I knew I had to get this out before the new Ultra Sun and Moon editions came to stores, but I finally had time to finish up my copy of Moon! Yeah I know it took longer than usual for as simple a game as Pokemon, but to be fair I live a pretty busy life nowadays. So this is my third and final entry for my impressions towards the first set of seventh generation games. This entry will be more review-ish as I decide where these games settle among the other titles in the franchise. I hope you enjoy this impression…

*This is the game in its full entirety, so some spoilers might occur. You have been warned*

The Story: From what I’ve said in previous parts, Sun and Moon have quite possibly the most engaging story out of the franchise, strange considering how engaging the Black and White versions tales were. This is also the first story in a long time where there were more characters I enjoyed than characters I despised, really the only character I despised throughout this whole ordeal was Hau, who I find to be obnoxious and even pointless so I hope that he becomes better in the sequel games. And it is of great importance to acknowledge the overwhelmingly huge amount of cutscenes in this game. To be fair, these cutscenes are done well and certainly get the story across. The problem with this is that it sacrifices gameplay for these cutscenes which sort of takes away from the classic play style of the franchise. So I guess in the end I have no clear opinion on the matter because I’m not sure how to fix it, it fits what the game tries to do and it helps the story while at the same time taking over the main thing about what a “game” is.

The Graphical Look: Again, these are the best looking Pokemon games out there, and this region will only get better with Pokemon Ultra Sun and Moon. The Hawaii inspired region certainly fits the the look of both the Pokemon and its human inhabitants. It also helps that I’ve been to Hawaii and have seen surprisingly many of the creatures that have inspired the Pokemon in the game. The elite four area at the end of the game is also a cool and inspired design, and the final champion challenge is possibly the best looking setting with the influence of the best revamped song.

The Play: So the most surprising thing about the gameplay is how it comes into great importance at the very end of the game. The journey throughout the story of this game gives you the comforted feeling that you do not really need to grind that much or worry about your Pokemon’s levels or stats. However when you begin the elite four challenge, you quickly realize how screwed you are when having to actually face a challenge in the easy going journey. Perhaps this is just something that happened to me and I did a mediocre job, but it was still ironically a treat considering how this moment took me back to the challenging time of my younger self fighting the elite four of classic Red version.

The Pokemon: The Pokemon are still the best part. I can now say at this point that this region has one of the best rosters throughout the generations, possibly and arguably more impressive than the previous generation but that can be debatable. Like the previous generation, there is not as much Pokemon that are new which is kind of a bummer. However I do think that this is to make the new Pokemon seem more unique and special, and perhaps they don’t want to overwhelm us again like generation five did. In terms of the mascot legendary, I really like Lunala. It was a tough decision on which mascot legendary I liked the best, because Solgaleo is also an excellent designed pokemon, but I grew to really appreciate Lunala and it is quite powerful.

The End: Thankfully the ending takes a break from those rabid cutscenes and allows us to appreciate the gameplay… until the ending cutscenes happen, which honestly isn’t a bad thing. What is a bad thing though is how these final cutscenes lead straight into a legendary encounter, and I don’t recall the game allowing you to save before hand. This means that if you fail to catch the legendary, you would most likely have to restart all the way back to the elite four (in my case, back to fighting the champion since I saved after each battle). This might not be a problem for most, But I still found it shocking. As for the after game, hunting and catching Ultra Beasts is a lot of fun. It is certainly no Delta episode like Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, where you ride Rayquaza to space to fight Deoxys, but it is still a fun sequence of simply hunting and catching honestly some really powerful pokemon.

Overall: I really enjoyed this game and I cannot wait to see the alternate tale in Ultra Moon version. I believe that this game, if I had to top list my favorites at gunpoint, would be in my third spot of favorite Pokemon games because I still have a love for Soul Silver and Emerald versions, but in all honestly these three are pretty neck-in-neck for my favorite since I like all three for three different reasons. I feel as though the games are still an experience that has to be, well, experienced. If you have not played these yet I highly suggest that you do.

Thank you for reading, hopefully I can pick up Ultra Moon version early so I can do some earlier impressions on that game. Until next time, I hope this was a fun read…