To buy or not to buy?

Smocks nailed a lot. Alola felt kinda unfinished in the original Sun & Moon so there's loads of potential for what could be expanded, and I also do love the new protagonist designs, especially given the female now has a better hat.

But while we may not have barely any information yet, there's five months worth of hype with potential new trailers being drip-fed on a monthly basis, like what happened with S/M pre-release.

I always buy one game for every new generation. I am not sure I'll buy USUM as it is not a new generation...We'll see. I won't preorder it but I will probably end up buying them later :p

Yeah I always buy the main series games regardless of how much we know and how good I think they'll be, I'll be buying Pokemon games for years to come.

I'm planning to buy Ultra Sun, probably on release day. I've been itching to replay S/M, so exploring an updated Alola sounds like a great time as far as I'm concerned. The fact that they probably aren't sequels a la BW2 is a little disappointing to me, but it sounds like US/UM will at least offer more new story content than games like Emerald and Platinum did. They'd have to be nearly identical to their predecessors - in both story and postgame content - to sway me from buying.

I might buy these games on launch day but it depends on a few things:

If it's basically the same game as before with no new Pokemon or Alolan forms and the only new thing being the Legendaries new forms and a nothing post game then I am likely going to wait a while before getting them.

If there is a reasonably fresh story with fun new Pokemon or Alolan forms, a new Pokedex and a solid post-game (I'm not talking B2W2 level here just something above a Battle Tower) then I will likely pick it up.

Sun and Moon was hugh let down because the plaza.
for now i won't buy the game because i don't care about the story.
if the online will be good as pokemon x and y so yes i will get it, but if they are gonna stick to the plaza it will be waste of my money..

The "3rd versions" have always been the best of the franchise so I'm obviously going to be buying them! Even if the games happen to not change much I'd still get them just to go through Alola one more time, I really enjoyed SM's main run so I'm totally up for giving the region a second run.
Move tutors are also probably going to be a thing and I can't wait to see what new moves the alolamons get.

I have a hard time imagining a scenario in which I wouldn't buy them. I used to debate which Pokemon games to get, or whether to get one version over another, but over the years, I realized that I'm simply better off buying all of the main games that come out, even if I don't have time to play them right away. Time is more of an issue for me these days than money, and it simply isn't worth it anymore for me to agonize over whether to get a Pokemon game or not. (Other series I'll do that with, but I've been happy with every Pokemon game I've purchased, so until a game breaks that trend, I'll probably buy every main game that comes out as close to day 1 as possible.)

I suppose I could pass on the new games if they ended up being New 3DS only (and didn't really run on the original 3DS). However, I would probably end up just buying a new system to play them on instead. Even if they're nearly identical to S/M, I'll probably buy them. I've been considering getting a spare copy each of Sun and Moon, for various reasons, so if the new games turned out to be identical, I would just pick them up instead, and skip the extra copies of S/M.

Pokken Lucario said:

Sun and Moon was hugh let down because the plaza.
for now i won't buy the game because i don't care about the story.
if the online will be good as pokemon x and y so yes i will get it, but if they are gonna stick to the plaza it will be waste of my money..

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I know Festival Plaza is the most-complained feature about S/M, but personally I wouldn't let it be so much of a detractor that you don't want to play the games anymore. US/UM will likely add so much more in terms of better features as most third versions and remakes do, so look forward to the positives that could be coming.

Hikamaru said:

I know Festival Plaza is the most-complained feature about S/M, but personally I wouldn't let it be so much of a detractor that you don't want to play the games anymore. US/UM will likely add so much more in terms of better features as most third versions and remakes do, so look forward to the positives that could be coming.

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but what i like about pokemon is the online battles, in the plaza the only thing i can find is 3vs3 in battle spot which are not fun at all.
for me if they keep the plaza i will skip the games.

Pokken Lucario said:

but what i like about pokemon is the online battles, in the plaza the only thing i can find is 3vs3 in battle spot which are not fun at all.
for me if they keep the plaza i will skip the games.

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I'd personally look at all the other good features since I take all the features into account when it comes to pros and cons in a Pokemon game. You don't always have to do online stuff to enjoy Pokemon.

Hikamaru said:

I'd personally look at all the other good features since I take all the features into account when it comes to pros and cons in a Pokemon game. You don't always have to do online stuff to enjoy Pokemon.

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yeah, but what i do after i end the story mode? i just like throw 40$ away for 25 of hours gameplay?
when i buy games i want the games to keep me busy like pokemon x and y did with the great pss.
the new stuff is cool, but what i care about in the end of the day is the online stuff.
this is why i like xy and oras so much because i could find easy 6vs6 battles but sun and moon ruined it for me.
i will take evreything over the stupid plaza.

Pokken Lucario said:

yeah, but what i do after i end the story mode? i just like throw 40$ away for 25 of hours gameplay?

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This day and age you're lucky to get 10 hours of gameplay out of a $60+ game, so 25 hours is pretty good going. Especially considering how utterly underwhelming and minimalistic Pokemon is as a series in comparison to pretty much every other RPG you could think of.

Although I don't disagree with your points.

Pokken Lucario said:

yeah, but what i do after i end the story mode? i just like throw 40$ away for 25 of hours gameplay?
when i buy games i want the games to keep me busy like pokemon x and y did with the great pss.
the new stuff is cool, but what i care about in the end of the day is the online stuff.
this is why i like xy and oras so much because i could find easy 6vs6 battles but sun and moon ruined it for me.
i will take evreything over the stupid plaza.

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S/M only had bad postgame content because that's the typical pattern for the first games of a new generation. US/UM are going to likely extend the postgame content so I'm sure you'll find something off interest.

I'm not picky, I'll buy anything that's not absolute garbage lol

Hikamaru said:

S/M only had bad postgame content because that's the typical pattern for the first games of a new generation. US/UM are going to likely extend the postgame content so I'm sure you'll find something off interest.

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This is why i don't spend my money on only story mode games without good online.
maybe only botw becuase it's like 70 hours game.

I buy them. People shouldn't judge them so quickly until we know more. I got all of gen 4, 5 and 6 games. Gen 7 will be no exception.

Alexander18 said:

I buy them. People shouldn't judge them so quickly until we know more. I got all of gen 4, 5 and 6 games. Gen 7 will be no exception.

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Isn't saying that you're going to buy them judging them prematurely, though? You've already decided you're going to buy them with barely any information available. It's just as hasty to say they're worth your time at this stage as it is to say they're not.

But honestly, I don't think judging the games prematurely is an issue here. It's a Pokemon game, and we all know on some level what we're getting, and what we can expect from that. In a franchise like this, where things really do not change in any ground-shaking way between instalments in gameplay terms, it's the little things that can make or break the purchase. The little things are what people look for in core Pokemon titles, and those little things can delay or outright put off purchases...or secure a day-one buy.

Like, for me, as a random example...if I see Lillie hand-holding through the region again, I won't buy these myself. I will probably ask for one for Christmas, but I wouldn't buy them. If I saw something crazy like revisiting Sinnoh after travelling through Alola, I'd buy these day one and I'd be bouncing off the walls between now and then, too. Gameplay is a non-issue because I already know exactly how it'll play. It's not really premature to judge the games based on that. Everyone has different priorities. The whole point of the thread was to find out what those are~

I will buy it no matter what because my friends are all super pumped so I can't let them down and not buy it :)

I'm going against the tide here and say that I could possibly skip them. The new confirmed main title for the Switch has me more excited than USUM despite knowing very little about it. So rather than spend on these games, I'd rather buy a Switch and be ready for the future.