Worst parts of SM!

[cdragon_88]

The most annoying thing in SM? Lillie. Rather the whole storyline and/or plotline. It was a gigantic troll into my pokemon journey. I keep asking myself why I keep getting involved in someone else's family affairs.

 

[Thunderflare]

What annoyed me the whole time was that the Player Character had one expression through the whole game. With all the other characters, they had very expressive faces, but the main character was just, well this...

 

[Hikamaru]

What annoyed me the whole time was that the Player Character had one expression through the whole game. With all the other characters, they had very expressive faces, but the main character was just, well this...

Is it me or does the video not work?

 

[MegaKuriboh]

A lot of my disappointments are honestly from getting my hopes up a little too high. I'm pretty disappointed that the Ultra Beasts really don't do much in the plot, other than kind of Nilhelgo, UB-02 showed up for one cutscene and then I guess got beat by Tapu Koko and went back to it's world? It's weird, I thought they were all going to invade Alola and you had to travel around beating them all. (also yes I know there's an Ultra Beast related Post-Game, I just haven't gotten to it yet).
Why can you only battle Mallow in Moon? Like really?
S.O.S battles can be really frustrating sometimes, even if it is a neat concept. Just let me throw a Poke Ball dammit!
The pacing with the Aether Foundation was really weird to me, and so was Gladion's development. One second he hated your guts and the next he was your bro and brought you to fight Aether with him? And they made it a little TOO obvious that Aether was mostly evil. Like we all speculated that before, but literally when you first boot up the game you see them with evil grins chasing down Lillie, seems kind of lame to me that they didn't even attempt to hide it.

Overall though? It's mostly just nitpicking. Sun and Moon are fantastic games, a much needed improvement over Generation 6.

 

[Lusamine]

The online features are extremely lacking. The entire concept of the Festival Plaza is unnecessarily complicated. The interface isn't as intuitive or readily accessible as XY's, which was simple and easy to use. Trawling through a guest list just to find someone on my friend list I want to trade with is awkward, and the constant unusual button presses required to get anywhere...it's the small things. It just feels like a step backwards. It's all been slapped together haphazardly and it would have been so much better if they had kept everything new that the plaza has to offer from the core online trading/battling features, in my opinion.

Customisation feels like a step backward in this generation too. As I said in another thread, they could have done so much more with this - QR codes to share custom shirt designs, a wider variety of clothing, etc. This felt like it had only been included due to ORAS backlash, as a last minute thing.

I do have some issues with the Pokedex being skewed in favour of Kanto Pokemon, but that's only because the games aren't currently compatible with Pokemon Bank. That should fix that problem, but until that DOES happen, it's quite off-putting.

On a minor note, the soundtrack is pretty awful this time around as well. I've played most of the game on mute so far. After a resounding tribal chorus at the beginning that really gave the game a wonderful tropical feeling, it's devolved into a horrible mish-mash of techno and drum beats with no rhythm to speak of.

 

[Hands]

I really hate the amount of cut-scenes in the games. Want to add more cinematic to the games? All the power to you Gamefreak! The majority of it looks fantastic! Just don't make it so I have a 5 minute cut scene, only to take like 10 steps forward and be in another cut scene! This happens multiple times throughout the game and it's extremely frustrating.

Try playing MGS4 and then go back to S/M and you'll never notice how often they occur ever again!

I actually love the game, my only gripe is that "call for help" system

 

[Lunar]

I felt the start of the game was really slow, but that's kinda understandable. I play on an old 3DS and the frameframerate is just awful in some battles which is kinda annoying :/

 

[DarkPoke001]

Little things, namely:

The inability to rematch trainers
The inability to SIT DOWN (WHYYY??)
The inability to encounter Hordes
The inability to have your player turn their head to signs as you pass them

I'll let you know if there's anymore once I've complete the main story... otherwise I LOVE the games

 

[AlolaVulpix]

I honestly love these games, easily one of my favourites, however my gripes are:
- The cutscenes, while great (I am a Final Fantasy fanboy so cutscenes aren't a bad thing to me), were a bit too long and the story didn't quite need so many to facilitate it. I feel like having less would give the story more gravitas than just OOH cutscene because we can happy 20th anniversary look at how far we've come.
- I like Lusamine a lot more than *shudder* Lysandre, but her motives behind her actions were... muddy, to say the least. Without going into spoilers, her reasons needed to be a little clearer.
-Post-game wise, I LOATHE the vicious cycle needed to get the items essential for breeding and EV training. Oh you want the power items and destiny knot TOO BAD WE'RE ONLY GIVING 1BP AT A TIME BECAUSE YOU DON'T HAVE A STRONG ENOUGH TEAM TO WIN.
-Festival Plaza is nowhere near as intuitive as the PSS. I like the minigames but a way to keep online functions on permanently would be much easier.

