Pokemon Ultra Sun

Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon are the latest entries in the seventh generation of Pokemon games. Released on November 17, 2017, they serve as alternative versions of their predecessors, Pokemon Sun and Moon. Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon are comparable to Pokemon Emerald or Platinum.

The story starts off almost the same as Sun and Moon, with the player going through four islands of Alola and trials to earn Z-Crystals, which allow the use of special moves in battle. Aside from minor changes in dialogue, trials, and the addition of new characters, the plot stays relatively the same as Sun and Moon until the completion of the third island. After completing the Grand Trial on the third island, the story takes a turn away from that of Sun and Moon. By the time the player and company fight the antagonist, it is revealed that her motive is actually different than it was in the last game. This time she’s dead set on trying to save Alola, with the help of the newly introduced Ultra Recon Squad. The Ultra Recon Squad is a team of four people who come from a dimension where a creature called Necrozma had stolen all of the world’s light. The main antagonist wants to help keep Alola’s light, so that they would not fall to the same fate as the Ultra Recon Squad. Of course, this backfires, and the player has to go solve the problem instead, and travels to the fourth island to reach the Altar of the Sun (Ultra Sun)/ Moon (Ultra Moon). After this part of the game, there is a new trial that was not present in Sun in Moon, which is a nice change of pace.

Then came the postgame.

(Spoiler Alert) Team Rocket makes its return, with villainous leaders from past games in tow. They’ve come from alternate dimensions where their plans to take over the world actually succeeded. As always, it’s up to the player to take them down. After defeating all six of the leaders, (End of spoilers) there is still a lot to do in the postgame. Mantine surfing and traversing Ultra Space, catching Ultra Beasts, and of course, the Battle Tree. Compared to the postgame in Sun and Moon, there is a lot more to do. In Sun and Moon, all there really was to do was a short mission to capture Ultra Beasts, and the Battle Tree. The two mini games with Mantine and Ultra Space added a lot more to do in the postgame, believe me.

The gameplay hasn’t changed much at all, except for the addition of two new mini games. The most significant of those is Mantine surfing. Each island has a beach where you can start the mini game. It has the player actually surfing in the ocean between islands. Mantine picks up speed, and then jumps above the wave, allowing the player to perform aerial tricks to earn points. Once the mini game finishes, the player gets awarded with a certain amount of Beach/Battle Points that they can use to get rare items or teach a Pokemon a move that it normally would not learn by leveling up. In the postgame, these points can be used to get Mega Stones from previous games. The other mini game is exploring Ultra Space. The player can only do this during the postgame, outside of the main story at least. The player travels through Ultra Space with the help of Solgaleo or Lunala, where they can enter ultra wormholes to travel to places where different rarer Pokemon, Ultra Beasts, and Legendary Pokemon can be found and caught. Getting to the Ultra Beasts and Legendary Pokemon is tough, though. Nine times out of ten, you’ll accidentally run into the wrong wormhole, and have to start over again.

I’m not going to lie, I do have a problem with this game. It’s nothing that affects the story, but I feel like it’s closer to Nintendo taunting the player, in a sense. There are walking and running animations for every single Pokemon in the code of Sun and Moon, something that was never implemented. But in tons of cutscenes, your rival’s starter gets to follow him around. Not a single Pokemon that the player owns can do that. It really bothers me to no end. But other than heavy dialogue, I have no other complaints.