One thing I liked about Tierno was the concept of a themed trainer where it's not a type-based theme. They could have done better, made his team actually threatening, but the idea of "his entire team knows moves with 'dance' in the name and tend to set up" is a good way of both making him distinct and also making his various party members make sense. Oleana is the only other time I can recall having that happen.
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- Thread starter antemortem
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That and Alola having competent writing
There’s been talk that, in-game, the Galar’s Gym Leaders are meant to be difficult to face with especially starting with Kabu but… I beg to differ.
You know what I mean? For all the “competitive” spirit and sport-theming Galar encourages, the Major Division Gym Leader’s teams, at least the later ones, aren’t even carefully built and relied too much on the Dynamax mechanic. This left with poor team composition with either too few coverage, use a weak Pokémon at a point too late thus wasting a team slot, or use their stats very poorly.
I skipped over the first three Gym Leaders since the two are meant for starters, and Kabu is meant to be a suddenly tough one with all fully evolved Pokémon alone. Almost none are bothered to use held items on them either. To wit on their first match…
P.S. I know this is not an exclusive problem for Sword and Shield regarding bad or mediocre team composition, but with all the in-game hype of how tough the Galar’s Gym Leaders are, that really stuck like a sore thumb.
You know what I mean? For all the “competitive” spirit and sport-theming Galar encourages, the Major Division Gym Leader’s teams, at least the later ones, aren’t even carefully built and relied too much on the Dynamax mechanic. This left with poor team composition with either too few coverage, use a weak Pokémon at a point too late thus wasting a team slot, or use their stats very poorly.
I skipped over the first three Gym Leaders since the two are meant for starters, and Kabu is meant to be a suddenly tough one with all fully evolved Pokémon alone. Almost none are bothered to use held items on them either. To wit on their first match…
- Bea’s Pokémon are all mono Fighting except Pangoro, and none of them have coverage against Flying-type Pokémon. Alister is somewhat better with all of his Pokémon not sharing the dual type and Cursola as the sole mono Ghost, but Galarian Yamask not being evolved at this point of the game leaves for a very weak member.
- Only Mawile’s moveset is a full four, the other three, even her Ace Alcremie that have the G-Max Factor, have only three moves. She also uses Togekiss’ Hustle poorly, as none of its moves are physical.
- Gordie slapped Rock Tomb on all of his Pokémon, even if only Shuckle would make actual use and somehow, it is the only one that uses the much stronger Stone Edge. This undermines Rock-type STAB on all of his Pokémon. Melony have two mono Ice-type, one of which is an awful single-staged gimmick without using the Dynamax mechanic, although G-Max Lapras does give her slight edge.
- Piers having a diverse team of Dark-type Pokémon and Obstagoon having actual EVs do make him a decent challenge if you are not using Fighting or Fairy-type Pokémon. None can directly threaten Bug-type due to a lack of coverage for this.
- Raihan’s Sandstorm team and engaging in Doubles helped him to be a fan favorite but… His Duraludon only have Physical moves, even if it’s Special Attack is much higher than Attack. Mishandling right there.
P.S. I know this is not an exclusive problem for Sword and Shield regarding bad or mediocre team composition, but with all the in-game hype of how tough the Galar’s Gym Leaders are, that really stuck like a sore thumb.
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The XY "rivals" strike me as being conceived as more of a "friend group" than an entire cast of rivals. They're like a group of friends who are on the journey together but cross paths and are occasionally competitive with each other: the only true "rival" in the group is Calem/Serena: the other three are just your friends who tag along with you and have their own goals on their journeys. Shauna is just there to have fun, Tierno is a master dancer, and Trevor is all about filling the Pokedex and being the first in the group to do so. I think the biggest issue is that the friend group individually don't get enough spotlight as individuals and are treated as a package deal more often than not, so we don't really get to see their individual schticks shine through as much except with Calem/Serena and maybe Shauna. Tierno's dancing gimmick is something I'm not sure would've been something they could've done much with, but Trevor's whole Pokedex schtick was one that definitely had a lot of potential.
Having a whole "friend group" for the journey was definitely a good idea in concept and it's clear it was a very bold and unique idea for X and Y, problem was the concept wasn't quite used to its full potential.
We absolutely need one of these someday. It would justify the frequency of Ice-types being late-game Pokemon more often than not as pseudo-legends are designed to be late game Pokemon with their high stats and great movepools often justifying their late availability by being powerhouses for the late game. It would also be a good offensive Ice-type with the right stats and a good movepool to justify it.
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It's easy to read complaints about the Affection bonuses and think people don't want them in, but we're not asking that. As you said, on a casual run it feels awesome when the Pokemon you stuck with through a lot of your journey dodges or hangs on with 1 HP from an otherwise KO hit (and/or scores a Critical Hit when they attack).
What most players looking for a challenge want is simply the option to go into the menu, select "Options", and right under selecting Text Speed there being something that says "Affection Bonuses On/Off" (along with "Exp. Share On/Off"). That's it, that's all we want. It can be turned on be default, just that little option. Actually it would be great if we can customize them even more like choosing what bonuses we want on and off (and how we want the Exp. Share to function, like it only affecting the Pokemon with the lowest level/isn't evolved), but baby steps.
I think the main issue with roaming Pokemon breaks down to two annoyances: Tracking & fleeing anytime.
Tracking: Even if you could see where they are on a map, they made Tracking them annoying by making it so you can't simply just Fly to where they are near. No, you gotta generally camp at a Route Gate which connects 3 or 4 Routes, running back and forth until the Roamer finally decides to teleport itself to that area. Infact "Tracking" really isn't the best word as you're not tracking it, and it's not "Trapping" nor "Baiting", it's just... "Waiting". How To Make It Better: Okay, if they want to make it a bit challenging by not letting us use Fly, how about this: As long as the player is "on foot", the Roamer can't teleport. It's stuck travelling along the Routes it's on, occasionally going back-and-forth. That way, even if it takes some time, the player can reliably "track it" without worrying if they take too long it'll just teleport to a new location. Also, after an encounter they can have it teleport to a new location to start the tracking all over again, but once again as long as it can't teleport while you're on foot it's not that major of an issue.
