At the time this comes out news on the 8th Generation of Pokémon shall be coming out shortly. So since I’ve looked to the first and second Generation let us skip ahead to the currently most recent and see as to where things are before we leap into the 8th, and its universally loved Scottish female protégé.

Before we talk about Gen 7 I need to cover a bit about Gen 6 to catch you up. First thing is that Pokémon moved into being a 3d game rather than a 2d one, replacing sprites with the 3d characters. It also introduced Fairy type Pokémon to help combat dragons who Nintendo felt were getting rather powerful (I argue this as it’s a statistical anomaly due to a lot of dragons being the pseudo legendaries and feel other types needed buffs and nerfs instead).

Anyway Pokémon Sun and Moon are 3DS games and were set in the Alola region which is based on the Hawaii islands – as such the Alola region is made of several islands. The two games as usual contain different Pokémon in areas and a different legendary (Moon has Lunala while Sun has Solgaleo) but they also contain more differences than most other versions. For example the time on Moon is 12 hours later than on your 3ds clock so when you play during the day it’s in fact night time in the game. Also certain events are different in Moon than in Sun but I’ll get that that shortly.

A major addition to this game are the Z moves. By equipping a Pokémon with a Z crystal they can do a one off move of the corresponding type complete with a social animation of your trainer. These replace for the most part the Mega Evolutions of Gen 6 and I feel they are much better. The acquisition of them is integrated into the plot without taking it over like Mega Evolution which was overpowered, meant some Pokémon had to be banned and the second set of games introduced Mega Rayquaza who was so broken (as in powerful) it had be given its own category. Z moves on the other hand are one use super moves that though able to turn the tide of battle are not one win buttons.

The story is one of the best in all of Pokémon, up there with Pokémon B/W’s plot. You and your mother (fathers are rare in Pokémon)have arrived in the Alola region in what seems like you going on an island trial and encounter a team of punks called Team Skull soon gets you caught up in a plot by one of Pokémon’s best villains of all time and a plan involving other dimensional beings! And THEN do you go to the Pokémon league only there is a bit of a twist at the end of this run 🙂

The Island Trials replace Pokémon gyms this time around (meaning the horrible Pokémon anime didn’t just have the eternal looser lost in the woods for 200 episodes) and are quite a bit different. As well as minor puzzles you then sometimes face the totem Pokémon who is an extra powerful version of a Pokémon that will call out for aid to outnumber you (meaning you are fighting 2 against 1 a lot of the time).

With these massive improvements you think this game is the perfect Pokémon games… well it has its issues. The call for help mechanic which Pokémon can do to get help is used to find some Pokémon that don’t appear otherwise and its rather annoying to pull off but my main complaint was, it removed super training. Super training was the most useful thing in Gen 6 where you could completely control the EVs of a Pokémon (these effect stats) by doing a mini game; at most this would take an hour usually a lot less and could be used to get some special hidden items. This meant that after getting the Pokémon that I wanted, I could use super training to get its EVs just right and then use it right away without fear of messing them up. In Sun and Moon the equivalent takes over a day or more which completely takes you out of the action (what’s that ?- I just got a legendary with a good nature, well now to stop playing the game while waiting for the damn EVs I want lest I mess up and give it some I didn’t want it to have).

There are many Pokémon in this Gen that soon entered people’s hearts. Mimikyu a ghost/fairy type that wants so much to be loved disguises itself as Pikachu won many people over (which makes it odd the anime depicted its one as a psychopath) While the grass starter Rowlet ended up being the big winner of the starter Pokémon this time round making it into Pokkén tournaments Switch port and only missing out as the entrant into Smash because of Smash’s Head wanting a wrestler character.

Pokémon Sun and Moon were later followed up by Pokémon Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon which though having more features, the story felt lessened and they still hadn’t brought back super training. I find thanks to the first two that Gen 7 is one of the best Pokémon Gens out there up there with 5 and probably a good game to burn the hours till Gen 8 and its Scottish lassie are released.

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