Pokémon Sun and Moon (3DS) Review

In 2016 the seventh generation of Pokémon games was launched with Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon. This would be the final 3DS Pokémon generation and one of the last major 3DS games as a whole. In this review Pokémon Sun will be judged on its own merits, but everything also applies to Pokémon Moon.

The gameplay of Pokémon Sun is extremely familiar. Turn based battles, collecting and training Pokémon, and walking around all make their return. The biggest new addition are Z-Moves which are unfortunately up there with the worst gimmicks in a Pokémon game yet. They let the player use an extremely powerful move once a battle by sacrificing the held item on the Pokémon that will use the Z-Crystal. They are not particularly well balanced and also extremely uninteresting as a gameplay mechanic as there is essentially no counter-play besides knowing the metagame and your opponent playing a team that you recognize. Pokémon Sun also features older gimmicks like a somewhat nerfed version of Mega Evolution too. The new Pokémon, items, moves, and abilities introduced are about as interesting as those introduced in any other Pokémon with the standard power creep that guarantees their viability. Overall battling in Pokémon Sun is mostly unchanged from the sixth generation Pokémon games and as fun as ever despite some questionable design decisions.

The campaign of Pokémon Sun was obviously the main focus of this game but is easily arguably the worst campaign of a Pokémon game by far. There are a lot of new things tried here but the changes are mostly superficial, barely effecting the experience. The actual region has extremely uninteresting level design and is much more confusing to navigate beyond following the marker on the map than it should be. Difficulty is a slight improvement from the previous generation but still not enough to challenge just about anyone who has ever played a Pokémon game before and probably most people who haven’t played one either. The excruciatingly long cutscenes and dialogue make this game a test of patience more than anything. Once the player has suffered through the main story there is basically nothing of interest to do besides the standard online play which has very few changes but is still perfectly acceptable. There are some welcome changes to creating a competitive team for the minority of people who care about that. Overall the ingame aspect of Pokémon is extremely uninteresting for people with experience with Pokémon, leaving those people with the online aspect of the game for an even somewhat engaging experience. This section sounds extremely harsh but despite all of its shortcomings Pokémon Sun still has the standard Pokémon campaign that made so many people fans in the first place. There was just so much untapped potential for a better experience for players of all skill levels.

The sound in Pokémon Sun isn’t as good as in some earlier Pokémon games but it still holds the high standard for sound that Pokémon games have. The music is often unique for the series but is still distinctly Pokémon music. Sound effects are generally either extremely generic or legacy sounds that Pokémon never gets rid of. Overall the sound in Pokémon Sun is easily above average but not exactly a selling point.

Technically Pokémon Sun is still far from as impressive as it should be for the latter half of the 3DS’s life. A few areas are look impressive for a 3DS game, but overall the presentation is only about average. The performance in battles is still far below what it should be, with frequent drops significantly below 30 FPS even despite the complete removal of support for the 3DS’s 3D screen. Otherwise the 3DS’s features are used to the same standard as hardware support from the Pokémon series for other handhelds, so there is nothing to complain about there. Overall the Pokémon brand easily had the recourses to create a much more optimized and visually appealing game.

The story in Pokémon Sun is overall barely ever entertaining. This normally wouldn’t be a problem but so much time is spent on story that is mandatory that it severely detracts from the experience of playing the game. Overall Pokémon Sun is not worth playing for the story, being more worth playing in spite of the story if anything.

In terms of value Pokémon Sun and any other game with Pokémon in the title is obviously worth it. There is essentially infinite amounts of fun to be had with this game even if the game fails in so many ways. It is still a Pokémon game which guarantees a certain experience that most games can’t match.

Overall the reviewer would give the game a 8.0 out of 10.

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