Pokémon Sun and Moon - General Discussion Thread

[hydrosharp_98]

As WhiteBlair said, a "longer" story isn't going to increase the file size on its own. What I expect is bulking it up so much is the sheer volume of areas to explore, which obviously have to be modeled and textured and whatever else goes into making it look nice. Each part of the map has some unique feature or other, which is another model, another texture, more animations. I've said it before, but it is relevant here too: Alola is clearly making far, far more use of the fact that we aren't hemmed in by two planes of movement and square sprite tiles anymore. Kalos used it to a degree with places like Lumiose, but in Alola they are clearly using this - combined with dynamic camera angles - to allow us to see every inch of each island. I mean, the islands have sides and backs to them that we actually see! This is unheard of in a series of games where previously almost everything you could interact with had to be facing south, and a tall building might as well be a brick wall for all the depth that was possible. Whereas previous regions were basically a series of small maps linked by those waypoint houses, it genuinely looks like we can visit every corner of Alola (except maybe the open sea). That is amazing. And it's also very data-intensive. Of course, this does lend itself to a longer story, but then Unova was a big region and the eastern third of it wasn't involved in the main story at all. Not saying that's bad though, as I do like lots of postgame content. It just shows that a long story can take you backwards and forwards through the same areas, and a short story can skip over them, so there's not necessarily a linear relationship.

Like I said, I'm aware a longer story doesn't affect file size. What does is the fact that, from what we've seen thus far at least, Alola appears to be much larger, at least in depth, than any region we've visited before. As far as I'm aware, and at least what I was referring to, is that the "main story" refers to the typically 15/25 hour period between the beginning of the game and the "ending", where we become regional Champion, or this region's equivalent. The main story appears to have more depth, appears to be spread over the entirety of Alola, and seeing as, due to the updated graphic engine and appearing size of Alola, will be one of, if not the, longest main stories in a main series game.

If you checked back to my original comment or read what I'd said, though, I state that.

Story =/= increase in file size.
Updated graphics => increase in file size.
Updated graphics and engine capabilities = larger (feeling) region = increase in file size.

Hence, a longer main story. Just clearing up what I had said in my earlier post.

 

[TyLogic]

See, and I'm still hoping for more of them. I'm not overly impressed by Comfey, but I think Fairy didn't get the attention it deserved in XY. It was spotlighted, but there are really only like 40 Fairy types. Out of over 700! I wish more older Mons had gained Fairy type. Only other solution is to make more.

The question is: How long will it take Fairy-types to catch up? They are making a lot of Fairy-types, in the process, they are also making Dragons more common. What to they want the ratio to be? Not just for Fairy to Dragon, but for Fairy to all other types as well.

 

[mxmearcstapa]

The question is: How long will it take Fairy-types to catch up? They are making a lot of Fairy-types, in the process, they are also making Dragons more common. What to they want the ratio to be? Not just for Fairy to Dragon, but for Fairy to all other types as well.

True. Not including any of Sun and Moon's Pokemon, there's only about 50 Dragons, so they're close in number to Fairy--same for Fighting and Dark at about 50-some each. It's a close ratio, but I just wish there were more of them. The choices feel limited compared to something like Water that just totally dominates in number. I'll be interested to see how Alola changes the ratios, if it does at all.

 

[TyLogic]

True. Not including any of Sun and Moon's Pokemon, there's only about 50 Dragons, so they're close in number to Fairy--same for Fighting and Dark at about 50-some each. It's a close ratio, but I just wish there were more of them. The choices feel limited compared to something like Water that just totally dominates in number. I'll be interested to see how Alola changes the ratios, if it does at all.

I feel like, If Fairy-types were there since Red and Blue, they wouldn't be rare. They probably would've had only one line in gen 1 (To counter Dratini), but after that, they would've spread out more. I hope it doesn't take long. I don't want every other CoroCoro scan or trailer in gen 8 to have a Fairy-type...

