In my opinion Sun/Moon has the opposite problem of XY - XY focused immensely on making Multiplayer great (introduction of Megas, attempts at balancing, extreme improvements to breeding, fantastic ways to grind exp and money, etc etc), but as a result the single player (the main game before the credits role and any aftergame story) suffered as a result.
Likewise, Sun/Moon focuses on having an incredible in-game - a great change to the formula in particular gives it a breath of fresh air and I actually felt some connection to the characters; not to mention the Ultra Beasts quest being great and basically the Delta Episode done much better - but as a result the multiplayer aspects suffer. Colosseum is still my favourite game and Platinum eases into second place just due to nostalgia, but I'd easily rank Moon as my third favourite Pokémon ignoring all multiplayer aspects. It's very well designed.
But, of course... for every step forward they take, they take a step back. The IV judge is absolutely amazing! Getting the Destiny Knot and any decently IV'd Pokémon to start with is a pain in the neck. IV increasing is now a thing! To get there, you need to be able to get to Level 100 but the methods to do so are about as limited as Red/Blue. They balanced out some of the more notorious aspects of Gen 6's competitive by nerfing Parental Bond and Gale Wings! Half the Mega Stones aren't available. The Apricorn Balls are back! You only get one per save. Breeding mechanics means passing down the ball is so much less of a pain! Getting even one Hidden Ability in this game is an absolutely ludicrous irritating pain compared to even the DexNav. BW2's Join Avenue is back! It's combined with multiplayer to create an ultimately mediocre experience when the Join Avenue and PSS in previous generations on their own without being merged were nigh-perfect.
We honestly don't know how good we had it in XY. Oh sure it's in-game was absolute bollocks, but Restaurant Le Wow gave us an easy way to grind Exp and Money - sure it's debatable whether this method or Blissey Bases is better, but both were very good at the end of the day especially compared to every other generation including 7. We had a great breeding route, items like the Destiny Knot weren't as hard to get, the O-powers were a tremendous aid once you maxed them out and started using them right, the PSS was leaps and bounds ahead of even what the last game in the series had to offer in terms of connectivity, and goddammit if the Friend Safari wasn't one of the best features to ever be cut from the games.
Sun/Moon had arguably the greatest in-game we've ever had, but at a great cost for anyone who's interested in multiplayer. A lot of the decisions made in regards to the latter are absolutely baffling.
Ding ding ding! We have a winner!
After playing through the main story and loving almost every second of it; to get to the postgame and find the Ultra Beasts, still amazing...then I hit the battle tree. And from there it went downhill.
48bp for Destiny Knot. Fuck off...no really whoever thought of putting such an essential item to breeding behind basically an ingame paywall is a horrible person.
So let's get this straight. To earn battle points I need to beat the battle tree. Doing so will allow me to breed strong pokemon. But to win in the battle tree I need strong pokemon..... God it is like trying to find a job "All jobs require prior experience, but to get experience you need a job".
The sheer volume of time I had to spend grinding and sneaking wins from the Battle Tree (Hypnosis+Sash Gengar...what fun -_-) just to get the power items at least was horrendous. Thankfully the Ultra Beasts came to the rescue and as soon as I had Xurkitree ready to battle it was a LOT smoother (still not fun or easy by any stretch of the imagination, but better using Xurkitree+2 ingame pokemon than using just 3 ingame pokemon).
And to make matters doubly daft on this front, GF had the gall to host a tournemant...two weeks after release. 2 weeks?! I spent half a week on trying to grind through the dam tree just to get the power items, let alone get the destiny knot, any other essential items, plan a team, find perfect pokemon, breed them, train them etc. (And incase you are wondering, no I will not be going, I flat out could not fit in life+playing this game at a pace where I could enjoy it+actually get ready)
The Festival Plaza does not work properly. It is really really glitchy. The amount of times my trading partner just flat out is not there (when they are actually online) or it spams "they denied the request" when they did not touch anything is ridiculous.
