The second itteration of Alola Pokémon Games marks the final entries on the 3DS, serving as a duo of enhanced versions of Sun and Moon the Ultra games are somewhat controvercial for being essentially a big update sold for retail price, alongside the very long introductive sequence, from the start of the game to around the first trial, which is a common turn-off for many players and fans of the series. I too have often started replays of these games only to be discouraged from toughing out the slow start. This time around I went at it with the goal to take my time, see how much of the pokédex I can complete and what Pokémon surprise me during usage. I also wanted to explore Alola again, especially now that it's getting quite cold again.

First off, I have to voice my amazement at how alive Alola is in this game, there's so many short side quests that either serve to make the world feel more alive, lived in, or to expand some lore like, apparently Dittos can mimic people quite well and that's fun :))))

The music is beautiful which is honestly a given for every Pokémon game, the hawaiian influence on this soundtrack makes it feel perfect for alola and I at times stopped in place to just listen to battle themes, location themes and so on.

My team this time around consisted of Incineroar, Alolan Raichu, Araquanid, Trevenant, Alolan Ninetails and Kommo-o. I've never used Trevenant and Kommo-o in a playthrough before and I must say I was blown away by Trevenant's performance. I dedicated myself to shiny hunt a Phantump through SOS-Chaining and got one at only 69 encounters. Its white and red color scheme is beautiful and thus I used it a lot during battle. My team struggled somewhat against fairy type enemies and against Ultra Necrozma, but, like, who doesn't lol

The story of Ultra sun is very interesting, multidimensional travelling, the very fate of alola and the wider world resting on my character's shoulders, Lusamine's personal struggle with being "the mommy" of everyone except her literal children, those childrens defiance of their mother and Guzma's struggle with accepting his short-comings all really appeal to me.

Mantine surf 10/10