Other than these, and they really are nitpicky, I think this game is really solid and the pros heavily outweigh the cons.

 

[Hikamaru]

I felt the start of the game was really slow, but that's kinda understandable. I play on an old 3DS and the frameframerate is just awful in some battles which is kinda annoying :/

I can definitely understand the slowness, since I have a 3DS XL (not a "New" XL, just an ordinary one) and I have noticed lag happening in my game a lot. Game Freak seemed to have unintentionally make people want to get a New 3DS if this was a sign.

 

[Lunar]

I can definitely understand the slowness, since I have a 3DS XL (not a "New" XL, just an ordinary one) and I have noticed lag happening in my game a lot. Game Freak seemed to have unintentionally make people want to get a New 3DS if this was a sign.

Even back in XY the system couldn't handle the 3D battles *sighs*

 

[Frozocrone]

There's only one of each Apricorn Ball in the game.

I've lucked out on obtaining Moon Ball Vulpix and Rockruff so I've still got mine to use on a Pokemon but it's still infuriating.

 

[Kyeshu]

There aren't many things to dislike about Pokemon Sun and Moon, they are fantastically crafted games and the story is one of the best, if not the best!

However it does come with it's downfalls so if I were to select some things that made my experience a little less interesting then here they are!
- No Dexnav/Equivalent, PSS, Super Training etc.
- S.O.S. Encounter spam (like, it will happen even after knocking out the helping Pokemon)
- Framerate Issues on the older 3DS
- New UI is great! But it causes for common mis-clicks, and these are just plain old annoying
- Some map navigation (Haina Desert comes to mind...)


I mean, apart from those nitpicks, the games are really amazing games, I couldn't praise them enough! Even though I miss the PSS, it doesn't mean I'd rather it over the Festival Plaza. I see many people a bit bummed out about it, but it doesn't take long to get used to it - I understand it can be very annoying having to actually leave the game to do online stuff but I'm fine with it, I'd rather experience new ways of doing old things rather have the same old thing in a row ^^' - I guess that's just me, haha. Anyways, that's my little list!

 

[tenchi]

Now that I've beat the game I can say with more certainty than before that there are way too many cutscenes. Even when the plot actually starts to happen--which takes until about the third island, a very long time--there are more cutscenes than are necessary.

The games are short. I finished with a playtime similar to X, but X had way less cutscenes. A lot of the playtime is taken up by cutscenes, not actually playing.

The region is very small and routes are incredibly straightforward. Little exploration is available, which is disappointing since it's supposed to be this "vast, natural paradise." The hyper-linearity does not help this. It also features the problem XY had, which is that most of what few new Pokémon there are are incredibly rare, making the lack of new Pokémon even more obvious.

I get that certain features are gonna get the axe, that kind of thing is inevitable. But no PSS, and no StreetPass (which would have been great with the Festival Plaza!) are direct downgrades to what gen 6 provided. SOS battles are still, in my opinion, not fun, and also a direct downgrade to hordes and the DexNav in terms of shiny hunting, looking for Pokémon with good IVs, and EV training. The fact that hordes are likely gone simply due to the awful lag the game experiences makes this even worse (evidenced by the battle against "five" Team Skull Grunts at once).

Some plot disappointments:

Spoiler:

Hapu is just the definition of "wasted potential." The player is told that there are four Kahunas, but oops, there's actually three! And then Hapu becomes the fourth because... plot convenience? Hapu could have been a really cool parallel and mentor to Hau (both their grandparents were Kahunas) if Hapu actually helped out more before becoming Kahuna (and actually met Hau, instead of just existing to go googly-eyed over Lillie), and if the player knew that there were only three Kahunas from the get-go. The scene where Hapu becomes the Kahuna would have been way more impactful, and could have worked well to inspire Hau, too. But as it stands, if Hapu had already been the Kahuna, nothing about the story would have changed. It's just another pointless cutscene for the player to watch when she is chosen as the Kahuna.

On that note, Lillie is the only character who undergoes any sort of development. Sure, she does go through a drastic change, which is good from a storytelling perspective, but if you're like me and found her annoying, well, she's literally the only important character. Hau never changes, and he and Gladion just disappear from the story when... well, when the story actually happens. I went from thinking Hau was kind of cute to not even caring about him because he was just so boring and static the entire time and completely uninvolved. Same thing applies to Gladion, who, in all honesty, is trying way too hard to be the next Silver. And why is he even a part of Team Skull? Never once does he do anything actually involving Team Skull. Why wasn't he just a regular ol' Trainer the entire time?

