The appeal of the Pokemon games.

I recently wrote an absolutely gushing review of Pokemon Sun, in which I praised it for just how much of a joy it is to play. In the same review, I mentioned Pokemon Black, and how its in-depth story and self-reflection on the series' internal logic made it appealing.

It really made me think: Why do I like the Pokemon games? I mean, there's a pretty simple reason why I like all of them: The Pokemon designs are endlessly creative, and the mechanics started off  really good and got progressively better and better with each installment. Even without the various distinctions of the different games strengths and weaknesses, Pokemon would be worth playing just for the combat alone.

And yet, that's not the only (or even main) reason I play any given game in the series. It seems like each game has a new and different appeal to me, and it's the series' ever-changing nature that really keeps me hooked, never quite sure what the thing that'll stand out to me in the next one is.

Because of that, though, I have trouble justifying to myself why Pokemon Blue is still one of my favorite installments in the series. Being the first, it's the most baseline of the Pokemon games, and I don't think many people will claim it isn't the absolute weakest mechanically. It's a ridiculously standard adventure, with the Kanto region lacking the originality of future regions and the story being as basic as it gets.

Part of me screams that this must be nostalgia goggles. This is the first game I ever really played, of course I'd be fond of it. But yet, on my very numerous return trips through Kanto on my by now decrepit GameBoy Colour, I've never been disappointed in my high expectations the same way I have by other childhood favorites. Instead, I find the simplicity and straight-forwardness of Kanto charming. Future regions go for specific vibes, be it the traditional Japanese Johto, tropical Hoenn, or distinctly European Kalos. Kanto is just a simple collection of fairly vanilla towns and fields, but that gives it its own personality and universal appeal (though there are certainly many memorable locations around). Meanwhile, the story, simpler than any other game, is somewhat charming, with Team Rocket being just obviously evil, and Red slowly growing in power to be able to defeat them. Pokemon Blue is charmingly simple and innocent, without the nuance of the future games. It's by far the most childish of the Pokemon games, and this is what brings me back to it a lot.

Its sequel, Pokemon Crystal, however, is possibly my least favorite game in the series, duking it out with generation four's Pokemon Platinum for the bottom spot. I can understand the appeal of it, I really can. Johto's a cool region, feeling distinctly ancient, which contrasted with Kanto's vanilla vague modernity, and the larger emphasis on story and character made the stakes feel both bigger and more personal. I view Pokemon Crystal as a stepping stone to the things that made me love every future generation, be it its larger emphasis on an interesting region or on character, but I simply don't think it fleshed out those aspects enough. I have heard from its many fans the argument that what makes it great is the lack of focus on every aspect, giving it a jack-of-all trades appeal, and that's certainly one that I can understand. It also features two of the coolest moments in the series: Realizing that you get to go through Kanto after beating Johto, and of course, the unforgettable battle with Trainer Red deep within Mt. Steel.

Generation Three for me is where the Pokemon I really love begins. Pokemon Ruby is in my triumvirate of 9/10 Pokemon games, though it definitely comes in behind Black and Sun. The Hoenn region is simply an accomplishment unlike anything else in the Pokemon series up until this point. It's fundamentally different from either Kanto or Johto, feeling considerably more fantastical. It's a tropical region, with lakes formed inside craters, fields of ash created by active volcanoes, a city entirely in the trees of a jungle, and a small, rustic village floating on logs in the ocean. Hoenn is brimming to the edge with cool things to discover, little cryptic secrets to uncover, and marvels of nature to wonder at. It's also full of unique characters, with their own quirks and personalities. It's bigger than anything the Pokemon series had ever produced, and I'd argue it's to this day the most creative region we've seen. I recently re-visited the region playing Omega Ruby, and was blown away by just how damn cool this thing is. Pokemon Ruby is a game that puts me in awe every time I turn a corner, no matter how damn well I know what is around that corner. Also, that soundtrack is the best, fuck everyone who complains about the horns, they rule.

