My computer is just barely able to run this, so let’s check it out! I have not played the demo but figured that there’d be an intolerable level of spoilers out shortly, so I might as well see the opening for myself.

We’re moved away from the exact “are you a boy or a girl”, so maybe fewer people will stick that sentence on the front of their fics, or at least they’ll stop arguing with me that it’s mandatory to put in. Promising.

I am apparently someone who sleeps on top of her bed in a full outfit down the to shoes. Which…is pretty close to the truth.

Can’t seem to open closet to change clothes, but her outfit’s fine, so that’s okay.

Meowth is still a regular meowth, or at least a current regular meowth which means walking on two legs and otherwise being pretty weird. I keep expecting a transformation given it’s in every scene, but maybe my meowth will just meet an Alohan meowth. That would make more sense on an island subspecies level.

I wonder if there’s anything to the fact my character starts off in Kanto – I’m pretty sure that also only the Kanto batch have new forms, so maybe it’s just that, but I wonder at how we’re going back there. The last game to even include Kanto was HG/SS ages back, so is this meant to be sort of like the third remake of Kanto?

Aw, my meowth is happy!

My mom apparently officially doesn’t have a name. I wonder if this is some incredibly funny joke in Japanese that just doesn’t translate at all.

Ooh, we’re not doing a straight professor thing this time. Instead, we’re getting a starter from a bigshot local trainer, and maybe having a clear departure from the usual will make people branch out in starter acquisition rather than just swapping the word professor for another one. Why I can’t use my meowth is unclear.

So, will this be Unova again, or better this time?

On our walk showing off the graphics and my computer’s inability to render them at a reasonable speed, there’s another trainer who’s got an Alohan meowth.

It…looks pretty much the same but a slightly different color. Not even a different pose. (And god I wish they hadn’t made standing up the default pose. When Meowth did it in the anime, it was supposed to look awkward and different from the rest of meowth and unnaturally humanish. Although I guess that’s uncomfortably fitting given the fire starter’s progression.)

Please let this not be Unova all over again. Please. Please do it better this time.

This has all been taking place at night so far. I wonder if Sun starts during the day?

And indeed, Kukui is now in the center of town baffled that everyone isn’t hanging out there, despite it being the dead of night. He decides the best thing is for him to stay here while I go find the person I’ve never met for him.

Furthermore:

If it’s your current deity, why is it ruins?

Also, if I go the wrong way he just repeats himself. I don’t know why the designers won’t let us wander in circles.

Ah, and there’s Mystery Girl, talking to Mystery Something in her bag!

MG: Really? You want to go up to the ruins? I don’t know what you hope to find there…

Now to talk to random people.

Random Person: On sunny days like this, I like to just wander around following the wind. Don’t you?

Oh my. So I guess Sun is the primary game, as Boy is the primary protagonist.

Well, off to follow Mystery Girl!

MG: You can’t come out! We’ll get in trouble if anyone sees you.

And now Mystery Talky Friend is out! And floating away across a bridge. My, they look happy.

Ah, and there’s some other things coming. Hi spearow! I assume you will continue to live down to your fearful stereotype.

Yup, happyface is now cowering as the mighty spearow circle above. Aw, who’s little social carnivores?

You are! Yes you are.

Well, let’s go help Mystery Girl. Oh no, she looks so upset!

Oh wow, a dialogue choice to really struggle with.

What’s wrong?
Who are you?

I mean, obviously the first one is the non-asshole choice, buuuuuuuuuut I do know what’s wrong, while I’m very curious who she is. Eh, I’ll be nice.

She just tells me to save Nebby. Getting the impression these choices may have no impact whatsoever. She’s too scared to run out herself, so it’s up to me, even though I still don’t have a pokemon of my own. Yeah, sure! They’re just some birds.

Oh, hey, I actually can! Although I have some difficulties running across the badly made bridge without falling, nobody stops me. Take that, every other game in the entire history of this franchise!

Evidently I can’t actually fight back or anything, though. Come on, let me try to punch a spearow!

Now Nebby is doing whatever attack it did in the opening animation, which mostly accomplished disintegrating the bridge, but now some other electric thing has shown up to grab me with its hard talons seconds before I hit the soft water. Not sure that’s really a win.

Not a fan of the new guy’s design – too humany. And now he’s gone again. Yeah fine.

Well, Mystery Girl is happy to have Nebby back and exposits that last time it did this it wasn’t able to move. She says she doesn’t want it to do that, then apologizes for the criticism because last time it was to save her, so, was it not the target then?

