Rocket Power! Got that one right away haha.

Won't get to play until this evening, but then I've got 10 days off (and two flights) to tear into it.

Have a team planned out for what I want by the end and looking at your starting one realized I've not included any Alolan forms. Will have to pick up one or two along the way at least to test them out though.

Rocket Power...

Reggie you devil~ :lol

Well, Remy's just there to take a spot til I can get Alolan Vulpix XD

EDIT: And Remy's out. I caught a Pichu :lol

Oh shit, you can nickname the Munchlax? Can you nickname the Ash Greninja?

You can nickname the Munchlax. But you can't do the same for Ash Greninja :/

Mad as hell that all the Legendaries in Sun/Moon are Shiny locked. Real dick move Nintendo!

Now I definitely need Action Replay 'cause I am gonna hack the Hell out of Moon when I get it, and nobody tell me differently, decision's final!

EDIT: P.S., here's Generations episode 13:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8YlPlN-eI8

Thank fuck it only took 1 reset to get a female Popplio, because that intro took an eon...

What did you name her?

Once I get my game aloha volpex will be my starter just need to trade my start for one

I accidentally planned all but one member of my team

Once I get my game im gonna have to suffer through the intro over and over because I'm gonna get me a shiny Rowlett XD
Also I really want my final team to be:
Decidueye [OliverQ]
Lycanroc (Mid-day) [Mocha after my dog]
Alolan Ninetails [Kyubi]
Vikavolt (Preferably shiny but either one works) [Normandy]
Solgaleo [LigerZero]
Salazzle [Tox]

Adagio, of course~
There were other options. Taylor, the name I've used for every other starter I've ever gotten, one of the other two Dazzlings' names (Sonata in particular, due to their blue colors), Siren, since it's more on the nose, and others.

I named my Rowlet "Mori d'Aou."

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g_E5ESIgzlM

And he's Adamant! HOORAY!

I didn't have the patience to reset for natures and gender, unfortunately. So I'm sticking with what I got, as long as it's female :lol

Same. As soon as I saw that my first Rowlet I got was a girl, I was like "Nope, I got my Hedgewig!" XD

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CxlThFZVIAA6wrP.jpg
Oh great. Hedgewig has hit her edgy rebellious teen years.

Despite being my second favorite Pokemon of all time, I had to make the difficult decision to not use Magnemite because I want to use Vikavolt...

I do not have sea pupper.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cxllzi0UAAAPpkv.jpg

Line up is now:
Hedgewig the Dartrix
Tito Makani the Munchlax
Kagami the Grubbin
Chuchu the Pichu
Mikio (named after one of my 4 dogs) the Rockruff

We've started our adventure! ^_^

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CxmALnZUUAEmm6K.jpg

Cool. Gonna wait until I get a 3DS XL and Action Replay.

...Is it worse than X's?

I don't really remember how it was in XY too well, but it's not really that terrible. As long as you employ generous button-mashing, it's only about two-three minutes per reset. It's tedious, but...at least you can skip though most of it.

Took me a bunch of tries for me, but it was "only" about 15 minutes. Eh.

Anyway.

I got the game pretty late today, and I haven't been able to get too far into it. Barely cleared the school. Few negative impressions:

The lower screen has turned into suck. I don't understand this. It's far from the only thing, but there are so many good and useful and convenient things from the last few generations that Game Freak just did away with for no apparent reason or purpose. I don't know what was up with ORAS, but the XY lower screen was very well implemented. The PSS was useful, Super Training was useful (and helped monitor what Pokemon you had in your party, which was especially useful if like me you were hatching eggs for too great a part of your time), and Amie existed I guess. The best part were the little icons to conveniently access all the stuff we'd usually reach through the menu. It was great.

So of course for these games we have a hand-holdy map. And that's literally it. What the hell? I'm annoyed about the removal of the PSS and more annoyed by the removal of Super Training, but I can't wrap my head around not even including the little icons on the bottom of the screen to access all the stuff. Having to press X isn't that awful, but when they had already pretty much set up perfectly, just...why go back to this?

Seriously, the little Rotom map is kinda useless.

Speaking of disappointing replacements, the Festival Plaza feels like kind of a poor replacement for the PSS. Having to go to this separate place to access online features (even if accessible at any time) just seems pretty counterintuitive when, again, they had already sorta perfected it last gen. This just feels like its kinda overcomplicating it, and the whole way you're supposed to interact with people...confuses me, a little. Maybe I'm just an idiot. The whole thing (including all the challenges save the type-matching one) feels like it's heavily reliant on luck, which makes it kinda useless. The little facilities feel like they could be fun, but you can only have 7 at a time...so you can never really take advantage of everything they have to offer. Kinda concerned about the dyeing stalls in particular...was looking like we would have even greater ability to customize our characters with them, but if you're limited by the color options of whatever stalls you have that's kind of lame.

But eh, those are just my gripes. Of course, my opinion of the game as a whole isn't negative or anything, though. It's been a little slow at the start but it looks great, the music's great. It's fun.

Wait, what? Is there an alternative to this or do I actually have to EV-train in the wild again?

If that's true then these games can go fuck themselves for all I care.

