4/5 ★ – ThatsALotaChris's review of Pokémon Moon.

I’d had it in my head for the longest time that this was a bad game. I hated the idea of Ultra Beasts, the alternative to gyms, and I heard it was just boring and slow. Now, I still think this has some of the worst and most forgettable legendaries of the series, but I honestly warmed up to the other elements way more than I expected to. The story is actually maybe the best of the series? Which isn’t saying much, but it’s not nothing either. And the story is crucial to making me appreciate some of the Pokémon I had written off like Type: Null. This game also is the first to lose HMs in favor of ride Pokémon, which I know is controversial, but I largely prefer. It’s not even a difficulty thing, it’s just less annoying. The game looks great, plays great, and it introduced us to regional variants, which is my favorite new addition to the series since partner Pokémon. Every game should introduce new regional variants, and I don’t just mean new ones. I think remakes of the old games should show us Kanto variants of later Pokémon, Johto variants, Hoenn variants, you get it. In fact, I’d be happy if they never made any new Pokémon and just gave us hundreds more variants with every game. I love them so much. Of course it’s not perfect. 50 percent of the time playing is just waiting for cutscenes to end. I know I said I liked the story but good God is there way too much dialogue in this game. It honestly took me over an hour to get my starter, and longer than that to finally set out on my journey. What happened to Gen 5 when you start the game and some kids break into your room and immediately challenge you to a battle? If we ever revisit Gen 7, they really need to move this stuff along and get to the meat faster. I don’t know if this is as much of a problem in Ultra Sun and Moon, but maybe I’ll find out when I decide to play those in like 3-5 years. Regardless, I really enjoyed this one and I’m very excited to finally play Gen 8 now that I’m done. It was a long journey getting here, but we did it.