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Spoilers!

~ Estimated Reading Time: 7 min ~

If you've dedicated yourself to a series for a long enough period of time, it becomes natural that you'll become a bit...particular about things. I'm prickly about Pokemon, intimately aware of what makes it work for me, so I have this specific idea of what makes it tick in my head that won't stay true for everyone. This playthrough was a bit of a change of pace for me - it was alongside my girlfriend, who's always bounced off the games until now. Watching her play over her shoulder gave me a new perspective on how people play these games, and why they're made the way they are.

Pokemon must be a weird game to balance, huh? Fans can stomp through each new drop because its rules have such a grasp on us. If you can immediately answer how the super effectiveness between poison-types and ghost-types goes, you're on a whole other level. Not a skill diff but a knowledge diff. Pokemon is especially hard for an adult out of the prime of their neuroplasticity; watching how awkward that learning process can be has made me sympathetic to their choice of hand-holding. The average player doing difficulty discourse is so far removed from this initial experience. It makes sense to me though that fans ultimately feel frustrated; as the series goes on, it seems that balancing broad appeal and fan-service is a uniquely difficult challenge. When you encourage obsessive memorization, you will make people obsessive - the types that'd tear into the details out of love.

And sometimes it just feels like I'm missing something when I can't tap into that specific mindset of childhood obsession. Sun and Moon are the most fully-realized world in the series yet - every single new monster has been wonderfully intertwined with its ecosystem. But it's to an extent it doesn't even have time to show you all that on-screen!! Like, the game never spells it out for you; there's never a scene where the real-world parallels of Alolan Ratatta and Yungoos's role play out. Nor some highlight pointing out how they evolve into a rivalling thief and detective. But I'm a nerd - I've spent enough time browsing Bulbapedia bored to learn these things, and I can yap about the folklore of even the most mundane designs to my gf, so can be like "oh cool". There are still plenty of those idyllic little guys, the ones with gimmick so perfect as to not require explanation. They made kicking the Pyukumuku that rise from the ocean each morning a daily routine, it's adorable! But the vast majority just fall between these two extremes - and we're not gonna notice what makes every single one stand out.
In some ways, it's the most neatly Pokemon hasn't required wiki surfing and strategy guides, but in other ways, it feels like the most it's ever needed those to be fully appreciated. You really feel the loss of not being tapped into the multi-media anymore, some random episode of the anime finally making a Pokemon click. People even a little younger than me never give a fuck about Charizard, since they didn't have an anime arc brainwash you into thinking they're awesome - now we're all dealing with that issue.

But if you can kick back into that hyperfixation, there is so much detail to take in. The mechanical breadth lends even further to the love put into this generation's lineup - every single Alolan Pokemon has at least some signature trait that sets them apart.
Honestly? I've played competitively for so long, that I could give you kit-oriented reviews of each and every one of them. Like, hello, welcome to my ★★★★★ review of Oricorio (2016) on backloggd.com. I have strong memories of spending weeks trying to make a doubles Oranguru team work some years back; being able to give your teammate extra items and attacks per turn is soooo fun. Ultra Beasts are great, their stat spreads look like mathematical shitposts.

But Pokemon has always been avoidant of implementing its tech into the main campaign. I'm sure this is intentional: the PvE exists as a tutorial for the PvP. But I think by layering each Pokemon with idiosyncratic gimmicks, they've gotten closer to cracking the code of how to intuitively place complex things into simple encounters. Lots of Totem Battles play with this, like the Salazzle that poisons you, so its (the pokedex calls it that, not me!) harem of Salandits do double-damage with Venoshock. It isn't perfect...but if you're willing to make some of the fun yourself, and self-impose challenge (or at least turn exp-share off!), they did nearly as good as the series has ever gotten. It's also worth mentioning this was the first Pokemon game that consistently uses a trainer's team with thematic reasoning behind each party member as well. Gotta love Guzma and his Golisopod.

I think nerdy franchise-historians will view Sun and Moon's approach to storytelling as a big growing point for the staff Satoshi Tajiri passed Pokemon down to. The initial minimalist approach wasn't fitting their style and was discarded. They're no longer reliant on more common jrpg-isms either - closer aligned to the 90s shoujo playfulness that kept Indigo League fun to watch. The boxart legendaries being monolithic gods had gotten archetypal, so making them a cute blob you go on adventures with suddenly made me pay attention again. Lowering the stakes lets it feel more personal.
It's sweet that Game Freak has made child abuse a consistent narrative through-line for the modern entries. To include it in products you are well aware will reach millions of children - many of which will be realizing injustices in their own lives - they must be aware they're going to help people process their own lives. I don't want to overpraise any corporation, it's just a good sign the creatives in charge aren't soulless just yet.
The subject matter of Lillie's story very much parallels Black and White's, so the two ended up getting compared back and forth in my head. Last time I revisited it, I felt its scriptwork was unfocused 'till the end. Low standards I know, but I'm impressed by how much of Lillie having a good story is actually because of the lines they wrote are like..good. When you first walk out of a clothing store, she makes a remark that she's never learned what her style is, because she was never allowed by her mom to pick her own clothes. As an adult woman with very strong opinions on the agency of children, this line alone gave me the strength to KILL!!!!!!!
But Sun and Moon ends up a bit more...passive, I'd say. Black and White's antagonist was cartoonishly cruel - both to the player and as a father figure - while it surprised me that Lusamine is ultimately afforded a second chance. That always weirded me out a bit; sometimes a lack of nuance can better paint the consequences of bad behavior.

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And since i don't think I'd ever dedicate a whole review to them, let me slip in my thoughts on the Ultra games: I wanna say they get it a bit too harsh, but then again, they sounded so lame I pirated them. I guess it was an expectation of mediocrity that made them a pleasant surprise...
They are the most mechanically engaging Pokemon campaign; I don't know if anything even gets close to the nonsense of something like a Totem summoning healspamming Blisseys. It'd be easy to frame them like they're for the real freaks only, but they also added thirty charmingly written sidequests that each feel like good slice of life anime. Did you know Pikachu gets married in one of them?! It enriches the combat and the world, but unfortunately does some strange things to the script. Some of the best scenes in the whole game got cut... But I almost think it could be worse; I agree with the sentiment behind "lusamine was irredeemable, until ultra ruined her", I just wish the former was actually true...
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And most unfortunately, Sun and Moon has that same "we ran out of time 2/3 of the way in" feeling most Pokemon games launch with. Weird to think they began to give up on definitive third versions around here; they used to do a good job of making you forget that they always come out rushed! It struggles to hit any of my standards for the franchise in terms of environmental design or freedom - those ingredients that came together to form the series' initial spirit of adventure. The legitimate journey of playing Pokemon is slowly getting more generically driven by the game's fixed storytelling. In some ways, it's becoming more generically similar to other RPGs. But when Sun and Moon pursues authentic integration of its systems, it's the closest they've gotten to finding new strengths for what Pokemon can be. Makes sense that it could convince someone who had never enjoyed the series before.

it's cuz this game is so cute. they gotta make pokemon for the girlies it'll be saved that way