 

[magma grunt edu]

very late reaction:

Wow, the 2nd stages are so much different in my preferences. While i liked rowlett more than the other two with litten coming second and not caring at all about popplio, now it's kind of the opposite. brionne is my favorite now followed closely by torracat while dartrix is in the same position as popplio meaning i don't care at all for it. At least we didin't get any quilladin/emboar fiasco this time so that's good. We never got a 4 legged fire starter for the last stage and that seems to continue if torracat's evvolution is that leaked one. Typhlosion is the closest we've come and i wish we had an amazing flaming tiger on all fours.

Brionne surprised me the most, it's so much more feminine than the others but i really like it. I'm a sucker for feminine cute pokemon like gardevoir, lopunny or bellossom and brionne has just that look.

now the rest. I really like the pokepelago where you can get items, train pokemon, grow berries, etc. using the boxed pokemon. It's awesome that those guys that you don't have time to spend with go and do something that ends up being so useful.

The festival is great, they brought back the amazingness of join avenue. Now you can again do prey much everything you could in BW2 and i love it.

And lastly the demo. i guess ash-greninja's mystery is finally over. It's great that it is a story that it's not part of the main games's one.

 

[Ironthunder]

Am I the only one who thinks that this file size might be due to having a second region postgame? Maybe revisiting Kalos for the Zygarde tie-in, maybe something else. Hell, maybe the Sevii islands return!

 

[Inconspicuosaurus]

I feel like, If Fairy-types were there since Red and Blue, they wouldn't be rare. They probably would've had only one line in gen 1 (To counter Dratini), but after that, they would've spread out more. I hope it doesn't take long. I don't want every other CoroCoro scan or trailer in gen 8 to have a Fairy-type...

If Fairy existed in Gen 1 there would have been three lines: Clefairy, Jigglypuff and Mr. Mime. Unless you're suggesting they would have retconned more Pokemon as Fairy later, which I highly doubt they would have done. They have never changed a Pokemon's type other than adding a newly-introduced one.

The fact that they introduced 9 new lines as well as retconning a ton of Pokemon makes me think they want Fairies to be more common than they currently are. They don't exist solely to counter Dragon, so I don't think there is any reason to keep them at the same level. I expect they'll reach around about average and stay there. ie: not crazy common like Water, but not in the rare bunch with Dragon and Ghost.

Am I the only one who thinks that this file size might be due to having a second region postgame? Maybe revisiting Kalos for the Zygarde tie-in, maybe something else. Hell, maybe the Sevii islands return!

Yes. The increased size is due to the volume of content in Alola and the updated graphics. I think two whole regions is pretty much beyond the scope of one Pokemon game at this point. 3DS cartridges can hold up to 8 GB, but if they want eShop download to be at all viable they can't go much bigger than they have. Not to mention all the extra time and effort they'd have to put in to get Kalos (or especially the Sevii islands) up to Gen 7 standards. I would much rather they concentrate on making one region truly fantastic than worry about tacking on another. This has been their goal since Gen 2, so I don't see why they would change now, especially with the extraordinary amount of effort they've put in to creating a vibrant and believable culture in Alola. I want to learn Alola's story, not be distracted by old news.

 

[Gabriel Faria]

The question is: How long will it take Fairy-types to catch up? They are making a lot of Fairy-types, in the process, they are also making Dragons more common. What to they want the ratio to be? Not just for Fairy to Dragon, but for Fairy to all other types as well.

I believe there's actually more Fairy-types than Ice and Ghost types (and maybe some more types I forgot). I would have liked to see more older Pokémon getting the type, but at least I'm liking gen VII's fairies very much xD

 

[Joltik-Kid]

I failed to talk about the starters myself the last time as well... I'm wondering what each one excels at?

 

[TyLogic]

If Fairy existed in Gen 1 there would have been three lines: Clefairy, Jigglypuff and Mr. Mime. Unless you're suggesting they would have retconned more Pokemon as Fairy later, which I highly doubt they would have done. They have never changed a Pokemon's type other than adding a newly-introduced one.

