#if you're 99% of the pokemon fanbase and only care about gameplay this will be fine for you

[dentos-wife]

Alright I finished Ultra Moon! Game play was fun, the new totems were interesting I love the new outfits you can get (should have given us more darnit what are there two?!). And Ultra Space is fun probably the best thing about this game honestly.

But...anyone who knows me know I LOVED Moon, it actually has my favorite story in any Pokemon game as of late, a great cast and a wonderful plot. When USM was announced I had some concerns about how the plot would be handled. The only reason they had two games instead of one for their third game was because Nebby was two Pokemon they needed one for each. I was concerned due to Necrozma being the focus they’d kill the plot that made SM so good. Especially as when looking it prerelease material it seemed to be the same game with little touches here and there.  

If you enjoyed the original and want to play more go for it there are some differences you might enjoy but if you never played an Alola version and want to jump in I would call the original better in terms of the world of Alola but Ultra better for gameplay so it depends on what matters to you. I generally prefer character and plot, so my recommendation goes to the original most would say the opposite.

My full review with spoilers for USM under the cut

Sun and Moon was not really your story, it was Lillie’s and the bond she had with Nebby. Ultra Moon is treated just like Moon until the very last half of the game, and then the new plot starts and it’s a total train wreck. See, if they were going to do a new plot you’d think they’d start it earlier and not have all the dialogue be the exact same because it doesn’t work with the new plot. 

Here’s what I mean by the dialouge is the same at one point it’s hilarious because Hau beat Hala in USUM, but Gladion still states that Hau can't beat Hala when you first meet him. It’s just wrong and lazy. That a minor thing but then it cuts into story.

Lillie is still treated the exact same until everything starts and she’s roughly shoved aside. The touching moment between you and her on Executor Island? Gone. You go alone. She still does her Z form and all that but because Lusamine is so different (more on that later) it just feels pointless and all the power behind that scene is sucked away. She doesn’t even go to Ultra Space with you and obviously because her plot is chopped up she doesn’t go to Kanto either. She’s just there. And it would be okay because I get it different game but then why set her up to be the exact same as she was in the original games and then violently shove everything aside to make up for the new plot. It. doesn’t. work.

Lusamine....oh Lusamine, one of the most interesting villains we’ve ever had was reduced to wanting to go to Ultra Space to fight Necrozma because she has a hero complex and is selfish, same basic stuff we always had but it’s very hard to tell what they were trying to do with her. Because most of her dialogue is exactly the same and she still has the frozen Pokemon room and again it just doesn’t work. People are upset she’s now redeemable but she was in the first game too and at the very least it made sense in that one.

She lost her husband and due to it became an ultra beast obsessed Nilhelgo poisoned drug addict who continued to get more and more batshit insane the more she came in contact with said UB eventually becoming Mother Beast and needing a good old fashioned beat down and giving us one of the greatest confrontations and lines from her daughter. 

In Ultra Moon she goes to ultra space to fight Necrozma and comes out. Lillie and her apparently talk while you’re fighting Necrozma and...that’s it. 

Which again would have been fine if they didn’t set her up exactly like the original. Nilhelgo still shows up in Aether Foundation and you still battle the thing her lines are exactly the same. They don’t change until Lillie gets kidnapped.

Minimal changes usually do work, Platinum is the best example of that. But it doesn’t work with the plot SM had, USM should have gotten rid of the family drama then because that only works with Lusamine being the antagonist she was it doesn’t play as well with her sidelined role. Granted because she’s not toxined and Kanto’d you can unlock this but...that was also very underwhelming.

Hau on the other hand they tried to make this game more about him, and honestly they should have thrown Lillie’s plot out then because what they do do with him works. It was nice to see him beat his grandfather and being the “champion” you had to face instead of Kukui. That was all nice, but then they should have had him be involved in the main plot more. Then in post game it’s back to Lillie as Lusamine is kidnaped by Rainbow Rocket. And we see what we always wanted to see Lillie as a trainer! But it’s...meh not that powerful she’s only a double battle partner and then gives up and heals you along the way.

So what is the main plot? Necrozma fuzes with Nebby once it becomes Lunala (or Solgaleo if you’re playing Ultra Sun) retreats to Ultra Space and you with help of the Ultra Recon Squad’s Pokemon to get you there (otherwise they still do nothing) beat it and come back. In that Ultra Megalopolis thing right? Except man you’d think something with that name would be massive right? Even the prerelease material hyped it up. The distortion world was really cool! This though was a tower. That’s it. You can even do anything in the place it felt really bland. I half wonder if they planned to do something with it and then ran out of time. 

Anyway Necromza retreats and you can catch it right before the league on the mountain. Little underwhelming really. The URS was more of a walking plot device then actual characters too which is a shame as I wanted to like them but they would appear talk plot and then leave. And Necrozma isn’t even evil like advertised (Surprise! Who’s surprised? No one.)

So yes game play and all that is fixed but the plot is damn terrible. Seriously, yes URS is new but for the first four islands: "Hello. Cryptic stuff about our world. Bye!" and then straight back to the Sun/Moon plot. Which shouldn’t be how it was, they should have done more with them everything hits too late and EVERYONE suffers because of it. Except Hau, Hau did pretty well.

As someone who likes to get invested in the characters and plot I’m very disappointed. The Looker and Anabel quest is gone which...is a damn shame. That also gave us some more world building about Alola. Instead you get this Rainbow Rocket which is alright I guess. Ghetsis and Corless having a showdown was neat and you see a little into the past villains with some text. Guzma gets something which is cool too but why replace something that expanded on Alola for this? Could you have had both somehow then? I know Pokemon doesn’t have DLC and thank goodness but eh RR plot should have without a doubt been DLC. Delta Emerald was a great post game plot, it expanded on the world gave our new people some character and we learned more about Hoenn. Compared to that Rainbow Rocket was....fanservice. 

Since most people are into Pokemon for gameplay this will be fine I’m sure but as for me this game was basically my worst fears. I didn’t need to exist the same way BW2 didn’t need to exist (and as much as I rag on BW2 AT LEAST it was a sequel so there was nothing to ruin) I don’t agree with their choices and it was a total let down from BW but compared to this...which was a third game for a already pretty complete game. The one that NEEDED the fix was XY and it got nothing. I would have rather had Z over this honestly.

But the gameplay is solid at least, I’m just more of a involved with the world kind of person.