I’ve gone through eight gyms, four members of the elite four, and hundreds of Pokemon in virtually the same adventure each time I pick up a new installment in the blockbuster series. Whether it's Pokemon: Red and Blue or Black and White, the formula, while still a bit of fun, has grown stale over its twenty years of existence.
With a few exceptions, most Pokemon games haven’t strayed to far away from the original titles released bay in 1996. But it's hard to blame Game Freak for sticking with a formula that works so well, each new release has sold millions of copies. And that makes the changes they're making in Pokemon: Sun & Moon even more impressive.
Alola Challenges, Z-Forms, and Alola Forms are some major ways that Game Freak has deviated from the original formula. Because of that, this is the first time in a long while that fans are getting legitimately exciting for a new Pokemon game, Game Freak is taking risks that we’ve only seen in spin offs and their occasional non-Pokemon project.
Pokemon hasn't been innovative or exciting for some time now, it's always been a reliable series that fans love because they know what to expect. I've always looked forward to the few changes implemented into the yearly pocket monster adventure.
But this time Nintendo and the folks over at the Pokemon Company have gone full throttle with their advertising campaign. It feels like there is a new trailer every week featuring the legendaries, evolutions of the new starters, or just an announcement of a new Pokemon. I've been swamped with information, something I've never experienced with a Pokemon game before.
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This aggressive marketing campaign has me looking forward to see these changes implemented into Pokemon’s main adventure. For the last twenty years, that adventure has consisted of eight one sided gym battles, but this time around we may not have gym battles at all.
Pokemon: Sun & Moon is introducing island trials, different challenges found on Alola's four islands, that including Totem Pokemon, Grand Trials, and other tasks outside of battling.
We don’t know if these challenges will be completely replacing gyms, they could still exist in the game like they have in every other entry. But with the information we’ve received from The Pokemon Company, it seems like the special island challenges are the bread and butter of the adventure.
All these changes show that Game Freak, The Pokemon Company, and Nintendo are willing to experiment with one of their tentpole franchises which can only mean good things for the series. Game Freak has already shown they have major creative chops with releases like Pocket Card Jockey and Harmoknight.
With luck, Pokemon: Sun & Moon will be just as successful and fun as every other entry in the series, showing that Pokemon can still be a groundbreaking game like it was in 1996.