Fleeing Anytime: Pretty much what the title says, even if its alseep, stats are all in the negative, and has low HP it can still run away. Even if it keeps the status ailment and HP it's still annoying. How To Make It Better: Well first off if its asleep or frozen it can't run away until it wakes up (though you can have it have a higher chance of waking up early). Second have factors which decrease the chance of it fleeing (and have them stack): Low HP, Paralyzed, Confused, and lowered Speed & Evasion stats; those would be the most logical status ailments which would hamper it fleeing. How I see it, "fleeing" should be a "punishment" for doing poorly or not doing the most optimal strategy.
There have been other instances but you gotta look for them. Ones that come to mind are:
Falkner: While a Flying-type specialist, most of his Pokemon are birds. I'm surprised they never tried doing a bonus battle where he surprises us by using a Blaziken and Empoleon. "What, they're bird Pokemon, nothing says they need to be Flying-type".
Lusamine: Oleana actually sort of copied Lusamine's shtick. Lusamine uses feminine and "cute" Pokemon.
But you're right we could use more of them and there's plenty of ideas, though whether they'll be an important character or just a side NPC with a neat gimmick if you notice it is another issue entirely.
Was he? Sure, he couldn't make use of Oricorio or its Dancer Ability, but he could still have made use of moves like Dragon Dance & Quiver Dance to try and make a buffing up team (also throwing in some Petal Dance, Sword Dance, and Teeter Dance).
Quick, give them to ILCA! Even if they don't make them good they'll at least make them interesting (I can imagine them giving Raihan a team for each weather condition).
Checked a few posts ahead just to see if someone said this before I did. Well, not the whole "friend group concept" thing, though I agree with it. I just wanted to say I don't really have a problem with Tierno or Trevor (or Shauna) as characters but they're under utilized. ScraftyIsTheBest pretty much summarized why so I'll leave it at that.
Actually, one thing I will add is maybe ways they could have improved it. Since they're pretty much travelling with us the entire journey, maybe they could have had them act as quick "side quests" for each Town/City we visit. Like Tierno would want to see (a) certain Move(s), Trevor would want to see certain Pokemon, Shauna would want to go with a player to see a certain landmark, and Serena/Calem would always like a battle. Also on occasion they'll switch up what they usually do or want to have a battle. You don't have to do these side quests, but doing them would give you more chances to interact with them and get to know them better, allow them to tell a bit more about themselves and their backstory cause, remember, you're new to the region and this group of friends so you wouldn't know much about them.
You could pretty much say that for any of the neglected Types. Normal-type, Poison-type, Bug-type, Grass-type. Though we also need to do another thing: STOP MAKING THEM DRAGONS! There's mythical beasts of great power than just dragons, like focus on the Fairy-type or maybe do some Elementals/Primoradial beings (maybe even some folk heroes).
Alternatively (maybe, we might be thinking the same thing with different words) just make which route they'll move to next predictable. So instead of just camping at a hub and waiting for them to stumble your way, you can check where they are currently, figure out the path they'll take through the region, and then plan out what path you need to take to intercept them.
(Actually, I'm pretty sure I just described the strategy used for at least one of the Galarian Birds)
Yeah, that what I meant when I said chasing them on foot. As long as you don't Fly you should be able to run over to them without them deciding you took too long so decide to teleport to a route that wasn't adjacent to the one they were on. Maybe also have them hang out on a route for a bit to ignore a situation where you're running after them but they keep going one route ahead and there's no good way to cut them off (though I guess at that point you might as well Fly and reset their route).
Yeah, G-Moltres you had to find opportune spots on the Isle of Armor to cut it off and battle it. If followed a set path and I think you can just wait for it to lap but it flies around the ENTIRE island so if you're impatient you either try to keep track of it of you keep on resetting its pattern until you can find the most earliest spot (which I believe if around the Master Dojo).
Yeah, ILCA looks definitely competitive fans, so they’ll likely do a better job at making at least decent and definitely interesting boss team compositions than GF had ever done. And that’s just with their first mainline game too!
Speaking with pseudo-legend, any folklore and mythical creature will fit the bill just fine. Even ”generic” humanoid mythical and fantasy creatures like orcs, giants (albeit much preferably mixed with another, broader concept), yetis, an actual mummy, living skeletons, undeads, etc. In general, anything folklore or mythical but not specific to a country or state can fit the bill of a pseudo-legend line just fine.
Dragapult itself is a fantastic line so another pseudo-legend Dragon will have a very tough act to follow anyways.
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Hey, so I sat down and listed all of the mons I have a certain aversion or just don't like them, (the '???' is undecided) and...
I noticed I have little to no problems with Gens 7 and 8 rosters, despite the popular opinion being that the modern designs are getting lackluster or sth, which I don't agree. So I guess that's my last unpopular opinion of 2021 lol.
I noticed I have little to no problems with Gens 7 and 8 rosters, despite the popular opinion being that the modern designs are getting lackluster or sth, which I don't agree. So I guess that's my last unpopular opinion of 2021 lol.
The only problem with Girafarig is that they didn't commit. It's one of the few mons I /want/ to get a regional variant, so we can see a true pushmepullyou.
Honestly, I'm a bit surprised we haven't seen a South American region yet. The Amazon would make for such a rich source of mons, plus it's just a great aesthetic for the region in general.
Honestly, I'm a bit surprised we haven't seen a South American region yet. The Amazon would make for such a rich source of mons, plus it's just a great aesthetic for the region in general.
I don't really have a problem with Girafarig's design, but perhaps that's only because the beta design looks so awful that everything else looks great in comparison.
Like... I know it's a rough mockup, but it's dreadful. The whole "two-headed creature" concept has been done before and it just looks goofy to me. As neat as the pushmipullyu concept is, most animal-based Pokemon don't look this unnatural. How does this creature poop?
The finished version might not be quite as out there as some want but it just looks so much more naturalistic.
Like... I know it's a rough mockup, but it's dreadful. The whole "two-headed creature" concept has been done before and it just looks goofy to me. As neat as the pushmipullyu concept is, most animal-based Pokemon don't look this unnatural. How does this creature poop?
The finished version might not be quite as out there as some want but it just looks so much more naturalistic.
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I need to leave these forums, the turtonator hate is not good for my health
Hey I'm said I'm undecided if I like it or not
some reasons:
1. The white painted face always felt so unnatural to me, it doesn't look like the fur is changing from yellow to white, it looks like someone just put clown paint on it.
