The story was fun and was more interesting than the average Pokémon game. I have no problems with any of the newly-introduced creatures. I like the region. There's varied terrain, and it's definitely not annoying to navigate like Kalos was in certain places. The gameplay mechanics changes are welcome - no more HMs, better overall user experience, etc.
Overall I like the game as a standalone product.
But why is it the case that features from the previous games are removed?
Here's a vague list of things from previous games that I legitimately invested a lot of time into...which just aren't in Sun / Moon at all:
- The National Pokédex
This is the biggest missing feature for me. The slogan of the series is "Gotta catch 'em all!". But now it doesn't even keep track of the ones you've caught if they are not one of the 300 Alola-region Pokémon. I understand that it will be impossible to get the majority of non-Alola Pokémon until the Bank update in January, but it's still possible to get a few of them:
Through Island Scan, you can get get 28 assorted three-stage families of non-Alola Pokémon, including the Johto and Unova starters, and miscelleneous Pokémon such as Klink, Marill and Luxio.
And through the Special Demo, you can get yourself a Greninja. (you can't breed this one, though, so you can't get Froakie or Frogadier)
This is a total of 85 Pokémon that it's possible to get in Sun / Moon before January that just flat-out aren't recorded or mentioned in the Pokédex at all. This is kind of ridiculous, and it kind of kills a large part of the fun in catching and evolving these rare Pokémon.
This problem will just get worse come January, as instead of just 85, it will be 500.
- The PSS
The online functionality was one of the best-handled parts about Gen 6. The PSS was always available on the bottom screen. It showed anyone who was playing Pokémon nearby, and if you connected online, it showed people who were also connected online. You could request trades and battles with these people any time, and could also give and receive O-powers to help others.
in Sun / Moon, this useful and functional system was replaced with Festival Plaza, a convoluted mess that acts as a sort of cross between the PSS and Join Avenue from B2W2. The biggest problem with it is that you can't use it as you're adventuring - you have to stop what you're doing. The menu interfaces are confusing as always - asking random people for a battle is a much bigger hassle. ... In short, it's clunky and stupid and the PSS was better in almost every way.
- Super Training
So Gen 6 was the first game that actually let you see your EVs properly in numbers, as part of the Super Training interface. You could also use it to play a minigame to increase the EVs in specific ways, which was useful if the monotony of battling specific creatures was getting a bit old and you wanted a more direct way of training EVs.
Well, Sun / Moon just got rid of this entirely with no replacement. The end.
Have fun with boring EV training again, Gen 5 style.
- The Battle Test
In Lumiose City and Mauville City in Gen 6, and Nimbasa City in Gen 5, there was the Battle Institute, where you could test out your team against increasingly difficult opponents and earn BP. It was not like the Battle Maison / Subway / Tower where you had to keep a streak going - it was just five battles and you're done.
This appealed to me more than the Battle Maison ever did - the majority of Pokémon teambuilding I went through in these games was for the purpose of trying to achieve Master Rank in the Battle Test. It felt really rewarding when I finally got it. :D
Sun and Moon replaces this with Battle Royals. ... I'm sure Battle Royals have their own interesting meta, but the general structure of them just appeals to me less. Why can't we have both?
- Move Tutors
God damn it Game Freak, why are Move Tutors LITERALLY NEVER in the initial installments? Why are they always left out until the third version or the remake versions? How hard is it to put an NPC near the battle facilities that trades BP for teaching Pokémon moves?? That's all it is. Why must this be such an elusive feature that always gets postponed until the later installments?
- Rematching trainers
Gen 3 and 4 got this right. We had the Vs. Seeker in FRLG and DPPt, and the phone calls in HGSS.
Gen 5 was bad, but it at least had the Nimbasa football stadium where you could fight every day.
XY was worse, but atleast had the Chateau on Route 7.
ORAS was good with the Trainers Eyes system, but only because it took the system straight from RSE.
...
Sun / Moon gets nothing. No recurring rematches at all except for Morimoto in the Game Freak building, once a day.
whyyyyyyy. don't they realise how annoying it is to level up with just wild encounters?
And what about earning money for the ridiculously-expensive cosmetic clothing options?
I guess we'll all just have to grind money using nothing but Morimoto
...and the stupid Pyukumuku chucking sidequest.
- Miscellaneous world-building elements
The televisions in Alola only have the same malasada advert and nothnig else. Such a shame - the radio stations in Johto and the televisions in Hoenn and Unova had so many interesting tidbits they could tell us, including random trivia, lore, and even a couple of Japanese lessons for good measure. But in Alola, it's nothing but malasadas. Shame.
- Miscellaneous other features
Holding B to run is stupid. Give us a run toggle, like HGSS did. Why was HGSS the only game to do this?
It's impossible to use Sweet Scent or Teleport outside of battle now. I guess they not only wanted to remove HMs, but all field moves entirely, even the useful ones. Okay, sure, whatever.
Pokemon walking alongside you outside of the Pokéball like in HGSS would be nice, but I understand that it would be harder with 3D graphics.
Horde battles, and Rotation and Triple battles are just gone for no reason. ...
There's no more picture puzzle minigame in Pokémon Amie. I kind of liked this puzzle. I also liked Voltorb Flip from HGSS. Lol, this one's not a huge problem.
So anyway.
If all of these things were in the game, I'd call Sun / Moon the best ever Pokémon game.
But for the moment, it just feels incomplete, just like XY felt incomplete, just like Black / White felt incomplete.
Why do they keep doing this?
Why do they feel the need to reinvent the wheel every gen?
I'm sure the next Gen 7 release will feel much more complete, so I'm not too worried. But it's just so annoying how this happens every gen. Can't they build off of the previously-available features, rather than just scrapping everything and starting over each time?
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