The Problem With Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon
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- čas přidán 10. 05. 2024
- Even though Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon are some of my favorite games of all time, the existence of Ultra Sun and Moon-- their updated versions from 2017-- always puzzled and frustrated me. In today's video, I share why that is.
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#pokemon #pokemonultrasunandmoon #pokemonsunandmoon #nintendo3ds - Hry
Oh! Just a note!
At one point in the video, I say Lusamine goes to Kanto to "treat herself". By that I mean, healing mentally and getting treatment for her mental health stuff lol
Bilingual brainrot stroke again and I tried to use a Portuguese expression in English, not realizing it means the same as "giving yourself a treat" in the moment. My bad XD
To me I think Lusamine should’ve died in the Ultra wormhole. You know give some actual emotion to the character. But her last moment is realising her mistake.
Yeah I could see how that could've been cool. I don't really mind how the story actually went, tho. A big theme in Alola is identity and how it can change and evolve depending according to the people around us. And since Lusamine is shown to have some good in her (behind all that baggage), I don't mind leaving the door open for a second chance for her
ngl a pokemon stars would've driven me crazy, because if we got a 3rd game in a row of gen 7, I would've been sick of it by that point.
Nah that's fair. I agree, actually. I'm a proponent of for Starts instead of USUM, not right after it
yeah I agree the story of the originals was so much better
I share the same opinion, and I wasn't a kid or getting into JRPGs when I played Sun/Moon and the Ultras, so I don't really have the "but maybe it's just my nostalgia" doubt hanging over me. Sun/Moon is legitimately one of the best attempts at telling a compelling story Pokémon ever did (it has flaws with its presentation especially due to Gamefreak's lack of understanding of how to make their dialogue scenes feel dynamic, and the over tutorializing you spoke about) and it felt fresh, especially after the disappointment that XY was in that regard.
I love how it's a smaller scope story after so many games about some variation of "stopping the evil team from unleashing the giant dragon that will explode the world". Then the Ultras just shit all over it and made the good story and characters Sun/Moon had almost look like something they done by accident. And the game doing the most over the top version of the world-ending Legendary Pokémon trope instead of what I still think is the most interesting Pokémon villain to date just adds that extra pinch of salt to the wound.
These kinds of longer comments are always a treat to get!
It's also always incredibly validating to see people who enjoy Sun and Moon's story without having grown up with it!
But yeah; agreed, pretty much. But I will say-- personally, I don't think high stakes and great character are mutually exclusive-- I've played too much Xenoblade Chronicles to think otherwise-- the problem with how Pokémon mostly does it, is that they can't justify the crazy stakes with good writing a lot of the time. Sure, pull out all the insanely powerful gods you want, but also give me a reason to care.
Generally, I'm a sucker for over-the-top maximalist stuff in action/adventure stories, so I might be a bit biased, but I don't hate any of the new ideas in USUM inherently. My problem is mostly with how they were implemented and superimposed over the original story that had stronger character arcs/moments.
I still agree that the choice to change things up from the formula was absolutely great, and that lowering the stakes for telling the story Sun and Moon wanted to tell was probably the best idea, but my big issue isn't with the stakes themselves, it's with the fact that they came at the cost of the character work.
USUM commit so hard to it’s new story and being about the Ultra Beasts to the point it ruins everything about SM. As the characters in SM were not designed at all with USUM in mind and the alterations made to them make them worse in every way
The ultra games were my first pokemon games ever so I will never not glaze
Fair enough XD
Always appreciate a Trainer giving his opinion on Pokémon ❤ Hope we can all grow along our favorite franchise.
But on the bright side. Team customization and creating. Have never been more complex. And I love it.
Before the gen 7 nostalgic kicks in i just wanna say Gen 7 has been my favorite Gen since I got back into pokemon after playing it after sword and I love both series there's just something magical about this game that newer pokemon has lost pokemon has never felt more like pokemon to me then when winning though the power of friendship against ultra necrowmas(sorry if misspelled) moon and ultra sun will forever go down as the best pokemon I ever played
Wow, i have never been able to put in to words my issues with USUM after SU becoming one of my favorite Pokémon games, but you put everything perfectly. Thank you for making this video! Hopefully whenever a remake is eventually taken on they can give us a satisfactory story with Lillie and give us those incredible moments from USUM.
