Pokemon Sun Hau'oli Outskirts: Whisper of the Machine

Now that the festival is over, we can go back to your regularly scheduled time of day.

Yes, she says this at night, too. It's not technically wrong...

Someone else at the door again, it sounds.

Probably not the best idea to let him stay in the habit of that. That's what leads to us ignoring the sounds of people entering the house without us present at the door.

With that said, however, it seems it's not Kukui: We make it to the door without being interrupted.

In fact, Lillie didn't even stay on the doorstep to await being let in.

Our unfortunate shrinking violet has a severe case of upset tummy on talking to us. Granted, this isn't unusual considering how she was before she knew us, but...

I am just imagining that line delivered in an ill-fitting voice. She's probably whispering it slightly, too.

Kukui still owes us an explanation of his Island Challenge. And he's got more to give us that he didn't have ready earlier.

Speaking of people not having their stuff organised, Mum has an excuse to leave the house and also give us something.

This is cash to the tune of 30,000 Poke, enough for us to have enough buying power over all of the game's major stuff. There will be plenty to spend this on, take Mum's suggestion to be conservative seriously until you get a feel for what you really need.

Side note, Mum and Beth manage to actually pull off the animations such that Mum is actually putting this in our hands.

Yes, this is the same comment regardless of gender. Lillie/Protagonist is a ship that actually has fuel to get off the ground, but unlike XY, where the love interest's romantic moment was clearly gender-separated, or B2W2, where they gave different love interests per gender, they didn't bother with much to change the tone of Lillie/Selene. There's a little bit of it, and why I wanted to be sure I had Noah and Ray rather than four girls, but Lillie/Selene is a ship with both equal viability and semi-equal popularity to Lillie/Elios.

Honestly, Lillie/Selene might be more popular.

...At some point, we should tell her Kukui's married, right?

Lillie gets flustered by Mum's easy nature and and bows as respectfully as she ever does.

Mum doesn't say anything, but she does nod and smile at her before turning back to us.

This is the last time it is mandatory to visit Mum, I believe. She's still be available for free heals and Poke Balls (in USUM), but otherwise, she'll be preparing an unpacked house for when we're done with our Island Challenge.

Or possibly trying to date Kukui. She may be considering both.

...

That is certainly a comment to make out of the blue.

And onward we go to Kukui's Lab.

We do not quite have the freedom to move around yet: We have to go see Kukui before we can go back to Route 1.

This Tauros is still here, although they have successfully corralled him a little further away. Although perhaps in the wrong direction. No no, away from the biggest city in the region...

Fortunately, Kukui's lab is over in this direction.

Reasonable. His research is all about Pokemon battling, why not be in the place where battling happens most often?

This has the slightly unfortunate side effect of making things incredibly inconvenient for Lillie. Since Lillie is not a Trainer (and even if she was, Nebby is of little help against wild encounters), she has to stockpile on Repels in order to get to and from the lab for any reason. Whether Kukui has noticed is its own question. I do feel somewhat more confident that he would care about it, although not quite enough to say he'd do something about it.

Repels are a use item we haven't found yet, and I don't think is thoroughly explained in older Pokemon games- this is the first time I remember games taking such pains to even mention them. After using a Repel, wild encounters of a level lower than your lead Pokemon will not appear for a set number of steps.

...Which makes it intriguing it works well for Lillie...

Lillie also takes the time to address the Donphan in the room. I was wondering how long that would take.

And even then, she doesn't mention all of it. Probably because there are parts we wouldn't believe even if told.

We heard her mention that in passing, but now we get a more explicit one. At some point in the past, Lillie was in danger, and Nebby came to her defence, same as it did for us.

This power is unusual, even among Pokemon, and presumably, whoever she was running from in the opening wasn't exactly on the up and up.

Note that we don't exactly know what those people want to use Cosmog for, but admittedly, it's possible Lillie doesn't either.

...I only feel mostly better informed than I was before. Check, but in the absence of confidence I could tell anyone anything.

(Simply telling people she possesses Nebby is dangerous enough to be getting on with.

In SM, she leaves here. USUM adds another bit to the cutscene to act as tutorial for something on the weirder side in Alola.

This is a recurring mechanic in the series since RBY- small ledges that you can jump down, but can't climb back up. They were obvious at a glance in the 2D games, and XY and ORAS's artstyle made them apparent in 3D. The Alola games, with their more elaborate environments, made ledges harder to identify as such.

...OK, I'll admit it, that's more than a little adorable.

This is what you get for the mechanic in SM. I still have a few issues picking out which ones are the ledges, and I think newer games after this one started to phase the mechanic out entirely. Granted, they don't exactly get along with the open world conceit that great...

...Um? I guess that's how high up he can see?

A Youngster going with the region's Bug type. More or less what one would expect.

Easy prey, of the literal kind, for Sam.

...I would probably recommend Pokemon other than Grubbin.

That is a lot of tall grass. Nothing new and Alolan in here, although there's two new classics and something new to USUM. What is on offer, then?

