease the Rotom ‘Dex promised to give personality and new features to the age old Pokedéx. Instead we got an annoying, forgettable talking bottom screen whose dialogue was never really welcome or something we looked forward to. In terms of new features, it did give us useful pin point directions through the main story line and the Poké Finder (more on that later), but once you became the Champion Rotom didn’t serve any use other than giving very meaningless, repetitive commentary as your completed the Alola ‘Dex. And it’s completely baffling that they never made this new Rotom Form catchable and useable in battle. Overall, the Rotom Pokedéx was a fantastic idea to breathe life into such an old, unchanged device in the game, but its personality is much more suited for the anime where it’s a fully realized character, and for merchandise where it can remain as a mute, cute ‘mon to look at.

New Pokémon’s Low Encounter Rates

Pokémon Sun & Moon have some of the lowest and most exclusive encounter rates and locations for any Pokémon games released so far – being as low as 1% and 10% in only one place in some cases. For hardcore players, such as most of the people reading this, these low encounter rates are a welcome challenge and make completing the Pokedéx a little more fun and worthwhile. But for a lot of casual, younger players, its very, very easy to make it through the whole game without encountering a lot of Pokémon in the wild – even if you put in the effort to go and look for them specifically. Even though the Pokedéx is specific to what patch of grass you can find them in, it does not specify some special conditions, the inclusion of SOS Battles and other new encounter methods – making it hard not to rely on third party Pokedéxes to catch ‘em all. I can’t be the only one who spent a good hour just trying to find a Mimikyu, right?

Protagonists Being Numb to Everything

Chock full of several twists and turns, Sun & Moon had one of the best plot lines in the 20 years of the franchise. Encountering Ultra Beasts, meeting characters from games past, dealing with the Aether Foundation; as the story progressed we were left with face cracks of the centuries with each step we took into Alola – so why didn’t our in-game avatar react the same way? With very, very few exceptions the protagonist had the same aloof smile while everything was happening – no matter how sad, how dire, and how intense the situation was – Despite other characters around us having plenty of emotion and proper reactions. And, honestly, it was hard at times to focus on what was happening and to take things seriously when we had such a goofy, empty smile all the while. With Gen VII giving the most personal customization yet, even down to being able to choose the style in which you throw your Pokéball, it comes as a shock that Game Freak didn’t give our protagonist the ability to react to situations accordingly. Yes, Pokémon is famous for having a silent protagonist, but Red’s emotionless reaction to everything reads a bit better than an empty smile.

The Poké Finder

Another feature hyped for during the pre-release of Sun & Moon, the Poke Finder was marketed as one of the new aspects that came with the Rotom Pokedéx, and much like the Rotom ‘Dex it failed to dazzle fans. What most hoped would be a love letter to Pokémon Snap, turned into a very shallow, rather useless feature of the game. With the Poke Finder only working in a select few, pre-determined spots, the Pokémon and their poses being limited and repetitive, and no way to share the photos with other players, this in-game feature seems pretty useless. The only reason we’re still even bothering with it is to get that stamp on our trainer passport – and believe us, we’re just as unhappy with the amount of time we need to pour into it just to get it. All things considered, the Poké Finder was another great idea, but a poorly executed one.

General Lack of 3D and Touch Screen Use

Despite being on the Nintendo 3DS, 3D was completely removed in-game other than when firing up the Poke Finder (ironically, paired with its gyroscope capabilities, it’s quite possibly the worst place to enable 3D). Although several complaints about 3D causing slow down during battles specifically arose in Generation VI, and it never truly being well implemented in previous generations overall; its surprising 3D wasn’t utilized during important cut scenes at the very least. And, honestly, it’s a bit disappointing that Game Freak didn’t try to improve upon it, and instead decided to just remove the feature all together. One of the coolest features the 3DS has to offer is the 3D slider being so accessible and easy to use – letting you decide whether or not you want to enable the 3D. Some people don’t like it, some do, but just having the option is nice. And on a somewhat related note, Sun & Moon is a game that can almost completely be played using the top screen. Rarely is the bottom screen used and completely necessary…but perhaps that was intentional? Despite being a gorgeous game that pushed the system to the limits, Game Freak didn’t make the best use of the two defining factors and selling points of the 3DS.

