Lately I have been putting a great deal of my free time to Pokémon Sun for Nintendo 3DS. So much so that I thought that writing a review was the way to go. 👍
What makes Pokémon Sun so special is that it's a perfect mixture of old and new. Old in the sense that it has surprisingly many old Pokémon from the previous generations. On the first island, you can bump into a Growlithe, Zubat, Slowpoke and so on. This is cool, because you don't feel too lost with the game and all of its new Pokémon. Some old Pokémon have a slightly different form in Alola region to spice them up.
All this is nice, but what really impresses me is that the game is not just another remake of the old games with 100 new creatures and a new world to discover. No, they have managed to reinvent the whole game in a refreshing way.😊Starting from making the game easier to use by removing the double confirmation for saving the game and showing a marker on the map that will always tell you where to go next, they have changed the whole plot of the game. Your goal is no longer to beat all the gyms and collect badges, no. Instead, you are to complete different "trials" on all the islands and after completing them on an island, you are challenged by a gym leader like person of the island. This whole idea reminds me of the second season of the TV show in which Ash had to complete different kinds of challenges on each isle instead of traditional gym battles. 🤔
Ever since from Gold and Silver times there have been Pokémon that only evolve when they like their masters enough, like Pichu, Golbat, Eevee, to name a few. The most bugging thing ever since their introduction has been that there is simply no way of telling how much your Pokémon like you unless you travel to a specific city and talk to a specific person who can give you an ambiguous description of their love towards you. Now this whole thing has changed. You can actually see how much they like you in a special new option in the menu. And what is more, you can actually pet them and feed them to make them like you even more. Evolution of certain Pokémon is not the only perk you gain from their unconditional love; if the bond between a trainer and his Pokémon is strong enough, they can actually avoid attacks and heal from status effects such as confusion or paralysis during a battle. Pretty neat, huh? 😃
Another thing I really like is that hidden machines (Fly, Surf, Rocksmash) have been replaced with helper Pokémon you can just summon. So, in order to play the game, you no longer need to have at least one water Pokémon for surfing and one flying type Pokémon for flying in your party. You can just summon a Lapras or Charizard to do the job. This is cool not only because you don't need to teach HMs to your Pokémon but also because it looks so cool 😎 that you are riding an actual Lapras in the game world and not just some generic placeholder Pokémon like in the previous games. ☺️
The only minus I can think of is that the game is a bit easier than the old ones. Apart from that, it's the massive update the game series has been longing for ever since Gold and Silver. All the other games after them have basically just been the same what it comes to the game play and story. Changing Team Rocket to team Magma or so can hardly be considered an actual change. This time around there are more new cool features than ever before. Wild Pokémon can even summon help and Pokémon Snap -like minigame has been included in Pokémon Sun.
If you enjoyed playing Pokémon Go last summer, you will definitely enjoy Pokémon Sun too. They just have done too many things right for a true fan to ignore this game… And yes – you can get a Pikachu in this game. If you don't have the game already, now is the perfect time to buy either Sun
