hey everyone, derrick here with a quick notethat this review consists entirely of previously released footage for pokã©mon ultra sun & ultramoon. the embargo for the games forbid the use ofany new footage that we captured ourselves, but we still wanted to provide our thoughtsbefore the game’s release. and with that, let's get to the review! it’s been eight years since the last timegame freak released an expanded version of a pokã©mon generation. it was such a common practice for them backthen that it was weird that they dropped the format with black & white 2 and didn’t evenbother with x & y.
but despite the fact that there’s no unifiedversion of sun & moon, there’s no doubt that ultra sun & ultra moon follows the expandedformula to a tee. the core of the 7th generation is still here,but there’s a ton of new content and changes to potentially enjoy. ultra sun & ultra moon begin much the sameas the vanilla versions. your trainer has just moved to the alola regionand decides to embark on the island challenge, a new idea that forgoes the traditional gymchallenge of past regions. rather than fighting gym leaders, playersmust complete a captain’s trial then defeat an extra large, extra powerful totem pokã©mon.
but where this has been changed is in finerdetails and the threat to alola. the legendary pokã©mon necrozma is said tobe on its way to the region to steal its light, and it must be stopped if the people are tosurvive. necrozma is a more tangible threat than theultra beasts, but i feel that it has an ill effect on the story overall. i loved the story and characters of sun & moon. they felt closer to an rpg with actual characterdevelopment and more stakes than almost any pokã©mon game before. but here, it feels like a step back.
whenever necrozma is involved, it left theplot bland and bog-standard for a pokã©mon game rather than the complex and interestingimplications that were there before. i honestly think that some character motivationsare destroyed, or at the very least muddled, in this new story. they act the same as in sun & moon, but thereason for doing so is different just to fit the necrozma storyline causing many to justnot work. what was once one of my favorite villainsin the franchise has become motivated by something far less interesting. worse is that some of the best moments ofthe original game are removed completely.
but the frustrating thing is that while somecharacters are hurt in this change, others really come into their own. it’s a give and take that i understand butstill wish the strongest parts from both versions were kept. but that’s just the remixed story. almost every other new addition to ultra sun& ultra moon is fantastic. the journey itself has been expanded to fulfillthe promise of the original games. no longer are some elements oddly left outas there are now eight full trials rather than seven.
and almost every one of those trials has beenchanged in some way, either remixing the trial itself or the totem pokã©mon you face. it helps make the experience feel fresh evenfor those who already played sun & moon. however, there’s no denying that with thisreleasing only a year after the originals, it still feels very familiar, at least untilyou make your way to alola’s fourth island where the differences become much more apparent. let’s break down some of these additionsthough. one of the most fun ideas is mantine surfing. this allows you to travel between the islands,but along the way you can perform tricks to
try and achieve a high score. the more you play, the more tricks you unlockand the rewards are both useful and a great callback. in the grand scheme, the mode is pretty minorbut it was an enjoyable break from the standard gameplay that did get more challenging. there’s also the photo club which allowstrainers to show off themselves and their pokã©mon in different poses while graduallyunlocking new frames and ways to customize those pictures as you progress in the game. the photo club really is just an extra, andit never pulled me into the idea, but photo
aficionados will definitely get somethingout of the addition as it is more entertaining than the picture-taking of the pokã© finder. while pokã©mon refresh and the pokã© pelagohaven’t seen any changes, still acting as a way to bond with your pokã©mon and addingextra utility to what you can do with them respectively, the festival plaza has had anew addition, the battle agency. after it’s unlocked, you can battle randomtrainers with rental pokã©mon. you can pick from any three, but they do becomemore rare and powerful, the more you win. however, you can only pick the one pokã©mon. the others on your three-person team are determinedby the trainers you battle with.
they can either be people you streetpass withor the game will provide standard trainers if you haven’t. it’s a nice way of expanding the battlepossibilities while trying out pokã©mon you may not have used before. then there’s the totem stickers that havethankfully replaced the tedious to find zygarde cells. finding enough allows you to trade them fortotem pokã©mon although they don’t have the auras of the ones you face during trials. while i never used one in battle, it was coolto actually have the option.
and the hundred new pokã©mon ensured thatthings stayed mostly fresh when it comes to crafting a new team. in fact, one of the best changes is to sosbattles. rather than the pokã©mon being able to endlesslycall for help, it’s now limited to just one making them far less tedious you justwant to get through an area. however, adrenaline orbs will still allowyou to reap the benefits of fighting in sos battles so you can potentially catch rarepokã©mon. finally, there’s the exploration of ultraspace while riding either solgaleo or lunala. during these sequences, you have to fly throughrings to keep up your energy while avoiding
hazards. the farther you make it, the rarer the legendaryyou’ll find through an ultra wormhole. it should be a good, challenging system...ifit wasn’t for the controls. rather than use the circle pad to go whereyou need, the game forces you to use tilt controls and they are not good. the first time i attempted it was a mess,and while i’ve gotten better, this extra level of challenge is more frustrating thanrewarding when i just want to reach the next legendary pokã©mon or ultra beast. this isn’t the only gameplay misstep though.
rotom’s role has been expanded so that youcan interact and befriend him. this in turn gives you access to the rotoloto that grants items that have a ton of great utility like getting more experience,healing you in battle, and making eggs hatch more quickly. these are absolutely worth obtaining. the problem is that rotom never shuts up. he’s constantly talking to you on the bottomscreen and offering the same advice ad nauseum. it’s annoying, distracting, and even takesaway from the utility of the bottom screen as a map.
and when you are using roto loto, the processtakes far longer than it should making me question whether i even wanted the items. you can ignore him but he just ends up lookingdepressed the entire time. the rewards are great. everything else about rotom is just a pain. ultra sun & ultra moon still look fantasticon the 3ds. a lot of the locations have even more addeddetail that just make alola pop. sun & moon really pushed the system to itslimits yet somehow they found a way to cram more in.
however, this also means that the same issuesare there, especially on a classic 3ds. anything more than than a 1 on 1 battle resultsin slowdown although the hang-ups never seemed quite as egregious as before. however, the music is utterly fantastic. most of the the soundtrack is the same, butit holds up and the new tracks fit right in and make the experience a treat for the ears. while it does have a few issues when it comesto the story, exploring ultra space, and the integration of rotom, there’s no doubt inmy mind that ultra sun & ultra moon is the better game.
i like it a lot and how they added so muchto a pokã©mon generation that i already loved. if you missed out on sun & moon, absolutelypick up these versions. however, with these games coming out onlya year after the originals, they also feel incredibly familiar to those who traveledalola before. it takes a while for the changes to trulybe felt making the first half a bit of a slog for returning players. but once you do, there’s some real gemsto found here. thanks for watching and be sure to subscribeto gamexplain for more on pokã©mon and other things gaming.