Pokemon Platinum, however, takes a different approach. I've mentioned previously I'm not a massive fan of the Sinnoh region, but I can't really diss it for being badly made. Whilst approaching Kanto levels of blandness, Sinnoh is big. I mean, really massive. There's a lot to explore and do in Pokemon Platinum. This is by far the biggest game in the series, and, whilst I don't think the content is as fun minute-per-minute as most other entries, there's definitely more sheer amount of fun to be had simply because of the amount of time you'll be spending in even a non-completionistic adventure through Sinnoh. Familiarity with a world breeds fondness, and I was certainly fond of some of my favorite hangouts in Sinnoh by the time I was done with the massive adventure through it. It's not like Sinnoh is completely devoid of flavor by any means, but it's not as jam-packed with it as its predecessors or some of its successors. I tend to become irritated at Pokemon Platinum because of how damn slow-moving it is, and how it doesn't have as many cool things in it as say, Ruby, but it's not an experience I deem unworthy in any way.

Pokemon Black's Unova is just as dull, if not even duller, than Sinnoh. However, what Pokemon Black does is put all its eggs into one basket: That of its story and characters. As a result, this is by far the best story told in a Pokemon game, filled with fantastic characters with tonnes of depth and complexity. Pokemon Black is a dark and complex game, exploring moral questions that the rest of the series had taken for granted. Exploring its story and its moodier, more grown-up worldview would make it an outstanding game in the series, but it cleverly peppers its cast of great characters throughout the world, often making Gym Leaders active participants in the plot around the area of their town. As such, the world feels a lot more alive than it really is, and you get a real feeling as to what Gym Leaders' role in the world is, which is a huge boon for the rest of the series. It's also an absolutely gorgeous game, which I think was only recently overthrown by Pokemon Sun as the prettiest in the series. Whenever I feel like playing a Pokemon game that makes me think, or one that's slightly moodier than the rest, Pokemon Black is a solid choice.

I unfortunately have nothing to say about Black 2 or White 2. I own a copy of White 2 and plan to play it soon, but this duet is still the only main series installment I've not played.

Pokemon X carries the tradition of me not really caring for the even-numbered generations, though to a much lesser extent than Crystal or Platinum. The french-flavored Kalos region is a stunning place. It really does compete with both Hoenn and Alola for the "favorite region" spot, even if I think it falls slightly behind the two of them. Pokemon X might be the most stylish game in the series. It oozes with elegance and beauty the entire way through, in a way very uncharacteristic of the series. It also takes a similarly dark tone to Black, though playing it in contrast to the beautiful surroundings as opposed to Black's moody American-inspired cities. Its story is admittedly fairly boring, and the massive roster of important characters ends up being quite bland, but these are faults that Ruby also had, and I think just how damn cool Kalos is makes up for it

My main issue with X, and the reason I come back to it less than Blue, Ruby, Black or, I'm sure now Sun is that it's the only Pokemon game that I don't enjoy the combat in outside of multiplayer. Pokemon X  is simply too damn easy. In both of my playthroughs I turned off the EXP share, which means I was essentially playing on hard mode, and I never once lost a battle, breezing through every gym leader, the boss of Team Flare, and, most upsettingly of all, through the Elite Four. There's simply no challenge here, and as such the game becomes really boring to play. I'm just hoping the inevitable remakes a few generations down the line up the challenge. As is, I think I'll limit revisits to Kalos to simply tourist-trips through my completed save file rather than starting a new one. It's a real shame, because if I liked playing through the game getting to see Kalos again would be a treat similar to the pleasure of seeing Hoenn for the millionth time. I may prefer X to Platinum or Crystal, but it's a lot more likely I'll replay the latter two.

Of course, I already gave a very long explanation of why I absolutely adore Pokemon Sun, which you can find here. To summarize: I think this is the game with the best region in the series. Alola is an amazing place, one that feels more real than any other region so far. It's full of welcoming, warm people, but is deeply connected to its primal roots. You're also graced with an absolutely fantastic assemble cast of characters that go on a journey with you, and with Lillie, the best character in all of Pokemon. Most of all, it's an amazingly pleasant experience. Most of everything is nice, warm, and inviting. This makes the moments that aren't stand out even more, but most importantly it makes Pokemon Sun a real joy to play through, a game that kept a smile on my face for most of my play time in it. Rather than the complicated reasons the rest of the series gives me for playing them, Pokemon Sun made me real happy, and that's all I needed.