And Lusamine... The main conflict just doesn't make sense to me. She is incredibly superficial and honestly didn't pose much threat on her own. The player literally could have just left her where she was and just tried to catch the UBs that entered our world and that's that. The only reason why the player had to bother with Lusamine at all is because Lillie is too incompetent, even after her character growth, to do anything on her own.

The only thing I haven't gotten to yet is the Battle Tree, but I'm kinda worried that, considering how badly the game lags, I won't really enjoy the main draw of the facility because multi-battles are just... not so fun with that awful lag.

I'd still say these games are really good and among my top 5 favorites, but I can't bring myself to think of them as better than gen 5, HGSS, or even Platinum with how they handled most of the story elements and amount of content.

no lag, and the toughest fights in the game. battle tree is fcking great fun.

Ps I have the original 3ds, fresh from the release, i lagged like....maybe once?, also never had lag in a multi battle. maybe ur system is buggered? I had long load times that was it.

 

[Rivvon]

no lag, and the toughest fights in the game. battle tree is fcking great fun.

Ps I have the original 3ds, fresh from the release, i lagged like....maybe once?, also never had lag in a multi battle. maybe ur system is buggered? I had long load times that was it.

Lag has anything to do with a system being "buggered." Lots of people seem to be noticing great lag during double and multi-battles too, so it isn't just me.

 

[Rin Sohma]

I've not finished the game yet, but so far my least favorite aspect by far is the linearity forced upon you. I don't like the mini-map always showing me where I need to go next. The games are already linear enough, there's no need to take it to the next level and tell me where to go every step of the journey.

I've found Rotom pretty annoying, too. I wish there was a way to turn off his commentary.

 

[Hikamaru]

I've not finished the game yet, but so far my least favorite aspect by far is the linearity forced upon you. I don't like the mini-map always showing me where I need to go next. The games are already linear enough, there's no need to take it to the next level and tell me where to go every step of the journey.

Remember that the protagonist moved to Alola from Kanto and he/she was given the Rotom Dex due to them not knowing their surroundings at first. I get the complaints about linearity, but from a story perspective, the protagonist that newly moved to Alola getting a Pokedex that guides them around makes sense.

 

[Rin Sohma]

Remember that the protagonist moved to Alola from Kanto and he/she was given the Rotom Dex due to them not knowing their surroundings at first. I get the complaints about linearity, but from a story perspective, the protagonist that newly moved to Alola getting a Pokedex that guides them around makes sense.

I mean, when you put it like that, yes it makes sense. But the protag in RSE has also just freshly moved to a new and confusing region and we get none of that. If we want to look at it from the perspective of the storyline, then I'll say I liked how they handled it in Gen 3 more. I don't enjoy how they've done it for Sun/Moon. It takes away the feeling of exploration, IMO.

 

[Nah]

Basically my main gripes with the game rn are:
-game lags whenever there's more than two Pokemon on the screen
-some of the odd/poor choices regarding trainer customization
-game in some ways feels short/the region feels small
-Loss of the infinite loop for breeding that we had in ORAS. I could possibly live with not having an infinite loop if they at least gave us something like the long straight routes in front of the Unova and Kalos daycares, but nope, the area near the nursery sucks for that.
-removal of B2W2-esque move tutors again

There's the matter of the story but idk how I feel about it exactly. I think it's one of the better ones in the series but I'm still waiting for them to give us something more.

Sun/Moon did some good stuff too though.

 

[Masterge77]

Personally, I think Sun and Moon are the best Pokemon games to date, definitely a MASSIVE improvement over X/Y, which I felt were very weak. There's not much I would change except a few things. First listing off my four major problems with the game:

1. Have a better selection of Pokemon
Before I get into this point, I am not talking about the new Pokemon that were introduced in this generation, I'm specifically talking about the older, returning Pokemon that appear in the region and how their selection just feels so limited.

When it was stated that Alola's Dex would be divided into four dexes like how the Kalos Dex was divided into three (with 150 Pokemon each), I was really excited because that meant the Alola Dex was going to be HUUUUUUGE. The game came out and I felt rather disappointed in the selection of Pokemon. There's only 300 Pokemon in the Alola Dex compared to the 450 that Kalos had, and there's very few National Dex Pokemon available in the post-game other than the very few that are available through the Island Scan. I mean, I have to wait until Pokebank updates in January to get my two favorite Pokemon (Floatzel and Mienshao) since both are unobtainable in-game.

