Nintendo shows off new gameplay for Pokemon Sun & Moon at E3, and three new Pokemon

Live at their E3 presentation

After unleashing a brand new trailer for Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Nintendo paused to talk Pokemon Sun & Moon.

Speaking to the game’s producer and director by way of a short Q&A, a Nintendo rep chatted a bit about the titles of the game. In response, they noted: ” It has a variety of meanings. For us, the sun is the source of all life, and it’s the same way in the Pokemon world. And the moon impacts us all as well. And we want this world to be teeming with life, so we chose those titles.” Alola also reflects that massive surge of life within the region.

In regards to the two new legendaries, they’ll apparently be integrated into the story in a bigger way — “Legends say that the [legendary Pokemon] are the emissaries of the sun and moon respectively. We want to integrate them with the story more than before so we think fans will be excited for it.”

Beyond that Nintendo demoed some new gameplay, and the hero has a pet Meowth, and the player evidently just moves to the Alola region several days before the events of the game — where “Hala,” a “very strong trainer” will give the player their first Pokemon. There is also a new Pokedex mechanic, which shows you that there is a “extra entry” after capturing something — an example was shown where the Ledyba has a white Pokeball space next to it indicating an evolution. The Pokemon Yungoos was confirmed — our astute Patrick Hancock thinks that it may be related to Zangoose (Pikipek is in the gallery too, which seems to have two evolutions).

When walking past other trainers in the world (which will now have a wider array of reactions and emotions), you can now see a subtle shadow effect that denotes a battle, so you don’t “stumble into one” on accident. You can see the new wide dynamic camera in the gallery below, too.