Pokémon Moon

Pokemon Sun and Moon are a game about a girl named Lillie, who has befriended a legendary Pokemon, and stole it away from her mentally ill mother. Through her adventure, Lillie grows stronger as a person, and learns the meaning of friendship.
You don't play as Lillie, though. You just follow her around.

Pokemon Red and Blue were about you and your adventure. You explored the region not because Lillie dragged you along, but because you wanted to. You were given a Pokemon and pointed in a direction, and that's it.
GameFreak, however, completely misunderstands Pokemon, and has made the games increasingly linear and story-focused, but it wasn't an actual problem until Platinum.

Gyms in this title have been replaced by trials, which are mediocre. None are as bad as the one in the demo, though, which is strange.
Mega evolutions have been replaced with Z-moves, which completely misses the point. Mega evolutions for Pokemon like Beedrill were perfect; making bad Pokemon actually pretty good. Z-moves do nothing in that regard; any Pokemon can use them. There are a few that are exclusive to certain Pokemon, but those Pokemon are mostly already good.

The best thing about Sun and Moon is, against all odds (take a look at me now), Team Skull. I've always hated evil teams. Rocket, Aqua, and Magma were tolerable, and Team Flare barely existed. But Team Galactic and Plasma were the fucking worst.
Team Skull, rather than trying to be serious and """deep""", are simply silly. They are legitimately well-designed and funny, and have a GREAT theme song. Their leader, Guzma, is also a highlight.

The worst thing about this game is the railroading. There's this one NPC riding a Stoutland who says you can't pass because the Stoutland won't rest until it sniffs out every hidden item on the path. When they are finally done, you can hop onto your own Stoutland and notice that there are still hidden items lying on the ground. Fuck you, GameFreak.
There's one part where this adult tells you (a child) and Hau (also a child) all about Aether Paradise, and how he wants to take you there. There's no way to say "STRANGER DANGER" and not follow him to his "clearly not a cult" island. All he needed was a white van and the promise of candy to really sell it.

A strange experimentation with more narrative gaming....and more in-depth puzzle-like gyms? I don't think anyone was asking for more story and more puzzles. The harder difficulty is welcome but the totally not-Hawaiian islands feel discombobulated, it just doesn't feel fun exploring the game's world. The pool of Pokemon to catch seems to have gotten worse from Pokemon X and Y as well....

Nothing about Sun and Moon innovations works out, but it's still a decent 3D Pokemon game at the end of the day.