Wingull (Moon): Fishermen keep an eye out for Wingull in the sky, because wherever they're circling, the ocean is sure to be teeming with fish Pokémon.

Wingull, the pest of RSE fans and beachgoers alike. As Wingull, this Water/Flying type doesn't have much in the way of stats other than high Speed, but it does pack some annoying moves to try and inflict Confuse when you can't run away. Because of how common they are, it's easy to assume they're terrible. That is not the case: Wingull's evolved form makes an excellent tank with few weaknesses, while having key resistances to common attacking types. It got even better in Alola, because it got access to a new high-demand Ability. Noah'll be picking this guy up, but he isn't a new Pokemon, so we have to pass it up.

I still want one to catch to fill my Dex and box, though, but it's making it a bit of a challenge.

Nailed it. The chances aren't 100% anymore.

...Ooh, that's a new one! Some wild Pokemon have a chance of holding Held Items. A few of the ones we've seen have, but not much significant or worth grinding for. Wingull has a 50% chance of holding a Pretty Wing, an item that sells for 500 Poke. This isn't a big number, but it is a buff- it used to be 100. It'll be less likely I forget to sell it if it's in my bag rather than on the gull.

All Wingull had the Ability Keen Eye in older games. Alola's additional Ability can appear on the 50/50 roll, but only on the evolved form. If you want your Wingull to evolve to have the new Ability, you need a Wingull with the Hydration Ability (Hydration cures status conditions while in the rain).

Slowpoke (Sun): Its long tail often breaks off. It doesn't really feel any pain, though, and the tail grows back, so Slowpoke isn't particularly bothered.

Slowpoke is a bit of a hilarious Water/Psychic Pokemon. Lore-wise, the Pokemon is significant for being really, really dumb: It is debatable what, if anything, it notices. There's some 3D games that portray it not realising it's fainted until it keels over. Mechanically, this translates to a low Speed stat, but a very high set of defensive stats, particularly on the physical side (although it's no slouch specially). Slowpoke may be difficult to fight with, but the enemy will have a hard time wearing it down.

Its two Abilities are Oblivious (blocks infatuate and taunt), and Own Tempo (blocks confuse). Both of them are pretty good things to have, particularly Oblivious (it doesn't like being inflicted with Taunt), but neither of them are that common to find as threats.

Slowpoke comes with a very annoying move right now. In exchange for lowering its already low Speed, it raises its Attack and Defence stats by one stage each. Many physically strong but slow Pokemon can use this move to great effect to be an absolute pain to fight- if the enemy already outspeeds, what's wrong with lowering your own Speed stat?

Growl lowering our Atk isn't helping.

Owwwww, that Slowpoke was very heavily buffed...

And to make matters worse, it didn't get in the ball.

That one had better luck. But still. Don't take Slowpoke lightly.

Slowpoke is one of the handful of Pokemon that aren't strictly evolutionary lines on this screen. Slowpoke has two different evolutions (these are called "branched" evolutions). It can evolve into Slowbro when it reaches level 37, while Slowking can be obtained by giving Slowpoke an item called a King's Rock and trading it. Slowking differs from Slowbro by switching its defensive stats, and giving it more offensively-focused moves. Arguably, the more common Slowbro does it better- which is a shame, because evolutions by trade are so hard to acquire in single-player runs. By definition, you don't have a friend to trade with.

In both SM and USUM, Wingull has a 50% encounter slot, and Slowpoke a 20%. The 30% slot is filled by Gumshoos in the day and Rattata at night in SM, which means that this is your first chance to acquire Rattata- depending on when you get to this point in the day.

Rattata (Ultra Sun): It shows no interest in anything that isn't fresh. If you take it shopping with you, it will help you pick out ingredients.

Sun's entry portrays it as less picky, but that's one way to turn an infestation into something you can work with- pretty much how Pokemon are treated in the narrative, to boot! Rattata, much like Yungoos, is good early, with poor stats that let it down later on. Rattata even gets the three moves it really cares about by level 25! Unfortunately, the Normal/Dark typing it acquires to set it apart from its familiar pure Normal form does more harm than good, in the end. The types don't synergise offensively, and it gets more weaknesses than helpful resistances defensively.

This is not helped by its Abilities, Gluttony (eats berries faster) and Hustle (raises its Attack by 50% but lowers its accuracy by 20%). Gluttony is merely "acceptable", but Hustle will make things exciting. Arguably in the wrong way.

Inkay (Ultra Moon): When exchanging information with others of its kind, it flashes the light-emitting spots on its body in a complex rhythm.

In USUM, they replaced the Gumshoos/Rattata slot with Inkay. Inkay is a Dark/Psychic type with a curious gimmick, particularly based on one of its Abilities. As a Pokemon itself, it's an all-arounder with high physical Attack, learning largely a selection of moves designed to be annoying rather than strong until it evolves. However, those are some nice moves, especially in this game. Its signature move, learned at level 15, is Topsy-Turvy, which reverses the stat stages of your opponent. It learns a "gimmicky" offensive move at level 9 that's way too good to be given to us this early. It has early access to Reflect. Inkay may not have "win the fight" fully down pat, but the next guy you send out will definitely thank him for what he did.