Wow! Thanks! I'll be honest, that's the exact kinda comment I'm always super happy to get in my videos. I'm happy at least SOMEONE agrees XD
Realistically, this theoretical perfect remake is like the most un-Pokémon thing Pokémon could possibly do, but we can still hope, right? Haha
I do think it would have been cool if the story complelety changed only after Lusamine. Like you have your epic battle, and you get Lusamine back, but Nebby stays with Lillie, than you beat the elite four and champion, than just hanging around. But then in a post credits scene suddenly Nezroma coming out of an ultra wormhole. Then after the game before Lillie hangs out with you one last time with Nebby before she leaves, and Necrozma attacks, while Nebby fights back, but loses like in normal Ultra. You the character fight the beast as in normal game, but they disappear. Suddenly the sky turns dark and you have to find the way to help but you can’t use Nebby to get to Ultra Space (and the opposite legendary doesn’t comes out of nowhere to help you, like in normal Ultra). But thanks to Lillie’s research you know that there is the Pillar of Sunne/Moone (depending on the game), where you can get another legendary to take you to Necrozma. In formerly you only find a Cosmog, that the player takes and you must evolve into Cosmoem at like level 60 or something. Than with Cosmeom you can re-enact the ritual that evolved Nebby into its final form, and get the opposite legendary. Than the story can go the same way as in normal Ultra. Than Lillie leaves for Kanto, and leaving Nebby with the player character in case of another Alolan emergency. And keep all the other improvements Ultra made. Make it more of a big final new ending than replacing the Lusamine Arc. And if you do like Gladion leaving, he can go with Lillie. Actually that could just be Ultra DLC for each game which would be cool.
Oh heck yeah! I really like this idea. Some adjustments and ironing out are probably still needed, but I love the concept.
Thing is, if USUM came out like this, it'd be even more comically similar to the originals, which could've been a problem as a release, y'know? Like-- relegating all the new content to effectively post-game. Similarly, with a few adjustments, it could've worked as DLC, but idk how well this would've panned out considering it would mean the box art legendary would be locked behind DLC.
This stuff is fixable for sure, it takes some figuring out and adjustments. I can see why Game Freak didn't go for this themselves.
This could potentially be a great base for a potential future definitive edition, though, either through a rerelease (unlikely), or a fan-made one like I suggested in the video
@@ashster_sunshine I think the main problem was the device it was on. The Switch was already out so if it had been released on the Switch, and upgraded, it might have gotten more slack, since this is the first home console main line game. Plus this would be a lot of people's first playthrough and likely would have sold much better. Plus my main idea is to include the differences in the same way, new totems, and Mantine Surf to Akala, etc. But just change Necrozma to post game. Could also include Ultra Warp Ride to get to Lusamine, but make it a black portal instead, and allow it to be used until you rescue Lusamine (maybe have Lillie get upset if you enter the wrong portal), and reunlock it permeantly, after getting the non box legendary fully evolved. Also either remove the reverse world or make it the other version with their version exclusives, because right now it seems very pointless.
@@ashster_sunshine No but all the points are valid and needing of ironing out. But I just find the idea of making the super boss of the Ultra Games the final challenge would be fun so you could make it like level 80ish.Makes sense why they didn't do that, especially since there would not be a full way of doing Team Rainbow Rocket afterwards,, since that would feel way more anticlimatic as a final story, unless you want to have Lillie stay long enough that Team Rainbow Rocket story comes first, than Necrozma comes afterwards but that would feel like way too long to get the cool new pokemon. Really hard to fix these games, besides being on switch because then it would feel more like an enhanced port, instead of the same game twice. Only reason I find it okay to leave the Legendary til Post Game is because the newest games does it to with Koriadon/Miradon as battling, since you need to beat the league to get them.
Was not expecting the loud NO about it being the definitive version, but it’s right. I should get around to replaying the originals one day, had a great time with them.
You gotta have that surprise factor, dude
I dunno...it seems like the definitive version tbh.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for talking about the marketing. I'm so glad I'm not the only one who felt decieved by the way they advertised these games.
Its so hard to find a way to convey why I dislike the Ultra games so much and this video pretty much did the job perfectly.
There are things that they improved, but they were not worth it for the character assination they did to Lilly, Lusamine, and Nebby. That was the most important part of Sun to me, to the point that without it the game doesn't really even matter anymore.
It was also a low point because I was just renewing faith with Pokemon at the time and the one two stomp of the lies in the marketing and taking away my favorite part of the orginal games made them the point where my interests in Pokemon shifted forever. Caring more about fan projects and spin-offs than the core generation experience.
