I’ve got to admit, Pokemon Sun and Moon has been an absolute blast so far.

Largely, it is basically the same game as every other Pokemon adventure since Red and Blue, but the flavor is slightly different: instead of Gym Trainers, there are Trial Challenges, instead of Gym Leaders, there are Kahunas or whatever.

That said, they’ve mixed it up enough where it doesn’t feel like I’m slogging my way through the same swamp again, even if I notice that my shoes and socks got wet along the way.

The major reason Sun and Moon feels great?  It’s infinitely more streamlined.  Gone are the absolutely horrid HMs.  This means a few things: first off, no more wasting a Pokemon slot on an HM slave; second, reduced button presses.  In the past, you’d get to a rock or whatever that you need to use an HM to push/destroy/etc and would need to do the following:

  • Open menu
  • Select “Pokemon”
  • Go to desired Pokemon
  • Activate HM

Now when you get to that rock, you just push Y and can call whatever Pokemon you need (these are separate from your party) and can ride it to complete the action.

Boom, done.

I’ve only just finished the first island, but so far so good!