NEW DETAILS AND MORE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN POKÉMON SUN AND POKÉMON MOON REVEALED!
New gameplay features, Pokémon Bank information, Z-Moves and version-exclusive Pokémon announced for upcoming Pokémon games
Newly revealed Pokémon include:
Passimian
Type: Fighting
The Teamwork Pokémon Passimian attack by throwing Berries at their foes. They tend to live in troops of 20–30 Passimian, who all follow one leader. These tribes work in teams to train and improve their skills. This Pokémon has the Ability Receiver, an Ability which no previous Pokémon has had. With the Receiver Ability, Passimian can inherit the Ability of an ally who faints in battle. Passimian only appear inPokémon Sun.
Oranguru
Type: Normal/Psychic
The Sage Pokémon Oranguru live in the solitary deeps of the Alolan forests and, in fact, were once known as ‘the people of the forests’. Oranguru hold a fan-like object made of leaves and are known to be kind to other Pokémon in the forest, often giving injured Pokémon medicine or hungry Pokémon food. This Pokémon can exclusively learn the new move Instruct, a move which can make the selected target use its most recent move again immediately. Oranguru only appear in Pokémon Moon.
The previously revealed Puppy Pokémon Rockruff can evolve into a different form depending on whether you are playing Pokémon Sun or Pokémon Moon.
Lycanroc (Midday Form)
Type: Rock
In the world of Pokémon Sun, Rockruff is bathed in profuse amounts of solar energy, and Solgaleo’s influence causes this Pokémon to evolve into Lycanroc’s Midday Form. This form is known for speedy movement which can confound its opponents. A very loyal Pokémon, Lycanroc Midday Form dodges opponents’ strikes whilst attacking with the sharp rocks of its mane. Lycanroc Midday Form can learn Accelerock, a new move unique to the Pokémon, which is guaranteed to strike first, damaging opponents by slamming into them very quickly.
Lycanroc (Midnight Form)
Type: Rock
In the world of Pokémon Moon, Rockruff is bathed in an abundance of lunar energy, and Lunala’s influence causes this Pokémon to evolve into Lycanroc’s Midnight Form. This Pokémon will sacrifice its own safety to strike down its foes. The stronger an opponent is, the more excited Lycanroc Midnight Form becomes, its eyes glowing with the thrill of battle. This Pokémon feels a deep trust towards a Trainer who can draw forth its true power.
Two new Pokémon-specific Z-moves were also announced for some fan-favourite Pokémon:
Pikachu
Exclusive Z-Move name: Catastropika
Pikachu’s exclusive Z-Move, Catastropika, is a super-powered attack move where Pikachu borrows its Trainer’s strength, wraps itself in extra-high-voltage electric power, and charges into its opponents. This is Pikachu’s most powerful attack.
Eevee
Exclusive Z-Move name: Extreme Evoboost
Eevee’s exclusive Z-Move, Extreme Evoboost, gathers together Sylveon, Jolteon and more – all of the eight Pokémon that Eevee can evolve into – and grants their powers to Eevee. This highly powerful move raises Eevee’s Attack, Defense, Sp. Atk, Sp. Def and Speed by 2.
The popular character-customisation feature makes a return in Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon. Personalise your character’s clothing, hairstyle and eye colour as you venture through the Alola region. Now, you can even dye your fashions to change their colour and make sure you pull off your favourite look whilst out adventuring.
The Pokémon Refresh feature lets you care for your Pokémon. After a battle, Pokémon can sometimes end up rumpled and dirty. Pokémon Refresh lets you clean them up, care for them, feed them Poké Beans and even cure status conditions like poisoning and paralysis that were inflicted on them in battle. Pokémon that have been looked after in Pokémon Refresh can grow very affectionate and will battle to the utmost for you. This means that sometimes they may avoid attacks from opposing Pokémon or even hold out when they’re on the verge of fainting. Take good care of all your Pokémon in Pokémon Refresh, and they will be great allies on your adventure.
The Nintendo 3DS downloadable software Pokémon Bank, an application that enables players to put Pokémon they’ve been on past adventures with into internet-based storage boxes, will be receiving an update in January 2017. This update will give the Pokémon Bank application compatibility with Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon and include a new National Pokédex feature. The Pokédex feature reads saved data from any compatible titles you connect to Pokémon Bank and collects information about all the Pokémon you have caught. You can then check out all of this information in the Pokémon Bankapplication and even see Pokémon that don’t natively appear in the Alola region. Poké Transporter will also be updated to make the Virtual Console versions of Pokémon Red, Pokémon Blue and Pokémon Yellow compatible with Pokémon Bank. This means that Pokémon that players have caught in the VC-original Kanto games will be able to be transferred across into Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon.
