By Taylor Johansen, Staff writer
For those who aren’t familiar with the Pokemon franchise of games, they’re a long running series of games based around collecting various fantastic creatures called Pokemon and battling your way through eight gyms to collect eight badges, before taking on the Elite 4 and League Champion on your journey to become best of the best.
This year’s newest entries in the series, Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon, have nally arrived, and while they change up the established formula quite a lot, they also hold true to the classic themes well enough to be worthy successors of the franchise, satis- fying veterans and newcomers alike and leading them into the eighth generation of games.
As with the last entries in the franchise, X and Y, Sun and Moon are fully edged 3-D games, utilizing full 3-D models for all Pokemon and trainers and build- ings in the overworld. There are a ludicrous amount of Pokemon to catch; nearly 1000! While completing your Pokemon encyclopedia, or Pokedex, might be an issue, all the new entries are creative and varied, lend-
ing to the game’s unique tropical, Hawaiian-based set- ting, the Alola region.
So what’s new? Firstly and perhaps most jarringly, the classic gym formula is now absent. In its place are “Trials” and “Kahunas.” On each of the Alola region’s four islands, players battle one Trial Captain and then the Kahuna of the island. One new thing I quite en- joyed in my own playthrough of the game was the lack of HM (Hidden Machine) moves. In previous games, HM moves were utility moves you needed to finish the game by navigating, but in this game, they are now completely gone.
Another aspect that I enjoyed was easy EV (Effort Values) training. EV training is specific and special training for a Pokemon that allows you to up specific stats. As someone who always likes to have the best stats, EV training is something I enjoy, but since it’s inception it’s been incredibly difficult, tedious, and complicated, in no small part because the game never explained it to players. Now though, it’s easy
to learn what your Pokemon’s EV stats are and train them so they can be as powerful as possible.
In short, the new Pokemon titles are a blast; they re ne and expand upon previous features of the series, while introducing new features, Pokemon, and a unique and interesting setting. Definitely pick this one up for the 3DS if you’re a fan of the series or are interested in getting into it.