The fact that they introduced 9 new lines as well as retconning a ton of Pokemon makes me think they want Fairies to be more common than they currently are. They don't exist solely to counter Dragon, so I don't think there is any reason to keep them at the same level. I expect they'll reach around about average and stay there. ie: not crazy common like Water, but not in the rare bunch with Dragon and Ghost.

Well, what I meant was, at first, they would've had it so it could be in a rivalry with the Dratini-line, implying that the Jigglypuff and Cleffairy-lines wouldn't be Fairy at all (Sounds weird, I know). That way, it could be this cool rare type (Like Ghost or Dragon). Then they would've spread it out more as they realized it could fit a large variety of pokemon making it more common. (I was trying to look at it from their perspective)

I think at least one of them should be rare. It feels nice having some scary powerful over-powered type.

Side Note: I heard that, in leveling out the playing field with Dragons, they made Fairies the new dominant type or too strong. Something about out-speeding their weaknesses and some other things. Are Fairy-types good? I thought they had good special attack, and special defense. (Or is the defense part only Florges?)

 

[glacialcat]

Well, what I meant was, at first, they would've had it so it could be in a rivalry with the Dratini-line, implying that the Jigglypuff and Cleffairy-lines wouldn't be Fairy at all (Sounds weird, I know). That way, it could be this cool rare type (Like Ghost or Dragon). Then they would've spread it out more as they realized it could fit a large variety of pokemon making it more common. (I was trying to look at it from their perspective)

I think at least one of them should be rare. It feels nice having some scary powerful over-powered type.

Side Note: I heard that, in leveling out the playing field with Dragons, they made Fairies the new dominant type or too strong. Something about out-speeding their weaknesses and some other things. Are Fairy-types good? I thought they had good special attack, and special defense. (Or is the defense part only Florges?)

Fairy is a very strong type with supereffective hits against Dragon, Fighting, and Dark, all very good types to be hitting. And its only rested by Steel, Poison, and Fire.

More importantly though is its resistances and weaknesses. Obviously its immune to dragon, but it also resists Fighting, Dark, and... Bug. For some reason. Fighting and dark are very powerful attacks and used to be an unresisted combo before Fairy came along and resisted both of them. Add to that it only has two weaknesses against the offensively limited Steel and Poison types. This was on purpose. If you had asked anyone what was the weakest offensive type before Fairy came out, Poison would've been #1 and Steel would've probably been #2 (maybe Bug).

So they purposefully made Fairy resistant against many of the strongest types, and weak to only the weakest types. In some ways this is good, it has massively increased the use of both poison and steel moves in the metagame. For example Nidoking almost never ran poison moves in G5, and now always runs one. But on the other side it requires one of these obscure, otherwise bad (offensive) types to take down. I wouldn't say its overpowered the type, but Fairy is strong as a result. It might be the single strongest type, but not overwhelmingly so like Dragon used to be.

 

[gliscor&yanmega]

True. Not including any of Sun and Moon's Pokemon, there's only about 50 Dragons, so they're close in number to Fairy--same for Fighting and Dark at about 50-some each. It's a close ratio, but I just wish there were more of them. The choices feel limited compared to something like Water that just totally dominates in number. I'll be interested to see how Alola changes the ratios, if it does at all.

I feel they go a logical route with deciding how many Pokemon of each type there will be. Something like Fairy I see being on the rarer side since they are myths and such like dragons and ghosts. Most of the types seem to be at a logical place, although Psychic seems to have more than I would expect since it seems more like a Fairy/Dragon type deal.

 

[Pilpulp]

Am I the only one who thinks that this file size might be due to having a second region postgame? Maybe revisiting Kalos for the Zygarde tie-in, maybe something else. Hell, maybe the Sevii islands return!

I really don't think there will be a second region. It might have made sense if it was Kalos, but AFAIK the Zygarde quest is happening in Alola so there's no point for the story to go there.