Also. Who took hordes out? I...I just don't see the logic there. With those I could keep track of EV's much clearer via mentally counting them and it was WAY quicker than the current S.O.S battles, which basically have you praying to the RNG gods.
And the Apricorn Balls....why? Why not just make them purchasable in a specific store after you get your first copy of each ball from Oak? I get it you can breed them through Males now as well, but still this is super restrictive. If anyone wants something like a Heavy Ball Rockruff, Love Ball Salandit, Level Ball Jangmo-o or a Lure Ball Wishiwashi then they are more than happy to contact me. As I am happy to help people out of this silliness. But I do appreciate the little ball animations they make now, at least a lot of my older pokemon I transfer up will be much better looking now.
I haven't even TRIED to get Hidden Ability pokemon yet or raise someone to lv100 and already I am being bombarded by silly problems that any playtester who played a previous title would have gone "wtf is this?" at.
I am tempted to just not breed until January and migrate over all my 5/6iv pokemon and Dittos, because...it aint worth this hassle :/. Same with hunting for Hidden Abilities.
Then there is the rarity of new pokemon, which is actually worse than it looks (mostly for fishing). How on EARTH are you supposed to know that some pokemon have a pathetic spawn rate (Bruxish/Dhelmise) unless you do the ripples? And hell, Dhelmises's fishing spot is so random and out of the way I would have never found it unless I looked it up. Same with Mareanie; which btw, fuck Mareanie. Finding that little urchin is just the most convoluted weird thing imaginable. Now I know the game points out several times that it is Corsola's predator, which is a very nice touch. But plenty of other pokemon are predators for other pokemon and you don't find them only by summoning it's prey and poking it for a bit. If they had hinted that is what you had to do, even roughly, "I heard Marenie only come out when they hear a Corsola's cries", would have been enough.
I honestly cannot wrap my head around the idea of making all your cool new pokemon you want to show off so rare that you will not find them without a guide (pokedex is better than ever, but even that will not help you here). Most times I find a new spot of grass and shuffle around in it for ages until a new pokemon shows up, as I assume most people do. I don't do it for hours incase a monumentally rare pokemon shows up, that is the definition of insanity (repeatedly doing the same thing and hoping it changes).
Bounsweet only being in the left part of the forest is daft. Why is something in the same visual area got a different encounter? (Also,the Jungle is not visible on the pokedex, great job...)
(Fuck it, going through the lot at this rate)
Passimian and Oranguru play into two pet peeves at once. I can perfectly understand why pokemon of their kind of power/stats are rare at the point you find them in the game. But making this the one place you find them is a huge dick move.
Why could they not have given them both a baby form and made those easier to find? I am pretty sure people would kill for a baby Lemur and a Baby Orangutan pokemon. That way they are still reasonable to find, and don't break the ingame balance. And also, they make sure there are more pokemon!!! Like I could accept X/Y's pathetically small roster if Mega's took up design time. But this volume? Again? Gen 5 was not so bad that they had to scale back on numbers of new pokemon. Sure you can have too many, but there is such a thing as too few as well. We wait years for a new pokemon game; and despite everything about it, new attacks, new abilities, new region; ONE thing keeps us coming back. New pokemon. Don't shaft us out of that....seriously.
Jangmo-o. Yes, it is the Pesudo legend....but it is so late into the game and comes at a baby stage, leading it to be you know..babied. I am thankful it evolves quickly, but still. 5%...again?
Grubbin. 10% encounter rate, for the Caterpie of this generation? I...I don't even... Caterpie is in-game at 30%....this is just Gen 1 bias now.
Mimikyu. Well at least we got to see it before being able to catch it...that's something right? Also. Nice move GF showing it off in the graveyard in trailers. Spent ages sniffing around there before finding out it was nowhere to be found. Several of my friends fell for that trick.
And yet despite all this I still love the game. Favorite to play the main story in the entire series save for Colosseum.
It's just...fix the multiplayer interactions man...