I really do adore the Pokemon series. It's often accused of sticking too closely to the same formula, but I think that that's an unfair accusation. It's a series that goes in many different directions, with different reasons to play each entry. It's maintained itself fresh and enjoyable throughout the years because it's willing to shake up what makes the experience stand out whilst leaning on the same incredibly solid mechanical core. Even the entries I like less I enormously respect, because I think they simply nail experiences I don't necessarily care about having that much. You don't get to be a series as well-loved and enduring as Pokemon without having the guts to present experiences that have such wildly different appeals.

Pokemon Sun is the best one yet

Note: I'm talking about Pokemon. Since they have two games per installment, I'll just be referring to either the one I played or the one that has the first title when you usually say it (X and Y, Ruby and Sapphire, etc)

Seldom has a game made me as happy as Pokemon Sun. I'm a big fan of the Pokemon series. Pokemon Blue was the first game I ever owned, and I'm told by my parents that my young self liked it so much that I learned to read in order to be able to play it. Pokemon Blue, along with the mechanics of the Pokemon series, will always have a special place in my heart, for obvious reasons. I'm also a big fan of the generation three games, with Pokemon Ruby being my favorite game before I got properly into games, and definitely one of the games I've played the most. It's an expansive, fantastically crafted world, with tonnes of creative monster designs and a kickass soundtrack.

Up till now, however, it was the first wave of generation five games, specifically Pokemon Black, that I considered the best, due to their unusually story-focused approach. You still had the usual depth of a Pokemon game, but with a story that actually made you care about it. Cheren, Bianca, Ghetsis and especially N are fantastic characters, and the story as a whole is a fascinating look into the morality behind the whole premise of the series. Whilst the Unova region shares some blandness with Sinnoh, Pokemon Black had me legitimately thinking about the big questions that, up until that point, had been relegated to jokey observations between Pokemon fans.

That said, it was tonally a lot darker than the series had been up until that point. It's not that there wasn't dark stuff previously (Lavender Town is still a symbol of childhood trauma for many gamers), but generation five put dark themes at the very core of the experience of playing it. So did generation six, with its major theme of war and death. This isn't necessarily a bad thing (I just got telling you that the darkest game in the series used to be my favorite!), but it's not why I originally came to Pokemon. Pokemon Blue was a fun, relatively light-hearted romp through a land full to the brim of cool looking monsters.

In this way, despite all of its advances, bells and whistles and clear effort to shake up the formula, Pokemon Sun is the most old-school game in the series since the GameBoy. Set in the Hawaiian-inspired island paradise of Alola, it has you play a newcomer who's soon to obtain their starter Pokemon, chosen from one of three types that play off each other in a rock-paper-scissors manner. However, instead of a relatively lonely journey to fight the Gym Leaders of the region in Pokemon battle in order to gain access to the Elite Four and become champion whilst ocasionally running into your jerkass rival who picked the Pokemon with a type advantage to yours, this time you set off as a group with your new friend Hau who picked the Pokemon at a disadvantage to yours, the local Pokemon Professor Kakui and his mysterious assistant Lillie on the Island Challenge, an ancient Alolan rite of passage for trainers.

The sense of community is immediate and effective. From your doorstep when you first leave home to go get your first Pokemon to the final steps before your final challenge, you're accompanied by a rotating group of friends on the same journey you're on. The brunt of your journey is done alone, of course, but you'll often stick close to each other in dangerous or intimidating stretches of road, help each other out of trouble, and always all meet up at the next town or Pokemon Center down the road. It's a sensation that reminded me of my pilgrimage down the Camino de Santiago, a network of roads that encompasses most of Spain. I'd come across the friends and acquaintances that I made on the road and stop to chat, do stretches of path together, and then we'd all see each other, plus a few new faces and minus a few old ones, at the pilgrim's hostel in the next milestone town at the end of the day. Some people you'd meet on the road once, have a few nice words with, and never meet again, and some people you'd see each day for hundreds of kilometers. It's a unique feeling, one of strong community even when the great majority of your time is spent alone, and not one that I'd expected to be captured this perfectly in a silly game for kids where a ghost owl made of grass can beat up a sandcastle.