Removal of Amazing Features From Past Generations

Sun & Moon took several leaps and bounds forward, but in the process of adding new features and expanding upon older ones, it seems like we’ve taken a step backwards in some areas. Horde Battles, although not a huge loss, was a fun and new battle style that provided a new challenge as well as an easier way to manually EV train and hunt shinies: however once entering Alola we found it completely removed. Moreover, the convenience of the DexNav, the PSS and Super Training is completely null and void now. Gone are the days of being able to easily tell if you’ve caught all Pokémon in the area with one glance – now you have to search the Pokedéx entry by entry to see if you caught ‘em all. Gone are the days of centralized EV training with Super Training – now you have to use in game currency across several different platforms to make your ‘mons the best. And gone are the days of being able to battle, trade and connect with other players with a single touch in the PSS, now we have to traverse through the awkward and troublesome Festival Plaza. And although the end result of all these axed features are still available by other means, how we went from everything being so seamless and convenient to clunky and complicated is beyond us.

No Side Quest Tracker

Despite being a staple in most RPGs, our quest through Alola really marked the first time in Pokémon where several NPCs gave us little side quests that spawned rewards if completed. A lot of these quests were as simple as catching a Pokémon and showing it to the NPC, and the money reward was definitely worthwhile, but as we traversed through the story some quests were left incomplete for a number of reasons. Now well into the post game, I have a desire to complete all the in-game trades and Pokedéx quests, but with no formal tracker I’ve forgotten where all these NPCs are, and what the actual quest was – once again making us rely on third party information hubs to figure it all out.

 

Despite these faults, Pokémon Sun & Moon’s wondrous region, story, characters, Pokémon and new features seem to completely eclipse any negative thoughts we may have about the latest entry in the series. What are some things that you found you didn’t like about Pokémon Sun & Moon and hope to see in the rumored Pokémon Stars?

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4,195 thoughts on “Things We Didn’t Like About Sun & Moon”

  8. 3/6 of my team are ready to EV train. Now i just need to breed the other half (kinda of will be a pain cause i dont have the right natures but whatevs)

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  10. Maybe I’m just weird but everynight before I go to bed I to the tide song hotel. I don’t know why but I like to think that my character stays there now.

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    • Yeah. EC really went above and beyond with these three videos. Always great to remember that Games can do more then simply be fun toys to entertain us.

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  16. I watched Indie Game The Movie yesterday for the 3rd time and I really want to start this game idea about bubbles. That movie is so motivational. Plus lots of Phil Fish and I kinda love him even though he is an asshole. And Jonathon Blow who is just the coolest.

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  19. Rank the pseudos? You can do them in terms of skill or design/how much you like them or whatever. Mines how much I like them in general.

    1) Garchomp
    2) Hydreigon
    3) Tyranitar
    4) Dragonite
    5) Metagross
    6) Salamence
    7) Goodra
    8) Kommo-o (so disappointing)

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      • More or less the movie’s has some controversial design choices. From having random glowing holes on the costume, to giving the girls costumes boob-socks and heels, to making the costumes over all look more like ironman suits rather then a more modern take of a spandex costume. However the toys were recently revealed and they haven’t done much better. Goldar, the cat man in gold armor has been reduced to a melted gold man with tentacles for a mouth, and this is the mega zord; a generic looking robot with little color to it(despite you being able to see the T-rex just below it with plenty of color), that looks more like it belongs with Michael Bay in Transformers rather then a movie about robot dinosaurs transforming into a robot. It really just looks super generic and doesn’t look like it ever had any connection to the base robots, other then the small traces of color.

        But again it could be worse. I mean this is literally the Goldar toy.
        https://images.moviepilot.com/images/c_limit,q_auto,w_710/v1km3ntgxsohvxn9d9ti/why-the-2017-power-rangers-movie-is-right-to-change-goldar-and-other-classic-designs.jpg

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        • What was wrong with using the old Goldar Design but using CG to augment him, like make his wings move properly etc? With this and Frog Alpha I’m really not impressed at all. Even Bryan Cranston as Zordon doesn’t give me any confidence in this anymore.

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          • Honestly I really don’t know anymore. I”m guessing its the argument that everything needs to be more edgy and extreme, and avoid the campy nature of the series, but that kinda misses the point all together. Power rangers was a series that in one breath could write a scene where a robot stops evil pizzas that possess cars with a stop sign, But an episode later could deal with serious themes of regret, revenge, failure, fears and even death. Then again I think most people have written this off as at best well meaning people missing the mark of what could have been good, and at worst a quick cash grab at nostalgia in the form of appealing to the lowest common denominator by people who really didn’t care about the series to begin with, which wouldn’t be a first. Heck I would suggest reading into some of the talk of Power Rangers when Disney had the rights to ti and how much they hated working with it given the fact that it wasn’t the cheapest thing to produce and generally saw it as an embarrassment for them to own.

          • I agree. On that last point, if Disney didn’t want it they didn’t have to buy it, someone must have known what it was before they bought it. Anyway RPM was pretty darn good so at least they had one good series out of it.

