Heavy-handed Pokemon Sun/Moon A Striking Difference to Pokemon GO

It looks like you're trying to walk. Use the circle pad!
It looks like you're trying to walk. Use the circle pad!
It looks like you’re trying to walk. Use the circle pad!

Nintendo has long been criticized by many gamers for being hamfisted in the opening moments of its titles. It’s all in a bid to placate various groups, from parental to accessibility-minded consortiums. For core gamers, you know, you, it is a nuisance. No matter how slick the game designers dress up ‘A does this and B does that’ it can be agonizing to slog through. Pokemon GO broke this mold. Niantic Labs, being a company that licensed the the Pokemon brand for a platform outside Nintendo’s control, did not need to abide by Nintendo’s guidelines. Instead it went the other way.

We were thrown into the wild unknown of Alternate Reality games with little to no guide. Professor Hotpants did his best, but was no match for the variety of mechanics GO brought to the second Pokemania. This is why the Internet was swamped with guides, including our own XP farming and throw guides, to aide those attempting to Catch ‘Em All. I mean, I didn’t realize you had to spin the stupid lollipops for days. It took a conversation in our Slack channel to realize that I’d wasted days of experience in the first week.

Five months removed from Pokemon GO and we’re back into the core franchise with Pokemon Sun and Moon. Prepare to spend the first two hours learning everything you already know about the game you’ve likely played for twenty years. New to the franchise like Shaktaji? It won’t be any less boring.