Game Review: Pokémon Sun and Moon Demo
The brand new Pokémon Sun and Moon demo was released today with a good-sized map and a bunch of mini-quests to explore. With a load of new Pokémon, features, and great graphics, this seems to finally be a new generation game Gen 1 Poké fans can get excited about.
Playing as the male character ‘Sun’, you’re introduced to the beautiful scenery of the Alola region, following your mom to City Hall after you’ve just moved here from Kanto. Dark-water type Greninja is your partner throughout the demo, a plus for those who’ve downloaded it as you get to transfer the Pokémon to your team when you buy the full version of the game.
Starting out, you meet your new best friend (and rival?) Hau, who is your tour guide throughout town. Running into Kukui, the lab-coat wearing bare-chested professor, begins the demo’s introduction into a series of fun mini-quests at Ten Carat Hill.
For those waiting on an N-64 Pokémon Snap revival, you get a bit of a gift with the new feature that allows you to take pictures when you sense a Pokémon nearby. With the help of Pikachu, the demo moves you around a cave during ‘the trial’, taking pictures of dragon type Pokémon before they attack and you must defeat them.
During the final battle we are introduced to the ‘battle bond’, making Greninja ‘fully-charged’ Ash-Greninja, which seems like a super charged mega-evolution feature. After the battle you are given a Z-Ring, which is basically the new version of the mega-evolution bracelet.
Once you’ve complete the trial and head back to town you get the fancy ‘ride pager’ that allows you to ride on a Pokémon’s back in order to run across land and smash through rocks. You are gifted Tauros, along with a fancy outfit complete with a helmet, to run around Alola’s marina and shopping district.
Approach a sketchy girl near the edge of town and she’ll take you to a special place (if you just “close your eyes”) where you can practice dashing through rocks with Tauros. It’s a whole new meaning to the bull in a china shop reference. At the top of the path you’ll find a creepy old man watching you from behind a pillar who gives you some stardust for breaking all of the rocks. You can transfer this, along with multiple other rewards throughout the demo, to the full version game. Neat!
Besides the ‘gangster’ Team Skull thugs with an Avril Lavigne looking leader, nothing is outrageously silly or out of place, the new game already showing off a lot of fun new features that add to the already packed list of various quests Pokémon games offer besides the actual catching and battling of Pokémon.
Traveling back to Ten Carat Hill after receiving the ride pager offers you trainer battles and the Pokémon catching challenge where you can catch Pokémon in the tall grass for rewards. The final Pokémon battle also offers you a star piece you can transfer into the game.
Only the same few Pokémon are featured during the demo, popping up in tall grass and in battles. The emo-haired weasel Yungoos makes an appearance along with red haired bird Pikipek, and puppy dog Rockruff. Dragon types Jangmo-o and its evolution Hakamo-o also pop up in the trial and in battles.
It’s good to see progress with the giant Pokémon Centers now a one stop show for Pokémon goods as well, the Poké Shop and a coffee shop looking café all housed under one roof. In town you’re also able to check out the police station, a local malasada restaurant (which everyone seems to have a fondness for), and the ferry terminal, among others. There’s also a Machamp chilling by himself in the middle of a huge city square, don’t know what that’s about.
Unfortunately, downsides are already popping up in the demo such as the new feature that tells you which moves are effective and which are not against your opponent during battle. Not sure if this is simply for the usability in the demo version, but it takes a lot of the strategy out of the game when playing. Also, you can’t just walk through doors; you have to push A. I ran into them…a lot.
Overall, the game is looking very good and seems to have been well thought out with a ton of new features and ideas. The characters in the demo keep pointedly reminding us that the game is coming out soon, only one month left. It looks pretty promising and it’s definitely going to be worth checking out.
PS. Slowpoke’s can block roads and apparently speak the word ‘no’ now…the end is near
