When it comes to classic Pokemon games, the main appeal of the "Third title" is supposed to be the amount of quality improvements and new content added to already solid experiences: Emerald, Crystal, Platinum, Black2, White2... all of them are able to completely outshine their respective predecessors by adding more content, fixing the unbalanced progression, and in the case of B2W2 straight up just being a sequel that expands it's region in any possible way.

Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon presents a phenomenal premise: this is an alternate universe of Alola, so the events of Sun & Moon may be completely different for what we experienced before: imagine, maybe now a completely different sets of challenge, maybe with a different order on the trials, or even a different exploration of the region, with new interesting characters and setting, and maybe a new take on the story.
Even the trailers showcased an amazing premise of "Exploring the Ultra-megalopolis", a ultradimentional metropolis connected to various worlds and stories....

....to bad it does NOTHING like that.

These games are just SUn&Moon again, but desaturated of a lot of things you experienced before and the same flaws of the past titles. The game is still filled with useless tutorials and unskippable uninteresting dialogues tha tmakes half of the experience a slugfest.

The order of the various challenges you face is the exact same, and now they more feel like actually finished but still mediocre challenges compared to what they had in Sun&Moon.

Ad the story is almost the freaking same: I feel like the whole point of an "alternate reality" is to see difference facades that adds more depths to the story and characters you encounter... instead, we got a narrative where they repeat most of the things, some idiotic and uninteresting alien OC got added just to break up the peace even more, and interesting character like Lusamine or Guzma has some of its appealing traits removed and turn to be much less interesting.

But don't worry, at leas tthe ultramegalopolis is here to add content-IT'S JUST A CORRIDOR! A corridor that lead to a mediocre boss fight and that's it

The only slightly interesting thing the game does is the addition of the Rainbow Rocket and the ability to challenge the older villains of the series... but also it doesn't elaborate much on the concept, leading to a quick experience that does little to nothing, and instead adds more dumb questions tregarding the whole multiple universes concept the games want so bad to add.

Despite their flaws, the pokemon games have a formula that still works and are able to turn enjoyable even if they are attached to an unfinished and unpolished product. But considering that this one is not only that, but a straight up lie sols as a new experience, this game just hurt my passion for the franchise.

I consider USUM to be the worst pokemon games ever released, and it's not even close. Play regular Sun & Moon instead, if you really have to.

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.

Zerei com 40 horas e achei muito melhor do que eu esperava. Não é um primor técnico, o level design é muitas vezes insultante. A última ilha principal do jogo é um CORREDOR com 3 sub divisões que exigem algum pré requisito para serem explorados, é ESTRANHO.
Os Z-Move, na minha gameplay, foram bem inúteis. Eu realmente gostei de usar no inicio do jogo, usei por algumas horinhas e rapidamente os deixei de lado por não mudar muita coisa e ocuparem um espaço de item que meus pokemons poderiam usar para segurar algo que me desse mais dinheiro ou mais dano, por conseguinte, se tornando uma das gimmicks mais... chatinhas da franquia, do que eu joguei até agora.
No mais, amei o jogo. É realmente, honestamente, muito divertido explorar a ilha, sendo minha primeira experiência em um pokémon 3d tradicional da franquia (meu primeiro 3d foi o legend arceus), me diverti bastante e tive uma carga extra por ser meu primeiro pokémon que não foi rodado em emulador, mas no 3ds.
Inclusive, meu 3ds é desbloqueado e com 35 horas de jogo meu jogo simplesmente decidiu PARAR de funcionar, então tive que migrar pro Citra e continuar jogando lá.




Queria reservar esse pequeno espaço pra dizer, também, que esse jogo me ajudou a dar uma reduzida na velocidade dos meus jogos. Pessoalmente gosto muito de jogar RPGs, mas utilizava de muito Fast Forward para agilizar a gameplay.
Quando joguei Suikoden V, senti que isso piorava minha experiência com o jogo em diversos momentos, fazendo com que eu estivesse muito acostumado a fazer as coisas rápido demais, mas a elevada taxa de encontros fez com que fosse quase que inviável jogar na velocidade normal.
Pokémon Ultra Sun, por outro lado, me fez gostar mais do ritmo mais lento da franquia. Óbvio que desativando as animações de golpes e ficando irritado com a quantidade de tempo que leva pra entrar em um combate ou para fechar todas as telas de: dar nome pro pokémon, ver o registro na pokédex, enviar para o pc (essa última podendo ser desativada nas configurações).


Recomendo, não deixe quererem taxar um jogo de ruim e injogavel, todo jogo tem seu valor e, normalmente, merece ao menos a chance de falhar, mesmo sendo o produto mais rentável da história e sub-aproveitado, é divertido.

