Spoilers Are Pokemon Sun and Moon even good games!?

[Anime Psyclone]

Shoutout to Dookieshed and this video which inspired me.

Pokemon Sun and Moon do many questionable things. The first of which, why is most of the game a cutscene? This video combined all of the cutscenes in the game. Total tally? Over 6 hours. That’s good if the game is a massive adventure. And, well, it really isn’t. The islands are very small, and you can’t explore most of the buildings and caves, and the places you can explore feel small. Mount Lanakila is victim to this, because it’s grass, small cave with some forks to get a Z-Crystal, then more grass, then the Pokemon League. What happened to the massive Victory Road where you can get lost easily? Not to mention the insanity that is the caves in Wela Volcano. Because you can’t even enter them. And with the size of the islands being so small, the game itself feels short and like one big cutscene. If there were 8 islands around the size they are in the games or the islands were bigger, it would feel much more like a grand adventure.

Spoiler

This is the size of Melemele.

Let’s change the subject. Lacking HM Moves actually makes the game easier since you don’t have to build your team around certain moves. The lack of them is good due to the small amount of Pokemon you can even catch! Only around 100 of the 802 we have now? Your team choices seem very limited to me... Also, if they introduce Alolan Pokemon, why not have a bunch of Pokemon you can catch here be them? I’d be okay with around half the new Pokemon if a large percent of the old ones had new forms and types!

Now, to the difficulty. None of the battles took me more then 2 tries to beat, not even Lusamine or the Champion. People say XY are easy? SM is even easier! But there’s sudden spikes in hardness called the Battle Tree and Battle Royal Dome, though. They’re so hard I could never beat them!

Characters and plot next? Ok. The plot twist of SM is actually pretty obvious. The rivals are very easy(like SM) and why is there no Ice master? The trial puzzles don’t seem like puzzles to me, though! Let’s compare the water puzzles in gyms to this game’s.

Spoiler

Gens 1 and 2had a basic maze above water, Gen 3 had that and a cool and fun tile-breaking puzzle. Gen 4 put a new spin on the water maze, redecorating Misty’s gym and adding floating platforms. Gen 5 added a new type of floating platform. Gen 7 has you surf to spots and battle useless fish.

Fire gyms? Ok.

Spoiler

Gen 1 had a quiz, Gen 2 did nothing, having a basic cave, but Gen 3 took it up a notch. Same quiz, but also a hot spring puzzle with you going to different layers. Gen 4 had a standard puzzle, but at least it had a fire-based appearance. Gen 7? Compare 3 different things. It had the possibility to be something much more...

Grass time!

Spoiler

Gen 1 had a maze revolving around Cut. Gen 2 removed the Cut but you still had to fight trainers. Gen 3 reused Gen 1’s maze. Gen 4 redid the maze with arches, and added two new puzzles. One with hiding trainers that you needed to defeat, one with a clock that you had to arrange so you could reach the leader. Gen 6 had a puzzle involving swinging on vines to reach other places. Gen 7? Find stuff.

Finally, the Electric type!

Spoiler

We all know the Electric puzzle in gens 1, 2, 3, and 4 for Kanto. Gen 3 also had a puzzle with barrier switches, and Gen 4 had an awesome puzzle with gears. Gen 5 had coasters and runways! Gen 6? Quiz. But Gen 7 is an even easier quiz based on sounds.

.
And the postgame? It basically doesn’t exist. It is Ultra Beasts, and some battles. I want more battles and stuff, and I don’t want to be able to not use Legendary Pokemon in said ones. SM really might be one of the worst Pokemon games in a long time.

 

[DoctorWhy]

I knew that there were way too many slow cutscenes, but damn. I had no idea it was 6 whole hours. That's ridiculous.

Sun and Moon were pretty fun the first time through, but only because they were new. In my opinion, they're near impossible to replay due to the horribly slow pacing and constant interruption from forced cutscenes and tutorials. Overall, I'd say they're not the best games in the series. Though not the worst, necessarily either.

Conceptually, they were really good. And the difficulty, while still too low, was way better than XY. The story was also better--Best since B2W2. But overall, after the honeymoon phase has passed, I'm not as big a fan of SM as I was originally. Way too many cutscenes and way too much slowdown and interruption. I still think that HGSS were the best games in the series so far. SM was overall better than XY in my opinion, so at least there's that. But I'm definitely not looking forward to USUM yet....

TLDR: They're fantastic on the first go-around. But once you've finished it once, it's over and loses its luster.

 

[Silktree]

The first time was enjoyable enough since I considered (and still do) them to be a notable improvement from the last generation. Trials, riding and regional variants were nice features.

But replaying them is not fun and the only thing I like about the minimal post-game is using rental teams in the Battle Tree. And this generation ended up being a lackluster way to celebrate the 20th anniversary...

