The second itteration of Alola Pokémon Games marks the final entries on the 3DS, serving as a duo of enhanced versions of Sun and Moon the Ultra games are somewhat controvercial for being essentially a big update sold for retail price, alongside the very long introductive sequence, from the start of the game to around the first trial, which is a common turn-off for many players and fans of the series. I too have often started replays of these games only to be discouraged from toughing out the slow start. This time around I went at it with the goal to take my time, see how much of the pokédex I can complete and what Pokémon surprise me during usage. I also wanted to explore Alola again, especially now that it's getting quite cold again.

First off, I have to voice my amazement at how alive Alola is in this game, there's so many short side quests that either serve to make the world feel more alive, lived in, or to expand some lore like, apparently Dittos can mimic people quite well and that's fun :))))

The music is beautiful which is honestly a given for every Pokémon game, the hawaiian influence on this soundtrack makes it feel perfect for alola and I at times stopped in place to just listen to battle themes, location themes and so on.

My team this time around consisted of Incineroar, Alolan Raichu, Araquanid, Trevenant, Alolan Ninetails and Kommo-o. I've never used Trevenant and Kommo-o in a playthrough before and I must say I was blown away by Trevenant's performance. I dedicated myself to shiny hunt a Phantump through SOS-Chaining and got one at only 69 encounters. Its white and red color scheme is beautiful and thus I used it a lot during battle. My team struggled somewhat against fairy type enemies and against Ultra Necrozma, but, like, who doesn't lol

The story of Ultra sun is very interesting, multidimensional travelling, the very fate of alola and the wider world resting on my character's shoulders, Lusamine's personal struggle with being "the mommy" of everyone except her literal children, those childrens defiance of their mother and Guzma's struggle with accepting his short-comings all really appeal to me.

Mantine surf 10/10

My opinion of Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon is… complicated. Let’s get something clear, I try not to let other games influence my reviews, but USUM is a special case where a lot of my issues either stem from or are made worse by Sun and Moon. However, USUM’s biggest issue is how little it changes compared to the original Sun and Moon, and I find that to be the most important subject for what I have to say about these games. I really like USUM, but this review is going to mostly be negative because of how I’m focusing on USUM’s existence compared to SM.

Don’t get me wrong, USUM makes SM’s gameplay better. There’s a lot of extra side quests added (that are actually pretty fun and charming), an expanded dex, and Rainbow Rocket to touch on some aspects. But USUM is afraid to do something more with SM. I think this is most evident with USUM’s story: 90% of the game is the same as SM and the changes made to the plot are bad, especially compared to SM.. Lusamine had what I’d say is the worst character assassination in the series, Ultra Recon Squad are unremarkable, and most of the changes made to USUM end up hurting the cast. USUM’s story feels like they were too afraid to make major changes to the characters introduced in SM, but wanted to take said characters in a notably different direction. It leads to USUM’s writing feeling confused as it tries to find a halfway point between two completely different ideas for its cast and plot. That’s why I can’t avoid bringing up SM, because the issues with the story and gameplay stem from the groundwork of SM and how not enough was changed.

USUM is indicative of an issue with Pokemon that, in fairness, did get rectified slightly by the swap to DLC rather than improved versions of games as well as arguably Legends Arceus and Scarlet/Violet: the steps forward Pokemon takes can often be underwhelming and Pokemon is afraid to make big changes. USUM is held back by being too afraid to deviate from SM. There are steps taken forward and the games in some ways are getting better, as mentioned USUM has better gameplay than SM does. But it doesn’t do enough to stand out, and it ends up feeling like SM with a worse plot. USUM’s meta flaws are made even more egregious because it was split into two versions rather than a singular “definitive” version like Crystal, Emerald, and Platinum. Even then, USUM doesn't fix SM’s biggest issue: the sheer bulk of cutscenes. Hell, the problem is WORSE than in SM because of Ultra Recon Squad! The prior “definitive” versions of games would always improve on the previous game’s faults (eg. Platinum improving DP’s pace), while USUM leans into the problem more.

With that said, USUM is so goddamn fun. Gen 7 as a whole breaks the usual formula in a (mostly) good way, with totems being a fun alternative to gyms and with ride Pokemon being a really good way to remove HMs from the games while still allowing for the same exploration that HMs brought. Alola is a BEAUTIFUL region, filled to the brim with culture and atmosphere that helped make the region and people of Alola truly shine. The newly added totem stickers also helped with exploring Alola, incentivizing exploring Alola more deeply to find them all. Unlike SM’s Zygarde cells, they weren’t time-sensitive and most of them stuck out a LOT, so the vast majority of them didn’t feel cheaply hidden or weirdly obscure. As well as totem stickers, there were a lot more sidequests and small activities you could do in USUM compared to SM. You’re able to get a deeper glance at what’s happening in Alola and can get more opportunities to spend time with both random NPCs and even characters like the trial captains. And god, the writing of characters when they’re not involved in the plot is great. There are so many small moments where both notable characters and random NPCs say a funny line or share a touching moment. What USUM excels at compared to SM is how you can independently interact with the region of Alola when you aren’t in cutscene hell, with a lot more small activities to do, more opportunities to learn about the characters, and a better system to incentivize looking around the region. USUM is better than SM is, without a doubt.

USUM should’ve either come out as a singular game and been a third version to SM, or SM should've released as USUM. USUM are great games, if you’re going to play a gen 7 game you should play USUM, but their biggest flaw is the existence of SM and the ways that USUM fails to deviate or improve upon their predecessors. As a result, USUM exists in a weird position of being games I REALLY enjoy and would recommend, but that also feel greedy and, in some ways, disappointing. The meta issues with USUM didn’t affect my enjoyment of the games very much, but they definitely can harm or even ruin USUM for someone else.

It took me six years, about 130 total hours of play time, and three different save files to finally finish Ultra Sun. The first two times I tried playing it, I ended up dropping the game around the end of Akala Island. I honestly can't even say why, since I like Alola and the new additions like the sticker hunt and mantine surfing are fun, even if I don't really care for the story changes and think that the Rainbow Rocket stuff was pretty underwhelming. Maybe it's because it just feels too similar to the original Sun and Moon and I put way too much time into Moon when it came out. Maybe it's because it was a 3DS game released in the fall of 2017, and by the time I got around to wanting to finish it my 2DS XL's battery was so bad that I could barely play for an hour before needing to charge it (I actually ended up replacing the battery because of this and it made the last third of the game way more enjoyable). I really can't say. Regardless, I had a pretty good time with Ultra Sun.

This was my first mainline pokemon game, and I do like it quite a lot. There's a great variety of Pokemon available to catch and the region overall feels the most like a coherent and natural setting out of any game in the series. In terms of difficulty, it's a consistently challenging experience, with quite a few battles that require careful strategy and consideration if you want to beat them without using healing items. The soundtrack is also excellent, a lot of really memorable tracks here.

The reason I don't rate it higher is that it's just... so painful to replay. There's an endless amount of cutscenes and moments where all your agency is taken away. The routes are overall very linear and there's not much in the way of interesting exploration.

Opinions on gen 7 tend to be pretty mixed but I would recommend it if you want a more story focused Pokemon game, since there is genuinely a lot to love about these characters and the journey they go through. Team skull is also funny as fuck, so it might be worth it for that alone.