Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon

[daj]

part two of my clueless impressions! ^^ Did up to the second island this weekend~

~

daj goes into Sun and Moon blind:

- only knowing the soundtrack 
- and the names of the legendary pokes
- and for once, no knowledge of any stats and numbers

~

Spoiler

Chapter 2:
111216 - Akala done and dusted~

Mallow looked cuter when I was watching LPs.

Paniola Town's night version. So heartfelt and human. Tear-worthy <3

Though Paniola Town is actually kinda useless ahaha

The Ranch also has a great bgm track and I just stood there listening to it despite having arranged and analysed it <3

I love how Route 5 is constructed. Makes you have to backtrack at some point for sure. Reminds me of Zelda and zelda is yay

Lana's personality is as washy as the fishes she trains. But that's a nice touch I guess ^^

That being said the Water Totem fight was actually quite challenging, the rain made it a pain.

The first check I made on serebii.net - how the hell does Wishiwashi change forms? (apparently just sending it out in battle would have shown me the truth)

"oh yeah so those sudowoodos were annoying so i unloaded an overpowered attack in them. no worries tis cool" welp lana gives zero fucks clearly

Kiawe's trial is absolutely fucking amazing. Oh my goodness. The sheer amount of troll. Everywhere. I won't spoil this one for those who haven't played the game, because oh my god it's brilliant. Love it, great one Game Freak <3

Easy fight though, rockruff destroyed it.

Mallow's trial was a little disappointing because I thought it'd be some happy-go-lucky thingy based on the OST. Turns out the "Mallow's Trial" track only plays when you're mashing the ingredients. Haiz.

The totem fight was legit tough though. Synthesis, welp.

Aether people are scary and weird and probably evil.

The whole white thingy too, whut.

Wait, did that lady just admit that the Pokedex is messed up? Corsola bits?? whaaaatttt

The only thing I care about President Lusamine is her amazing musical themes. And, also judging from the OST she's probably evil.

Her hair tho

So I guess that means the whole Aether thing is a misguided evil group or just a bunch of fake people...?

(fighting the thing that came out of the space hole oh my) what the fuck did i just fight and how did it kill my ribombee

Also yep, confirmed. Lusamine is evil. Very evil. She's probably going to take advantage of the whole "chosen one" thingy and whatever else not

Which reminds me that I'm probably a chosen one or something

TM Psychic?? Ooh. That's nice.

Seeing Hau down his malasada and casually giving zero shits about the death of the world (c'mon, it's coming) is pretty heartwarming <3

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[braix]

Hey we're at literally the same stage of the game so I could read that without spoiling the game for myself yay

[mikey]

thank you for again being proof that the story is in every way entirely too obvious

[Jub3r7]

thank you for again being proof that the story is in every way entirely too obvious

i read you guys say earlier that the team aether being evil was way too easy to guess but they literally reveal it in an opening cutscene, so it's not like they were hiding it to begin with

[Nebbles]

I predicted it when they were first revealed lmao

[mikey]

look, if you're wearing matching uniforms, you're the bad guy.  Although technically the Aether foundation wasn't really the bad guy, it was almost strictly just lusamine (who still wasn't even that bad, just a bit obsessed)
I should just tear the story apart because I really did not like it that much

[SlowPokemon]

I loved the story, it just wasn't that surprising. The characters were awesome and I ended up loving them all by the end. I'm not the sort of person who needs plot twists or shocking developments to enjoy a good story; it's just got to have good characters who are interesting to be with.

[Nebbles]

Yeah, I agree with Slow.

[SlowPokemon]

Which, by the way, was why I felt the story of XY came up short. I didn't care about any of the rival/friend characters and literally the only parts of the story I cared about were with Lysandre and Team Flare. Even then, the interesting aspects of the plot were ignored by the game and it ended up falling flat. Sun and Moon, on the other hand, did exactly the right things with the characters it introduced. I can't think of any off the top of my head that came across as annoying or less-than-great, except maybe Kukui (and even he was likable, just not overly interesting or unique). But yeah, it's like? A lot of the Ace Attorney cases literally start off by telling you who the murderer is and the fun is from the smaller surprises, like the way the characters react to one another or small details about the murder plot or the people involved that make you view the case in a different light. It's not all about the shock value or surprise twists for me.

[Dudeman]

Slow hit the nail on the head about the story. I agree fully.

[mikey]

I don't really understand what the aether foundation/lusamine was doing wrong.  I don't exactly know how to articulate what I'm thinking but I didn't see why we were trying so hard to stop them from whatever it was they were doing

[daj]

Agreed with Slow. <3

Nothing was more disappointing than XY's shallow storyline (and shallow OST ahaha), and I absolutely love how the events are unfolding in Sun and Moon. The added mechanics (turns out Z-moves are really cool) and the whole "not-Pokemon" thingy with Ultra Beasts and stuff is brilliant. Love the way these elements are weaved into the story.