And now there’s some glowy sparkles.

MG: A sparkling…stone? It feels almost warm somehow…

Don’t we already have an item like this? How many shiny plot-important stones will there be?

Mystery Girl remembers I’m there and apologizes/thanks me. It’s unclear if I was needed to give Nebby time to charge the attack or not.

I’m given still more dialogue options! Oh, this will be a difficult game.

I have a second chance to ask who she is, or I can ask if she’s the kahuna, because apparently I think it’s plausible she’s one of the most powerful trainers around.

…she shakes her head? Like I was asking the kahuna question. Dialogue choices are not working out well, are they. Then says the stone’s mine. My acquisitiveness is not greater than my inquisitiveness! I will not be distracted.

It’s a pretty weird stone, though.

Mystery Girl asks me not to tell anyone because it’s “a secret”. Well, something being secret is reason you wouldn’t tell people, so sure, that sounds legit. Okay!

She goes to leave, then turns back.

MG: I’m worried we might get attacked again by some wild Pokemon or…or something. I know it’s too much for me to ask it, but… Do you think you could see us back to town?

Walking back up to her triggers another silent cutscene. So many cutscenes.

Back down, I’m told I failed to find the kahuna – well, they weren’t there according to what I was told – but this is his assistant.

MG: Oh…um…yes! You can call me Lillie.

Now, I already knew that much from spoilers. I will instead choose to speculate on that fishy as hell response, like she forgot she was supposedly his assistant. Did she rewrite his memories recently? Maybe.

We then cutscene still more to slowly slide across the area to where a bunch of people with very, very boring lives are shouting that the kahuna is back. Also, according to them kahuna isn’t the strongest local trainer but one of the best in the entire region.

And it’s…Some Guy! Some Guy dramatically walks up and there’s panning and so forth and it’s just…some random guy, game. You’ve got to give me a bit more if you want him to come off as impressive. Also, he’s a big older guy and please let this not be Douchy McFlamehair all over again.

Hala: Whenever there is a problem on the island, it is my duty to resolve it.

Hm. So are we talking just like island defender, or are you basically island king? Mob boss?

Also, electric thing that saved me from getting wet is apparently confirmed to be Tapu Koko, island protector. Are we going to be capturing the protector-deities of all the islands and stuffing them into pokeballs so we can use them to beat up rattata? Or, given the weird naming scheme, is this not-a-pokemon? Because I really don’t like the idea of the games losing the central premise of everything can get stuffed in a ball.

Lillie describes what happens as me helping Nebby get away from the spearow, rather than just throwing myself atop Nebby. I guess that sounds a little more competent. She also just says the bridge collapsed without giving a reason.

Hala promptly badmouths their god by saying it’s fickle and the fact it did something useful is a huge shock.

Hala: It seems I should entrust this brave and kind young girl with a Pokemon of her own.

Well, thanks, but I thought I was already getting one anyway?

And he throws out three pokeballs, actually releasing the pokemon. That makes a lot more sense than usual, honestly.

Ah, the choices! The Pokemon series is never good with cats and I don’t much like the overly busy face of this one, plus that final evo, but, I do have a meowth and this version of the game may not get very far, so if I’m ever going to, now’s the time.

Hala: Only when you have both chosen each other can you truly call each other partners.

Interesting… Promising, even!

Hala: So let us see if little Litten there also decides to choose you!

Dammit, stop staring right at it, cats don’t like eye contact! SLOW BLINK WHY WON’T YOU SLOW BLINK DAMN YOU

AHHHHHHHHH SHE STARES AND STARES AND STARES LIKE A DEAD-EYED ZOMBIE NO DON’T COST ME MY POKEMON BLINK AT THE KITTY

 

Is that the curiosity of how am I so bad at this?

At least Litten is okay with it, somehow.

Hm. I wonder if this would be better served by something where I wasn’t given a direct choice? Being able to interact with all of them first would work even better, but obviously as a player you need a way to ensure you get the one you actually want.

But, Litten is apparently not turned off my by endless stare, so I got a kitty! A happy kitty!

Lillie looks horrified…

…but maybe that’s because I just picked Litten up by the belly rather than supporting its legs and made it clear I don’t know how cats work.

Oh god this is so cute though now I’m second-guessing my choice, how can I not stick with adorable kitty baby.

The Fire-type Pokemon Litten is sniffing at you curiously.

SO CUTE.

Lillie introduces herself to Litten, and then Nebby does as well. How secret is Nebby, anyway? This seems to be the center of town. The guys all know about it already, so who was I not supposed to tell?

