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

A wonderful improvement upon the first game in the trilogy. Movement and Exploration have been improved a lot, you can climb, crouch, squeeze, swing, swim and dive, and even have a mount to get around faster. The environments evolved alongside the movement, god this game is pretty.

The Combat is barely recognisable, lots has changed and while it may be confusing at first, after a few battles you'll never want to go back to the old CC system. Itemslinging becomes the new Meta, around the finale Ryza feels like a walking nuke. Battles are dynamic, fast paced, and busy, meaning you don't just wait your turn, you always have something to do, something to manage.

Alchemy is just as fun, if not more than in the first game, thanks to some new mechanics like Evo-links and the skill tree system.

In terms of new characters, lots of new fun faces. Since everyone's in the Capital now, Ryza meets new faces left and right, like the Café worker Zephine or a fellow Farmer's Daughter Cassandra. Their little arcs of "what do i want from life and how do i achieve self-fulfilment in my work" is quite cute to wittness. the three new party members are also very fun to use and have around, Patty is adorable, Serri is elegant and tragic, Clifford thinks he's so cool (he is, okay? nobody tell him otherwise) I was a little saddened that i couldn't play as Lila once more since she was a main stay in my Party during the first game, but my new core of Lent, Ryza, Klaudia with a rotating support from Serri and the others worked wonders too.'

Storywise the game has a lot to offer, multiple ruins to investigate, though after a while the exploration might feel repetetive, since you kinda do the same thing over and over again, so it's smart to do side quests and character driven side stories between main adventures, even if you don't need better gear.

I only really have two complaints about the game and those are A) the sheer amount of dialogue cutscenes to drive the side-plots forward can oftentimes interrupt the player in the middle of an intense Alchemy session. B) the final boss was laughably easy, though, maybe, i was just overprepared, since my Ryza almost took it down herself. The secret boss though.. oh it had me grind a lot, try a bunch until i found a strategy that worked, similarly to the Queen from Ryza 1.
Overall, great game, pretty world, fun characters, good music, addicting gameplay loop, big fun.

Cute little farming/life sim in which you run a tavern. you craft and farm items to cook new recipes for foods and drinks. Your tavern can be expanded in size and even house guests overnight.

It's a fun little game, I've maxed out the skill tree and have access to a variety of drinks and foods that require interesting methods of obtaining all the ingredients, but the world feels quite shallow at the moment. You're pretty much bound to the Tavern area, outside of the Farm to the south where you get Animals from and a quarry in the north. I hope there'll be more additions soon, would love to return to this game with new content.