As a side note I guess Lillie isn't a dynamic character, but she is really intriguing I guess. Waiting to figure out which part of Aether she messed up~

[SlowPokemon]

@Nocturne

Spoiler

The short answer is heavily implied experimentation on Pokémon (I got an "animal experimentation" vibe somewhere there), which I guess was confirmed when you see all of the Pokémon Lusamine has forced into cryogenic sleep. It was also mainly Lusamine, who was acting under Nihilego's influence, who was power hungry and a horrible person (she forced her daughter to dress like Nihilego while obsessed with it, and literally neglected Gladion and Lillie when they didn't obey her every wish) and not the entire Aether Foundation, as in the post game most of the members express guilt over the events of the game.

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@dajwkp I actually didn't really care that much about Lillie for most of the game, but I ended up loving her by the end. I'd say Hau was the least dynamic character, as he's pretty much the same at the beginning as he is at the end. I mean that was fine by me since I love the kid to pieces, but I'd say it's fair to argue he didn't have any development.

[mikey]

Spoiler

At one point one of the grunts is like "so now you know the truth about us" or something like that "you've seen the dark side of the aether foundation" idr.  I didn't get a pokemon experimentation vibe at all.  Like I guess the whole cryogenic sleep thing is supposed to be bad, but literally she's doing it because she wants to be with her pokemon forever...  The only clear antagonist I could potentially see is nihilego, which is just a parasitic legendary pokemon so it doesn't really have a conscience or like a knowledge of right and wrong.  I don't know much about XY but Lysander seems like a much cooler villain to me based off of that one webcomic.  Maybe lusamine is a terrible mom and not a good person in general but from an ideology standpoint I don't really see how she could be an antagonist.  At best I felt like an observer in some silly family drama that I shouldn't have gotten involved in

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[Dekkadeci]

@Nocturne

Spoiler

The short answer is heavily implied experimentation on Pokémon (I got an "animal experimentation" vibe somewhere there), which I guess was confirmed when you see all of the Pokémon Lusamine has forced into cryogenic sleep. It was also mainly Lusamine, who was acting under Nihilego's influence, who was power hungry and a horrible person (she forced her daughter to dress like Nihilego while obsessed with it, and literally neglected Gladion and Lillie when they didn't obey her every wish) and not the entire Aether Foundation, as in the post game most of the members express guilt over the events of the game.

[close]

@dajwkp I actually didn't really care that much about Lillie for most of the game, but I ended up loving her by the end. I'd say Hau was the least dynamic character, as he's pretty much the same at the beginning as he is at the end. I mean that was fine by me since I love the kid to pieces, but I'd say it's fair to argue he didn't have any development.

Further answers to NocturneOfShadow from reading about the game and some of its script, not playing it:

Spoiler

Lillie figured out that Lusamine's plans to stress out the Aether Foundation Cosmog so much that it makes Ultra Wormholes in attempts to escape would kill it fairly quickly. She ran away with Cosmog and Nebby's probably happier with her. If you're morally against abusing and killing Pokemon, you're morally against how Lusamine's abusing her inheritance of the family Aether Foundation business.

If you're morally against kidnapping (I've heard vicious things about mothers kidnapping their own children IRL), you're also morally against Lusamine getting people to kidnap Lillie and Cosmog back.

That Gladion ran away (for Team Skull, no less!) with another 'mon cryogenically frozen by Aether doesn't help Lusamine's reputation. I'd like to think that Gladion ran away after becoming pretty disillusioned by what Aether was doing to (relatively few, but still) Pokemon. He cares about his sister a lot more than he cares about his mom. (Gladion seems like he has every intention of freeing every frozen Type: Null, and gives you another post-game.)

As far as I know, all those Ultra Wormholes are perilous tears in the universe that pour out Ultra Beasts, which add to the danger. The Tapus may not give two hoots about protecting humankind and may not give a hoot about humanity in general (though I'd think that Tapu Koko is the most interested in how humans behave), but they're guarding the islands from Ultra Beasts no matter what.

Gladion eventually rationalizes that Lusamine behaved this way because she lost her husband to Ultra Space experimentation--all that was left afterwards were the Aether Foundation Cosmog and some notes--and she's doing all this to get her husband back. ...Though if Ultra Space intruded that badly, I think that's when she fell under a Nihilego's influence...

For another angle, as far as I can tell, the Aether Foundation and Team Skull were at odds for pretty much the entire lifetime of the group founded second, but they're agreeing to kidnap Lillie and Cosmog back.

All this is making me wonder whether all of Guzma's talk about being "destruction in human form" is hyperbole like I first assumed before Sun and Moon's release or it was tainted by Ultra Beast (Nihilego or Xurkitree) influence.

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