Pokemon Sun / Moon

2025-12-28
It’s a damning indictment of a game when you play it for 30 hours and then just bail. And for my money it’s also a damning indictment of a game for it to have “Pokemon” in the title. I can confidently say that as a 34 year old who was there from the start with Red and–despite them consistently never really improving on the formula–has played every single one since then. I even played the dogshit Explorers spinoff because some, I’m going to assume, 12 year olds on this site rated it so highly.

So then it should be no surprise that booting up my Sun save in 2022 after 6 year hiatus and then clearing the Elite Four my brain only approached a level of engagement on par with using a fidget spinner. Do I care about Alolan forms, Z moves, or uh “Ultra Beasts”? No, man. Just like all the other piddling attempts at remixing the formula by all the other “whatever”-ass previous entries, they don’t amount to anything, will be ditched in future titles, and I don’t care.

I’m here to fight. I’m here to force my enslaved, ball-bound monsters to murder other monsters. I’m certainly not here to “Catch ‘Em All” which has been basically impossible since Silver/Gold. Though I enjoyed a couple of the new additions, namely Lurantis and Golisopod. Thank you, Pokemon Company, I will absolutely fuck with a pretty mantis and badger-shrimp.

What else is there to say? I guess that I was bewildered by all the cutscenes that played out after I finished the Elite Four. All these characters and some sappy resolution that is definitely incoherent because I haven’t played in 6 years but also would probably resonate just as little even if I hadn’t stopped playing. It would be cool if someone could be bothered to write anything good for Pokemon that wasn’t trapped behind the previously mentioned dogshit Explorers series. Well, hey, at least they made ‘em fun again in the future with Arceus and Scarlet/Violet. And don’t worry, I’ll keep lapping this hogwash up either way. Reminds me I gotta pick up a copy of ZA with this Christmas money.

PS: Happy New Year, y'all!