We can't really compare the file size off of other games too much because we have to remember this game is pretty different and has a lot of new features in general.

 

[TyLogic]

Fairy is a very strong type with supereffective hits against Dragon, Fighting, and Dark, all very good types to be hitting. And its only rested by Steel, Poison, and Fire.

More importantly though is its resistances and weaknesses. Obviously its immune to dragon, but it also resists Fighting, Dark, and... Bug. For some reason. Fighting and dark are very powerful attacks and used to be an unresisted combo before Fairy came along and resisted both of them. Add to that it only has two weaknesses against the offensively limited Steel and Poison types. This was on purpose. If you had asked anyone what was the weakest offensive type before Fairy came out, Poison would've been #1 and Steel would've probably been #2 (maybe Bug).

So they purposefully made Fairy resistant against many of the strongest types, and weak to only the weakest types. In some ways this is good, it has massively increased the use of both poison and steel moves in the metagame. For example Nidoking almost never ran poison moves in G5, and now always runs one. But on the other side it requires one of these obscure, otherwise bad (offensive) types to take down. I wouldn't say its overpowered the type, but Fairy is strong as a result. It might be the single strongest type, but not overwhelmingly so like Dragon used to be.

Hmm. That's what I thought (about the type usage thing). It seems that, whenever there is a new type, they use it to bring one type down and bring others up. Apparently, Psychic use to be dominant. Then they made the Dark-type(which is probably why it is immune to Psychic-type attacks. All new types are immune to something). They also made Steel, which resisted Psychic, and made Fighting-types used more often.

I got to admit. I'd use Steel-type pokemon more often, if they had better moves. And I thought that the Poison-type was useless before they made the Fairy-type(It used to be super-effective against Bug. I don't know why they changed it. It makes total sense. Also I always had types that could cover for types Poison was super-effective against. And Toxic is a TM so...)

I hated the past gens Faries, but like I said before, these look promising. Let's hope for some new Steel and Fairy-type moves!
(For Steel, maybe something called Shear Metal. It could be super-effective against other Steel-types!)

 

[Paladin of Arceus]

I don't think I've commented on the other features revealed in the trailer, have I? Eh, I don't have much to say other than to share peoples' excitement for Ash-Greninja, Join Avenue 2.0, and Sinnoh Underground 2.0. Nuzlockes can be made a fair bit easier with Isle Evelup if you manage to catch a lot of Pokémon you don't end up using right away, but if you had a lot of dead Pokémon in your boxes, it'd just be a depressing waste.

 

[DSDark]

I don't think I've commented on the other features revealed in the trailer, have I? Eh, I don't have much to say other than to share peoples' excitement for Ash-Greninja, Join Avenue 2.0, and Sinnoh Underground 2.0. Nuzlockes can be made a fair bit easier with Isle Evelup if you manage to catch a lot of Pokémon you don't end up using right away, but if you had a lot of dead Pokémon in your boxes, it'd just be a depressing waste.

Sinnoh underground 2.0?

 

[Paladin of Arceus]

The mining island in Poké Pelago reminds me of the Sinnoh Underground's treasure-digging minigame. I just hope it's less frustrating than Gen 4's version was.

 

[DSDark]

The mining island in Poké Pelago reminds me of the Sinnoh Underground's treasure-digging minigame. I just hope it's less frustrating than Gen 4's version was.

okay because I was going to say. Nothing really seems to be the same as having a maze of tunnels under the whole region in SM

 

[Paladin of Arceus]

okay because I was going to say. Nothing really seems to be the same as having a maze of tunnels under the whole region in SM

True dat. I also hope it's not just a "deploy units and wait X amount of real-life time for results" feature. I wanna sink my shovel into the earth and dig up dat phat lewt myself!

 

[R_N]

True dat. I also hope it's not just a "deploy units and wait X amount of real-life time for results" feature. I wanna sink my shovel into the earth and dig up dat phat lewt myself!

Everything presented about these things makes it seem automated