Partridge Senpai's 2017 Beaten Games:1.
Tales of Hearts R (Vita)
2.
UPPERS (Vita)
3.
Volume (Vita)
4.
Overlord: Minions (DS)
5.
Kirby: Planet Robobot (3DS)
6.
Overlord II (PS3)
7.
Overlord: Dark Legend (Wii)
8.
La-Mulana (Remake) (PC)
9.
Infamous: Second Son (PS4)
10.
htol#NiQ: The Firefly Diary (Vita)
11.
Blood Bowl (360)
12.
Dead to Rights: Retribution (360)
13.
Bioshock Infinite (360)
14.
Bioshock Infinite: Burial At Sea Part 1 (360)
15.
Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea Part 2 (360)
16.
Singularity (360)
17.
Seifuku Densetsu Pretty Fighter X (Saturn)
18.
Ultraman: Hikari No Kyojin Densetsu (Saturn)
19.
Donkey Kong 64 (N64) (repeat)
20.
Song of the Deep (PS4)
21.
Naruto Gekitou Ninja Taisen 3 (GCN)
22.
Banjo-Tooie (N64) (repeat)
23.
Wario Land (VB)
24.
Yakuza HD Edition (PS3)
25.
Yakuza 2 HD Edition (PS3)
26.
Vanquish (PS3)
27.
Watchdogs 2 (PS4)
28.
Pikmin (Wii)
29.
Pikmin 3 (Wii U)
30.
Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (Wii U)
31.
Super Mario 3D World (Wii U)
32.
Tales of Innocence R (Vita)
33.
Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)
34.
Boing! Docomodake DS (DS)
35.
Kirby Triple Deluxe (3DS)
36.
Magicka 2: Learn to Spell... AGAIN! (PS4) (repeat)
37. Pokemon Moon (3DS)
I wanted something a bit slower to play than Ys III while I was away at a con with some friends a couple weeks ago. Now 3 weeks and 105 hours of game-time later, I'm finished with Pokemon Moon. The absurd amount of time I spent on it should belie just how much I fucking loved this game. It bucks so many trends of normal Pokemon games, it's astounding that this is by far the one I've loved the most for its gameplay.
With 300 Pokemon, this is by far the Pokemon game with the largest regional Pokedex out of any of the other main-series games. What this allows for is that you're ALWAYS finding new Pokemon. A new area is a new land filled with Pokemon that probably aren't found anywhere else, and there were always new Pokemon to find, catch, and battle. On top of that is a relative lack of trainers to battle at the pace earlier games loved so much. At least it felt to me, that I never had nearly as comfortable an amount of money as in the previous games. This could've just been because I was buying so many more Pokeballs than usual, but I chalked it up to less trainer battles, because it felt like I was spending a lot more time fighting wild Pokemon than wading through trainers. These two factors combined made for the best paced Pokemon game I've ever played.
A few other things added to this enhanced pace and feel. First, with no gyms, only island challenges, the pace of exactly what you're doing changes up a fair bit. While it is just more Pokemon battles of just a different flavour, I felt the island trials did actually shift the pace up a lot compared to the trainer-filled gyms with walking gimmicks the series is so accustomed to. The other thing that shifts up the pace of the wild battles is the SOS-system. I know some people really hate the SOS system, but I honestly loved it. It made something which is usually just a nuisance, wild Pokemon battles, and turned them into actually serious encounters. Unless you're really overleveled, a Pokemon calling in a buddy for help can really fuck up your day once a 2-on-1 battle starts. Especially if you don't have any super effective moves that can hit all opponents at once, if they're calling help every turn, you can really get in some hot water. For example, trying to catch a Magby, those little bastards called for help like EVERY turn, and it effectively wiped my team more than once trying to catch one. That's the kind of experience no other Pokemon game has been able to offer, and I loved it for it.
Now I didn't finish the Battle Tree (as my main team really wasn't suited to that tier of competitive fighting as I wanted to use only new Pokemon), but (with some help with trading from AlienJesus) I did get a living regional Pokedex, so I've done more or less everything the damn game has to offer. Going through that, there have been a complaint or two about the design of where and how Pokemon appear that really annoyed me. A LOT of the new Pokemon have only 5% appearnce chances in their respective single map/area they appear in. This effectively means that unless you're in an area for a really long time, or explicitly looked up their location on Bulbapedia (like I did), you may never even see any of the new guys in the wild. On top of that, you have things like about 10 Pokemon who only appear in the wild when they're called into another Pokemon's SOS battle, and others still who can only appear (with like a 10% chance) when an SOS call is put out during a specific weather affect. Shit like this made some Pokemon an absolute nightmare to catch, and it really didn't feel like the game respected the player's time. Granted, no one HAS to go out and catch a Goomy or a Gabite, so I don't begrieve the game toooo much for that, but what I do begrudge it for is never telling the player about these appearance conditions. The Pokedex just says "they appear here." It never says "they appear here only when called into an SOS (etc)." Inadiquately informing the player like this really annoyed me.
You have a few other instances where a more traditional RPG UI really would've benefited the game. Most explicitly with "side-quests" as the internet is calling them (which I think is a bit of a generous term). Occasionally you'll run into people who want you to run around an area and find their NPC Pokemon for them, or to show them an entry of a certain Pokemon in your Pokedex. The game doesn't track these people or where they are at all, so if you forget, you're gonna have a hard time remembering they exist, since there's never anything different about how those NPC's look. This is especially annoying with the Zygarde cell-collection sidequest, where the game never tells you which ones you've picked up or where. With the very dedicated effort I put forth to finding theme, there were still 2 I could just never find
Some more miscellaneous comments:
-The Festival Plaza and the Poke Resort are both cool, but they're a bit more complicated to figure out than they really needed to be. They're a nice centralization of features other games have had, but they're really only a big boon if you already know how they work.
-Regional Pokemon are a fantastic addition. It's an ingeneous method of adding what are effectively new Pokemon without actually making the Pokedex any bigger and I really hope we keep seeing it in more games.
-Z-moves are a fantastic edition. They're way more situationally viable than Mega Evolutions, which look cool but I think are in practical terms almost always a terrible decision. The departure from any new mega evolutions in this gen implies to me we've seen the end of them, which I'm totally okay with.
-Ride Pokemon are obviously another fantastic innovation over HM's and something the series has needed a long time. My only complaint about them is that I spent SO much time ONLY travelling on the itemfinder doggo one that all I heard was his music theme, and none of the really nice locational themes for the most part.
-This game has some of the best music Pokemon ever has had, especially with a lot of the unique trainer ones (like Guzma's and Red's).
-Getting rid of the super-training (the speed bag EV training thingy) from Gen 6 was really dumb and I have no idea why they did it because that was a fantastically intuitive way to EV train O.o
-The narrative was very good for a Pokemon game. I didn't enjoy it quite as much as 5th gen's, but it was head and shoulders above 6th gen's storyline, and definitely a contender for best Pokemon storyline.
Verdict: Highly Recommended. This is the shake-up the series has needed for a long time. Despite its missteps, it's by far the one I find most fun to play, and is the only one I've ever played (and I've played them all) that has actually made me really want to pick up the 3rd game because I just haven't had enough of Alolah yet. Any RPG fan I feel will at least get some enjoyment out of Pokemon Sun/Moon, even if they didn't enjoy it quite as much as I did.
I identify everyone via avatar, so if you change your avatar, I genuinely might completely forget who you are. -- Me