They are like most 3rd Games in a gen. Better in every way but less fun to play if already played the older games and never really worth 30 as a result. This has veen an issue since Yellow. Which is why those sell less.
These games where for me lol
Y'know what? Fair enough XD
In addition to the story. They hold your hand way too much, and there are too many cut scenes.
I wish they leaned more into Lillie becoming a trainer in usum, it would’ve been cool if she initially got into it by wanting to heal the players pokemon in double battles because part of her character is hating seeing pokemon getting injured. Another thing that bothered me is the fact that Lillie forces Nebby into her bag, when it’s like, as far as I can tell, there’s no actual reason for her not to just use a poke ball. It would be cool to watch her gain confidence throughout the story and eventually become a powerful trainer wielding a legendary. It made me sad that at the end of the game, she just allows the player to have the pokemon that she’s built a relationship with, only for the player to most likely not even give Nebby the adventure she said that she wanted him to have, because the game is pretty much over at that point.
The Ultra Games were such a weird cash grab that while providing new content also butchered what made Sun and Moon special in my eyes. And you make the good point that its additional content could have just been DLC, the 3DS had the capability but GF saw that they could sell more copies
Sadly, they folded for DLC a generation too late 😔
I'm pretty sure I'm far from the first person to say this, tho. People were questioning why they couldn't be DLC back when the games were announced
4:22 "Asking you playing the game from last year with minimal changes"
I played Sun&Moon after UltraSun/UltraMoon a two times, just to look what Sun/Moon has missing compared to Us/Um. And they're missing a lot. Sure, most of the things until mid-main game stay the same, especially the long unskipable dialogs (which were also unskipable and equally annoying in X/Y and Sword/Shield) up to this mid-game, these little changes in between felt like a enhanced version of Sun/Moon, just like Crystal was for Gold/Silver. After that (when the climax started to happen) it felt more like more like the alternative version they promised in the trailers.
-Giving all Ultra Beasts from Sun/Moon their own environment where you can catch them
-Including new mini-games like Mantine Surf and Ultra Wormholes which are fun to play and also useful for getting previous legendaries (/shiny-hunt them) and easy shinies (of some Pokémon like Lombre, Nuzleaf, Medicham, Drapion, etc. if you reach far enough) and teaching your Pokémon moves that they can't learn via level up or TM
-They added/(or changed) new areas to Alola, which makes the region feel even more alive
-Added one of the biggest Nuzlocke-killers of the entire franchise alongside Cynthia, Red and later Volo, with Ultra Necrozma.
-Extended the soundtrack by a milestone (the Mantine Surf, Ultra Necrozma's Battle and the dimensions of some Ultra Beasts are some of the most iconic themes Alola in general has to offer)
-Extended the lore, especially of Z-Crystals while connecting with the already known (but never fully explained) lore of Sun/Moon
-They actually made Guzma redeem himself and added an alternative story with the Rainbow Rocket episode, which is a great homage to the franchise, thinking about it's the last game on the 3DS and the last game before drastic changes came along with the jump to the Switch.
Overall I can say that Us/Um was way more than Crystal/Emerald/Platinum were for GS/RS/DP and I personally think (besides the whole Lusamine story) they made the existence of the OG Sun/Moon completely pointless. Us/Um was what Sun/Moon had to be right from the start. But we all know that Game Freak gets barely any time for developing new games and we all know that Pokémon Z never happened because of the 20th anniversary so they had to work on a new generation, which was Sun/Moon.
Ngl, you explained a ton of stuff really well, and even though we disagree, I rlly like these long analytical comments. But here's my response...
None of what you said is necessarily wrong. As I said in the video, I really do enjoy all the little additions USUM made to the originals. They ARE better from a gameplay/fautres perspective, for sure. My problem is exactly what you pointed out-- everything *besides Lusamine's story* is improved. Now, I don't know how invested you personally were in the story; I know it isn't for everyone. A ton of people aren't gonna have their lives changed by a Pokémon story of all things. But to me, the story told in the original Sun and Moon means A LOT, and it saddens me that this exact mentality of "USUM superanuates the originals" is gonna make people miss out on a lot of what makes the Alola games special to me. Not everyone's gonna do it like you and go back to Sun and Moon after playing Ultra. As you mentioned, the game is 90% definitive edition, 10% original story by the end. And these aspects keep conflicting with each other. Even though it added all these new features, due to the long cutscenes, mostly reused plot in the beginning etc., it's not like playing the bulk of the story itself feels PARTICULARLY original. Better? Sure. But it's not super different-- and while games like SWSH did have their fair share of somewhat long unskipable cutscenes, none get even close to the deliberately slow, dialogue-heavy pace of the Alola games. I actually enjoy Alola, but there's a lot of people who don't simply because of this slow pace, in general; I can take a playthrough once every few years; some don't even handle one. It's a very fundamentally different Pokémon experience. So to me, by the point it does become more of an alternate take by the end of the story, it ends up being frustrating, because most of the rest of the game is extremely similar (but admittedly very improved).
