For true-blue pokémon fans, the fulfillment of playing the game is not beating the Elite Four but rather testing one's strategies against players all over the globe. As such, players will once again enter a new season of rating battles for "Pokémon Sun" and "Moon," which has started last Jan. 16.

Ratings Battle Season 2 is going to be a different playing field from the first one, as this time it allows pokémon from the entire National Pokédex. This means that even those caught in previous titles, such as "Pokémon X & Y," "Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire," and the digital versions of "Pokémon Red, Blue and Yellow," can be used.

Aside from that, the 2^nd season carries the luxury and challenge of allowing players to include one legendary or mythical pokémon. This presents a riot in itself as those pokémon are usually banned since they are on a tier of their own, so it will be interesting to see how players will prepare for them when met in battle.

The question on everyone's minds now is when will the Pokémon Bank be updated to transport pokémon from earlier titles? The last announcement made was that players can expect it within January 2017, and no news has been heard since then.

The Pokémon Bank is an indispensable tool for competitive players who have played since the earlier titles since it will allow them to bring their winning teams to the current version. For an annual fee of $4.99, it proves to be a small price to pay for battling aficionados.

Nonetheless, it looks like Game Freak is preparing well for the coming update. It has made patches to both "Pokémon Sun & Moon" with the version 1.1 update, which fixes issues with the moves Memento and Parting Shot, as well as the win or lose conditions when using the Rocky Helmet.

The 2^nd season for the Ratings Battle has started last Jan. 16 and will be ongoing up until March 19.