I'm almost at the end of my time with Pokemon Moon (3DS) I've finished up the main story, it certainly goes places, then conquered the elite four. Some cutscenes are way too long for a portable game (one in particular lasted the duration of my commute) and at times it confused me a bit, I'm taking challenges to become a trainer while at the same time theres a bunch of punk kids making mischief and a creepy corporation pretending to be conversing Pokemon. Its a long way from the first generation of the game, most of the time this departure from its previous iterations is a blessing though, in fact its not until the last part of the main story that I encountered a traditional cave, Zubats and all. The final "boss" of the game (at least before I face the Elite four) was a pretty breezy affair, in fact I didn't switch from my Toucannon to defeat it but I was pleased to find at the end the story was tied up as best it could be. The more traditional fight against the elite four and the trainer which appears after is much more tricky, once again there is not healing between fighting each trainer so I went into it with a lot of preparation, two pages of notes in fact. I bought a ton of revives and max potions and finally utilised all my rare candy i'd been squirrelling away. I'm pretty sure as I've found this conclusion to previous games such a ball-ache that I'd been overly cautious throughout this game mindful that this final fight is way harder than anything I'd experience in the game. I got through it though in one attempt, my planning certainly helped, utilising tactics such as my Klefki opening my battle, sucking up a few turns and dropping spikes to mess with the changeover of my opponents Pokemon, once this odd bunch of keys had taken a beating I'd then send in my heavy hitters, like the wonderfully named Crabominable (a mixture of a Yeti and a crab). I'd always fall back on my notes which detailed how this expanded game of rock, paper, scissors would go down. It all concluded with my opponents Bearware throwing an almost fatal punch at my Mudsadle, which in turn caused a devastating earthquake which then triggered victory and a cutscene which even for this game seemed overly long.
There seems to be a lot more post game things to do this time round, I'm now going around visiting spots which the story didn't take me and levelling up some of the monsters that stood of the periphery of my top six. The game itself was a shorter affair than I was expecting, coming in at around 30 hours and weirdly thats enticing me to maybe one day start again, trying it out with a different selection of beasts. I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again, its all nonsense. In its construction though, from the design of the creatures, the music and most importantly gameplay, there is more to Pokemon games than I was expecting. They're not just prolonged adverts for soft toys and keychains. The message which is sometimes not so subtly forced into this games story about raising and nurturing (told through the perspective of a pretty awful mother) was something I wasn't expecting and the "Gotta Catch 'Em All" attitude seemed to be replaced with "Gotta Care for 'Em All" and thats no bad thing.
The Last Guardian (PS4) is not a leisurely experience at all. I'm pretty sure I'm near the end of the game and while I'm really happy that i've played it I don't think I'd ever play it again. My frustration was at it peak when doing a particular platforming section ascending one of the many towers, simple jumps were made harder with a really twitchy camera and my character deciding that now was the time to stop reaching out for ledges. What was most frustrating about this ordeal was that it was coming off the back of one of the games many spectacular setpeices, one moment i'm dashing up a crumbling building with my trusty monster, him plucking me out of the air when I make a mistake then seconds later it all comes sputtering to a halt. Thats been the story of this flawed game for me, every time that I'm really enjoying it it throws a control or camera shaped spanner in the works. Had this game had the tight platforming of Uncharted 4 for example it would be an absolutely amazing experience but too often it falls short. Theres a bit more to the story now, which I wasn't expecting and while its not completely unexpected I like the way it ties back to the start of the game.
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