If the ending stuck closer to the original storyline, these would've been ideal-- if still a bit boring to replay-- definitive editions-- ones I'd be glad to recommend over the originals. If the story didn't take so long to get the changes going, they'd be great as an alternate take, then I'd feel confident in recommending people to play em AFTER the original, more as sequels.
@@ashster_sunshineI get your point and totally understand what you mean when you say Pokémon stories can change a life. The story that changed my life for the better was the main-story of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates To Infinity, which got released just at the right time. At this time, back in 2013/2014, I felt a lot like two characters (Virizion and Munna) while I was had panic attacks and felt burned out because of work, combined with trust issues and carelessness, to a point where I felt nothing anymore for anything. Finishing the story made me cry literally rivers and then, I suddenly got the strength to heal myself over the next 7-8 months after again, without any medications (was never a friend of those to fix issues) and without any help from others (since I always used to manage everything by myself since I was a kid since I was mostly alone in my life). This game actually saved me from commiting suicide and I couldn't be more grateful for that.
So I can see that you perhaps had similar problems in your family as Lillie and Gladion had in Sun/Moon. And I'm glad that the story has changed your life (hopefully for the better).
When it comes to playing the games, I replay every Pokémon mainline game (and some spin-off games, mostly mystery dungeon) at least once a year, no matter how many cut-scenes and dialogues there is. Depending on my mood and what I want to re-experience (or just catch the vibes). And when it comes to Alola, I had one conclusion;
In Sun/Moon you get the alolan experience PLUS a heartbreaking story and depth in the characters and in Us/Um you get the same alolan experience (with changes) PLUS depth in content and an epic story. Both exist and both starting from the same point and end up differently, so there's more for all people, depending on their preferences.
i pre ordered ultra sun and i was cool and all but the rainbow rocket stuff really wasnt enjoyable, the only really memorable thing was the ultra wormhole what was the only thing that should of really been in the original and maybe some more necrozma stealing light like in the alternate dimension
Heh, agree to disagree I suppose. I can see why the RR stuff could be boring, especially from a gameplay standpoint. But as a longtime fan, I enjoy fighting all the villains again.
Don't get me wrong, I still think the originals are better, but the Rainbow Rocket stuff was cool imho
@@ashster_sunshine i think it was a good idea but poorly executed
@swag1028 Yeah, I think I see where you're coming from. From a gameplay perspective, it's just a really long dungeon with some boss fights. I still had my fun with it, but I can see why some wouldn't enjoy it. Still, that's a surprisingly unpopular opinion. You're the first I've heard saying this. Major props!
@@ashster_sunshinei liked how the dialogue fleshed out some of the characters and different versions like wasn’t it implied that archie succeeded?
I believe all the villains in RR come from timelines where they succeeded, yeah
The ultra's are just superior games. More of a challenge, added content, and shiny hunting.
Dude-- you know what's the annoying thing?
It's that objectively speaking, I agree with you.
Technically, USUM are 100% the better games. It's just that I vastly prefered the originals as experiences, and it feels like the Ultra games don't really have a place or a reason to exist compared to them. It's weird.
If you're willing to put up with the fact it destroys one of the few good stories a mainline Pokémon game told, yeah. it's just that personally, I can't bring myself to just overlook that, especially since I can't skip the scenes and pretend it's not there. The game constantly reminds me of the thing that makes me angry at it and that sucks the fun out of the experience of playing it quite a bit.
Also I never cared about shiny hunting.
@@42Caio I wouldn't even say it did that, I would say it made the story better tbh.
Pokémon Black 2 and White 2:
Buddy… you think your a good return? You’re the same thing. You’re just a cheap f***ing knock off.
Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon:
Oh no no no. I’m the upgrade.