2. Similar to what people say about Aromatisse being a weird mesh of a can can dancer and a plague doctor, I find very weird the combination of a giraffe with a dinosaur (the tail and those iffy pink spikes) and does a disservice to both concepts.
3. Speaking of the tail, the theme of Girafarig being a palindrome would've been more consistent if it used its beta design.
4. WHY U SO SHORT??? You're a giraffe ffs and a final stage at that...
5. And to top it all off, it sucks in battle.
I'd be glad if Girafarig gets a new form or evolution like Stantler and Basculin just got one, but until then....nah
girafarig is AWESOME i will die on this hill
Tutonator > Kommo-oI need to leave these forums, the turtonator hate is not good for my health
well not competitively, but still
Real-life giraffes have lighter fur on their faces, so this is potentially a reference to that. Could just be for a bit of contrast, though.
The spikes are likely an odd interpretation of the fur running down a giraffe's neck. Can agree that the pink coloration is odd, though.
This is hardly an issue exclusive to Girafarig; Game Freak seems fairly averse to making actually large monsters. Tropius, based off of a sauropod (the largest land animals), only reaches the height of an exceptionally tall human.
Girafarig being the "long neck" pokemon but not really have that long of a neck is bad, though, I agree.
Eh, it's fine; most early single-stage Pokémon tend to have mediocre statlines. Girafarig has a respectable type combo, good movepool, and good abilities going for it, at least.
Knowing what we do now about Gen 2's development, they certainly could have done more with Girafarig's concept, so there is some lost potential there.
I hereby disown this. Something major has recently happened: I actually played the fucking game. I got it for Christmas and have been going through it and my god what the hell was I thinking??? This game is actually so cool and fun and filled with extra goodies and cool new Pokemon and sidequests and just a lot of great changes to make a grand old experience on the whole. Alola Photo Club is the goat. Ultra Recon Squad good. Totem Togedemaru and its trial is the goat, literally my only defense for Totem Vikavolt in this was "it looks cooler" what the fuck was wrong with slightly younger me.Edit: Ok so it's not like anyone's ever gonna go back and read this over-a-year-old-post buried under over a hundred new pages anyway, but I've kinda fallen out of favor with this essay. I just feel that it's overly hyperbolic and dismissive of things USUM did, and that the disclaimer tucked at the very very end is just a thinly-veiled, half-hearted copout to conceal my formerly exaggerated hatred for this game. I've made my peace with USUM, I've learned to appreciate what it did, and I am ready to move on from being the "hurr durr usum bad" guy. I'll keep this up because I did put a lot of hard work into it and figure erasure is never the answer, just know it doesn't really represent my thoughts anymore.
So uhh... Remember that thing I hyped up as not coming for a while? Well I actually got it done much faster than expected! Keep in mind what you are about to read was designed to be shared many different places, so it repeats some stuff I've said before on this very thread. I also think it makes sense here since it's way too big for the "Little things that annoy you" thread and has a number of pretty spicy takes littered throughout, hell the entire thing is in response to what I perceive as an increasingly popular sentiment.
Without further ado, Yung Dramps presents...
An Exhaustive (And Partially Disowned) Breakdown on the Detrimental Nature of
ULTRA SUN AND ULTRA MOON
Please read each section in order, top to bottom!
I’m gonna be fair to these games. Even I can admit that they actually did develop and flesh out the Alola region and mechanics in some really neat ways. My favorite new addition is probably Mantine Surf, it’s an entertaining and well-presented minigame with a great competition element to see who can do the gnarliest tricks and rack up the highest score. I also really love the Battle Agency despite it not being the most popular. It’s basically the Battle Factory, which is why it’s so awesome. Alola Photo Club is also a cool proto-Trainer Cards I guess.
There’s also... Well... Uh...
I’m not gonna say that’s where the nice things I have to say about these games end, but it is the end of the unconditional nice things. This means that from this point forward, the few remaining things these games do right come with huge caveats that ultimately either cancel out or outright supercede any good will those extra things could’ve generated. But before we get to the bad things that were done, let’s go over what wasn’t done...
While I love Sun to death, I’ve also come to recognize that people have some fairly notable issues with these titles, even if they didn’t bother me personally. I’ve seen everything from complaints about the slow start on Melemele, the generally higher-than-average cutscene count, crappy encounter tables making certain Pokemon pointlessly obtuse to obtain, overly linear route design, Rotom Dex being a little too chatty, so on and so forth. Again, none of these things bother me personally, but I still would’ve liked and appreciated the Ultra titles for minimizing and getting rid of these roadblocks wherever possible so those who didn’t like that stuff could come a few steps closer to loving this region as much as I do.
But nope, for all these things I mentioned Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon either didn’t fix those problems or didn’t fix them enough to satisfy those who made the complaints to begin with. A lot of the encounter %s are still wack, Melemele still goes by pretty slowly with stuff like the mandatory Trainer’s School session not being altered, and most egregiously of all the infamous cutscenes weren’t really trimmed down at all, if anything the issue is now worse as those extensive dialogues are being used to tell a vastly inferior story. Another issue that got unquestionably worse was Rotom-Dex, who went from being kinda charming to becoming even more chatty and forcing the player into the nigh-mandatory Roto Loto mechanic that could be used to cheese the game in absurd ways with no other parallel in the franchise from omni-boosting to recharging Z-Moves. And as for the issues people had with linearity... we’ll get to that.
Either way, compare this to how Platinum tried to improve DP’s atrocious performance wherever it could and added those sorely-needed extra cross-gen evos and their lines the originals’ Pokedex needed (although tbf this shouldn’t have been a problem to begin with, more a case of DP sucking balls than anything), or how ORAS revamped some of the key players of the original RSE cast to make them much more well-developed and memorable. And BOTH of those examples were able to do this while also adding new and exciting pieces of content to explore and play through, the same sort of content that large parts of USUM had to be mutilated to fit in. But hey, at least that stuff is mostly good, right? After all, earlier I mentioned some of the extra features I like in these games. Well, here’s the thing about those additions; those were the exceptions.
Up until this point you’ve had to digest bigass blocks of text. Well now it’s time for your eyes and brains to rest somewhat, for as I dissect the crappy extra features and locations of these games and explain why none of them were worth the time and effort invested it’ll be done in bullet-point form!
