Pokemon Ultra Sun And Ultra Moon
Publisher:
Nintendo
Developer:
Game Freak
Platforms:
Nintendo 3DS
Genre:Role Playing
Release Date:November 17, 2017
Pokemon Ultra Sun and Pokemon Ultra Moon (or just Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon) are the second set of games in the 7th generation of main series Pokemon titles. Taking off from the original Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon, which were originally released as 20th anniversary titles, Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon are a return to the tropical Alola region.
These titles are an “alternate story” from the original Pokemon Sun and Moon, borrowing much of the core of those games, but making many alterations such as to wild Pokemon distribution, new story events involving the legendary Necrozma and Team Rainbow Rocket, new Z-moves and adding a handful of additional monsters to catch that weren’t available in Pokemon Sun and Moon.
The alternate events of the story revolving around Necrozma and the light of Alola flesh out the backstory of the previously mysterious Legendary similarly to how the Anime gave Zyguard a story. Other new characters are introduced, such as the four members of the Ultra Recon Squad, affiliated with the Aether Foundation but not a part of it. Each version has two members of the squad highlighted, but all will appear in both versions.
Development
Announced via Nintendo Direct in June 2017. According to producer Shigeru Ohmori, Pokemon Ultra Sun and Pokemon Ultra Moon were worked on by younger members of Game Freak with some key supervision, while the main team began to work on the Nintendo Switch project. Designed as the culmination of their work with the Nintendo 3DS, the development team of Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon was about half of what it was for the original Sun and Moon, despite that the games have a script twice as long as their predecessors.
Ohmori would also say in a separate interview that the Ultra instalments first began as an idea formed as Sun and Moon were just wrapping up, with the games intended to take advantage of the momentum afforded to the series by Pokemon Go on mobile. The chance for the younger team members to gain valuable experience working on the Ultra games is said to be in the long run, helping the Switch project along.
Between the reveal in June 2017 and release in November 2017, the game would tease its various new elements and plot points through periodic trailers, starting with a trailer that revealed an expanded story with new locations, new designs for the player characters, expanded roles for characters that got little screen times in Sun and Moon, and a new evolution for Rockruff, which turned out to be a gift for trainers who got the game near launch.
Small trailers would continue to be released, primarily through the Pokemon official youtube channel for the next few months. Trailers would reveal new events like Mantine Surfing, traveling to other Ultra Space dimensions to catch Legendary Pokemon from throughout the series, as well as new Ultra Beast Pokemon to be found in the game. As past games limited changes to new forms to keep perfect compatibility, this is the first time new monsters were introduced within the same generation. New Z-moves and Team Rainbow Rocket, as well as the premise of the story were also introduced.
Story
Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon are alternate tellings of the events of Sun and Moon, and as such don’t deviate much father than previous special editions such as Pokemon Emerald or Pokemon Platinum do from their paired versions. You are a young boy or girl who moves from the Kanto region to the tropical Alola region, home to tons of new, exotic species never seen before outside that region.
Young trainers in Alola take on the Island Challenge, as opposed to the Gym challenge of other regions. Trial captains challenge the player and their team as they travel the four islands of Alola and the player will eventually conquer the Kahuna of each island before they can move on. Meanwhile, the trainer meets Lillie early on, a mysterious young girl who’s taking care of an even more mysterious Pokemon, with a mystic power and an inability to stay in the bag. Lillie and the island challenge itself eventually wrap the trainer up in the goings on of the Aether Foundation, Team Skull, The Ultra Recon Squad and the mysterious Necrozma.
Gameplay
In the field, as the game is a follow up to Pokemon Sun and Moon, the adventure through the Island Challenge is largely familiar to those who played that game, as you travel through the islands of Alola, find and train Pokemon, take on Trials from Island Captains, take on Kahunas and unravel the mysteries of Necrozma and the Ultra Beasts. The exact steps might change around and a handful of new locations appear and new events occur, but the journey largely feels similar until the ending.
Pokemon gameplay has remained relatively similar for the 21 year run of the series, and Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon is no different, maintaining all of the large systems from Pokemon Sun and Moon. Pokemon have one or two of 18 different types, from the obvious like Fire, Grass and Water, to the obtuse like Poison and Dark. Pokemon can learn up to four different moves, also matched to these types and go at each other in turn based battles. Trainers can keep up to six different Pokemon on them and level them up to increase their stats, learn new moves and evolve.
There are better resources for a more in depth rundown of how Pokemon’s battle systems work than the above functional explanation. The meta game is altered at a high level of play thanks to the addition of the new ultra beasts, new available moves and new Z-moves, but at the most basic level the gameplay is going to have a flow much like any other Pokemon game.
A couple of new mini games, Mantine Surf and Ultra Space Exploration, both open up new areas to explore. Mantine Surf is a fun mini game players can choose to participate in that moves them between the islands of Alola, where they can show off with tricks and earn BP exchanged for moves and items. Ultra Space Exploration is a post game minigame where you’ll ride either Solgaleo or Lunana through Ultra Space, using the motion controls to dodge hazards and warps you don’t want to take in order to find rare or legendary Pokemon, or even tackle the Ultra Beasts on their home turf.
Characters
Most of the major players of Sun and Moon have a similar, but not identical role in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, including Professor Kukui, Lillie, Guzma, Lusamine, Hau, Gladion, the four Kahunas, and others. In order to avoid repetition, and to avoid spoiling the differences they do show within the game, we’re going to focus on the two new groups of note.
The Ultra Recon Squad is a mysterious group of four individuals with an unknown origin. They speak in stilted, official, almost robotic tones and make it quite clear that they are not native to the Alola region. They appear to be working with the Aether foundation but not strictly as a part of it, and carry with them a never before seen Pokemon. There are four admins, Dulse, Zossie, Soliera and Phyco. Dulse and Zossie are primarily encountered during the story of Ultra Sun and Phyco and Soliera feature heavily within Ultra Moon.
Team Rainbow Rocket appears late in the game to cause trouble first in Festival Plaza and then on Aether Paradise. Giovanni of Team Rocket has brought together the team leaders of all other past Pokemon games, Team Aqua’s Archie, Team Magma’s Maxie, Team Galactic’s Cyrus, Team Plasma’s Ghetsis, and Team Flare’s Lysandre. Each of these team leaders was pulled from a world where they had managed to succeed in their evil ambitions, and brought together under Giovanni and Rainbow Rocket’s umbrella. What does Giovanni hope to achieve by bringing all these terrifying mobsters together?
Note: This wiki will be updated once we have more information about the game.