Pokémon Sun and Moon arrive november 18th, starter Pokémon and cover Pokémon revealed!

In a brief trailer released this morning, Nintendo gave eager Pokémon masters some important details on the forthcoming Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon: the games will launch on November 18th; as usual, each game will include a new as-yet-unnamed legendary mascot and new grass-, fire-, and water-type starter Pokémon.

The starters include Popplio, a water-type seal; Litten, a fire-type disinterested-looking cat (so, a cat); and Rowlet, a grass- and flying-type owl with an adorable little leafy bow tie (clearly the best of the three). Pokémon Sun's story will presumably revolve around the big sunny lion on the cover, where Moon will feature a big crescent-shaped bat.


The trailer also showed off snippets of the game's graphics, which are similar to those used in X and Y (they're launching on the same system, after all). The main Pokémon RPGs have always been conservative in the graphics department—Pokémon X and Y were the first in the franchise's then-17-year history to use 3D models for all people and Pokémon both inside and outside of battle. Sun and Moon's setting, the Hawaii-esque Alola region, appears to use larger maps with a greater sense of scale than in past games, and the region is shown off using more diverse and dynamic camera angles. The game's worlds have all been rendered in 3D since Pokémon Diamond and Pearl hit the DS back in 2006, but even X and Y mostly stuck to the top-down camera view the series has used since Red and Blue on the original Game Boy.

We still don't know much else about the new Pokémon games, which will presumably include a wide range of new monsters and the customary tweaks to the battle system and other longstanding gameplay elements. We do know, however, that players will be able to transfer monsters to Sun and Moon from X, Y, Omega Ruby, Alpha Sapphire, and the 3DS Virtual Console versions of Blue, Red, and Yellow via an updated version of the Pokémon Bank app.