This review contains spoilers
As of this writing, this is the latest major Pokémon game I've finished. I'm most of the way through Legends: Arceus, and I'm partway into Let's Go Pikachu, Shield, and Violet, but it's been a good 6 years and two Generations since I finished a major release. Perhaps in part for that reason, Sun and Moon feel like they could have made a thematically perfect stopping point for the series if Pokémon was a series capable of retiring.
After being burned out on Pokémon Y and appreciative but not exactly wowed by Alpha Sapphire, this was a breath of fresh air. The Island Challenge was a GREAT alternative to the Gym Challenge, precisely the change of pace the series needed while still presenting a generally similar means of pacing the adventure. The Trials aren't hard, but I'm also at the point with the series where I don't expect the games to challenge me and instead just want something thematically interesting to contend with. This game very much goes all-in on its spectacle and set pieces, with the grand majority of the Trial Captains providing something of interest, from Kiawe's "spot the difference", Mallow's ingredient hunt, Acerola's photo hunt, and the sort-of lack of a captain on Poni Island. I like also how you can extrapolate any major fight as being a symbolic Island Trial due to the timing of how you get the Z-Crystals, like how Plumeria gives you the Poisonium Z, or how you get the Bugnium Z after taking on Guzma. The Z-Moves themselves are kind of whatever, barring the Pokémon-specific ones, but I like how they're used to underline story beats.
Speaking of story, this is easily the game that has the most it wants to and succeeds at saying. Obvious is the main narrative - the bait-and-switch with Team Skull and the Aether Foundation is obvious in retrospect, but I'll confess I was surprised, and I still think the game does a lot meaningful with the twist, like showing Team Skull's heartbreaking living conditions in Po Town contrasted with the wealthy elite of the Aether Foundation's elite. To say nothing of the depths of Lusamine's villainy. Lillie's entire character arc of coming out from her mother's thumb goes without saying, and MOTHERBEAST was a damned cool reveal, but the thing I always come back to are the bodies of Pokémon she's preserved so as to retain their beauty. Like... she killed and taxidemized her beloved pets, right? That's what that scene is implying? And one of those is a Pikachu, so she totally killed off the series mascot???
Which brings me to the real strength of this game's writing - the subtext. Sun and Moon have so much to say about so many different things. Several of the Pokémon introduced feel like deliberate commentary on top of the usual exploration of ideas. Decidueye is Ghost because it's an extinct species of owl. Mimikyu is Pokémon observing its own phenomenon as a merch-driven franchise. There are no fossils because the Hawaiian archipelago is too young to have a fossil history. This goes towards the regional variants, too, like how Alolan Rattata and Yungoos mirror the real history of invasive rats and the failed attempt to introduce mongooses as predators. There are the Tapus as well, and how their relationship with the peoples of Alola act as an alternative history country to the Americanization of Hawaii - more of native Alola was preserved because you had Tapu Bulu there to nuke the Thrifty Megamart. There are so many little moments like this that the narrative doesn't even bother to examine, yet they're there for curious players to examine. I don't think any other Pokémon region really does that; certainly, I've never been compelled to think of a region unilaterally like this.
I mentioned at the start that this feels like the perfect thematic end to Pokémon as a franchise. That comes down to the very end of the main campaign, when Professor Kukui succeeds in forming a Pokémon League. This could have easily been presented as the done thing; there is a Pokémon League because there must be a League at the end of every campaign. But what makes it work here is how it reads like a fulfillment of a 20-year-old promise. In Pokémon: Red and Green Versions, you were promised that you would become the champion if you defeated the Elite Four, only to discover that your rival beat you to the punch and now claims to be the most powerful trainer in the world. Here, you finally become the inaugural Champion after besting the Elite Four. The fight thereafter? Your first Title Defense, against the Pokémon Professor, in a callback to the unused fight against Professor Oak in those same two games. And the battle theme - YOUR battle theme, since it plays for every Title Defense - is an arrangement of the original opening and victory themes. This was the tale of how you became the very best, like no one ever was.
