The original Sun and Moon were games whose strongest element were their surprisingly solid character writing. Ultra Sun is a game characterised by how it completely undermined that strength of the original. Instead of committing to that attempt at a more involved story, the game backs out and undermines what the original tried to do by introducing new plot elements that just do not work. Usually for Pokemon gens, these enhanced versions are considered the definitive editions, and maybe there's a case to be made for that here if all you care about is gameplay and new features. If you care about what Pokemon can achieve story wise when it really want to try new things, stick to the original.

Pokemon games don't often live on their story, across the whole main series franchise I think there are only two games that applies to: Black/White and Sun/Moon. Moon doesn't go as far and BW does in its storytelling, but it's a game whose most memorable element is by far its characters. As a game, it's more Pokemon, albeit one of the slower paced games in the series that drags it down a little bit. As a story, the game is more about the character of Lillie than it is about you, and her strained relationship with her family. Ultimately it's a Pokemon game, and as a children's game it keeps its story light and family friendly, but this was another strong attempt by Game Freak to imbue the games with more story focused elements, and they work pretty well here.

A short and sweet experience about living as an immigrant, told through Cooking Mama style food minigames based around Indian cuisine. The story it tells is heartfelt and engaging, it was something I enjoyed a lot. My only real complaint is that there are very few of those minigames, though I don't think the game would benefit from going full Cooking Mama, it could maybe have used a few more dishes to extend its runtime a little longer. Ultimately though, the game isn't really about the cooking minigames, it's about the story, and its a great story, well told and worth checking out.

Unlike the original Pikmin, which was a short and contained experience, the sequel ditches the timer and adds close to double to amount of game there is to experience. The inclusion of caves, mini dungeons that act as unique challenge runs, gives the game a chance to experiment with new types of level designs and keep things interesting and distinct even without the pressing time limit. Ultimately, it's more of the original, which is a very good thing, but for my money the original's urgency is a big part of what made it so engaging. Still, a great game in a one of a kind series, just as worthwhile as every other entry.

The perfect example of some of the worst impulses of the NES era of game design, the game isn't frustrating because it tried to take Zelda in a different direction, it's frustrating because it's unrelenting levels of hard, to an extent only hardcore masochists could really enjoy. Brutally unforgiving and often unintuitive in its progression, it's just a slog to try to play from start to finish. You might get something out of it if that's what you like, but if you don't then it isn't worth trying to power through just because it's a Zelda game.