Difficulty Settings
It’s no secret that the Pokemon series has never been particularly difficult. In fact, it’s likely that you’ve made your way through a good number of the games and found yourself becoming the Pokemon Champion of various regions without a loss to your name. Yet, in Sun and Moon, it feels like any shred of difficulty has been removed. Trials are simple, cave formations are easy to navigate, and EXP Share kinda defeats the point of a grinding mechanics. That’s not to say Sun and Moon are bad games, but they’re definitely not going to be testing your skills as a Trainer any time soon.
What Sun and Moon could have really done with is a difficulty setting, scaling up AI trainers and random Pokemon encounters to add a bit of challenge for series veterans. While we understand the games are intended to be suitable for children, a difficulty setting would be the perfect way to ramp up the challenge without having to follow the rules of the Nuzlocke Challenge.
More Alolan Forms
One of the most impressive features of Sun and Moon are its Alolan forms of older Pokemon. The likes of Vulpix, Rattata, Grimer, and of course, Dugtrio and Exeggutor all see changes to their appearance as a result of being exposed to a different climate. These have been done in such a way that, even if they do look a bit doofy like Dugtrio and its flowing blonde locks, it makes sense why they’ve adopted these new traits, much like real-life evolution.
Unfortunately, there aren’t a ton of Pokemon that have taken on these new forms or made it to the Alola region and as much as we understand more Pokemon mean a bigger file size, it would have been great to see a few more thrown in for good measure. Alolan forms of some fan favorites such as Venusaur, whose back could be massively overgrown from the optimal temperatures of Alola, or Farfetch’d with more exotic coloring and feathers would have still made sense in the context of the world.
Additional Regions
It would always be a stretch, but one of the things that made Pokemon Gold and Silver stand out to many players was the fact that once you’d become the Pokemon Champion of Johto, you then had a bunch of Gyms to beat in Kanto, too. This new region had different Pokemon to catch, and extended the amount of time until players reached the end-game content.
As great and different as Alola is, it would have been great if Sun and Moon had sent us back to any of the previous games’ regions to beat their Gyms, collect more Pokemon that can’t be caught in Alola, and generally explore that little bit more. Here’s hoping we’ll be exploring more than one region in the next title.
More Reasons to Explore
With four tropical islands just waiting for you to visit and explore teeming with a completely different culture, Pokemon Sun and Moon’s setting provides such a stark contrast to previous regions we’ve visited in the series. And while you’ll sometimes head off the beaten path to explore some long grass in search of that elusive Pokemon you know is on the specific route, there’s not really any other reason you’ll want to venture off the main path.
The side quests that NPCs give you are always easy enough to find and these huge islands are pretty limited in terms of getting around, hindering your reason and ability to simply just see what cool things the region has to offer. While the Zygarde Cells and Cores will have you exploring for a little while, it’d have been cool had we been given more legendary Pokemon lurking in the depths of some intricate cave systems, or just some cool random events to check out on our quest to become the Alolan Pokemon Champion. With the steps the series has taken since it began, this feels like one of the next logical steps to really flesh out the world. After all, just look at Ash’s less-than-straightforward adventures in the anime!
Team Skull
Team Skull are definitely a vegemite scenario where you’ll either love their over-the-top arm movements and ‘down with the kids lingo’ manner of speaking, or you’ll be so desperate for each cutscene with them to end that you’ll mash the A button until they go away. There’s an argument to be had that, really, no ‘Team’ in the Pokemon series has truly felt evil or like they could actually do something of serious consequence since the days of Giovanni and Team Rocket.
Instead, Team Skull feel like a bit of a joke all the way through your journey and their awkward dialogue is more cringeworthy than humorous. Again, it’s clear that Sun and Moon are really reaching out to the younger demographic of players, but that can be achieved without making the bad guys feel excessively larger than life.