My experience with generation 7 and Alola has always been negative. I was never a fan of Sun/Moon, Alola, Z-moves, the cast and so much more. I felt it was always the "weird" entry that just didn't belong in the franchise.

So, in the vein of giving things a second chance I decided to finally play and finish the only Pokemon game I had not touched. To my surprise I enjoyed this game a lot. I'm unsure if its the passage of time or just a difference in how I play games but Ultra Sun was a lot of fun. I still have some grievances with it. I was not a fan of how much the performance of this game lacked, it made the journey really unappealing. I felt a majority of the routes and towns were unmemorable. Of note, the only routes I felt were "good" are Vast Poni Canyon and Mount Lanakila. Totem Pokemon felt unfair and while the difficulty was nice, I think the game should have done more mechanically to make each encounter satisfying. I was also not a fan of Z-moves, I don't think that will ever change.

On the other hand, I absolutely adored the cast. I felt this game had a strong cast overall, from Hau to Gladion to Lillie, it genuinely felt like each character had purpose. I was a big fan of their respective character arcs. I really enjoyed the region with this game. Alola has a big overarching theme of connection and I really did come to understand that through Ultra Sun. I think the OST was really strong and had some great tracks throughout. And ultimately, the second half of this game (after the Sophocles trial) was really well done. In fact, I feel that Ultra Sun is at its best when it isn't following the conventional 8 gym/trials formula. The game stepped away from this structure shortly after Acerola's trial and I was much more enthralled with the overall journey. Of course, I would be remiss not to mention all of the references and returning characters within Alola. Keeping true to the theme of "connection" there are a lot of familiar faces and references to other regions. In many ways, this game feels like a celebration of this franchise's history and I enjoyed this aspect a lot.


I will admit, this playthrough really did warm me up to generation 7 and can confidently say it's a comfy game. I don't think it's THE BEST but it's a game I will look back on fondly.

I like the Sun/Moon generation. I like it better then most do. That said, I had always liked the Ultra games a bit less as I've felt they undermined parts of the original versions instead of improving on them. Now that I've finished it more then 5 years since release, I feel I was partly wrong though still have enough issues with it that I feel it failed to improve as much as it should over the originals.

First off the game chooses to do an alternate story instead of improving on the originals. It's a fine concept but it doesn't really diverge enough until the final third. Honestly what they do there handles what was my favorite parts of the originals story in such a terrible way that it ruins important character arcs. The new stuff with the Ultra Recon squad feels forced in and the increased focus on Hau does not work for me. It overall feel worse as a story, enough so that I'd still recommend the original Sun/Moon over this for first time players (if they'd care for that). If you don't care about that in either game then you still can't skip it and hate it for that reason.

I did not give enough credit to this for the non-story changes it made though. New additions like the surf minigame and tutors are good. Battle Agency is a nice addition too but at least one more battle facility would have been welcome and the Agency only rewarding FC instead of BP is something I don't love. The Rainbow Rocket post game story is neat and great for nostalgia reasons. Just a shame it entirely replaces the Ultra Beast post game story. Similarly they replace the zygarde cells with stickers instead of having both. Even with all that and some smaller additions it feels like there could be a bit more still or they could have kept some original Sun/Moon content in at least.