    • Disgusting I hate it…..I was excited when they announced a new Power rangers movie….but the Zords are awful in my opinion. The originals look way better. There’s a way to make them look less toy like without making them completely different and they’ve missed the mark I think entirely…..God help this movie……

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  23. So apparently 3DS systems are selling out everywhere and are difficult to find right now.
    *Insert Joe Merrick tweet slamming the people who complain about Nintendo*

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    • Yeah Nintendo’s been killing it this year on the 3DS. Heck The 2DS in pretty much every form sold out between black Friday and Cyber Monday pretty much everywhere around me, even used version from my local gaming store. Honestly it kinda makes me wonder what Nintendo’s really planning for the thing, especially with the money they’ve invested into white hackers to find what exploits the handheld has.

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      • It’ll also be interesting to see if Gen VII becomes the first gen of main-series games to be split between devices, since Stars may very well be for the Switch.

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        • It’ll be interesting. Game Freak seems to change their opinion on the switch every other week, with the last statement I think they said being that their going to wait to see how the system does before pushing anything major on it. That and Stars is still a rumor. Its a rumor from a good source, but good sources can be misinformed.

          Honestly if I were a betting man at this point I’d guess Stars is a code name like how Pokemon Rainbow was a codename for Sun and Moon, and I’d probably guess that it could be something like Gen 7’s pokemon Battle Revolution or something. I really can’t see them pushing out another main series game on another console this soon, especially when Nintendo seems to be stressing that they themselves aren’t really thinking of the switch as their main handheld, and more of their home console, personally making me think that they either want to get a few more years out of the 3DS, or their working on a new device that will come out after the switch. But again that’s purely conjuncture based on what little we do know.

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    • can confirm, I went into all the game stores in my area this week and all their shelves for 3DS and N3DS were bare, EB games only had on system left and it was a regular boring red N3DS. They usually are stocked really full. But they all still had a bunch of xbox ones at every location, you know, because the PS4 is superior

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  24. Hai you guys! 😀 Sorry for the long, long, long absence, but between finishing my semester out to playing both versions at once so it took awhile to getting my Shiny Charm, Pokejungle kind of went into the backburner.
    But I do love these games (even if I do agree with some of these points). I’m SOS method-ing a Fomantis right now, and I already have a cute Cutiefly (now Ribombee), Pikipek (now Toucannon), and Cubone (now an awesomely cool shiny Alolan Marowak) as my beautiful shiny trophies in this game.
    And yes, I already restarted my Sun copy and am playing through with Primarina (I’m near the end of the game-ish) And I definitely see myself resetting it a good amount of the times.
    Anyways, though, I’ll try to be on during a more active time, but I just wanted to say my thoughts and whatnot :3

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    • Well, I completed shiny charm with the help of other junglers… 🙂

      Mostly Porygon-Z and someone just coincidentally asking for help trade-evolving it… coz I sure ain’t spending BP just for living dex (until later, perhaps).

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      • You can get the Dubious Disc from battling Faba after you become Champion. I spent no BP completing it, and I completing it in 5-6 ish days.
        I had help from the GTS, but most of it was all me, catching and evolving. I didn’t mind since it was something I wanted to do by myself, since it wasn’t an daunting task like it was in ORAS (I definitely had help there)

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        • In my case “I had help from the GTS” would be a massive understatement… I gained all my UB’s, Necrozma, Lunala, extra Cosmog, extra Cosmoem from it. I haven’t even started the Looker quest yet.

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          • I was tempted to get Type: Null and Silvally from there, so I can SR for a shiny one, but I don’t mind doing it in my Sun copy regardless. It’ll be a side hunt for sure, so it’s something I don’t mind taking forever.

          • Oh yeah thanks for reminding me I need a spare type null AND silvally for living dex. (I’m using my current one a lot, so that doesn’t count.)

          • Yeah, I found just getting a version exclusive on there or a super hard to get mon will get you most anything really xD It was kind of fun going through the GTS, even if the person wants a super low level mon that is virtually impossible to get.

          • Good thing I went through the story with my Alakazam because for some reason someone coincidentally put up a Lunala for 61-70 Alakazam.

            Also in weekends there’s some questionably easy Cosmog trades I took advantage of even though I wasn’t fast enough for many of them…

          • Yeah, I took advantage of some of the easier trades for sure. There were some I was questioning though, like a 1-10 Dragonair. I was literally like ‘….k then bai’. Like bro please, cut me some slack.

          • Really?! xD I thought it was always set to male or female when you do one gender mons. That’s crazy. I also saw a bunch of requests for mons not yet attainable. Too crazy.

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