- Part 1: The New Areas
- Pikachu Valley: The landmark personification of “Wha..?”. In every sense of the word, it has no compelling purpose: It doesn’t expand Alola’s worldbuilding in a meaniningful way, it doesn’t provide any really engaging side activities aside from a new Poke Finder spot, it’s just an empty, boring shrine to the mascot of the franchise. The most notable thing about it is that by scanning the correct QR code you can get the Ash Hat Pikachu and the Pikashunium Z. Wait... Does that mean they made an entire new location for this specific purpose?! If so, holy crap what an abhorrent waste of resources!
- The Kantonian Gym: Y’know what? As a worldbuilding junkie this is actually a pretty cute concept, a mock gym for Alola residents to experience what the Gym Challenge is like is a clever addition that gives Malie City a little more pizazz. And yet, just like Pikachu Valley, albeit to a lesser extent, it’s just kinda there. I guess you can fight a few trainers with typical middling NPC teams, but that’s about it, all you really get in return is a fake gym badge despite having to pay 1,000$ to enter the facility to begin with. You don’t even fight Ryuki as the “Gym Leader”, just some random Black Belt with a single Machoke. When was the last time you heard anyone say “Man, the Kantonian Gym made some great memories for me” or “Dude, you NEED to buy the Ultra versions to experience the Kantonian Gym”?
- The Ultra Space Locations and Ultra Megalopolis: I put them all together because they have the exact same problem. They look nice, have some solid music, extra bits of lore and a super duper sparkly epic and strong Ultra Beast/Necrozma at the end, and yet at the end of the day they’re just freaking corridors! This was Game Freak’s chance to address the complaints about the relative linearity of the originals by adding new areas with dungeons and other places to explore and traverse before getting to the main event and they blew it! The absolute worst offender is Ultra Megalopolis, an entire futuristic city with a heavy, almost cyberpunk-like atmosphere reduced to a hallway to Ultra Necrozma without a single enterable building or so much as a freaking side street. And don’t even get me started on the absolute jokes that are legendary encounters in this game, with every single one from Mewtwo to Giratina, from Rayquaza to Yveltal using the same handful of stock locations with only the most bog-standard attention to detail, and what would you know they’re still corridors. ORAS at least had a few of them (Ho-Oh and Lugia, Heatran, Regigigas) hang around on the Hoenn map, and even the Mirage Island legends got their own little biomes, it wasn’t that much but it was better than this. Going back to the Ultra Beasts in particular and the whole theme of sacrifice with these titles I genuinely preferred how they were handled in the original Sun and Moon. Sure you didn’t get your fancy corridors, but instead a neat little story about helping Looker and the gnarly-looking amnesiac secret agent Anabel stop an Ultra Beast invasion, travelling around Alola to do so. I’m not going to pretend it was some mindblowing experience or storyline but at the very least it was overwith relatively quickly, gave you extra copies of the version exclusives for trading purposes and even netted you an extremely nice 1,000,000$ completion award. And now with that out of the way we can move on to Part-
- Dividing Peak Tunnel: Wait, what? This was in the original Sun and Moon, what gives? Hold on... In those games you just entered and came out the other end automatically because it was just a basic-ass tunnel with nothing of note, but in these they for some reason made it a full location you have to spend the time to traverse manually. Well, ok, if that’s the case then I’m willing to bet that they probably added something new, maybe expanded it to have some things to- This was literally just to facilitate a cutscene with the Ultra Recon Squad. I mean yeah, you can catch Wimpod and Kecleon in here, but that’s it, that is literally the only other thing that happens in this “new and improved” tunnel, it was all-in-all “””expanded””” primarily to give the URS a scene which could’ve easily been slapped on when you come out at the other end!! Oh and don’t worry, I’ll get to those bozos later, but for now we gotta move on to Part 2 of this section, for real this time.
- Part 2: New Gameplay Additions
- Mina’s Trial: That’s right boys and girls, before we even get into postgame content we gotta talk about a brand new final trial! And wouldn’t ya know, it’s a complete waste of time that drags the final stretch of the game down! For starters its mere presence and placement after the Ultra Necrozma battle creates the “extra gym tacked on after the villain plot climax” problem which I hated in games like Platinum and ORAS, except this is the only main series ”enhanced” game to my knowledge to create that problem when it didn’t previously exist. Then there’s the trial itself, which involves flying around Alola and rematching previous Trial Captains to make a flower or whatever. All of these fights are underwhelming 3 Pokemon washes and it generally feels like an afterthought, especially when you look at the teams and realize they’re just leveled-up, fully evolved versions of battles they had in the original Sun and Moon, except in those games they were completely optional and let you learn more about the Trial Captains in the process of finding and battling them. Then there’s Totem Ribombee, who I’ll get to in a later section.
- Ultra Space Ride: I’ve already explained in depth how hard the actual Ultra Space locations suck, but what about the minigame to reach them? Well since these titles apparently decided they hadn’t defaced the originals enough already, they went ahead and added segments where the game temporarily becomes Superman 64 with you flying through bloody rings on the back of either Solgaleo or Lunala. Unlike Mantine Surf there is no strategy, no addicting push to replay it and get the best performance possible, you just keep going and going and going until you find the right ring, go through it, get your legendary or relatively easy shiny and rinse and repeat until you’ve got everything or have stopped caring.