 

[Anime Psyclone]

The first time was enjoyable enough since I considered (and still do) them to be a notable improvement from the last generation. Trials, riding and regional variants were nice features.

But replaying them is not fun and the only thing I like about the minimal post-game is using rental teams in the Battle Tree. And this generation ended up being a lackluster way to celebrate the 20th anniversary...

If it was up to me, a massive region based on China with 18 gyms and a single Champion, as well as being more openworld and having up to 8 pokemon on a team, that would be a good way to celebrate #Pokemon20. If they kept the same Pokemon as in SM for that game, I’d be happy, honestly!

 

[SpikOriundo]

Dang it, you tricked me! The title asks if they are good games, and the actual poll asks if they are bad games! Had to change my vote.
Anyways, my thoughts? XY is the worst god dang games in the existence of Pokémon, in my opinion, so I disagree with the "SM may be the worst games of the franchise".
Was SM perfect? Weeellll... No, no way to say that. They really did some grave mistakes. The removal of stuff like the PSS in exchange of the Plaza, Battle Royal in place of all other battle modes, and the lack of post game reaaaally makes for a boring game at some points. However, I've had quite the time playing through it, twice even, and can't say they are completely bad.
I'm writing non-sense with gibberish, I feel, but that's what happens when you don't sleep 8 hours a day and stays awake up to 2am.

 

[Matleo]

yes it had bad sides but look also at the good parts people.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

If it was up to me, a massive region based on China with 18 gyms and a single Champion,

Unrealistic, to say the least.

as well as being more openworld and having up to 8 pokemon on a team,

Same as above

that would be a good way to celebrate #Pokemon20. If they kept the same Pokemon as in SM for that game, I’d be happy, honestly!

Will 18 gyms and champion and a Chinese region declare this whole para invalid?

The lack of them is good due to the small amount of Pokemon you can even catch! Only around 100 of the 802 we have now? Your team choices seem very limited to me... Also, if they introduce Alolan Pokemon, why not have a bunch of Pokemon you can catch here be them? I’d be okay with around half the new Pokemon if a large percent of the old ones had new forms and types!

 

[Soki]

I agree with the sentiment that they were really fun the first time around, but incredibly hard to replay.

Its biggest offense for me is the huge lack of freedom, especially at the start. You can hardly walk five steps before you're interrupted by a cutscene again. The first time you can run around more than five steps and in more than one direction is after you're dropped at the Trainers' School. Even then I was surprised I wasn't stopped at the exit by someone telling me I should first defeat the Trainers. And when I was done at the Trainers School quest I wanted to check out the top floor which I didn't get to yet, but nope you're automatically taken outside and to the entrance of Hau'oli City. And once in Hau'oli City you can take another five steps before ending up in the 'getting the Poké Finder' cutscene and if you just want to move on after that, bad luck! Cause you're first forced to use the bloody thing. After that it becomes a lot better, though you're still stopped by everyone along the way an awful lot and you can hardly ever take more than one path.

I know in previous games you're also often stopped from going certain paths before doing a certain thing first, but at least you were allowed to find you own way until the next town by yourself and you could often choose multiple routes to visit first. I've been replaying Platinum recently and it's so great, you just get your starter after the first 5 minutes and then off you go, have fun with it. SuMo doesn't only keep telling you what to do and where to go, but it also continually forces you to go there without you getting any other choice. And after playing BotW in which you can do whatever the hell you want at almost all times, it's really hard to replay this game.

The lack of them is good due to the small amount of Pokemon you can even catch! Only around 100 of the 802 we have now?

Not sure what calculations you made but minus the Legendaries and UB's the Alola dex has about 284 mons in it. Though they could've definitely fit a few more in there, especially as there were a lot of repeats in different routes, most notably Pikipek and Rattata/Yungoos. And team choices were limited for me, but that's more a personal problem cause I don't like most of those 284 mons or have already used them before.

People say XY are easy? SM is even easier!

This I disagree with, SM had some actually difficult battles going on and it's one of the things I like about it. I really struggled with Totem Wishiwashi to the point where I had to think about catching other mons than my planned team just to beat it. And there were some tough Trainers too like the Red Card Trainer on Route 3. It was the first time I almost lost against a random Trainer and that is definitely a great improvement. That said, I'm a bit baffled as to why there are hard battles included but at the same time most Trainers only have max. two Pokémon. This game wants to be hard but also very easy at the same time, it's a bit confusing.

The 'plot twist' I definitely agree about, I really wish they would've just cut the first cutscene. Why even try to pose the Aether Foundation as good guys when the first thing that we're shown is that they're obviously on the wrong side :/ Then again, in other games it's also always obvious who the bad guys are from the first time you meet them, but after seeing the Aether Foundation in the trailers I'd hoped it was going to be a bit less obvious this time. But nope. And I still can't get over the fact that the last boss battle was against a lady merged with an alien thing which gave her Pokémon alien powers. That is just....why. The very definition of the word 'unnecessary'.