What's more, despite its size, the stable of characters you end up travelling and meeting along the way is fantastically characterized across the board. Hau's relentless enthusiasm and cheer isn't some sort of facade he puts up, it's genuinely who he is, but he's this way for a reason. Professor Kakui is energetic and goofy, but it barely hides the strong mind, will, and heart that make him one of the most respected and beloved people across all of Alola. The kahuna of Melemele Island, Hala, is a stolid elder who is deeply entrenched in his ways and not only cares deeply for his island, but enjoys a good joke and party as much as anyone.

Most importantly, almost everyone you travel with is fundamentally a good, likable, well-rounded person. Where Cheren and Bianca were deeply flawed individuals with tonnes of issues to get through, Hau is just a cheery, friendly guy. He's nice, and he wants to help you out and be your friend. There's some stuff he struggles with, sure, and he's got some internal conflict and some growth to be done, but he's a well-adjusted, kind-hearted individual. Most individual characters from Sun do fail to live up to the depth of Black's smaller cast, but they all have enough depth to be interesting and, in this case at least, I'd say that quality beats quantity.

Even this, however, is discounting the star of the show, Lillie, the one person who never leaves your community, and who is the best character in the history of Pokemon. Her arc is a pretty archetypal one. She starts of kind of shy, cowardly, and weak, and slowly grows braver and stronger. The real strength here is in execution, and in Lillie's very specific character. From the very start, she's obviously a kind and caring person, refusing to become a trainer because she doesn't want Pokemon to get hurt on her behalf, and making sure to keep a large stock of healing supplies on her at all times in order to be able to help the Pokemon of the trainers around her. 

Lillie's caring nature is the fundamental building block of her personality, and all her growth comes from her understanding how to be herself better through interactions with the rest of the cast. It seems natural, as she learns about how other people see things, and as she sees more of Alola and the way the world works, that her attitude towards doing the things she wants to do slowly changes and becomes stronger until all she shares with the person she was at the start of the story is her fundamental her-ness.

One of the game's best traits is how Lillie forms complex and heartfelt relationships with many of the other characters. Professor Kakui becomes a father figure to her, albeit one she can't keep up with the energy of. It's thanks to him that she has the courage to befriend anyone else at all. Hau cheers her up and makes her laugh, and teaches her the value of a smile and a positive outlook on life. Acerola becomes her weird, offbeat friend, and she ends up forming a strange, mostly silent friendship with short-tempered Hapu. Most surprisingly of all, she grows a deep bond with the silent player character, growing to very much look up to them, yet still feeling on equal ground, and it never comes across as the same creepy wish-fulfillment stuff that other Pokemon games with similar relationships did. If anything, you get the feeling your player character ends up looking up to Lillie's kindness and strength of purpose the same way she looks up to their courage and strength of will. I certainly ended up that way.

That is a large part of what makes Pokemon Sun such a joy to play. It's basically a given that a Pokemon game has excellent mechanics and level design at this point, but Pokemon Sun feels like a very particular kind of journey with a large quantity of very likable and interesting people, many of whom you form close connections with as you travel across the land. The other big part is that Alola itself is the best region yet to appear in a Pokemon game, beating out generation three's fantastic Hoenn region and generation six's woefully misused, but beautiful, Kalos region. Part of this is the inevitable advance of technology: Generation seven is by far the prettiest so far, with a massive improvement in looks even over the very good looking Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.

That's far from all that makes Alola special though. It's full of spectacular vistas and creative little areas, and the developers obviously put a lot of care into making the place make sense. One of my favorite aspects is the Alolan Pokemon, new takes on old generation one Pokemon that have adapted to the Alolan environment in different ways to their Kanto counterparts. Alolan Sandshrew, for instance, made the icy flat mountaintop mesas of Ula'Ula Island its home due to Alola's lack of straight-up desert since it can only deal with flat terrain, and eventually learned to live with an icy shell. But this also goes way deeper, like of course resort towns would hire young people to keep its beaches clean by throwing the disgusting-looking water Pokemon Pyukumuku back into the ocean, or obviously there'd be a respectful fear of the small, inoffensive looking fish Pokemon Wishiwashi, which school into incredibly dangerous rampaging swarms.

