Alongside those, an Alola from Raticate has been revealed, joining its pre-evolution Rattata, whose Alolan form was first shown during the Nintendo Direct on 01/09/16. It’s said that Raticate of the Alola region have a higher-calorie diet than the usual Raticate players may be used to seeing, which led one twitter user to dub it “Faticate“. This now makes the third complete Alolan evolutionary line with Vulpix & Ninetales and Sandshrew & Sandslash having altered forms, while Exeggutor, Meowth, Marowak & Raichu do not yet have confirmed Alolan forms for their evolutionary partners.
Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon are to be set 12 hours apart from each other. The former will run from the 3DS systems internal clock and the latter will run 12 hours offset from that. So when it’s daytime in one of the games, it’ll be nighttime in the other. Day and night cycles aren’t new to Pokémon games, with the changing time of day often making different Pokémon available, as well as different events and NPCs. Pokémon Sun and Moon look set to do the same, albeit in a slightly new way. May we even see a return to stumbling across sleeping wild Pokémon at night like in Pokémon Gold & Silver? Given that players of Pokémon Moon will be spending most of the game playing at night in-game, this is probably unlikely, but we can hope!
Introducing the Aether Foundation
We have also been treated to several members of The Aether Foundation, an organisation dedicated to protecting and supporting weak Pokémon as well as conduct research around the Alola region. They are led by Lusamine, the glamorous president, who wishes to love all Pokémon near and far in the Aether Paradise. The foundation also consists of Faba, the branch Chief, and Wicke, the assistant Branch Chief. Speculation among fans is already high that the white-clad Aether Foundation and its several employees may actually turn out to be the true villains of the game. The Pokémon Company have not been reached for comment.
Speaking of the villians, viewers are also introduced to one of the admins from the enemy team, Team Skull Enforcer Gladion. From the get-go, he appears to be a confident and forceful opponent whose partner Pokémon is the earlier mentioned Type: Null.
Pokémon Snap fans may enjoy this new feature coming to Pokémon Sun & Moon. The Poké Finder, found in the Rotom Dex, will allow players to take pictures of Pokémon out and about at certain viewpoints within the Alola region. This looks like it may replace the Pokémon Amie feature from Pokémon X, Y, Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire, although this hasn’t been confirmed. It seems after the global success of the Pokémon Go mobile app, they’d like to emulate the experience somewhat within the handheld game.
Finally, the video gives a tantalising teaser towards the first Ultra Beast named ‘UB-01‘. The video ends before much can be told about the jellyfish looking Pokémon, or even what Ultra Beasts are, but a press statement from The Pokémon Company mention that Ultra Beasts possess mighty powers and pose a threat to humans and Pokémon. Furthermore, the Aether Foundation are conducting research on the Ultra Beasts, being the ones that give it the codename ‘UB-01‘. How this will unravel itself in the game’s main story is anyone’s guess, however, the way The Pokémon Company have been drip feeding information over the past few months, we may find out more any day now.
Pokémon Sun & Pokémon Moon launch on Nintendo 3DS on 18th November 2016 worldwide and 23rd November 2016 in Europe.