And I also agree about the trials, they were boring and posed no challenge at all. I do like the idea though and that they at least tried to do something else than gyms this time. But it just didn't work for me eventually, it's something I hope they improve with USUM.

And another big offense is the Festival Plaza which is one of the worst things that ever happened to online features ever, especially that you don't stay connected to Wifi once you leave it :/

However, I do not agree that SM are the worst games. There are also a lot of things they did right, first and foremost that this game feels a lot more 'alive'. The region feels more connected than ever, the characters have a lot of personality and being a trial-goer feels more like a real quest than the Gym challenge ever did. I absolutely love the little improvements it has too, like Trainers being visible during battles, them using different kinds of Poké Balls, being able to choose if you want to keep a Pokémon/Egg instead of it automaticall being sent to the box, etc. Also, Team Skull is the best villain team, no contest, and Po Town was the best thing that ever happened in any Pokémon game imo. And there were a lot of other hilarious moments too, it's definitely one of the funniest Pokémon games imo and I appreciate that a lot too.

Tl;dr: It has a lot of flaws, most notably the lack of freedom, the plot and the Festival Plaza. However, they also did a lot of things right and I can forgive them for the flaws since this is the first time they tried something completely different. It does give me hope for future games, if only they actually see the flaws of this one and try to improve those. If that happens, I think we can have a truly great game in our hands.

 

[JAKN]

SM was pretty good games. Better than kanto. A bit more difficult than gen 6 games. SM games really got me to use other pokemon in my team because i can't win with just my starter.

 

[~ Blazing White Yang]

They're alright in a vacuum...

When I look at this in the context of '20 Years of Pokemon!', it just becomes a disappointment. Particularly after the story is over, and that nice, new Gen smell wears thin. The presentation and world building were really solid. I like the Alola Region and its characters a-lot. But in terms of gameplay, there are just way too many omissions and downright mistakes for me to call this a step forward.

Trials are a really neat concept marred by scripted game progression. Most of them are either an actual joke, or they solve themselves for you. The Plaza is just Join Avenue with way less freedom in the making of your stores, and it completely undoes the success of the Player Search System as a multiplayer interface. The Rotom Dex is absolutely worthless (did we really need a map for checkpoints in a game that's so heavily story driven?), yet it takes the place of other more innovative and useful 2nd screen apps like the DexNav, AreaNav, PSS, etc. Battle Tree is a poor man's World Tournament, and the lack of Triple or Rotation Battles gives you even less to play around with than the Maison. Then smaller things like grinding, Hidden Abilities, Mega Evolutions, fishing and even the color of the clothes that you can purchase are all more limited than they were previously.

I can't find a good reason to revisit this game vs playing older ones. It was entertaining enough for a story run to me, but not much else.

 

[Hidden Mew]

I'm glad that I wasn't the only one confused over the title and then the poll. I almost voted yes thinking that it was the same question as the thread's title.

As for the question itself, I do think that Sun/Moon are good games. They aren't perfect. The number of trainers with only two Pokemon to battle against makes most of the battles feel super tedious and boring. Not to mention it makes level grinding a pain in the neck. The Festival Plaza does not work as a replacement for the PSS. The difficulty in areas like the Battle Tree is definitely a big problem. I think saying that the game wanted to be easy and hard at the same time is a good way to describe that issue. There are so few trainers in the game with more than one Pokemon on them, yet I'm supposed to be able to handle the Battle Tree going to max difficulty right from the start. The lack of post game content is a disappointment. Outside of the cutscene where you go from becoming the Champion to catching Tapu Koko, I didn't really have a problem with the number of cutscenes in the games.

That being said, I really enjoyed playing through Sun/Moon. I love so many of the new Pokemon. I have a lot of new favorites just from this generation. The Alola region feels so alive and distinct from the other regions. I liked a lot of new characters, especially Lillie and Hau, and Lillie's development was quite nice. The story itself was pretty good, although I agree that they could have handled the twist with the Aether Foundation a bit better. It was already pretty obvious that they were the real villains, but they could have made that into more of a secret within the game. Team Skull is just a hilarious delight. I just love how ridiculously over the top they were. I loved exploring Alola and raising my teams. There were good moments throughout the storyline and it was pretty engaging. The Trails were refreshing, fun and some of the Totem battles were surprisingly challenging. It took me two or three times to defeat Lurantis in Sun because Bronnie was my best Pokemon at the time and it didn't have moves to work against Grass Pokemon.

