[DISCUSSION] Pokemon Sun & Moon News Thread (Will Contain Pre-Launch Spoilers)

[Black117]

Might as well cover two news events at once which are both the major news drop from August 1st and the Corocoro leak today just a few hours ago. Likewise, the old news will be discuss first, but not detail, just the facts and some speculation here and there. The Corocoro leak isn't as "important" or huge info as the August 1st public release, but its important as it dispelled a potential "leaked" Pokedex rumor which had gained traction lately.

Update: I'm going to cover the Corocoro leak separately from this one since there hasn't been anything major released lately aside new Pokemon, Alolan forms, and the reveal of the Evil Team. Will get up to speed with this (around Thursday), but I want to cover. 
 

---

The August 1st News 

 

I'm not kidding when we got a bunch of news here, as its seems as key aspects of the game have been revealed from Alolan-based Pokemon forms, traditional Pokemon reveals, the PokeRide function (seems to replace HMs usage), the Island Challenge (seems to replace Gyms...though not fully confirmed), and the new mechanic: Z-Moves.

 

Alolan Forms 

(Source: Serebii) 

If Game Freak / Creatures / Nintendo ....TCPi wanted to deliver a bomb shell news regarding Sun and Moon, they definitely delivered with this revelation. Now older generation Pokemon might receive new forms changes known as "Alolan Forms" ( also known as Region Variants), which has of now have been given to only Kanto-based Pokemon (though this can change). Not only do these Pokemon have asthetic changes to them, but apparently it seems like they all change their typings, abilities, "potentially" learnset/egg moves/etc, and traits in a rather drastic scenarios. For instance, typically we classify Vuplix as a Fire-type since Gen 1, but given the information revealed that some Vuplix were brought to Alola (probably the southeastern most island) with the snowy mountain), some of them have adapted to their environments and changed to Ice-type. There's still a ton of questions regarding Alola forms, and I can even speculate and go on about this for the next several pages, but I'm going to leave it at that. I'll leave a link to the brand new Alola-based forms and their descriptions below. 
 

Alolan Exeggutor - Typing ( Grass / Dragon ) - Ability ( Frisk )

Alolan Vulpix - Typing ( Ice ) - Ability ( Snow Cloak )

Alolan Ninetales - Typing ( Ice / Fairy ) - Ability ( Snow Cloak )

Alolan Sandshrew - Typing  ( Ice / Steel ) - Ability ( Snow Cloak )

Alolan Sandslash - Typing ( Ice / Steel ) - Ability ( Snow Cloak ) 

 

New Pokemon

We also got a host of new Alola-based Pokemon for the games and most of them seem to be on point and well designed  / thought-out. The Pokemon shown by order from first to last are Oricorio, Minior, Gumshoos, Fomantis, Lurantis, and Musbray. Oricorio will have its own section section given it has four different forms and the other Pokemon will be covered together as some have been revealed with their evolutions line beforehand, or don't have much information to cover. Likewise I'll leave a link to each of the Pokemon links down below. 

Oricorio - Type ( Either Fire / Electric / Psychic / Ghost- and Flying type) - Ability: Dancer

The first Pokemon revealed in the trailer is a part Flying-type Pokemon with various typing: Oricorio. Each type of Oricorio seen in the trailer are based on specific dancing traditions inspired by Salsa (Puerto Rico/Latin America), Cheer-leading (US), Hula (Hawaiian/Polynesian), and Japanese traditional dance (don't know the exact name unfortunately) . As such, each Oricorio-type seem to inhabit one of the four islands and have strong connection to each they reside. We don't know where exactly each Oricorio will reside, but our bets are there will be one forms per island. The interesting part of Oricorio is they have four, yes four different types aside the part Flying typing in Fire, Electric, Psychic, and Ghost. Each Oricorio learns the new move: Revelation Dance, which type matches the same type as the corresponding bird. Finally the new ability Dancer seems to allow Oricorio to "copy" the dance moves of all Pokemon in the battlefield so essentially it can perform Quiver Dance, Sword Dance, Fiery Dance, Lunar Dance, etc and not waste a turn at all! 

Fomantis - Type ( Grass ) - Ability - Leaf Guard
Lurantis - Type ( Grass ) - Ability - Leaf Guard 
Gumshoos - Type ( Normal ) - Ability - Strong Jaw / Stakeout 
Minior - Type ( Rock / Flying ) Ability - Shields Down
Mudbray - Type ( Ground ) Ability - Stamina / Own Tempo

To the left, we see two new mantis-based Grass-type Pokemon in Fumantis and its evolution Lurantis with the Grass-typing and the ability Leaf Guard. Fomantis is said to store energy for its eventual evolution Lurantis and knows the moves Razor Leaf and Solar Beam. The only notable information we know about these two is that Lurantis learns the new move Solar Blade, which seems to be a physical variant of Solar Beam. Gumshoos is the evolve form of Yungoos with the same Normal typing and potential abilities in Strong Jaw and Stakeout (doubles the power of its attack if the targets switches). Minior is  Rock / Flying-type Pokemon with a meteor design that goes along with its ability: Shields Down. In battle (likely if its HP is full), Minior will have strong defensive capabilties as long as its above 50% HP. If it gets below half HP, its "shield" will break and the core form of Minior will be revealed. Once in this form, Minior will have increased offensive potential, but with defenses lowered. Finally we have the pre-evolved form of Mudsdale,  the Ground-type Mudsbray, which has the same abilities in Stamina and Own Tempo respectively. 
 

Poke Ride 

Seems like there's a new feature where players can call service Pokemon to assist them to crossing various terrains and have certain uses as well. While we don't know who, or when we get access to this new in-game mechanic, but once players do, they can move around or perform several task players can't do. Seem likely these Poke Ride can slowly replace the HM moves for the Main Series games, but I doubt thats the case. For now we have only seen six Pokemon who we can use: Charizard to Fly in certain locations, Lapras to perform "basic" surfing, Mudsdale to cross rocky paths, Sharpedo to move faster in water, jump, and break rocks, Stoutland to sniff around to find hidden items (might replace the itemfinder), and Tauros who breaks through rocks and runs fast. Again we don't know how early we get access to Poke Rides, but it seems likely that we'll have Lapras and Stoutland as the "basic" service Pokemon since Sharpedo seems to do the same thing Lapras does, but can break through rocks while still move faster. Stoutland might be reserved for finding items and might have a slower speed than maybe Tauros or Mudsdale. One last important aspect is these Pokemon do not join your party at all so they are only used until they're recalled.
 

The Island Challenge, Trial Captains, and the Kahunas 

After a couple of months, we finally get to see some of the new "gym leaders" or bosses of the new games, but with huge twist. From the looks of it, the Gym Challenges and "potentially" the Pokemon League have been replaced with a spiritual successor to the main plot of the game called the "Island Challenge". Unlike taking on 8 Gym Leaders and soon the E4 in previous installments, players are tasked by the Trial Captains (probably a "lesser Gym Leader) into completing various quests whether it is looking for specific items, battling "boss" Pokemon, knowledge-base tests/puzzles, and of course, matching with big Kuhuna of each Alolan Island. This could mean battles will no longer be the main focus in the Island Challenge Trials, but instead having to complete various task in a traditional JRPG game. While we don't know if at any point we battle these Trail Captains, the fact that the Pokemon site lists each individual and their specialty type potentially means we might battle these trainers. Near the end of each Island Trial, a "Totem Pokemon" will appear and challenge the player into a 2 v 1 battle with the Totem Pokemon getting assistance from allied wild Pokemon. As of right now, the only Totem Pokemon showcased in the videos was both Gumshoos and Lurantis, both seem to get a power boost and call their former evolutionary lines for support. After the Totem Pokemon has been defeated, the Grand Trail commences where the player challenges the main governing Kuhuna of each island. If they are able to beat the Kuhuna, the player can advance unto the next Island. 

As of right now, we've only been introduced to four of the Trial Captains (potentially one per island), but they might number to the eight mark to make up for the Gym Leader count as previous games. Here are the following Trail Captains / Kuhunas we know about here:
 

• Mallow - Specializes - Grass types  -  Notes: Loves to Cook, though has her own taste
  
• Lana - Specializes - Water types  -  Notes: Looks after her family 
  
• Sophocles - Specializes - Electric types -  Notes: Good with mechanics and is an inventor
  
• Kiake - Specializes - Fire types - Notes: Traditonal Alolan Dancer 
  
• Hala - Kuhuna of Melemele Island - Notes: Grandfather of Hau ; Seems to use Tapu Koko in battle 
  

Z-Moves, Z-Ring, and Z-Crystals

Finally we get to the main event of the trailer: introducing the new Z move mechanic. Based on the description of Z-Moves from TCPi, these attacks are of "great power", though the drawback is these attacks are only for one-time use. Apparently, "all Pokemon" (even Unown I guess), can perform Z-Moves, however there are some requirements in order to achieve this feat. First, the player must have a Z-Ring (kinda like a Mega Ring), which is a bracelet that can hold multiple Z-Crystals on the side. Speaking of Z-Crystals, there are 18 different verisons of these based on types (Fire, Water, Grass, Electric, etc) that are found throughout the Alola region. The player performs a unique dance to become one with their Pokemon (obvious lore that no one does IRL... I hope). To perform Z-moves, the player must have a corresponding type related to the Z-Crystal ( Fire move must match with a Fire-type Z-Crystal), and the Pokemon must be holding the Z-Crystal as a held item. As of now, we only seen 4 of the 18 Z-Move types revealed such as Inferno Overdrive, Bloom Doom, Hydro Vortex, and Gigavolt Havoc. While its too early to speculate how viable these Z-Moves are, I'm sorta leaning towards the fact these have been moderately balanced since these attacks require a held item (Z-Crystal) and can only be used once, making these attacks high risk, high reward. Some questions I'd like to know are the following 

1. Will Z-Crystals be able to be used "again" somehow despite the claim?
   
2. Can Hidden Power "count" towards having a certain type with the corresponding Z-Crystal? It is Normal-type after all, but changes based on the IVs of the Pokemon. 
   
3. How "exactly" are Z-moves calculated into a standard Pokemon battles? Will the variant of the move be physical if a Pokemon uses a physical attack, and vice versa for special attacks? 
   
4. Do Z-Move stack with STAB? Will the base power of the corresponding move be stacked with the Z-move? Do Z Moves have a set base power?
   
   

---

Potential Leaks
 

For now, going to end this section off with a bit of a disclaimer. Apparently there have been a number of leaks that have surfaced lately concerning the new mechanics, starter Pokemon final evolutions, new Pokemon designs, etc. While I don't know where exactly these leaks are based off of, I'm going to leave a link to the leaks here.  Not going to cover the leak info a they did get the typing for Alolan Ninetales wrong, so potentially some of the info here can be fake or not true.  As of right now, it seems that most of the leak has hold true with the exception of Ninetales's Alola Form being "Fire/Fairy", probably a mistake on whoever leaked the info, but again take it for a grain of salt. Here's the image of the four leaks.
 

---

 

Anyways, I'll have the second part of the news concering the Corocoro release, which should be out Thursday.