by Chris Selogy
10. Pokemon Sun & Moon (3DS)
Ranked number 10 in SmashPad’s Top 10 Games of 2016 is Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon, developed by Game Freak and published by The Pokémon Company for the Nintendo 3DS.
It’s hard to imagine that Pokémon has been around for almost 20 years, and as far as the main games go, one of the biggest reasons about that being the case is the fact that they really haven’t seen all that much change. While Pokémon X and Pokémon Y brought the main series to the third dimension (sort of), it largely remained the same.
Pokémon Sun and Moon took things a step further. Not only did the new Alola version feature a whole bunch of new Pokémon, but they took a lot of the existing Pokémon and gave them new forms, exclusive to the region like the hilariously tall Alolan Exeggutor with a ridiculously long trunk for a neck as well as making the Pokémon a dragon type. Sun and Moon also does away with the gym system, so trainers no longer had to earn eight badges throughout the game’s setting. This made the game more streamlined, and never has Pokémon felt so fresh.
“A franchise that recycles their games over and over finally has a new approach (not really) to a familiar game. For whatever reason this game revitalized my interest in the Pokémon franchise on the mobile platform. I could not even get through X & Y, but was very surprised how much I was into this game. They need to release games that continue to push the franchise like this one.” – Christian Paraguya, Staff Writer