Most of my problems with the games have more to do with stuff like level grinding and collecting Battle Points taking a couple of steps back more than anything else. The storyline wasn't perfect, but it was pretty enjoyable and engaging. I would have liked for Gladion and Plumeria to get more attention though. It took a bit too long for Gladion to get a good amount of focus and Plumeria didn't really get much, or at least enough to lead into her wanting to challenge you as the Champion post storyline. I'm still not sure where I'd rank Sun/Moon out of the other games, but they definitely aren't the worst ones in the series in my opinion. They do lack enough to keep people playing post storyline. I still haven't gotten my teams to level one hundred simply because of how tedious that and getting Battle Points sounded. Even so, I'd say that they're pretty good and solid games overall.

 

[Sakuraa]

The game is not mostly cutscenes. That video you posted seems to be suggesting anything where you aren't taking control of your character, like a long section of dialogue, is a cutsecene, which is totally not true. This video shows what are actually cutscenes and there are only around 10.

Spoiler

Anyway, I found Sun and Moon to be great games. They were most fun I had with a Pokemon game since DPPT. The story was miles better than the ones in Gens 5 and 6 with far more memorable characters. Plus they had great innovations such as the Island Trial Challenge, Ride Pokemon, and Z-Moves. I also found the difficulty to be much better than in recent games so that was a major plus as well. So I quite enjoyed the games myself.

 

[Silktree]

The cutscenes are nice. The long stretches of dialogue about mundane things... aren't. Melemele is especially guilty of this.

 

[DoctorWhy]

The cutscenes are nice. The long stretches of dialogue about mundane things... aren't. Melemele is especially guilty of this.

And the 30 minute unskippable and unsaveable finale.

 

[Silktree]

So you can't save before Tapu Koko? Geez.

At least it respawns if you defeat it.

 

[DoctorWhy]

So you can't save before Tapu Koko? Geez.

Nope, everything between the battle with Kukui all the way until after the Tapu Koko battle, as well as the following cutscenes until you get home to your mom, is one straight run without any kind of break. I had to redo my first time because my 3DS died or froze or something (I forget exactly how--I just remember hating having to redo my champion battle and everything that followed).

 

[Desdar300]

The short answer is no, not at all.
SM did something that most games in the series haven't done ( or at least not to this extent) and that's innovate.
The reasons why there's so much to say about SM whether it'd be good or bad is due to how much they changed things up and to me that's a good thing.
The games feels linear because the games prioritize their plot over everything else whereas in the past things where in reverse and it made most generations feel way too analogous.
I know that some don't agree with that direction, but it was a wise choice because it not only gave us (IMO) some of the best written characters in the franchise's history and a region that feels so connected that it almost feels like a real community.
The trials are also really nice because unlike gyms, each trial tells us not only about said Trail Captain's character but more about Alola's culture and even the Tapu of that island. It's also neat that that the number of trails represent the colors of a Rainbow ( you know, because Hawaii is the Rainbow state.).
All and all SM are not the games of the century but they're certainly better than a good chunk of their base forerunners and I have a feeling that as time goes on we'll se a case of Vindicated by History " with them much like we did with Black and White and their sequels. If Pokémon Switch is anywhere near as good as SM than I'll certainly be elated!
( Boy I didn't expect this to turn into a semi-review but whatever)

 

[GhostLucario]

I've written before in several threads that this are my most despised pokemon games for several reasons.
I will just point some things I really loathe and make them the worst games for me

Spoiler

[*]Handholding and cutscenes. I don't think we need so much of this. Earlier games were perfectly playable and had no tutorials.
[*]gameplay mechanics. I hate everything about these games. Festival Plaza (was PSS too much of a good thing?), SOS battles replacing dexnav and hordes (even other methods such as pokeradar in DPP were better), the no HMs was fine but the exploration is lacking.
[*]too much focus competitive and lack of exploration: I don't care about competitive gaming. I want to explore the region, I want puzzles and the exploration back. The islands are way too small, and the few areas available are locked. You can't explore the volcano, there are no puzzling cavez like Rock Tunnel in RBY, no surfing routes (IDK if this is good or bad though) every route is way too small etc etc. These games are even more linear than BW, and with all the handholding they are very underwhelming.
[*]artificial difficulty: the games aren't harder as some people put them. A water trial is first, you can capture a lot of water mons for the fire trial, which is next, and there you catch fire mons for the grass trial later. Hard? I don't think so. The trials are boring and laughable.
[*]Pokemon selection. 300 out of 800. With a lot of those being mons we have seen game after game.
[*]I won't comment on the plot since I found it no better, or worse than other gens.

There's probably many more things but I don't want to repeat what everyone included me has said before. I find only Gen 1 worse than this and only because back then the lack of technology resulted in some awful mechanics and limited plot.

 

[Kharixi]

Earlier games were perfectly playable and had no tutorials.

Actually, most games have a catching tutorial.

 

[Lufenium]

And I still can't get over the fact that the last boss battle was against a lady merged with an alien thing which gave her Pokémon alien powers. That is just....why.

For one reason: