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[SPOILERS] The story of Sun&Moon

Problem was Zygarde should have gotten a boost to it's attack stat and others instead of getting a boost mainly to HP. It was suppose to be stronger than both Xerneas and Yveltal when in complete form. I am glad to get Zygarde in story anyway.
 
Has anyone speculated on who the former Faller that perished 10 years before the events of Sun and Moon was? I personally think it's the teleport girl from the gen 5 games stuck between dimensions. Could also be Caitlin or Sabrina but there's less evidence for them (and also they're still alive lol though I think it's possible that the character being "done in" has a lot of possible interpretations and could just mean they were transported to another dimension).

Also want to point out the similarity between the amnesia that Looker experiences in ORAS and Anabel experienced pre-SuMo. They each remembered only their names and their occupations (Anabel also remembered she was from Hoenn but I dont think Looker has a confirmed native region anyway).
 
Has anyone speculated on who the former Faller that perished 10 years before the events of Sun and Moon was? I personally think it's the teleport girl from the gen 5 games stuck between dimensions. Could also be Caitlin or Sabrina but there's less evidence for them (and also they're still alive lol though I think it's possible that the character being "done in" has a lot of possible interpretations and could just mean they were transported to another dimension).

I don't think there's any particular reason to think it was a character that we know of - there are lots of people in the world; any of them could have been caught in a wormhole.

Also want to point out the similarity between the amnesia that Looker experiences in ORAS and Anabel experienced pre-SuMo. They each remembered only their names and their occupations (Anabel also remembered she was from Hoenn but I dont think Looker has a confirmed native region anyway).

The common thinking on this is that the Looker we saw in ORAS was also a Faller. Not only does he have amnesia, but there is a nearby NPC who mentions hearing a nearby splashing sound, but didn't see anywhere that it could have come from - it is likely that Looker fell out of a wormhole in the sky and landed in the water, and the NPC just hadn't been looking up.

Although, I feel I should note that Faller-Looker doesn't seem to remember his name or his occupation, or anything about himself, in fact. Seems the memory loss hit him a bit harder.
 
Zygarde is present in these games in order to add extra content to these games, which is, frankly, a more creative and worthwhile use for it than being the "justification" for overpriced glorified DLC.

So shoehorning it into an unrelated game as an empty fetch quest is more worthwhile than an entire game surrounding it? LOL, okay. Everything they did with Zygarde in SM could've been done in another Kalos game plus more.

Also, a revisit to Kalos doesn't necessarily need to be "overpriced glorified DLC", that all comes down to execution. I wouldn't say BW2 fit that description by any stretch of the imagination, Kalos would've greatly benefited from and desperately needed a similar improvement.

Plot-wise, Zygarde just doesn't have much to contribute, but this shouldn't be a surprise. XY weren't even about Xerneas/Yveltal, either. XY's core plot fixtures were the ultimate weapon and Mega Evolution, which already got their third version-esque expansion in ORAS.

Don't be so certain of that. They could've connected Xerneas/Yveltal/Zygarde to the Ultimate Weapon and Mega Evolution with creative enough writing. Xerneas and Yveltal at the very least have to have some kind of connection since they're used to power up the former.
 
So shoehorning it into an unrelated game as an empty fetch quest is more worthwhile than an entire game surrounding it? LOL, okay. Everything they did with Zygarde in SM could've been done in another Kalos game plus more.

Also, a revisit to Kalos doesn't necessarily need to be "overpriced glorified DLC", that all comes down to execution. I wouldn't say BW2 fit that description by any stretch of the imagination, Kalos would've greatly benefited from and desperately needed a similar improvement.
If we were getting a Kalos revisit then it would have happen in gen 6. But it is gen 7 and Kalos is considered complete by GF. If we were revisiting a region then it would be Sinnoh in my opinion.
 
Everything they did with Zygarde in SM could've been done in another Kalos game plus more.

So, another Kalos game would have basically featured a more dialogue-heavy fetch quest, capped off by a repeat of almost every Legendary plot climax ever? And that's... better? Yay, more dialogue and cutscenes... I guess.

Zygarde is right where it belongs - keeping its mouth shut so it can add a bit more content to SM instead of wasting our money on a formulaic rehash of games that are already dreadfully formulaic.

Also, I don't think it's fair to call it an "empty fetch quest." It's just about the most asking, unusual way of obtaining a Legendary Pokémon there is, probably second only to the Regi golems. And what game it happens to be placed in doesn't really change that.

Also, a revisit to Kalos doesn't necessarily need to be "overpriced glorified DLC", that all comes down to execution. I wouldn't say BW2 fit that description by any stretch of the imagination, Kalos would've greatly benefited from and desperately needed a similar improvement.

B2W2 don't fit that description, but being a sequel rather than a third version doesn't automatically make it any less uninspired as an idea. Just because Gen V was fabulous and made its radical ideas work doesn't automatically mean that those ideas would work in any context. Z, X2Y2, and Hoenn remakes were basically the only things that Gen VII naysayers could come up with for XY follow-up ideas, and only one of those things would provide a drastically different experience from XY.

B2W2 worked largely because they were a complete mold-breaker that came from out of left field. "X2Y2" would just be settling into a new mold and saying "No, no, we're done with third versions. Now we're just gonna' do sequels every time." But the original BW - ironically by virtue of having smashed so many series trends - left plenty of room for a follow-up to come along and tinker with BW's own new formula, and sequels just happened to be, at that time, a groundbreaking idea that was very much in the spirit of BW.

For example. BW destroyed the classical plot formula. We had a variable first Gym, and a villain climax that took the place of the Champion fight, which was in turn shifted into being a post-game activity. Because of this, B2W2 were able to "reconstruct" and play the classical formula straight - standard 8 Gym setup, villain climax around Badge 7 or 8, and then onto the League - and it didn't feel as worn, because it'd been preceded by the deconstruction.

Perhaps more importantly, BW forced us to go through the main game with access to only new Pokémon. This was an inherently conducive to a follow-up game, because whatever it happened to be could throw in old Pokémon, and there would be a new experience to offer right from the get-go.

How would an X2Y2 navigate these issues, when XY's plot was already as unoriginal as it gets (but, cribbing off of BW and shifting the villain climax (please say "Neo Team Flare") to the Champion fight won't work, because then you've got diminishing returns and an obvious lack of inspiration), and its Pokédex barely left any Pokémon to be added?

As it turns out, the more expedient answer was to move to a different region altogether, which wouldn't break any formulas, but would at least have an inherently different layout, distribution, and villain plot (wisely, Hoenn's two-team dynamic was also more of a contrast to the lone Team Flare in Kalos).

Don't be so certain of that. They could've connected Xerneas/Yveltal/Zygarde to the Ultimate Weapon and Mega Evolution with creative enough writing. Xerneas and Yveltal at the very least have to have some kind of connection since they're used to power up the former.

They could have, but they didn't. Instead they seem to have felt that "they take 1000-year-long naps" was a more invigorating mythological background for them.

Meanwhile, Groudon/Kyogre got their own special version of Mega Evolution with its own lore, and Rayquaza got it's own three-story exposition scene to connect it to the origins of Mega Evolution. Because Mega Evolution was the point to be expanded on, not Duracell/Energizer Xerneas/Yveltal.
 
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@Esserise This is a prime example of taking things to the extreme. Not every game needs to be a special snowflake that does something 100% original, and reasonably it can't, if Game Freak had to change up the formula every single game do you really think the series would've lasted this long? Repeating something once or twice doesn't usually put people off. It's when it's done multiple times that you start to see complaints. Look at some of the complaints about the series before Sun and Moon, what were they complaining about? Gyms. The evil team plots. Things that have been done since pretty much the beginning of the series. You saw very few people saying "I don't want to see another sequel". You're expecting way too much, just having a polished, quality game should be enough. And that's the issue, Kalos was robbed of that opportunity by moving on to SM. Would it have been a perfect game? Absolutely not. But would it had helped Kalos fix some of its issues and turn it into a much more memorable game than XY? Definitely. And you have no place to argue the game would've been like every other plot when you don't know what the plot would've been like in the first place. Again, that comes down to execution.

But for the sake of discussion, there is something they could've done to shake things up in a sequel, and that's add completely new Pokemon. That would be the perfect way to build on BW2's formula for sequels, XY's regional dex, and ORAS throwing in new Megas into the game, and it would really shake up the concept of a generation.
 
XY is memorable to me and I think GF decided that it was indeed a complete pair of games. So returning to Kalos is not mandatory. Anyway, the story of SM has decent stuff but BW and B2W2 will always be better in my opinion.
 
@Bolt the Cat: Realistically I'm aware that they can't pop out a BW- or SM-level shake-up every time. But I think it's important to maximize the difference in experience wherever possible. Logistically, the experience that Hoenn remakes would offer had less concentrated overlap with whatever a second Kalos game would have put forth, and that didn't get in the way of ORAS being suitably polished for a second installment in the generation. And, it's important to note that while XY are definitely flawed in certain aspects*, they were still successful and function pretty much as intended, and if anything, are arguably more relevant and worth their price tag now than they would have been if they'd just released an improved version a year or two later.

*And I'm not talking about "oh there's no post-game" or "oh it's too easy" because those criticisms have persisted for both ORAS and SM, and that would seem to suggest an overall change in philosophy on GF's part that isn't resonating with certain fans, rather than being specific shortcomings of XY, and I think it's fairly likely that a Kalos revisit would have retained those "issues," inasmuch as they can actually be considered "issues" if that's how the games were intended to be.

Actually, while I'm here, I suspect there's a bit of a misperception about third versions/"region revisits" in general. I can't confirm this, obviously, but my suspicion is that their existence owes far less to any dignified desire to "fix" the regions, and are predominantly used for the simple purpose of continuing to make money while padding out the generation. Being able to revise the region or the storyline seems like a peripheral benefit. I mean, as an exercise, just imagine if no third versions existed, and the regions and stories from the first pairs of games were the only way that they were known. I doubt that this would bother GF all that much, and I doubt that we'd see the "primary" interpretations as "incomplete" because we'd have no concept of them being improved. Which is to say, that I suspect that the regions are always considered "broadcast-ready" even in their first iterations. The touch-ups and add-ons that we see in third versions could be perceived, from the designers' perspective, as superfluous bonus content meant to help justify the price tag. But again, that's all just the feeling I get from it.

I also think that XY were plenty "memorable"; they're the games that moved the series into the world of 3D. Maybe that's not as important as "oh hey that's a neat historical factoid about Zygarde" or "wow Rhyhorn racing is pretty fun," but in terms of technical accomplishments, it's a pretty big step, as were the new features like Mega Evolution, Pokémon-Amie, and making EVs more visible, and adding the first new type in however many years. XY have quite a few things to be remembered for.

Lastly, I think the idea that they would have added new Pokémon in a second Kalos game (which, I'm assuming with confidence was in a one-or-the-other position with ORAS, and they had to make a choice) is, to put it gently, very unrealistic. In all likelihood, we'd have probably just seen new Mega Evolutions (albeit different ones than what ORAS introduced), because Mega Evolution was the big new thing in Gen VI. There was a relevant reason to expand on that (especially if they'd already decided at that point to not introduce any new ones in Gen VII), but introducing brand new Pokémon mid-generation is a much bigger idea that probably warrants more justification. And it'd only really make sense if it happened the middle of a long generation - with SM right on the horizon, it'd be redundant to introduce new Pokémon in the middle - no, scratch that - at the end of Gen VI and then introduce yet more new Pokémon at the beginning of Gen VII.
 
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@Bolt the Cat: Realistically I'm aware that they can't pop out a BW- or SM-level shake-up every time. But I think it's important to maximize the difference in experience wherever possible. Logistically, the experience that Hoenn remakes would offer had less concentrated overlap with whatever a second Kalos game would have put forth, and that didn't get in the way of ORAS being suitably polished for a second installment in the generation. And, it's important to note that while XY are definitely flawed in certain aspects*, they were still successful and function pretty much as intended, and if anything, are arguably more relevant and worth their price tag now than they would have been if they'd just released an improved version a year or two later.

Hoenn is pretty much an unrelated game though. They only connected it with a few tidbits of lore and called that "wrapping up the storyline" but the fact of the matter is that there were still so many loose ends in Kalos's storyline that can only be wrapped up in Kalos. What happened to Lysandre? What did Malva have planned? Just what exactly is Eternal Flower Floette? What about all of those various

*And I'm not talking about "oh there's no post-game" or "oh it's too easy" because those criticisms have persisted for both ORAS and SM, and that would seem to suggest an overall change in philosophy on GF's part that isn't resonating with certain fans, rather than being specific shortcomings of XY, and I think it's fairly likely that a Kalos revisit would have retained those "issues," inasmuch as they can actually be considered "issues" if that's how the games were intended to be.

Actually, while I'm here, I suspect there's a bit of a misperception about third versions/"region revisits" in general. I can't confirm this, obviously, but my suspicion is that their existence owes far less to any dignified desire to "fix" the regions, and are predominantly used for the simple purpose of continuing to make money while padding out the generation. Being able to revise the region or the storyline seems like a peripheral benefit. I mean, as an exercise, just imagine if no third versions existed, and the regions and stories from the first pairs of games were the only way that they were known. I doubt that this would bother GF all that much, and I doubt that we'd see the "primary" interpretations as "incomplete" because we'd have no concept of them being improved. Which is to say, that I suspect that the regions are always considered "broadcast-ready" even in their first iterations. The touch-ups and add-ons that we see in third versions could be perceived, from the designers' perspective, as superfluous bonus content meant to help justify the price tag. But again, that's all just the feeling I get from it.

For the 1st-3rd generation, you may have a point. 4th and 5th gen, not so much, they actually made attempts to push those games forward and polish them up in bigger ways. In DP, we started seeing additions to the regional dex which changed the dynamic and difficulty of the game. BW2 went a lot further, offering up a completely new adventure in an old region, hardly "add on" content as the entire storyline had to be rewritten, characters and trainers had to be shuffled around, and areas needing to be redesigned.

I also think that XY were plenty "memorable"; they're the games that moved the series into the world of 3D. Maybe that's not as important as "oh hey that's a neat historical factoid about Zygarde" or "wow Rhyhorn racing is pretty fun," but in terms of technical accomplishments, it's a pretty big step, as were the new features like Mega Evolution, Pokémon-Amie, and making EVs more visible, and adding the first new type in however many years. XY have quite a few things to be remembered for.

Technical progress =/= a memorable game, being the first game to introduce anything means very little in the long run if there's not something unique to it to be remembered for. And what does XY have to be remembered for that ORAS and SM won't be? Little if anything.

Lastly, I think the idea that they would have added new Pokémon in a second Kalos game (which, I'm assuming with confidence was in a one-or-the-other position with ORAS, and they had to make a choice) is, to put it gently, very unrealistic. In all likelihood, we'd have probably just seen new Mega Evolutions (albeit different ones than what ORAS introduced), because Mega Evolution was the big new thing in Gen VI. There was a relevant reason to expand on that (especially if they'd already decided at that point to not introduce any new ones in Gen VII), but introducing brand new Pokémon mid-generation is a much bigger idea that probably warrants more justification. And it'd only really make sense if it happened the middle of a long generation - with SM right on the horizon, it'd be redundant to introduce new Pokémon in the middle - no, scratch that - at the end of Gen VI and then introduce yet more new Pokémon at the beginning of Gen VII.

6th gen should've been a long generation in the first place, there was no rush to move onto the next region whatsoever with the Switch still a ways off from XY. They could've easily gotten away with a four game generation with the 4th being a Kanto sequel and then put SM on the Switch in 2018, that would've made a lot more business sense for them than what they're actually doing with SM on the 3DS and possibly Stars on the Switch. Speaking of, as much as Z would be unexciting, Stars will be even more so, what can they even do with Stars to justify its existence? The region has almost no potential for expansion, it'd be an inopportune time for new Pokemon mid gen, and the game already has enough features to be satisfying. So what's the selling point, they'd need a big one to justify a $300 paywall to the likely 10+ million people who already bought SM. It'd have made a lot more sense ultimately to have a third version/sequel of XY on 3DS and SM on the Switch.
 
What happened to Lysandre?

Oh for god's sake.

The dude is DEAD, dude.

What did Malva have planned?

What makes you think she had anything planned? Last we heard, she made a deal with Looker to help catch Xerosic, and cooperated fully - this exchange was presumably akin to WITSEC.

Also, I don't normally like to drag in conversations from other threads, but frankly, if you think Lillie's arc can be left where it is with no issue, then Malva's minor character non-arc can definitely be left on that note.

Just what exactly is Eternal Flower Floette?

A special Floette. Which is even easier to believe now that we've seen regional variants - so variant Pokémon can and do exist. In any case, this shouldn't immediately be assumed to be a loose end; there's no reason why they couldn't have talked about it more in XY if they felt there needed to be more of an explanation. Or even shoehorned in some dialogue into ORAS if they'd wanted - they had its flower appear at the base of the tree in Sootopolis. What was stopping the old man next to it from saying, "You know, that tall man also said something about a certain special Pokémon..."

Or hell, just, you know, throw that text behind an event NPC and distribute it for ORAS straight-up.

They could have expanded on it easily without making a whole new Kalos game. I mean, it has a 3000-year-long history. If AZ was able to pop up in Hoenn at one point, there's no reason why Floette couldn't have.

Furthermore, just because there may be "loose ends" doesn't mean they'll necessarily be tied up in a subsequent release. We know that the sequel teases in BW weren't actually hinting at a sequel, after all, because their plan was to release Gray Version until Nintendo told them to spice it up.

In DP, we started seeing additions to the regional dex which changed the dynamic and difficulty of the game.

And in this instance, I'd agree that a third version was a thing that was within reason to do. Without Platinum, there's a long gap between DP and HGSS, and that's, in my opinion, too long to be stuck on the sluggish DP engine. But even that leads me to think there were more technically-minded motivations for the creation of Platinum, and the enhancements in terms of content and gameplay were just them pragmatically making the most out of something that they needed to do anyway.

Like, I'm not going to sit here and deny that Platinum is a good game on its own merits. But like with Gen V, just because something is appropriate in one instance, doesn't mean that it is equally applicable in every other context. XY functioned very well on a technical level right away, unlike DP, and their production timetable had accelerated to the point where they [felt they] didn't need to pad out the generation as much.

BW2 went a lot further, offering up a completely new adventure in an old region, hardly "add on" content as the entire storyline had to be rewritten, characters and trainers had to be shuffled around, and areas needing to be redesigned.

Yes and ironically, as much as I love B2W2, that makes them completely and utterly extraneous. You say that third versions are about creating a more "memorable" experience, but Gen V flipped the tables on that, since BW were the games with all the memorable formula-breaking maneuvers. Certainly, B2W2's story wasn't as complex or invigorating as BW's, and the quest structure was restored to the series's standard model. It was actually a reversion, in many respects, but it worked because BW had already taken a more radical route, so it could be said that a return to form was in order.

Technical progress =/= a memorable game, being the first game to introduce anything means very little in the long run if there's not something unique to it to be remembered for.

I have to disagree here. It'll always be XY that get the credit for introducing these things, especially since their additions have lasted through several games now. ORAS and SM would be lacking much of what they have to offer if XY hadn't done the heavy lifting. Maybe XY aren't a "memorable" individual experience (and that's fairly subjective territory as it is), but historically, they're much more important and relevant to the franchise than any of the third versions could ever dream of being.

6th gen should've been a long generation in the first place, there was no rush to move onto the next region whatsoever with the Switch still a ways off from XY. They could've easily gotten away with a four game generation with the 4th being a Kanto sequel and then put SM on the Switch in 2018, that would've made a lot more business sense for them than what they're actually doing with SM on the 3DS and possibly Stars on the Switch.

Again, I gotta' disagree here. I don't think there's any way we weren't getting new Pokémon and a new region for the anniversary - and that means a new generation. And we can sit and discuss the plausibility of "mid-generation Pokémon" - maybe it's something they'll do one day; I don't actually think it's the craziest thing (I mean, Mythical Pokémon are essentially the same concept, only on an individual scale). But I just don't think it's something they'd have realistically been willing to try out in the last few years. They're working with other big, new ideas right now, and in the previous generation, and my sense is that they prefer to give those things their own space to breathe within a generation without overlapping them or trying to do too much at once, which I think makes some sense when the ideas such as Mega Evolution and Z-Moves have already been so highly visible and so far outside the series's long-standing core gameplay.

There may be a time for smashing up the concept of "generations" as we know them, but that time isn't contemporaneous with the time for Mega Evolution and everything else than XY and SM have thrown in the bucket.

Speaking of, as much as Z would be unexciting, Stars will be even more so, what can they even do with Stars to justify its existence? The region has almost no potential for expansion, it'd be an inopportune time for new Pokemon mid gen, and the game already has enough features to be satisfying. So what's the selling point, they'd need a big one to justify a $300 paywall to the likely 10+ million people who already bought SM. It'd have made a lot more sense ultimately to have a third version/sequel of XY on 3DS and SM on the Switch.

Stars is clearly aiming for a different goal than your usual third version. It's not trying to be "The game you already played but better this time", and it's not out of a desire to expand or "fix" the region (which lends to my suspicion that third versions don't really prioritize that objective so much as they run with it because they've needed to be made for more practical reasons anyway and they've got nothing better to do). Stars isn't out to justify it's own price tag, it's out to justify the Switch's. Saying to those who are willing to pony up for one that they have access to an exclusive cut of SM - and this doesn't exist in a vacuum, either, because of all of the other big Switch releases that they seem to be lining up. Stars is there to give Switch buyers something from one of the "big" franchises to play.

It's heinously capitalistic, sure, but it's also somewhat selfless on GF's part - it's really more for Nintendo's benefit than it is for their own. But, as a bonus, they get an easy and relatively risk-free "practice run" on the Switch, making whatever their next game on that console happens to be less of a gamble, and probably a bit more polished.
 
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I enjoyed the game's story elements, but the [main] journey as a whole wasn't as cohesive as it could've been in my opinion. I feel like there was a bit too much going on (a concern that I had during pre-release), and that certain ideas could've used more exploration...Based on everything that we learn in the post-game, I think the Aether Foundation / Ultra Beast story could easily be the plot of the game by itself. There's so much intrigue; the Aether family's history (which largely clears up Lusamine's mental state), more info about Ultra Wormholes, dealings with them from 10 years ago, the nature of the Beasts, and we even have the continuation of the big multi-verse kerfuffle from ORAS. I would've loved to explore all of this more! Yet you have such limited encounters with Aether during the main game...You're mostly dealing with the trials or Team Skull or the construction of the Pokemon League, which could also potentially be their own stories to me if they were more uniquely focused upon. Po Town was amazing and Guzma's background makes him more real, but for most of the game they're a gag. Team Skull's importance to Lusamine is also very minimal (they aren't even as important as Snagem was to Cipher). The Alola League feels more like a treat than a conclusion that the game had seriously been building toward. And the Tapu...For a while I honestly forgot about. They don't do much of anything beyond Koko giving you the Z Ring and fighting UB02 in a small cutscene.

It comes very close for its characterizations and world building...But doesn't do enough to dethrone BW1 for me. All of the major events and encounters in that game linked back to N and the Team Plasma affair. You meet them and interact with them at every major destination, with the Gym Leaders and Champion pitching in throughout the game. At times characters may even share some message relevant to the game's conflict, such as Alder preaching about how there's more than one right way to live, or your rivals and their journey of self discovery expressing the same sort of idea. The Region's Legendary Pokemon completely embody the ideal of opposing forces coexisting, which was something that N struggled to comprehend before his Battles with you. And badge collecting was an objective of his so that he could eventually enforce his own beliefs through a position of power, providing the League endgame with actual stakes and a Battle that's built on all of the prior encounters. Almost everything felt like it was tied to a core idea to me. I didn't get that same feeling here. It's more like a couple of different stories happening at once with loose connections. I think it would've been more successful if it'd just focus on one thing and give more time to it.
 
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I enjoyed the game's story elements, but the [main] journey as a whole wasn't as cohesive as it could've been in my opinion. I feel like there was a bit too much going on (a concern that I had during pre-release), and that certain ideas could've used more exploration...Based on everything that we learn in the post-game, I think the Aether Foundation / Ultra Beast story could easily be the plot of the game by itself. There's so much intrigue; the Aether family's history (which largely clears up Lusamine's mental state), more info about Ultra Wormholes, dealings with them from 10 years ago, the nature of the Beasts, and we even have the continuation of the big multi-verse kerfuffle from ORAS. I would've loved to explore all of this more! Yet you have such limited encounters with Aether during the main game...You're mostly dealing with the trials or Team Skull or the construction of the Pokemon League, which could also potentially be their own stories to me if they were more uniquely focused upon. Po Town was amazing and Guzma's background makes him more real, but for most of the game they're a gag. Team Skull's importance to Lusamine is also very minimal (they aren't even as important as Snagem was to Cipher). The Alola League feels more like a treat than a conclusion that the game had seriously been building toward. And the Tapu...For a while I honestly forgot about. They don't do much of anything beyond Koko giving you the Z Ring and fighting UB02 in a small cutscene.

It comes very close for its characterizations and world building...But doesn't do enough to dethrone BW1 for me. All of the major events and encounters in that game linked back to N and the Team Plasma affair. You meet them and interact with them at every major destination, with the Gym Leaders and Champion pitching in throughout the game. At times characters may even share some message relevant to the game's conflict, such as Alder preaching about how there's more than one right way to live, or your rivals and their journey of self discovery expressing the same sort of idea. The Region's Legendary Pokemon completely embody the ideal of opposing forces coexisting, which was something that N struggled to comprehend before his Battles with you. And badge collecting was an objective of his so that he could eventually enforce his own beliefs through a position of power, providing the League endgame with actual stakes and a Battle that's built on all of the prior encounters. Almost everything felt like it was tied to a core idea. I didn't get that same feeling here. I think it would've been more successful if it'd just focus on one thing and give more time to it.

I agree to a point here. SM do lack the thorough ideological cohesion of BW. But at the same time, I don't think they're really aiming for that sort of tone... SM's story feels more casual to me, so I don't particularly mind that every element isn't deeply interwoven. But, in a way that's similar to (but not as dire as) XY, aspects of it do feel a little underwritten. As I said previously, Lusamine's brief moment of wanting to unleash the Ultra Beasts on Alola is random and pointless. I like the Aether-Skull alliance (if it'd just been Aether, I worry that it'd have been a bit too Plasma-ey), but it's dropped on us all of a sudden when we're storming Aether Paradise and from there it's not really explored. The relationship between Lusamine and Guzma is also summed up in a line or two of dialogue when there could have been more to that. The Ultra Beasts don't really affect the main story very much, and it feels like they had a bigger idea in mind for the tapu in conjunction with Solgaleo/Lunala. (Why did Tapu Koko choose you? Was it because you'd help to awaken Cosmog? Which, speaking of, what was it trying to accomplish by visiting the tapu's ruins? I think that's meant to tie in with the legend we read at Malie Library, and to clue us in that Cosmog is the "fragile heir" of Solgaleo/Lunala, which is fine and all, but the last-minute U-turn toward having us look for the Flute instead renders that whole plot thread kind of moot.)

And yet, I don't feel like there was necessarily too much going on... I just don't think they quite put enough writing behind it all. I still think it's successful on the whole, and I'd still say it's their second-best storytelling effort thus far. But there are definitely areas that were asking to be explored more deeply.
 
I could have played a whole game about the Ultra Beasts and working with the international police lol, really enjoyed that side story. but as far as the main plot goes I kinda wish they went more into the other Tapu's and Necrozma's background, Kind of hoping we get a third game or anime episodes/movies to help explain more.
 
I could have played a whole game about the Ultra Beasts and working with the international police lol, really enjoyed that side story. but as far as the main plot goes I kinda wish they went more into the other Tapu's and Necrozma's background, Kind of hoping we get a third game or anime episodes/movies to help explain more.

Well, they were never going to talk about Necrozma very much. It's surprising that they acknowledged it as much as they did.

Personally, I think Solgaleo/Lunala are actually the ones with the most left to say. We actually learn a decent little amount about the tapu. We know that they're capricious, and that they designate the island kahunas and entrust them with Sparkling Stones; we know that in ancient times, they led the armies of their respective islands' kings, but decided to withdraw from human conflicts forever when their Z-Power caused too much destruction. We know that they occasionally battle each other in order to see who among them is the strongest (and we know that this ritual is what inspired the Battle Royal), and that they have fought Solgaleo/Lunala in the past. And of course, we know that Cosmog was left in their care by Solgaleo/Lunala. And we know that Tapu Bulu destroyed the Thrifty Megamart at Tapu Village.

But what do we know about Solgaleo/Lunala? Or rather, about Nebby's predecessor(s)? 'Cause really, it's Nebby who is the mascot of the game more than "Solgaleo" or "Lunala" are. And because it's Nebby's story we're seeing, they naturally focus less on the ancient Solgaleo/Lunala that brought it into being. Of course, I like the idea of Nebby being the focus. But I wouldn't mind learning more about the Solgaleo/Lunala that came before it.