- Rainbow Rocket: This was it, the big headlining postgame attraction of these titles, above Mantine Surf, above the Battle Agency, above even any of the Ultra Space exploration stuff. An interdimensional army of Rocket goons led by Giovanni and 5 other returning villains from Maxie and Archie to Lysandre from timelines where they succeeded with their plans AND caught their respective mascot legends in the process have now set their sights on Alola, with you and some of the other big cast members including Lillie and Guzma having to stop them. Such an awesome fanservicey premise that ties into the alternate dimension lore both Alola games have been steadily building up, and the ultimate result is just really mediocre. While comments could be made about the design and traversal of the Rainbow Rocket hideout, the bulk of the issues with this postgame story come down to the fact it missed 85-90% of the point of big crossovers like this: Having all these characters with different backgrounds, ideals, goals and personalities interact. Throughout the entire story the only villains shown on-screen so much as talking to each other are Maxie and Archie, which barely even counts since that was a pre-established rivalry dating back to the original Gen 3 games. Everybody else is deliberately gated off to their own rooms, delegated to blurting out the bare basics to get the people who haven’t been keeping up with the franchise since they existed and making callback lines (e.g. Lysandre doing Xerosic’s “oops you fired the Ultimate Weapon” shtick) to get the people who do remember them to grow those nostalgia boners without saying or doing anything beyond that. Well... With one exception. Ghetsis is probably the one RR villain I’d say was mostly done justice, starting his appearance right off with a plan to manipulate Giovanni himself and take over the organization, and after he’s defeated comes the infamous scene of him tackling and threatening to kill Lillie, the one extremely memorable cross-generation interaction in an arc which should’ve been filled to the brim with them that makes it clear how messed up Ghetsis is even compared to the other baddies, followed by another great and wonderfully cathartic scene of Colress warping in and freaking Hakaing the bastard out of the way. If every villain got moments like these along with time to just talk amongst themselves with appropriate personal clashes Rainbow Rocket would’ve been more than worth the price of admission. But even besides that there are other problems. For one thing, while giving everyone their respective mascot legendary does facilitate some challenging fights, it’s also really contrived in some instances when you think about it. For example, Maxie and Archie imply via dialogue that their plans still would’ve backfired on them with Maxie being swallowed up by a fissure and Archie being consumed by the ocean, just now without a player character or similarly powerful trainer to clean up their mess. Ok, that’s an interesting idea... So why do they still have Groudon/Kyogre respectively? There’s also the matter of the remixes: unlike every other returning character (i.e. Battle Tree cameos) except for Red and Blue, Game Freak felt fancy with the Rainbow Rocket cast and decided to give them all remixes of their original themes, and I’m sorry but most of these are, at the very least, inferior to their original versions. Maxie/Archie’s new theme sounds inebriated compared to the bombastic and imposing RSE and ORAS mixes, Lysandre’s is also too slow, Ghetsis’ new theme doesn’t sound anywhere near as ominous as the original and oh dear god what did they do to Cyrus? Giovanni’s is pretty neat, but then again he technically never had a unique theme up until this point so who knows, if he did Rainbow Rocket may have butchered it too!
So yeah, I’ve made it pretty clear that I don’t appreciate a lot of the new things USUM tacked on. But hey, even if it’s not new content I like, it’s still more stuff to do. Someone out there will enjoy Rainbow Rocket or traversing Ultra Space in spite of their flaws, it’s just more extensions to a really great main campaign... Is what I would say if we lived in that hypothetical fantasyland. Yes folks, it’s finally time to address the elephant in the room...
Let me get this out of the way: I am not going to be explaining why the altered story of Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon is a horrendous blemish on the originals because frankly everybody already knows why. This behemoth of a paper is already getting ludicrously long and I don’t need to spend even more time serving as the 500th explanation as to how Lillie was neutered, how the climax and ending were bungled up beyond repair, the lack of attention to detail in trying to make Lusamine more sympathetic, so on and so forth. Instead, I am going to be discussing a certain recent justification that I have heard floated around more and more, something to the effect of:
“The story downgrades don’t matter for the gameplay was improved”
Alright... Listen. I don’t wanna be that guy. I don’t wanna be the fat, sweaty loser who’s like “Your opinion is wrong” because every single person has their own priorities as to what is important to them when playing this series, videogames as a whole really. And in normal circumstances, I would be inclined to agree with this statement. First and foremost, I come to Pokemon for exciting battles, memorable creatures to catch and train and a vibrant, fun world to facilitate all that and other activities, I am not expecting nor will I ever expect Casablanca-tier plots. But with all that said, this rationale infuriates me. This statement, in my eyes, is built off the idea that story and gameplay in videogames are mutually separate things which have no bearing on one another, and maybe if we were still in the 80s where videogames weren’t really seen as capable of telling complex stories it would be true to some extent. But Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon are just a little under 3 years old, released in a time where stories in games are held in higher regard than ever before, where they are seen not just as an excuse for the gameplay loop to get off the ground but as a complement to it, good stories enhancing fun gameplay and vice versa. With the catastrophic damage done to the storytelling in these titles, even USUM’s totally unaltered battles with only a vague connection to the plot feel just a bit more hollow, with that sensation varying across the game. Take the Mt. Lanakila duel with Gladion; in both games it’s more or less the same minus USUM giving him Zoroark over Weavile, but it’s far more impactful as a send-off to the character in the originals since you just got done with the out-of-control Mother Beast, finally liberating the family from her declining mental state rather than in USUM where you fought some unrelated light monster and an entire trial beforehand. Looking at other games, RSE and ORAS’ final Wally battles aren’t really all that different team-wise minus the latter incarnation having Mega Gallade over Gardevoir, but the ORAS battle is universally recognized to be the superior rendition and by extension more fun due to the much greater emphasis placed on Wally’s arc in the touched-up plot of those games.
Everything I just said would still apply even if USUM had the most perfect, most majorly improved, most well-balanced and magnificent boss fights in the series. But once again we don’t live in that hypothetical fantasyland. In fact, here comes my potential big hot take of this essay: With a handful of exceptions, I think that on the whole USUM’s boss design took a huge dip in quality from the originals. But before I elaborate on that, I want to first be fair and list some of the examples of...
And that’s it! Now to riff on the...
- Boss Fights That Got Better
- Gladion #1 uses Illusion fake-out strats with Zorua and Zubat.
- The Grand Trial Olivia battle has Anorith and Lileep over Nosepass and Boldore. Gives her more types than just pure Rock including a nice safeguard against Water Pokemon.
- Guzma #2 at Po Town has 3 Pokemon instead of 2.
- Boss Fights That Got Worse
- In his Grand Trial, Hala has Machop over Mankey. This is the first of many, MANY arbitrary Pokemon replacements purely to show off the new and shiny Pokedex expansions... Except Machop was already in the original SM dex, so they made this change just for the hell of it. Either way, Mankey was a way more unique pick that gave Hala his own flavor than Machop yet again. There’s so many of these changes that I’d look even more insane than I already do if I broke down why each and every one of them suck, so I’m just gonna do what IMO are the other two worst offenders, starting with...
- Guzma has Ariados replaced with Vikavolt. This is emblematic of another dumb category of changes I like to call “muh difficulty” changes. Sure, Vikavolt is a much stronger opponent that even gets him some more Alola representation, but I actually think Ariados is a much more fitting pick for Guzma, fits in better with the whole cast-aside trashy underdog theme and gave an infrequently seen Pokemon some time to shine. To me, harder absolutely does not equal better, and there are some much bigger examples of this coming right up. But first...