There's also a real sense of history and tradition here. Rather than the modern-feeling Pokemon gyms of previous games, the recurring challenge points here are Island Trials, small tasks set to you by respected citizens (known as Trial Captains) with a deep connection to the elements in order to honor one specific element. Rather than battling gym leaders, you battle Totem Pokemon, the powerful guardians of each Trial Site, in order to gain their respect and be allowed to continue your journey towards adulthood. Once you pass all the trials on an island, you battle a Kahuna, an individual chosen by the legendary guardian Pokemon of their island, who embodies the spirit of their island's people and acts as a de facto leader to the people of the island. The people of Alola hold a deep respect and adherence to their land and its traditions, and as such there's a primal, ancient feeling to the entire place.

And yet, Alola is also a deeply inviting and fun place. It's sunny, just the right amount of tropical and relaxed. Its denizens spend their time doing their jobs, but they're open, pleasant people, who've always got the time to give a stranger a kind word and a smile, and who never seem to be in a rush to get anything done. There's places with a deep, ancient connection to primal nature, but just as often you're spending your time on a nice wooden beach path, or a pleasant leisurely trek up a gently sloping hill.

To be completely honest, the sense of community, Lillie, and Alola probably would have been enough for me to start considering whether I like Pokemon Sun more than Black. I don't know on what side I would have fallen, but it'd be a debate I would have had to have. What pushes Sun as the definite victor is its story. At first glance, it's nothing extraordinary. There's a lot of the old tropes of Pokemon games here: There's a bad group of people who name themselves Team followed by some goofy word (in this case Skull) who steal Pokemon. On the way through your adventure, they keep doing bad stuff and you keep fighting them, and eventually a legendary Pokemon ends up unleashed, after which they recognize the error of their ways and stop being bad.

The story of Pokemon Sun isn't as good as Pokemon Black, but then it's Black's main focus, whereas Sun is more focused on creating the aforementioned sense of community, fleshing out its characters, and making its setting solid. As such, its story doesn't have the thematic depth of Black. It's also lacking the personal touch of the generation six games, the giant stakes of generation four, or the pleasant simplicity of generation one. What it does do is serve as a fantastic vehicle for the strengths of Pokemon Sun. Team Skull seem like villains at first, but you end up discovering that most of them have a soft side, be it Guzma's secret deep concern for Lusamine, Plumeria's mother-like care for the grunts, or the grunt's deep, genuine admiration for both Guzma and Plumeria. You end up understanding how Team Skull formed out of Alolan community, a bunch of people irritated by society's emphasis on respecting nature over Team Skull's value of human togetherness. Team Skull is decidedly villainous, but at no point do they come across as bad people, and even at their most heinous their goofy "gangsta" attitude and general incompetence keeps the tone appropriately cheery for Alola. This is true for any element of the plot: the downright dark is kept funny enough to fit Alola's cheery atmosphere aside from a few key moments, and everything else is made to further the player's understanding of Alola as a region.

But the real star, as I said before, is Lillie, with the story serving to guide her through her character arc. The events of the plot aren't really all that interesting or innovative, but they force Lillie to change. As such, the plot becomes secondary to seeing how Lillie (and whoever else is travelling with you at that point) reacts to the events unfolding, both in terms of the player's interest in them and the time that the game spends on either thing. This allows the game to spend large amounts of time on things insignificant to the main story that are actually big character moments (one of my favorite early game sub-plotlines is about Lillie getting stuck on a hill with no Repels, while one of the best late ones involves her going out shopping). It knows that this is its strength, and it makes the story about the characters and setting rather than making the characters and setting simply things that inhabit the story.

Pokemon Sun is a truly joyous experience. From beginning to end, exploring Alola with my ever-changing group of travelling companions, and getting to know and form a deep bond with that strange girl with the big hat I initially dismissed as just a friend of Professor Kukui had me with a, big, joyous, smile on my face. Alola is a beautiful region, full of whim and whimsy and childish joy to see what's beyond the next corner, yet with more texture and depth than even previous regions which you'd think sacrificed creativity for complexity (I'm looking at you, Sinnoh and Unova). I really can't stop repeating that word "joy", because it's the perfect word for what Pokemon Sun made me feel.

9/10
Pokemon Sun made me feel tremendous amounts of joy, and that's all I need to know.