In particular, what I wonder is, are they still out there somewhere? It occurs to me because the official site mentions that it is Solgaleo/Lunala's dominant power that influences Rockruff's (and presumably, Cosmoem's) evolution. Solgaleo has more power in Sun, so you get Midday Lycanroc in that game. Lunala has more power in Moon, so you get Midnight Lycanroc over there. This would suggest that there is still a Solgaleo/Lunala in existence prior to Nebby's evolution, no? And furthermore - if one of them is in existence, then what about the other? There at least seems to be some awareness of the other beast - there are two flutes, and there's the Lake of the Moone (in Sun)/Sunne (in Moon), and, we can see the sigil of the opposite beast at the Altar of the Sunne/Moone (although I think it's in a 3:1 ratio against the sigil for the "dominant" beast). Plus, the legend that we read at Malie Library says that only one beast emerged from the hole in the sky, but later says, "beast of sun and beast of moon," and states that their union is what brought Cosmog into being. My immediate impression is that the "opposite" beast didn't come out of the wormhole, but rather, "flickered" in from some other place, as we see in the post-game Cosmog event. (This moment.)

Which, speaking of. What's the deal with the Altar of the Sunne/Moone, and with the parallel world? I'm still not entirely sure as to how canonical the post-game Cosmog event is even meant to be, but a portal to the opposite world seems like a fairly big thing. Firstly, there's the altar, which, while we know pertains to Solgaleo/Lunala's status as a figure of worship, also seems to contain a giant energy-filtering device that responds to the sound of the flutes (while we're at it, where did those flutes come from?). I think that's probably somewhat outside the technological grasp of ancient Alolans, unless the old kings were more AZ-level science whizzes. Which I wouldn't necessarily have an issue with - advanced ancient tech is a concept I'm quite fond of - but it isn't really explained at all, which seems just a bit odd after XY did bother to explain their climactic Schizo Tech plot device.

According to two Ace Trainers in the Vast Poni Canyon, the altar is a "vessel that collects light, and concentrates the power of the stars."

But after that, there's still the matter of the parallel world. Assuming that it is canonical to at least some extent, is it something that the people who built the altar, or interacted with Solgaleo/Lunala, actually know about? Do they know there's an opposite world on the other side, and has there been any communication between them? (Crazy theory: Is this why you can find Midnight Lycanroc in the canyon in Sun/Midday Lycanroc in the canyon in Moon? Are those Pokémon that have spilled over? Because technically, the overpowering influence of Solgaleo/Lunala in either world should only result in the corresponding Lycanroc form.) And, if your player character really does travel from one world to the other in the post-game, then again, where does the opposite beast come from? Is the parallel world literally the world of Pokémon Sun, where somebody exactly like you went on the island challenge and obtained Nebby, and now your Nebby is interacting with their Nebby, while they're in your world, having crossed over from the world that you are currently in? ( :confused: )

Or, can the two games be considered discrete "pairs" of parallel worlds, where Pokémon Moon has both a lunar-inclined and a solar-inclined world on opposite sides of each other, and Pokémon Sun has its own opposite worlds? This would make a bit more sense, I think, seeing as how the opposite world of your own doesn't have the other game's version exclusives. I assume that the NPCs are all exactly the same because, well, it'd be very painstaking to have to write new dialogue just for their parallel world counterparts.


Gosh, I'm sorry for the blog post. I'm just very curious about this stuff. :p
 
I thought Lysandre suffered the same fate as AZ for both versions. I don't understand the point of the pre-evolutions of the mascots. They were so pointless and useless in battles. They could have just not make the pokemon and just have Lusamine open the portal with a captured Solgaleo/Lunala.
 
I thought Lysandre suffered the same fate as AZ for both versions. I don't understand the point of the pre-evolutions of the mascots. They were so pointless and useless in battles. They could have just not make the pokemon and just have Lusamine open the portal with a captured Solgaleo/Lunala.

They're not meant to be good in battle. They're a way for the player to interact with the mascot throughout the story and get emotionally invested in protecting it from the villain team
 
Not in X! He's alive, but stuck under a huge pile of rocks for the rest of eternity!

Which is basically the same as being dead, but I just wanted to try and be funny.

Then again, I don't think there's any reason the believe that the blast would have made him invulnerable as well as immortal, so under all those rocks, he'd probably be a mangled mess of bones and sinew at best, or a puddle at worst... and I suspect (I can't confirm, but I suspect) that consciousness doesn't make it past that point. :p
 
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