Pros:
Great music. The new Hawaii-inspired setting is largely to thank here. I pretty much only play the game with a good pair of headphones, it just sounds amazing. Pokémon make sounds that range from "adorable" to "playing a txt file in WinAmp", overall they're pretty good though.
Visuals aren't bad either, the Pokémon look great somewhat at the expense of the background during battles, but there are some pretty cool effects being thrown around and the overworld scrubs up nicely. Everything's polygonal, and the environments seem more freeform and not so tied to a grid (to that end the dpad is not supported for movement). You can't move the camera manually, but apart from that it feels like we're closer than ever to the 3D console game fans have been longing for.
Alola forms are surprisingly likable so far. Alola Meowth looks like a stoner, Alola Muk is vibrantly coloured, and Alola Rattata has a really sketchy moustache on the go. I believe Alola Raichu uses its tail as a surfboard, but I wouldn't know because my Pichu fucking hates my guts and won't evolve.
HM slaves are a thing of the past. Now you just hit Y, and a list of the ridable Pokémon you've unlocked so far appears, each with a special move. Alternatively, you still get contextual prompts so for instance if you inspect the water edge you can do the Sun/Moon equivalent of Surf without going into the menu. Really nice change, this cuts out a bunch of stuff that didn't need to be there, you've got more freedom in building your party, and the first rideable Pokémon you get is faster than the Bike in previous titles so I imagine it's replaced entirely by this new feature. This is one of those QoL improvements that will be jarring upon returning to an older game in the series, up there with TMs being one use only.
Fishing's been refined- you can only fish in designated areas indicated by certain rocks, which I think is better as you're less likely to waste time fishing in a shit spot without knowing. It's a nice counterpart to the long grass on land. Sometimes there are bubbles erupting from the rocks, which is kind of like shaking grass. Allegedly rarer Pokémon are available this way, naturally I keep getting Magikarp. Enemy encounter rate when you're just moving around on water (not actively fishing) seems to be greatly reduced, at least in the seas I've explored so far. And that's the thing- you can explore now without the constant annoyance of L8 Tentacool in your face, or the threat of getting smashed in the early game. Again the island setting lends itself well here.
Interacting with the PC Box is streamlined, you just hit the button and you're in. No more wading through an unnecessary menu of options that basically just restricted how you used the same Box in different ways. It must have been weird for new players that it said "Someone's PC" in the past games until you met the relevant NPC too. Much better.
I think Mega Evolutions have been removed? I'm not going to miss them. Now there are Z Moves, which I admit seem like a novelty primarily designed to sell plastic bracelets at EB, but they give you access to some pretty cool/funny moves, or alternatively, are easily ignored.
Difficulty seems to be improved, by which I mean it's harder. X/Y were a cakewalk, and I skipped ORAS partly because I'd heard they were even easier. I find I'm changing up my team a lot more frequently as opposed to sticking with my starter and shitting on everything regardless of typing.
Cons:
Opposing Pokémon can now "call for help" during battle, which provides a chance of another Pokémon turning up and fighting on their side. I have very mixed feeling about this. For a start, the player can never do this, and once it becomes a 2 on 1, you're not given the option to bring out another Pokémon to make it a proper Double Battle. Whatever. The most annoying thing though is that calling for help isn't actually a move, so it doesn't use up the opponents turn, is still shown in full when animations are turned off whether it fails or succeeds, and as I learned today can even be performed when the Pokémon is fast asleep! This is bullshit.
More than once I've carefully whittled a Pokémon down with the intention of catching it, then it calls for help, and I'm stuck in a potentially infinite loop of one-shotting the newcomer, getting hit by the original one, then it calling for help again. Most of the time it's just annoying, but I had it happen during one of the boss battles and it was fucking infuriating. I had the advantage in attack type, defense type, level, and even had the fucking weather on my side, but was still getting steamrolled. It's not all bad as it adds an element of danger to combat, and will probably be really useful post-end game for catching specific Pokemon, but so far it tends to annoy me.
No 3D whatsoever. This is probably more a case of me not tempering my expectations, as I don't recall the last few Pokémon games having 3D either, plus I have heard that it's being used less and less in 3DS games in general these days. It'd been ages since I'd fired up the handheld, and I may have set the bar a little high. Despite this concession there are still some performance issues, with frames dropping when there are three on the field, and dropping pretty noticeably when you're in a Double Battle or Battle Royal (4P free for all). It doesn't hurt the turn-based gameplay, but it's there.
Some Pokémon seem broken. Y'know how Abra is traditionally a pain in the butt to catch because it uses Teleport immediately? I went to the trouble of catching one in the very early game as I thought a pure Psychic type would be handy. Because it only knows Teleport, you have to head up your party with it and switch out in each fight to earn an appreciable amount of XP. Got to L16 and evolved into Kadabra, and still hadn't learnt any form of attack. Checked online and apparently it never learns any attacks via level up. The only way to learn a Psychic attack is via TM. Kadabra now resides in Box 1. I wanted to play this game without checking anything online, but situations like this kind of force your hand. I'd be pissed off if I hadn't checked that and wasted the party slot for countless hours. Likewise, I got excited when I found a new Electric/Flying type... that never learns any Electric moves by any method. Oh, but it learns a Normal move that deals Electric damage (ie no STAB)... at L50. Fuck off.
The player no longer has a rival, but instead a shit-eating friend who seems to take pride in being a terrible Pokémon trainer. Periodically he'll "challenge" you to a battle, you'll OHKO his shitty team without bothering to check which moves you're selecting, and he'll love every second of it then give you 5 Revives that you don't need. While I guess this makes the game more approachable, I miss the threat of Gary Oak and the like absolutely wrecking you when you least expected it. Overall you've got more control over when you enter trainer battles too, which I guess is actually a good thing but again seems a bit of a concession to noobs.
So... How is everyone else finding Sun/Moon so far?
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)