A new trailer that showcases all of the announced details can be found here: https://youtu.be/VLWz2YMJSlg
For more information, please visit Pokemon.co.uk/SunMoon.
With Joule having no idea what exactly happened, it is only with the help of her trusted companion bot Mack who is eventually joined by two other special bot types that she must try to find out what happened to the rest of the team that was supposed to be working on the planet and where everything went wrong. While this storyline does seem like it might have potential.
In combat players can also extract the cores of weakened bots through a tug-of-war min-game that if completed successfully rewards the player with a colored core that can be transformed into energy. Alongside the gunplay players will also be able to use Joule’s corebots to perform “lethal” attacks when they have sufficient charge to deal large amounts of damage though most of the time they simply serve as distractions to allow Joule to take on multiple foes at a time.
While the combat system ranges from either too easy to spiking in difficulty, the actual movement mechanics and platforming are a big attraction in ReCore. Joule’s equipment allows her to double jump, dash on the ground or through the air, and make quick climbs on most ledges. The game allows players to use these fluid mechanics to traverse the world in a satisfying fashion most of the time as players will easily learn how to dash through areas, jump, dash, and jump once again all in one sequence. The fact that the platforming feels so well done is a great help considering the grinding and buggy nature of this game.
Out in the field players do nothing more than gather these cores or get into random battles, which can be somewhat useful when it comes to crafting new blueprints and upgrading your companions with new parts, however even this method is frustratingly monotonous as upping various stats requires staring at a bar fill repeatedly and since stat upgrades and new blueprint pieces can only be applied at Joule’s crawler (home base), players will need to deal with another aspect of the game that is frankly terrible.
Combine this with numerous crashes to the main menu, areas where you can clip through the ground repeatedly (with the game resetting you to the same clipping point until you quit out to fix the issue), and numerous places players can explore only to find themselves stuck in the level design and you’ll be wary of venturing too far off the beaten path, though even if you do there is little to find there.
The soundtrack is fairly standard for the genre with a number of fitting pieces of music used throughout the game while the voice acting, for what there is, works well in creating a bond between Joule and her companions who speak only through unintelligible robotic dialogue.
With this legend in mind, five Machina Mages have been summoned from across the globe to Southern Cross city where they must undergo these trials in an effort to save the world. Players take on the role of a bubbly but slightly airheaded Estra, a young Machina Mage from a tiny village who wants to be friendly with the rest of the girls who have been assigned this task. Unfortunately, since legend tells of only one woman being able to restore the planet the last thing on these girls’ minds is co-operation as they wish to put their names down in history.
Sure the majority of the cast feels as if they are simply checking off various tropes when they are introduced and unfortunately they rarely go beyond these simple characteristics but when the whole cast is together they do form a rather interesting group that does its best to keep players around since the actual storyline rarely develops in an interesting fashion and often fades into the background.
The one key aspect where this game stands out is the way it handles the combat system and the Guardians. Guardians appear to be mech like beings that are controlled by the Machina Mages and each Guardian can be customized with different limbs and cores that come with different slots allowing for players to equip them with gems to augment their abilities. Unlike the main characters, the Guardians’ attacks and skills change depending on the arms that they are equipped with and they can be customized any time outside of battle, allowing players to change up their Guardian’s on the fly if they encounter enemies that are being a bit difficult.
Every enemy and character in the game also has various elemental strengths and weaknesses so using Guardian abilities or forms that are strong against certain elements while resistant to others is a good way to power through difficult enemies. While this strategy works well, it rarely comes into play and isn’t nearly as complex as one would expect. I say this primarily because on Normal difficulty the game is incredibly simple to power through without even paying attention to the elemental system. Players can easily find themselves customizing their Guardians into forces to be reckoned with and breezing through standard fights and only getting caught up by the boss fights that raise the difficulty a bit, this means those who are looking for a real challenge will need to go for the harder difficulty setting.
Idea Factory International has released MeiQ: Labyrinth of Death with both the original Japanese voice track as well as their freshly recorded English dub for the game with players being able to swap between the two at any time. The English cast handles their characters quite well and in fact certain characters come off as far more enjoyable sounding in the English dub than in the Japanese version. The soundtrack accompanying the title is fairly impressive as it features a number of unique sounding tracks to explore dungeons and fight to.