While I played solely Pokemon Ultra Sun, with the nature of how Pokemon games are, and my history with them, I think it fair for this to be a review of both Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. With that in mind, my feelings of these games are conflicting. While I absolutely loved the experience of playing these games, I also continuously questioned why these games exist, and whether or not they should. I’ll further explain why later on in the review, but the game’s changes from Sun and Moon just don’t feel substantial enough for me to say it’s any better, in fact, there’s a certain, major aspect of Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon that’s ultimately worse.
Now, I didn’t hate playing Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. In fact, much like the original Sun and Moon, these games are super fun and refreshing. But that’s also when the game isn’t interrupting you. This is mainly an issue on the first island of the game, but there were so many interruptions that just kept breaking the flow of the game. It’s important to give the player tutorials, which is what the purpose of the first island is, but too much and too often just ends up being frustrating. It gives the player little time to breathe, especially for someone like me, who has beaten this game multiple times before. After beating the first island though, it really relaxes on this, and you’re more left to your own devices which is so nice, but it’s just hard to ignore the interruptions of the first island.
And the trials are still just as good. Though I’m gonna be honest here, a lot of them are about the same overall, and I can only remember one trial actually changing. One of the big changes as well is that certain totem Pokemon change as well, though only 3 totem Pokemon change, leaving the other 4 exactly the same. On top of this, the game adds one final trial near the end of the game, and it acts as a sort of remembrance of every trial you faced prior which is really nice. Seeing all these people you met along your journey as its soon to meet its end is a really nice touch, and I’m glad it was added to these games.
And one thing I can definitely give to Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon is the increase in difficulty. While practically every Pokemon game is easy if you know what you’re doing, Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon are some of the harder Pokemon games, and I really like that. Most of the difficulty came from the Titans themselves. They start the battle with certain stat boosts, sometimes all of their stats are raised, like Totem Mimikyu. On the other hand, they can summon Pokemon that can make your battle harder, like how Totem Lurantis can summon Comfey, a Pokemon that can heal allies. Of course, Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon have one of the hardest boss fights in all of Pokemon, but part of me feels like it’s a bit too hard at the same time. What I mean by that is that it’s a boss with ridiculously high stats, higher than any other Pokemon at the time, and all of its stats are boosted by one. While it makes for a difficult battle, it also at the same time just feels like a bit of overkill. I was lucky enough to beat on my first try though, thanks to Toxic damage, and using a lot of revives. It provided for a really tense battle, especially since I was only able to get the Toxic to hit thanks to a Quick Claw activation. Of course my team probably wasn’t the best. My team was an Incineroar, Ribombee, Lurantis, Toxapex, Pallosand, and Kommo-o. One of the big challenges I had was definitely with flying types, which made certain late game battles really difficult, but really fun at the same time.
Now, I want to get into why my conflicting feelings with Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon exist. Particularly, even though I had a lot of fun with these games, why do I feel at the same time, that they shouldn’t exist? I think it’s ultimately due to how very little the game changes from Sun and Moon. Aside from a couple Totem Pokemon changing, alongside the addition of (I believe) 100 pokemon, there’s very little that changes in the general flow of Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon until the final parts of the game. Compared to other third versions of Pokemon games, Emerald changes up every Gym Team, and takes you to new locations such as the Magma Base. Crystal noticeably remixes the encounter table, while changing the story to be more about Suicune. Yellow incorporates a Pikachu that follows you, which changing major teams, such as the rival and the elite four. Platinum changes the flow of gyms, gives gym leaders new teams, and changes the entire look of the Sinnoh region. And of course, Black 2 and White 2 are just entirely different games, just occurring in Unova. The changes in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon are so little, and with how this is a set of 2 games, instead of just 1, it feels even worse. The story itself is actively worse than Sun and Moon. It mainly ruins an entire character, who was one of the best villains in the entire series, but for some reason they tried to give her some sort of redemption arc in this game which just feels wrong. What made her such a good character was how irredeemable she was, and I just find it somewhat unfortunate. I think my issues here with Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon would be lessened if it was only one game, the fact that this is a dual set of games makes the lack of change more apparent to me.
I don’t hate Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, in fact I really enjoyed my time playing through Ultra Sun again. I finally got around to trying out an Incineroar for the first time, and the challenge of this game is something very few other Pokemon games replicate. But with a weaker story compared to the original, and very little changes to the general flow of the game, I just find that I’d rather play the original Sun and Moon instead. I’ll definitely revisit these from time to time though, because there is an appeal to the difficulty of these games. However at the same time, I still see myself more likely playing the original Sun and Moon games.

This was the first game to get me back into Pokemon, after taking a break after Black and White came out. I went through my unfortunate, "Pokemon is for kids, I'm not a kid I'm 13" phase after they did, and waned off the series, skipping the sequels to B/W, X/Y, and the initial S/M. As time went on, I knew I wanted to get back in, but didn't have a Switch at the time to play the most recent installment. I also had no clue where my 3DS was, so I may or may not have played this on an emulator at the time. And I loved it. Looking back, I can find issues with it. The rival can be annoying, it feels like you never leave the tutorial, and some side parts of the game feel drawn out. But I still owe this game for making me fall in love with the games again. It ran well for being on a 3DS and it was my first game in the 3D style, so I was enamored. It also has a ridiculous amount of Pokemon in it, which I loved. I didn't care for Z-Moves all that much, but I appreciate Game Freak weaving Megas into the game too. Post-Game was lovely, between Rainbow Rocket and the Battle Tree. Not my favorite by a long shot, but will hold a nice place to me forever.

This was the last game I really played with an irl friend of mine. I used to go over to his place and we'd play Pokemon, trade with each other and battle each other. It was great but life gets in the way, you move on from things you liked when you were younger, and you have to stress about more things than whether or not you could beat hacked shiny legendaries your friend found off wonder trade with the Greninja you trained to level 100 the week before. I can't really enjoy pokemon anymore the way I did when pokemon sun and moon dropped or when this game launched. I could play Pokemon with online friends but it just isn't the same as playing and shit talking with a guy halfway across the room, I mean how could it?