Massive news bomb today. Definitely needs a forum post to discuss it.
New abilities come in the form of Dancer and Shields Down. These are used by Oricorio and Minior, respectively. Dancer copies any stat changes from dance moves, such as Dragon Dance or Quiver Dance (could see some use in Double/Triple Battles, maybe?) and Shields Down increases the Def of the pokemon and makes it immune to status effects, until the pokemon reaches 50% health, where it changes form.
Oricorio has four forms, one for each island of Alola. Each form has its own unique typing: Fire/Flying, Electric/Flying, Psychic/Flying and Ghost/Flying. All four of these typings are really awesome, but my favourite has to be its Baile Forme, the Fire/Flying one.
Solar Blade is a new move which seems to be the physical damage version of Solar Beam. Nice to see physical Grass-types getting some love.
Older pokemon are receiving some Alola forms - also known as the stuff of flipping dreams. These seem to be variants of existing pokemon, such as Shellos' and Gastrodon's east/west form, as opposed to mega evolutions or primal forms. Think SnowAgumon or MudFrigimon in Digimon - these seem to be similar to that. Especially because Alola Vulpix and Ninetales are Ice/Fairy, and Sandshrew and Sandslash are Ice/Steel. This is super cool. I definitely wasn't expecting pokemon to ever take this route.
Once per battle, you can use a special move called a Z-Move. It looks like there will be 18 Z-Moves, as each type has a move. For example, Electric's Z-Move is called Gigavolt Havoc and Fire's is called Inferno Overdrive. Also, Grass' is called Bloom Doom... lol. It's unanswered whether or not these moves take Physical/Special attacks into consideration. In order to use a Z-Move, you have to obtain Z-Crystals around the Alola Region (much like the Mega Stones of XY/ORAS). These Z-Crystals are fitted into your Z-Ring. If your pokemon holds a Z-Crystal of the same type of a move it learns, it can use a Z-Move. So apparently, giving a Fire Z-Crystal to a Litten that knows Ember should allow you to use Inferno Overdrive.
That seems to be it. I think Z-Moves will have some very interesting changes to the way the game is played. Imagine having a theoritcal pokemon with Hydro Pump, Fire Blast, Blizzard and Thunder Wave. By equipping an Electric Z-Crystal, you have three powerful moves and a status-inflicting move, that can, once per battle, be essentially turned into a fourth powerful move, for some extra coverage.
Thunder Wave, Sleep Powder, Toxic, Will-O-Wisp, Detect and Whirlwind come to mind as moves you could use this tactic with.
So what do you guys think? All this information was gathered from https://www.youtube....h?v=3AZHowhxM0U. And there's plenty more new things on there that I didn't mention. What's your favourite thing about Sun/Moon so far? I'm really liking Alola Ninetales.
