Pokémon Moon - 3DS/2DS

Also known as: Pokémon Moon: Fan Edition

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Viewed: 3D Third-person, over the shoulder Genre:
Adventure: Role Playing
Media: Cartridge Arcade origin:No
Developer: Game Freak Soft. Co.: Nintendo
Publishers: Nintendo (GB/GB)
Released: 23 Nov 2016 (GB)
Ratings: PEGI 7+
No Accessories: No accessories

Summary

Pokemon has never exactly been lacking in fans. It's celebrating its 20th anniversary year as Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon release, having racked up 380 million sales across its lifespan. Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto eat your heart out. That said, coming off the back of the phenomenal hit that was Pokemon Go, it's bigger than ever and has picked up a whole influx of new fans.

Like their smartphone cousin, the core Pokemon titles are still about catching 'em all. Unlike Go, there's a lot more depth under the hood. The series has always been about pretty open role-playing in which players capture and train different pokemon and set them against each other. Moon and Sun are, in essence, the same game with slightly different sets of pokemon to encourage trading between players.

These latest games whisk the player off to the Alola region, a series of islands based loosely on Hawaii with some exotic pokemon not found anywhere else. Each pokemon has an elemental type (ranging from 'grass' to 'ghost') and can learn at least four moves at a time to learn in battle. Between these different types, attacks and their side effects, there's a lot of subtlety to pokemon combat and breeding and training them can quickly become an obsession, if you care to let it!

It's not all about combat, though, and there's plenty to discover as you range around the islands and take on their head kahunas.

Longtime fans will be pleased to know that Sun and Moon haven't been dumbed down for new fans, but Pokemon Go converts will still find an accessible game waiting for them.