I have no interest in playing Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon, since they walk back a lot of the things I like here. I'll talk about it if I ever get around to playing one of 'em. But I'm very happy with this.
After being burned out on Pokémon Y and appreciative but not exactly wowed by Alpha Sapphire, this was a breath of fresh air. The Island Challenge was a GREAT alternative to the Gym Challenge, precisely the change of pace the series needed while still presenting a generally similar means of pacing the adventure. The Trials aren't hard, but I'm also at the point with the series where I don't expect the games to challenge me and instead just want something thematically interesting to contend with. This game very much goes all-in on its spectacle and set pieces, with the grand majority of the Trial Captains providing something of interest, from Kiawe's "spot the difference", Mallow's ingredient hunt, Acerola's photo hunt, and the sort-of lack of a captain on Poni Island. I like also how you can extrapolate any major fight as being a symbolic Island Trial due to the timing of how you get the Z-Crystals, like how Plumeria gives you the Poisonium Z, or how you get the Bugnium Z after taking on Guzma. The Z-Moves themselves are kind of whatever, barring the Pokémon-specific ones, but I like how they're used to underline story beats.
Speaking of story, this is easily the game that has the most it wants to and succeeds at saying. Obvious is the main narrative - the bait-and-switch with Team Skull and the Aether Foundation is obvious in retrospect, but I'll confess I was surprised, and I still think the game does a lot meaningful with the twist, like showing Team Skull's heartbreaking living conditions in Po Town contrasted with the wealthy elite of the Aether Foundation's elite. To say nothing of the depths of Lusamine's villainy. Lillie's entire character arc of coming out from her mother's thumb goes without saying, and MOTHERBEAST was a damned cool reveal, but the thing I always come back to are the bodies of Pokémon she's preserved so as to retain their beauty. Like... she killed and taxidemized her beloved pets, right? That's what that scene is implying? And one of those is a Pikachu, so she totally killed off the series mascot???
Which brings me to the real strength of this game's writing - the subtext. Sun and Moon have so much to say about so many different things. Several of the Pokémon introduced feel like deliberate commentary on top of the usual exploration of ideas. Decidueye is Ghost because it's an extinct species of owl. Mimikyu is Pokémon observing its own phenomenon as a merch-driven franchise. There are no fossils because the Hawaiian archipelago is too young to have a fossil history. This goes towards the regional variants, too, like how Alolan Rattata and Yungoos mirror the real history of invasive rats and the failed attempt to introduce mongooses as predators. There are the Tapus as well, and how their relationship with the peoples of Alola act as an alternative history country to the Americanization of Hawaii - more of native Alola was preserved because you had Tapu Bulu there to nuke the Thrifty Megamart. There are so many little moments like this that the narrative doesn't even bother to examine, yet they're there for curious players to examine. I don't think any other Pokémon region really does that; certainly, I've never been compelled to think of a region unilaterally like this.
I mentioned at the start that this feels like the perfect thematic end to Pokémon as a franchise. That comes down to the very end of the main campaign, when Professor Kukui succeeds in forming a Pokémon League. This could have easily been presented as the done thing; there is a Pokémon League because there must be a League at the end of every campaign. But what makes it work here is how it reads like a fulfillment of a 20-year-old promise. In Pokémon: Red and Green Versions, you were promised that you would become the champion if you defeated the Elite Four, only to discover that your rival beat you to the punch and now claims to be the most powerful trainer in the world. Here, you finally become the inaugural Champion after besting the Elite Four. The fight thereafter? Your first Title Defense, against the Pokémon Professor, in a callback to the unused fight against Professor Oak in those same two games. And the battle theme - YOUR battle theme, since it plays for every Title Defense - is an arrangement of the original opening and victory themes. This was the tale of how you became the very best, like no one ever was.
I have no interest in playing Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon, since they walk back a lot of the things I like here. I'll talk about it if I ever get around to playing one of 'em. But I'm very happy with this.