- Lusamine has Mismagius replaced with Lopunny. Not Mega Lopunny, mind you, base form Lopunny. If I have to explain to you why this is a tremendous downgrade you either know nothing about Pokemon or are just incredibly horny.
- Now let’s get on to some of the new Trial fights, starting with Totem Araquanid! As you might imagine, I prefer Totem Wishiwashi for several reasons. For starters, the build-up to this fight was way cooler, fighting all the little Wishiwashis before confronting the fused form in an epic stormy battlefield as it dramatically leaps out of the water... Good stuff! Yeah, sure, technically Totem Araquanid has the same intro, but it just ain’t the same and feels really lazy, especially considering it still shows Solo form Wishiwashi leaping out when it appears. Also while I’m normally not the guy who complaints about underleveled boss fight Pokemon (eg Ghetsis’ Hydreigon), I think the fact that Totem Wishiwashi was the minimum level to be in its School form was a nice touch, whereas Totom Araquanid is 2 levels lower than it should be to actually evolve. Again, normally I wouldn’t care that much, but all in all this trial feels like a hasty retooling into an overall lamer boss for the sake of being different rather than having an actual cool idea.
- Something similar applies with Totem Alolan Marowak. Possibly more challenging, but Totem Salazzle was a much more surprising and funny pick for the Totem mon considering the prior cutscene and making Marowak the new one just adds an extra bit of redundancy seeing as one of the mid-trial fights already had you fight Alolan Marowak.
- Yet again something similar applies with Totem Togedemaru. Again, more challenging and well-constructed overall probably, but I’m sorry, Totem Vikavolt’s set-up and just the Pokemon itself is way, WAY cooler, even despite using physical moves it has an omniboost to make up for it somewhat.
- And finally there’s the new Totem Ribombee and it’s OK I guess? It’s actually a pretty neat little fight, but like with many, many other things it comes with a caveat, that being it replacing Totem Kommo-o as the final Totem battle. Look, I have nothing against Ribombee, it’s a cute lil bug who I’m using in my current Sun playthrough, but man facing off against the 600 BST warrior dragon in the hauntingly silent innermost reaches of Vast Poni Canyon was a way more badass send-off to the Island Trial than a souped-up early route bug. Doesn’t help that the trial preceding it was tedious and unfitting as hell with a very “slapped-together” feeling.
- Now all of that is bad enough, but even if all of those things didn't exist, the next 3 boss fights are the worst downgrades by far and drop down these games’ boss design several pegs on their own, all the other stuff notwithstanding. Get ready for the Wretched Replacements, in progressing order from very bad to “oh god why”:
- Hala being replaced with Molayne at the Elite Four: Again, nothing against Molayne, but out of all the possible Alolan Elite Four contenders he’s at the very bottom rung. Hala was an awesome and kinda poetic pick, of course a sumo wrestler who was your first Grand Trial opponent would make sense to be part of the final challenge to test how far you’re come since then! Meanwhile Molayne, while a PC technician, doesn’t also mean he’s a good battler, and as such he seems like he’d be way more busy than Hala. This is the epitome of an arbitrary change with no real point other than to force a difference even if the ultimate result is way more lame. But this is just a warm-up compared to the next two...
- Hau replacing Kukui as Champion: Yet again, I have absolutely nothing against Hau, he’s a fun character who gets a bit too much hate for being the typical friendly rival scapegoat. And I’ll give him this: compared to other mid-gen Champion changes it’s nowhere near as bad. It’s not as poorly justified and random as Wallace replacing Steven and it’s not as borderline sacriligious as Trace replacing Blue. That said, a downgrade is still a downgrade, and this one has several reasons behind it. For starters if you ask me I’d say Kukui has the much better team with monsters like Magnezone, Snorlax, the starter strong against yours and even a Lycanroc lead that sets up Stealth Rock, whereas a lot of Hau’s choices are kind of middling, including having one less move on his starter compared to Kukui. In addition, and I’m sorry for this funny malasada boy, but you just aren’t Champion material. Aside from the fact Kukui canonically fucks, he also was the one who went through all the effort of building up a Pokemon League to rival Kanto’s , the most active and lovable professor character by far that the franchise had ever seen up to this stage, including having a pre-existing battle career as the Masked Royale, with all that in mind of course he’d be the one of the best picks to test Alola’s first Champion to see if they could hold the title properly. At the same time though he was also a really cool surprise, especiallhy since again up until this point we were used to professors just sitting in their labs, studying Pokemon and rarely doing much beyond that. Finally, there’s the music, more specifically Hau’s souped-up rendition of his battle theme. Aside from being IMO an inferior composition it also completely misses the point of what made Battle at the Summit so special: Seeing as you were the one to take the throne and defend your title against Kukui, it was YOUR theme, so mixing in the song of this other guy who really isn’t that much more significant than Kukui or Lillie wasn’t a good call. But even all of THAT is nothing compared to by far the biggest boss downgrade in the entire game...
- Ultra Necrozma replacing Mother Beast Lusamine: Yup, I’m not kidding, nor is that a typo. Because as much as people love to jerk off this excuse of a boss fight for its difficulty, its entirely artificial, horrendously balanced difficulty, that is the only, and I mean the ONLY thing it has over Mother Beast as a conclusion to the legendary plot. In every other aspect, it is a pathetic, downright insulting nosedive in quality. Nothing needs to be said about the story aspect and build-up about it, some dumbass light monster that hijacks the plot right at the climax will never be able to trump the backdrop of the progressing decline and damage Lusamine has caused, cumulating in her becoming an unsightly monstrosity and rejecting everything she has worked to protect out of insanity, nor is Necrozma just fucking off to Victory Road to be caught with a basic-ass Pokeball a more satisfying conclusion than Lusamine being freed and Lillie heading off to Kanto to get her cured. As for the fight itself, while Mother Beast’s battle has some flaws like static Pokemon selection compared to fight #1 including a conspicuous lack of Nihilego, Ultra Necrozma projectile shits all over what Gen 7 tried to do with its Totem fights using actual strategies by going full garbage ROM Hack mode and facing the player with a 10+ level higher Legendary from the last boss with +1 to all stats and all its moves just being offensive and nothing more. The difficulty is not created via skillful use of items, a well-balanced team, helpful allies or any kind of unique strategy, it’s literally just “hurr durr big difficulty spike scary strong monster that kills butt with big moves!!!”, a cheap shot and nothing more. All of this is not good design, nor is bottlenecking players into a select few Pokemon like Zoroark just to survive the onslaught and in that particular Pokemon’s case to game the AI. In case I haven’t made it crystal clear by now: HARDER. DOES. NOT. EQUAL. BETTER. If people are legitimately so desperate for a “truly difficult” fight (which imo this series has already produced on multiple occasions, including in Gen 7 itself, without having to resort to such absurd lengths), then WHY ARE YOU PLAYING POKEMON?!