It also doesn't help that half the areas have the exact same Pokemon as the last area. Almost every route has Pikipek and Yungoos or their evolutions, almost every cave has Zubat and Diglett or their evolutions. It just feels so repetitive to see the same Pokemon over and over again in each area, unlike in Kalos where every area was diverse in it's wildlife and had something new to offer, while in Alola, you're lucky to encounter TWO Pokemon that weren't in the previous area and aren't the evolutions of a Pokemon that appeared in a previous area. It reminds me of Kanto and how unvaried most of the areas in that region were. I'd rather have a Pokedex of at least 400 Pokemon, 100 or so for each island rather than how uneven each island's Pokedex is.

Also bothered by how almost 75% of the old Pokemon are from Gen 1, which I already think is over-exposed, which brings us to my next point...

2. The Alolan forms feel under-utilized as a concept
When the concept was revealed, they made a huge deal about it, regional variants of older Pokemon, something you didn't see before even in places like Unova and Kalos which, while far from the other regions, have Pokemon from previous generations available. In Alola, there are more old Pokemon than new ones, which is unsurprising, but only 10 evolution lines have regional variants, and every single one of them is a Gen 1 Pokemon, which really bothers me as someone who's least favorite generation is Gen 1 because of how over-exposed I think it is and how I am not nearly as nostalgic for it as I am later generations because I didn't grow up with Gen 1 during it's original run.

It doesn't help that there are even LESS regional variant forms than there were Mega Evolutions in X/Y, and it kind of makes me feel like the concept was wasted and under-utilized by showing not only more favoritism for Gen 1 over the 5 other generations they could have given regional variants to. Heck, I wouldn't mind Alolan Lucario even though I think Lucario is also pretty over-exposed, but hey, it's at least something that isn't Gen 1.

The only Alolan form I really even like is Vulpix/Ninetales, mostly because it's one of my favorite Pokemon already, and also because it's ice typing makes the most sense in a real world basis since they're supposed to be invoking arctic foxes (that and I think they're so darn adorable). As for the rest of them, Alolan Marowak is at least a great callback to the Ghost Marowak from Gen 1, and as for Alolan Raichu... well, at least they did something with Raichu after giving it's pre-evos so much attention. The rest just feel unnecessary or make no sense. Alolan Sandshrew/Sandslash make no sense as Ice types (since the creatures that they are based on don't even have relatives that live in cold climates since they are based on animals that live in the desert and warm climates, that and Alolan Sandslash's Ice/Steel typing gives it 4x weaknesses to the two most commonly offensively-used types). Alolan Ratatta and Meowth are pure Dark types for the sake of having Gen 1 Pokemon as Dark types, Alolan Exeggutor is a joke that is only part-Dragon type because of an obscure plant reference (the plant family "Dracaena" or "Dragon Tree"), and Alolan Grimer/Muk has no point in existing at all.

Also, some of them are quite hypocritical, since we have Alolan Raichu, Exeggutor and Marowak, but no Alolan Pikachu, Exeggcute or Cubone, which makes it feel like we can still get the normal variants but can't.

3. No new Mega Evolutions
This is a bit of a nitpick, but I am just bothered by the fact that they didn't continue this concept at all. Heck, very few Pokemon from Gen 4 and almost NO Pokemon from Gen 5 (the generation with the MOST new Pokemon introduced) and Gen 6 had them at all, so I was expecting this time around, they added some new ones. I understand limiting them to the post-game, but even then, they should at least have some new ones. Also doesn't help that not all the Megas are even obtainable in the game. I've wanted Mega Floatzel and Mega Mienshao since Gen 6 started, and now I feel like I might never get them.

4. The bleeping lag
This was a problem for me as well because I have only the oldest 3DS model (which I got the launch year) and it makes me feel like my 3DS system is really slow, especially when starting up the game and I have to wait more than half a minute for the start screen to come up. I don't think I can go any further with this because everyone here has already talked about it.

Other than those 4 major points, there's nothing else I feel like needs to be changed or could have been done better, other than a few minor nitpicks:
- The lack of facial expressions for the player character, he/she just smiles all the time when all the other characters in a scene are angry or shocked or showing other emotions, and the player is just all :) like they're wanting to watch the world burn. This has become a meme in some ways. Only in ONE SCENE does the player even express something that isn't constant smiling. Heck, the silent protagonist in Dragon Ball Xenoverse is more expressive.
- Too many cut-scenes 7.8/10
- This is a bit of a personal nitpick, though I kind of found the Pokemon League in this game to be a bit underwhelming compared to previous leagues, even though the Elite Four were the hardest I've fought since Gen 4, I just felt the build-up to it didn't make it as impressive in presentation. Also the way the Alola League itself looks as a crystaline cave feels like a downgrade from the massive extravagant palace the Kalos League was. I know that by an in-universe context, the Alola League is brand new and they were probably working on a lower budget than the Unova and Kalos Leagues did, but I just felt it could have looked better.