Official Pokémon Sun and Moon (S&M) Thread

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I'm still unsure whether Sun or Moon will be better. Indecision!

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It's been over a decade since any Pokemon game made me feel this way. I've gotten used to my thoughts upon starting a new game being "What are my rules for this challenge? What are the ideal catches for certain locations? Alright, hope I don't die."

But playing Sun, I feel like a kid in a candy store. I'm exploring areas for the fun of it instead of trying to find items. Whenever I see a Pokemon, I immediately want to catch it and become giddy upon doing so, even when I have no desire to use that Pokemon in my party. I'm in awe of how far Pokemon games have come. My primary goals are to explore and learn. I haven't felt this way since Colosseum (or Ruby/Sapphire if you want to stick with core games).

So glad I decided against a Nuzlocke first run

I think that's what I'm most looking forward to when I get off work and get to pick up my copy. I remember being a little kid playing red and teaming up with other kids in the neighborhood to get our pokedexs completed, and it was fun. Now I'm basically aiming to do the same thing as an adult, even if I'm doing so through the internet friend codes instead of the old connector cable. I remember getting a big nostalgia hit off Pokémon go when that first came out; I'm hoping this turns out to be a better version of that.

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There's also QR scanning. So far, my team is Rowlett, Pichu, and Slowpoke, which I'm fairly pleased with. Although it's a bit inefficient, since Alola Raichu is apparently Psychic.

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I'm at 0877-3682-4677 if were sharing friend codes for cooperative purposes.

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I've got you input, Anix.

Can we talk for a bit about Team Skull. Specifically, what's their deal, besides krumping?

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From what I've seen, it does seem like the AI is smarter, and the battles are tougher. Still not Dark Souls caliber, of course, but definitely harder than X was.

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Is anybody capable of buying stuff from their Festival Plaza shops?

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Man, I'm falling way behind. I play for 2-3 hours a day, but people just keep pulling ahead of me. Time to buy a long-lasting battery, I guess.

On a completely different topic, is there any point to breeding pokemon? I assume it's for competitive purposes, but I've never really bothered in the past. Is there a good way to go about it, or is it doomed to tedium?

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Am I being too thorough? I generally go through each area, try to catch every new pokemon available in that area and beat every trainer. But that means I'm just finishing Lush Jungle and about to fight Olivia when everybody else is finishing the game. I'm also going into fights that the Pokémon reddit claims are "really difficult" 10 levels above the Totems. Maybe I should worry more about pushing through the story and then coming back to complete, or maybe I should just stop caring where I am relative to other players.

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Oricoro is kind of neat, since it has the Darwin thing going on- different islands have different forms. As far as quality goes, I don't know.

The SOS mechanic is supposed to be really good for competitive batters, since each pokemon counts separately for ev training, and the pokemon called during the chain can have the Pokemon's hidden ability, and have progressively better IVs. If I remember the Smogon thread, the third pokemon called is guaranteed to have 2 perfect IVs, and the fortieth is guaranteed to have four perfects. Though I imagine that if you don't care about competitive, it's probably just annoying.

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Does Game Freak enforce tier rules within the game itself, or is it free for all on the cartridge?

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Out of curiousity, how did you complete your dex so quickly? Do you have friends trade you the alternate starters and version exclusives, or do you have a bank from previous versions, or what?

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He can't be one step away from being Fire/Fighting, he literally has a weakness to Fighting types.

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Maybe gen 8 should have like an ice/steel/psychic starter trio instead of grass/water/fire, just to shake things up.

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Screw it, just make them all Fairy types.

This is the first gen I've played that had the Fairy type as a thing, and for some reason it's completely screwed up the type chart in my head.

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I've got it: the next gen starts should be fire/flying, grass/poison, and water.

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I suppose I should figure out how pokemon breeding works, since I've never done that in any game.

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Yeah, but how do I know which pokemon are good in competitive leagues for breeding? I mean, I can beat the game with basically any pokemon I like if I'm not playing nuzlocke, so that doesn't seem like a very good metric for competitive success. And I don't imagine that the pokemon tiers from smogon are going to apply to in-game battling. This is a nightmare.

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And also, where do I get good IVs for breeding in the first place? Just hope I get a really good ditto? And then natures and abilities and everything. GAH!

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Why would you want a pokemon with low ivs, though?