Deep breathing, deep breathing... Ok, so assuming you haven’t already checked out by this point you’re probably wondering when this massive block of text is going to end. Well that end is coming pretty soon, but it seems like there are three more sections to go, right? Well, not exactly. For all intents and purposes, consider the upcoming Ultra Recon Squad portion “optional”, as in it’s just a break for me to rant and “The Releases Stuck In Time” is where the final sliver of actual critique kicks off. Either way you resume reading, let’s get going once more starting with...
There are very, and I mean VERY few characters in Pokemon I outright hate. Some are definitely far less thought out and developed than others (see pretty much every XY character aside from Lysandre and maybe AZ), but at most they’re just kinda boring. And in a generation filled with some of the best characters in the entire series from Gladion to Lillie to Guzma to even most of the Trial Captains and Kahunas being awesome, this makes how much I loathe the Ultra Recon Squad stick out even more. When looked at objectively as characters they’re already XY-tier boring, barging into random cutscenes to blurt exposition about Necrozma with no real rhyme or reason, as well as not developing in any meaniningful way. But more than anything, the reason why I titled this section the way I did, is because the URS is emblematic of nearly every single problem these games introduced or didn’t fix, including but not limited to:
I could go on, but the point has been made, and frankly I just want this to be overwith. If you bothered to read this portion, NOW we will move on to talk about why Ultra Sun and Ultra moon are...
- The broken plot with their ridiculous “oh btw we have the other mascot lol” dump after Lusamine and Guzma already jumped into the ultra wormhole
- The lack of fixes to the linearity issue despite having chances to introduce more exploration-heavy locations via Ultra Megalopolis
- The totally arbitrary changes such as the aforementioned Dividing Tunnel “””expansion””” just to accomodate another cutscene with them
- The garbage new boss fights. First off, you don’t even fight 2 of the 4, and the other half you do fight are 1. Version exclusive and 2. Don’t use anything other than one Pokemon, that being either Furfrou or later Poipole, not Naganadel, Poipole. They barely even qualify as boss fights, they unironically make the GSC Rocket Executives look badass in comparison, and yes, that includes Archer as well. Did I mention that the singular Poipole for both Dulse and Zossie uses Nasty Plot, two physical moves and Toxic? In the last fight? Despite having Venoshock in a previous encounter?
In the aftermath of these titles’ release, the most resounding question, the most common cirticism was a singular question: Why? Why were these games made not even a year after the originals? Why did they feel the need to change so many things arbitrarily or even for the worse? And possibly the biggest “why” of all, why weren’t they just DLC for the originals? Since then the debate over whether these games were necessary rages on and continues to marr their reputation, but I feel like everyone involved in this debate (or at least the instances I’ve seen) consistently miss a crucial point.
The last true traditional “enhanced version” prior to USUM’s release was Pokemon Platinum, which launched in Japan on September 13, 2008. Early that very same year on January 31st, Super Smash Bros. Brawl was also released on the Wii, and among other strengths and shortcomings one of its most damning flaws was the infamously unstable online infrastructure that made matchmaking hell for many. While Pokemon never experienced anything like that, the fact of the matter was that even in these early years where online gaming was in in its infancy and DLC had yet to truly catch on as a mechanism to enhance games post-launch, Nintendo was pretty behind the curve even for that standard on their flagship console for the generation, let alone a handheld. Even if the wizards at Game Freak figured out a way to make Platinum’s extra content and improvements DLC for Diamond and Pearl it probably wouldn’t have been worth it, so it made sense to stick to releasing it as a separate “definitive edition” of sorts.
But even as DLC and online gaming continued to grow, the second games of the generations that came after worked to justify themselves. Black and White 2 were outright sequels to the original games which in many ways did better jobs at being “alternate retellings” than what USUM was hyped up to be, dramatically changing the story structure, introducing new characters and giving new roles to the first BW games’ cast in ways that stayed true to their original depictions. X and Y didn’t get any sort of sequel or enhanced version despite many people thinking even today they should’ve got something in hindsight, but instead Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire were released, remakes of Gen 3 that were effectively new regions with new characters and other stuff. Compared to those examples USUM did by far the poorest job of justifying its existence as a separate game despite coming out even later at a point where even the 3DS could handle DLCs and free updates just as fine as the high-end machines. And whether it was because of the fan outcry or an internal change of mind, Game Freak must’ve realized this at some level because now with Sword and Shield we’ll be getting exactly what many people wanted USUM to be: DLC that will make SWSH better games on their own rather than forcing people to “upgrade” for move tutors or whatever with a new version. And sure, maybe some of the main game’s faults wont be fixed this way (which isn’t even guaranteed anywhere), but even if that’s the case the opposite still applies, none of the good things about SWSH in its current state will risk being tarnished. They most likely will never stoop to USUM’s low of being a bizarre frankenstein that tramples over its own triumphs to deliver mediocre to bad content and story additions, that is scorned for its perceived redundancy and outdated money-grubbing.
And yet...
It’s no secret by this point that I think Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon are a complete mess that are only held up by the threads of the originals that weren’t defiled. To me their additions are mostly worthless, and what was given is not nearly enough to compensate for what was lost in terms of the enjoyment and structure of the main campaign.
But that’s the key phrase here: To me. As weird and downright baffling as it can be sometimes, I’ve come to accept and appreciate that these games have developed a following. I’ve met and talked to people who found Ultra Necrozma exhilarating, who loved to battle through Rainbow Rocket and face off their childhood nemeses, who couldn’t get enough of the Ultra Space locations and learning more about the Ultra Beasts through them. I know and regularly talk to people for whom these titles raised the original Sun and Moon from middling to some of the best in the series. And for that, in spite of all my reservations and criticisms, some more rational than others, I could never begin to dream of a world where they didn’t exist, and I am grateful even that whatever these games did was enough to get more people to see Alola as the wondrous, well-developed region it is and derive as much joy from it as I do from the base games. Don’t forget some of the really great discussions generated in the wake of their release as to what people find important in Pokemon games and how the two versions of Alola met or didn’t meet those standards. Therefore with some hesitance, but not too much, I tip off my hat to you, Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra M-
WAIT!!!! Since the climax no longer has you going to confront Lusamine in Ultra Space, that means Guzma never gives his “Ya’ll are stupid” line...
