This isn’t the demo that we get to play – it’s the real deal, folks. Several media outlets were allowed to play two hours of Pokémon Sun & Moon, with the games unedited and nothing hidden from them (though media outlets have said they aren’t allowed to share certain information with us). Here’s what they discovered during their play times:

Needless to say, spoilers for the first part of the game will be present, though they will be few due to the restrictions put onto the media of what information they could share.

Also, not all of this is completely confirmed. Due to human error and the fact that these articles were not written while the players had the games in front of them, there might have been a few misunderstandings (such as Digital Spy accidentally referring to Work Up as an HM and not a TM). Don’t take these as 100% confirmed without official word from Nintendo.

Spoilers related to returning mechanics

• First TM obtained in the game is Work Up (Digital Spy). While it was originally reported that this was an HM, it was confirmed that this was a mistake.
• D-pad is not used for movement whatsoever (GameXplain). Unconfirmed whether it can still be used for navigating through menus, although the demo does show that the D-pad is used for quickly using registered items and quick-selecting Poké Ride options.
• No more running shoes, and you can hold B to run immediately (GameXplain).
• Sneaking up on Pokémon, a feature from ORAS, has been removed from this game (GameXplain). It was later revealed in a NicoNico playthrough of the game that Pokémon can run at the player when in tall grass.
• The Exp. Share is obtained before the first Trial and functions identically as it did in the sixth generation games (GameXplain).
• Your mom finally gets her own room in the house! (GameXplain)
• Similar to how the Kalos Pokédex was divided between different areas, the Alolan Pokédex is divided between islands.

Spoilers related to mechanics introduced in Sun and Moon

• Only a few people were able to reach the first Trial, which occurs “near the first major city” (GameXplain) in a place called Verdant Cavern (Digital Spy), after playing for two hours.
• A slight change from Pokémon-Amie, Pokémon Refresh is not accessible at any time and is apparently only able to be accessed at the end of a battle by pressing Y (Expert Reviews).
• Alolan Pokémon are simply referred to without the “Alolan” prefix by locals. For example, Alolan Rattata is simply known as “Rattata” in the region. I wonder what Alolan people will call the other form then? “Kanto Rattata,” maybe?
• Poké Ride completely replaces HMs. Pokémon that already known HM moves will still be able to use them for battle, but they will not be used for moving around the world (GameXplain).
• Within the first two hours, you have the option to change your trainer’s hair color. The options for boys seem to be similar to the options present in X & Y (GameXplain).

Story-related spoilers

• An additional town has been discovered (aside from the starting town the player starts in) that is called Iki Town. The connecting route between these two towns is called Route 1. There is a route connected to Iki Town called the Mahalo Trail, which leads to a place called the Ruins of Conflict (GameXplain).
• The player’s first encounter with Tapu Koko will take place within the first 20 minutes; they fall off a bridge while trying to rescue Lillie’s Pokémon (GameXplain). While GameXplain says that they can’t talk about the Pokémon you were trying to help, Polygon accidentally revealed that it might be one of the Pokémon revealed in the demo of the datamine a few days ago. Because the identity of this Pokémon has not been technically revealed by Nintendo yet, it won’t be covered in this article, but you can check out the datamining article to see what it is!

What do you think of these new discoveries? It’s a shame that the PokéCommunity Daily wasn’t one of the news outlets able to play the game… maybe when the next game comes around, though!

Sources: Digital Spy, Expert Reviews, GameXplain, Polygon
Edited by Nick Wilde and colours