Pokémon Sun And Moon Review: 6 Ups And 3 Downs

Ups:

9. The Nostalgia Factor

There's a very good reason why Pokémon Go was at the forefront of my mind when I opened this article, and that's because it seems to have been at the forefront of Nintendo's as well. After spending the better part of 20 years producing these games for the same core audience, they all of a sudden found themselves with a huge potential market this year.

From a business perspective, look at it this way. Pokémon Alpha and Omega sold just over 3 million units in two years, Pokémon GO had 45 million playing every single day. That's an extra 42 million people who you know have at least a passing interest in your product - appealing to them must understandably have been priority number 1 during development.

The result hasn't been drastic, but right from the off there's an overwhelming amount of the original 150 kicking about to be caught. Without going out of your way to find them, players can have a Pikachu, Growlithe, Caterpie, Mankey, Eevee, Abra, Drowzee, Spearow and Jigglypuff within the first few hours of playing. Vastly outnumbering the other 650+ species in the game.

A cynical ploy to make the game as familiar to new players as possible this might be, but given how well-loved the original game's creatures are it really does improve the opening stages of Sun and Moon.