...I take all of that back these games are irredeemable trash and should’ve been cancelled
Life lesson for everyone here: Don't hate on games you haven't played for arbitrary garbage that doesn't matter. I'm not deleting this because I put a lot of effort into it and in spite of everything I think the fact this game once made me feel this way is worth something still I think. Just know it no longer represents my feelings, like, at all.
And that's why I think USUM is, without doubting, the best entry in the 3D era of the main series games.
Heck, I'd go as far as to say that, if you added Box Link to those games, I'd put them on the same level as BW and BW2. They are the least easy games in the series and have more side content than they look like.
People see the "Ultra" and they think "ah, it's likely the same thing" when it actually does to SM what Platinum did to DP - a noticeable improvement in essentially all fronts that matter.
(They also complain at the story that might be a little more confusing than in SM, but this is a videogame. You don't play a game for the story...)
I do, at least to some degree. And it's really just one complaint. They wrecked Lillie's story. Lusamine is an abuser in both sets of games, but USUM suddenly she "has good reason" and Lillie/Gladion just needed to listen to her better. Fuck. That. Shit. Everything else the games did was an improvement, but that was a completely unnecessary change that I can't stand.
Based
Pretty much this.
Gameplay-wise, yeah, it's a better experience cause it includes plenty of extra stuff and the Ultra Necrozma fight is a sudden startling challenge that makes you think "oh sh*t, how am I going to defeat this thing?".
But the story they botched. The problem is they wanted the story to be as long as it was in SM so they wouldn't have to change the pace BUT also wanted to add new elements to the story. So what ends up happening is that, as cool as the concept of the Ultra Recon Squad is, they were wedged in. This not only caused some parts of the old story to be changed around due to having to make room for the new stuff (notably Lillie's development...), but it also resulted in them having to squish in as much characterization for the URS which doesn't much flesh them out but rather gave them a personality quirk to lean into. And just in general the quick turn around you can feel in what they did (or rather didn't do) with the new locations (as in they might as well not have even bothered). The new side quests they have splattered around is nice but I would have rather they expanded upon the important NPC characters who you're supposed to make a connection with. Finally, while I guess it has the usual bells and whistles a standard third version would come with, just only having that makes it a disappointing follow-up to what they did with B2W2. And they really had an opportunity to do something similar but different; they sort of did.
The idea is USUM isn't just an enhanced version of SM but it's a parallel universe where the URS got involved plus little other changes here and there. But its story is still pretty much SM until the near end. If they wanted to change the ending that drastically and also enforce the parallel universe angle they should have leaned on the changes and make them more drastic.
At the beginning of the game, instead of it being just Lillie running away it's both Gladion and Lillie as the appearance of the Ultra Recon Squad had hastened Lusamine's plans with Cosmog as well making her more strict & overly-protective. However, when they get cornered, Gladion pushes Lillie to keep going but that's when Cosmog opens up a wormhole which sucks in both it and Lillie; however Gladion remains behind and is caught.
And with all these changes it would of course change around the story (since Lillie's story would be radically different) which would give the URS more development time; possibly even used as a centerpoint to focus the developments of these new Lillie, Gladion, and Hau. And of course we'd have other changes here and there, but these are the main three whom I feel they really could have done something major with to really mix-up the story and show USUM takes place in a parallel universe where the appearance of the URS really changed things up.
- For Gladion, he gets told what's actually going on, what's at stake, and that they need Cosmog (and now need to find Lillie). Gladion agrees that Necrozma needs to be stopped, and though still has hard feelings toward Lusamine, becomes an enforcer for the Aether Foundation with the task of finding Lillie and training to fight UBs since he's the only one who has tamed a Type: Null (and, since she now has Gladion working for her, Lusamine never seeks out Guzma and recruits him).
- For Lillie, she and Cosmog ends up at the Lake of the Sunne/Moone on Ula'ula Island instead of Melemele. She is found by two Skull grunts (they saw a light in the sky and decided to see what was up) who check to see if she's alright, but it's revealed she has amnesia (due to her being teleported via Ultra Wormhole this time instead of a simple Teleport). Not knowing what to do, they bring Lillie to Po Town to meet with Guzma. Hearing she has amnesia and seeing the way she's dressed & acts, Guzma says Team Skull isn't a babysitting service and they should take her to Nanu, but Plumeria reminds Guzma that Team Skull is a place for any runts of the region and says she'll take personally responsibility for her, Guzma acquiesce. Between the time of the run away & the player coming to Alola, Lillie adopts & adapts to her new Team Skull family, becoming more of a rebellious tomboy given the honorary name "Lil Sis" (and naming the Cosmog "Puffy").
- But if Lillie is with Team Skull, then who is Kukui's assistant? Why, it's Hau! But this isn't the malasada-loving, happy-go, islander Hau we know but rather this Hau had moved to the mainland city with his father when he was young instead of staying in Alola with his mom & grandfather. Because of this he's more tech-savvy (aka spends a lot of time on his phone), a bit more cynical (especially of Alola's culture), and just wishes there was a good burger of pizza joint. He's in Alola to partake the Island Challenge on his mother's request, though doesn't really want to be there so ended up spending time with the Professor who at least has a good wifi connection (he's essentially Kukui's "assistant" in name only aside from the few lab chores he's obligated to do). Also, since the incident of Hala accidentally scaring a young Hau never happened, in this version Hala is more strict which often puts him at odds with Hau (who already has a bias due to Hau's father never seeing eye-to-eye with Hala).
And with all these changes it would of course change around the story (since Lillie's story would be radically different) which would give the URS more development time; possibly even used as a centerpoint to focus the developments of these new Lillie, Gladion, and Hau. And of course we'd have other changes here and there, but these are the main three whom I feel they really could have done something major with to really mix-up the story and show USUM takes place in a parallel universe where the appearance of the URS really changed things up.