There are a few options for EVs. The Festival Plaza has a few facilities that raise EVs, but they're only once a day so they're pretty useless. The Poke Pelago also has options to raise EVs but I hear they take a while and don't raise too much so...yeah.

Wild battles are the only viable option, but they did change things up a little bit. Power items now give 8 extra EVs rather than 4. There is also a new battle mechanic, SOS battles, which are basically like the totem battles, in which wild Pokemon can call for allies. As I understand it the Pokemon in these battles give out double the EVs.

So there's....options. None that good, compared to what we had last gen (horde battles are also gone, since apparently they were counted as variations of triple battles, which are also gone. ditto on rotation. bunch of removed features this gen)

By the by, wild Pokemon will call for allies ALL THE FUCKING TIME.
It's not too annoying since most of the time they'll call an identical Pokemon, but jeez...

Concerning EV training, it really sucks. I loved Super Training, regardless of how many people were bitching about how inefficient it was in comparison to other options, but eh.

My current team is a bit of a mess. 2 flying types because Trumbeak has the level advantage, but I like Oricorio more, I'm waffling on whether Rockruff or Crabrawler gets the 6th slot, I had to ditch Kadabra because it learned Kinesis over a damaging move and I didn't have time to operate with, basically, a 5 man team, and Grubbin needs to evolve soon or else it's getting shafted for Magnemite...

Wow, that sucks. Why do they act like they give a damn about IV's now but scrap Super Training?

Are there at least stats for EV's so you can keep track of them? Because if I have to make a freakin' list and keep track of everything myself that’s 50 bucks saved. It may sound extreme but this shit is inexcusable to me.

By the way, breeding still works the same right, with the Destiny Knot and stuff?

There's not really any way to keep track of it numerically, but there is a graph of EV investment you can access from the Pokemon's summary screen.

As far as I have read, yes, breeding works the same.

So far I have 15 or so Pokemon. Currently building up team for first Totem challenge; no real intention of doing EV training and have Moon version.

Funny thing happened this morning; caught a Ghastly and used it to both get a Arba (we all know how hard it is getting those things, but once it's Kadabera I want to trade it so it's Alakazam since that's a strong Mon and I want one!) and embarrassed a Skull grunt that only had a Drozzy that only knew knew Pound; Ghastly cleaned house with sleep status and Lick. I was quite pleased.

Tito Makani is now a Snorlax and Chuchu is now a Pikachu. Just need to find a thunderstone. Currently trying to catch a Wishiwashi since I couldn't during the trial >_<

Pichu still evolves via happiness, correct? I have one and want a Pikachu, but time's tight with helping mom with chemo and I don't want to spend 10+ hours babying a baby Pokemon.

Didn't realize Pichu was a bit of a rarer spawn. Should've caught one I saw it last night but passed because I wanted a different electric type on my team. Ah well, I'll get Alolan Raichu eventually.

Didn't make much progress at all since I started so late. Spent some time soft resetting for a Jolly or Adamant Litten (would have preferred the former, got the latter eventually) and then just grinding in route 1. Mostly because it took me a while to find a Grubbin before I looked it up and realized they were annoyingly only in a few of the spots of grass.

So my team is currently:

Kagami the Grubbin (Yes I unashamedly stole this only because I don't like reusing nicknames and have something else named Gatack)
Kane the Litten
Beak the Pikipek (Okay so... I couldn't think of anything)
Linlin the Alolan Rattata
Gordon the Yungoos

Realized a little while later that Linlin would have been a muuuuch better nickname should I want to try and get a female Munchlax, but still undecided on if I want to use that in my team just for early Z Moves or still just stick to my plan of only new things.

Also want to echo how much I hate the bottom screen now too. It's pretty much useless and from what little I saw (barely went farther than unlocking it), is as disgustingly hand-holdy as I feared. Can't even turn the damn hints off ugh. All the menu options should just be available from the touch screen like the past few games, not having to press a button first. It's asinine. (Though could give some credence to the "Stars" Switch port rumor by having minimal use of the bottom screen making that port easier.) And yeah I'll miss Super Training...

Oh yeah, I reached a spot where I can breed Hedgewig. If anyone has Popplio or Litten eggs, let me know lol

Ok so the HMs all became TMs. Good, Surf wasn't one I wanted to see removed.

I caught Pokérus!!!

Let me catch some vectors and we all can start trading!

You can buy drinks that raise EVs in the plaza that, unlike Protein, Zinc, etc. still work after 100 EVs. There are also 'max' drinks, which fully invest a certain stat to 252 EVs
Also, I hear you can press Y on the stat screen for an EV spread

So how's the difficulty in Sun/Moon so far?

Comparable to X/Y?

According to everyone who's talked about it, the EXP share won't overlevel you ifvyou leave it on all the time

That's good to know. I found the EXP Share waaaay more generous compared to past gens.

Queensberry the Crabrawler is now in the Party!

And it has an EVOLUTION?!? SWEEEEET!

Just a heads up, Crabrawler can only evolve in a certain location (Top of Mt. Lanakila)

Lanakila? Hmm... I don't want to be spoiled on the evo but what moves does it ONLY learn as Crabrawler that I'd want to learn before evolving?