Lillie: I know that Kahuna Hala and the professor will keep you safe from any harm, but you should still stay in the bag and out of sight.

Hm, that was sort of answering the question, but not really. Is Lillie concerned about attack or someone seeing and telling someone else later? If so, surely she should be concerned about all the other people in the background.

Ah, and now I have the talked-about pokedex. And…trainer passport? That appears to be a new version of the license.

Also, the pokemon cuddling minigame has been opened up! Now pokemon get dirty from battles and I can groom away their status effects! So it looks like my one issue with this, that it was too easy to max affection and never come back, has been addressed a bit.

Litten, Fire Cat Pokemon.

It doesn’t allow its emotions to be easily seen. Earning its trust takes time. It prefers solitude.

Uh, game? Again:

Litten wears his emotions on his face so much his pupils are doing anime eyes (…or, is it that the yellow is actually fake eye spots to scare bigger predators off?)

I guess we can assume Hala already made him all trusting and stuff, so he’s more okay with being open about his feelings even though he just met us.

Well, on the way here we passed tall grass, so, let’s go that way.

Rival character! Who I don’t get to name yet again. He has picked the weaker starter. So, either that was my only chance for a female rival or the female rival will get the stronger one this time around.

He’s super happy to get a chance to fight.

Lillie: I don’t really like to see Pokemon battles where Pokemon can get hurt…but I’ll watch for you.

Nooo Lillie we don’t have to do this! Don’t be sad! I don’t really want my kitty to get beat up either, and seconds after the owl starter was revealed people made adorable gifs of it so…

Kukui: Just have your Pokemon dish out some moves and see who wins. Woo!

Hala: I expect a no-holds-battle from the both of you!

Really hope he means me and Litten, or else the whole “partners” thing has fallen apart already.

Litten has ember already. I think I’m going to just pretend otherwise, though. I really like the idea that the first battle is relatively equal.

Rowlett, of course, immediately uses its grass move, but whatever. I gave it a chance.

Hau is now jumping up in delight over how great the fight was and wow Litten rules. First of all way to be a terrible rival and second of all god, what an asshole you’re being to your cute owl.

Now my stone is sparkling for no reason and the guy wants to see it (and I hold it out like a chump dammit didn’t we go through this, we do not let NPCs touch items because sometimes they take them!) and everyone’s all !!!

Hala: You were rescued by Tapu Koko at the bridge–isn’t that what I heard, Farla?

I have the choice of Yeah, it rescued me and That’s when I got that stone. These dialogue choices are really weird and don’t seem to matter. I guess I don’t like him that much, so I’ll go with the marginally more cagey first option.

In the background, LabSafetyFail and Lallie are talking about something.

Hala: So it even deigned to give you a stone… Perhaps you are here in Alola, Farla, because this is where you are meant to be.

Yeah, it’ll probably regret that when it ends up living in my PC, true.

Hala: Allow me to borrow this stone for now.

ARG AVATAR WHAT DID I TELL YOU!? BAD! BAD AVATAR!

Hala: Fret not! I’ll return it to you tomorrow evening.

Oh you’d better.

Also – is that morning/noon for Sun? Really thinking there must be some reason all of this is taking place at night, after all.

Additionally, there’s some festival coming up. Perhaps that will also take place at night.

Back at home, aww, the kitties are talking to each other!

We’re pretty obviously cat people, why do you need to ask?

The day’s over, Mom.

Confirmed that Moon is the afterthought game.

This would work better if we shared a skin tone. My avatar being nocturnal out of sheer self-preservation actually makes a degree of sense.

Ah, now the tutorial battle. Love the idea of a hummingbird pokemon, really unimpressed with the looks of this one. Looks more like an angry woodpecker.

Pikipek, Woodpecker Pokemon.
This Pokemon feeds on berries, whose leftover seeds become the ammunition of the attacks it fires off from its mouth.

Oh, so it is a woodpecker? So did people get that wrong or is there another bird pokemon around? I really feel like pidgey sufficiently covered the boring drab bird niche, and if anyone felt it didn’t, surely pidove was enough.

Well, that discovery will have to come later, as in, Nov 18th on something that can actually run this game, with enjoyable sound effects no less. But this all looks really cute and like it has a particularly high pokemon cuddling ratio.

So, everyone! I’m thinking of going with Moon now because if it is largely set at night, the adventures of fry-in-the-sun child’s nocturnal journey sounds hilarious. Also, which starter?

(I do not care about stats or team optimization. I will never, ever care.)