The new Pokémon Sun and Moon games are still a couple of months away, with a release date set for November 18, but the news keeps trickling out about its new Pokémon and features. The new Pokémon revealed today include version specific creatures for each of the two games, and new evolutions that differ in Sun and Moon as well. Plus, a new in-game feature lets you show your Pokémon a little love post-battle to get them back in fighting shape.
The new Pokemon include Passimian, unique to Pokémon Sun, and Oranguru, specific to Pokémon Moon. There’s also a new evolution for both for Rockruff, a puppy-like Pokémon revealed earlier this year. The evolutions including Lycanroc (Midday Form), which naturally is unique to Pokémon Sun, as well as Lycanroc (Midnight Form), unique to Moon (as you might have guessed).
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Also new are two Z-Moves specific to Pikachu and Eevee, which provide big bonuses in battle. The Pokémon Company has also confirmed that you get character customization options in Sun/Moon as in the last instalment, with the addition of color change options for your clothing via a new dye system. Pokémon Bank support is coming to Sun/Moon in January, too, letting you upload your Pokémon form previous games – and there’s a new cross-game National Pokédex that will create a comprehensive compendium of all the Pokémon you’ve caught across games in one central place.
A final new feature for this game is the new Refresh system, which lets players recuperate Pokémon after battles. The Pokémon Company notes that your pals “can sometimes end up rumpled and dirty” after battles, and the new feature will let you “clean them up, care for them, feed them Poké Beans and even cure status conditions like positing and paralysis.” Using Refresh will help improve your Pokémon’s performance in battle, too.
The new game debuts in November, as mentioned, on the 3DS family of systems. Beyond that, we now also know we can get pumped for more Pokémon on Nintendo’s upcoming NX, though we don’t know for sure when those games will arrive or what they’ll look like when they do.