Don't bother with Suction Cups (prevents Pokemon from being forcibly switched), it's terrible. You want Contrary. Contrary defines Inkay. Contrary makes it so anything that raises your stats instead lowers them- and anything that lowers your stats instead raises them. Yeah, Inkay won't benefit from any buffing moves, but instead it buffs itself by using the enemy's attempts to weaken it, and also by using moves that lower your stats "as a penalty for their high power".

And hey, by "early Reflect", I mean "now"! Reflect is a move that halves the damage dealt by physical moves for five turns, no matter whether or not the Pokemon that set it is the one currently on the field. Reflect and its special counterpart Light Screen are the quintessential team support moves- you want these up while you're setting up in competitive, and they in general blunt the enemy pretty effectively if you know which one will work best. "Half damage" is equal to 2 stat stages, ignoring existing buffs.

Because it is not a buff, Inkay takes less damage while a screen is up, not more.

Here's Ailey's Inkay. Contrary, of course, and we want it fast so we can apply all those moves we get. We'll see how it turns out in practice.

While Ailey was taking the chance to heal up, she also got one of the 5% balls. Unfortunately, not the good one.

The Awakening, good for getting rid of Sleep. Same as any other, really.

You can actually go around most of the grass with this outside lip. You can't, however, jump down to the beach without going in front of the Lass. But you can pass her down the other side, through the grass.

Or you can fight her. Just a Wingull.

A Water Gun might've scared her, but Zapple isn't a physical attacker.

And Wingull is x4 weak to Electric.

It didn't stand a chance.

I'd say Pichu is one of them, but I don't really like the lower stages as much as I like its ending.

While Kevin and Madison are identical textually (their Grubbin and Wingull replaced with Inkay and Yungoos), USUM adds a third Trainer from wholecloth: A Swimmer, the first of her kind.

Calm, mostly because that's the one I can swim in. Not sure about you, though.

Swimmers are a Trainer Class that typically infests water routes, and can only be encountered when you take to the seas yourself. From game to game, and time to time, some of them do crawl up on land, but even many of these rest on islands you can only reach by crossing water anyway. They carry mostly Water-type Pokemon, and have typically been relatively poor across the series (presumably because they don't have pockets). SM gives them the largest prize payout to date, at 24 Poke a level.

Swimmers are not only unisex (fun fact, they're male-only in RBY), but they're one of the few classes that gets multiple designs for the same gender- there's a second female Swimmer design they use interchangeably in Alola. I can't say this is the only case in the series, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was.

There's the Wingull Madison had.

Also, introduced in this game, different Trainer Classes keep their Pokemon in different Poke Balls. Swimmers catch their Pokemon in Dive Balls.

That expression really does not suit some of their defeat quotes.

I like this philosophy from a swimmer. Although I'm sure this ends poorly if you try swimming in the rough seas.

No, you are not missing the shot of an item ball here. This Pearl is an example of a hidden item, an item that cannot be found with the naked eye. Every game includes some means of detecting them, but if you know they're there, you can still get them just fine.

Getting close to Kukui's house triggers a cutscene where we see the screen shake and hear cartoon violence sounds.

No idea what that Rockruff is doing to him, although whether it's OK for him is another question. The odds are not great.

It is not the first time, nor do I think it will be the last.

It is the only one made of wood.

It is also the only one where I think that'll be a problem.

Lillie also mentions that her assistant job isn't really a job, moreso "Lillie is freeloading on Kukui and this is how she handles the guilt she feels about that". Presumably, a man like Kukui has enough loose ends that Lillie is actually doing meaningful work, even if that work is "keep his Duckletts in a row."

While most people are Pokemon Trainers, there's value in the kinds of people who focus on the details. Kukui needs someone less prone to getting into fights.

Case in point.

What you really need is the backbone to tell him to stop doing that.

A Rockruff did that. This is a man who is going to kill either himself or someone else if not stopped.

I can only assume Kukui buys in bulk.

Also, that explains the shirtlessness.

Just in general.

Kukui's "lab" looks more like a house than a lab, but everything important's down in the basement. Except that fish tank- and I don't like that Kukui has a giant water feature in a house he regularly battles in to the point of breaking the roof. At least Pokemon seems to have fewer fish that can't survive in air.

Those other Pokemon he has are Snubbull, Stufful, Corsola and Luvdisc. We'll be getting them varying degrees of "significantly later" (Rockruff is the first of the five Pokemon here in the lab we can get), with Snubbull being so much later that I forgot it was even in the Alola Dex.

Kukui is distracted from risking life, limb, and home for us, and also rather nicely, for Lillie. Little hard to say that's great considering the first clause, but it does mean he cares about us.

...Hey, does she get paid? She gets room and board, but also I'm sure this relationship gets on shaky ground if that's her only payment.

...Hey, you reckon he's got any Egg Moves he's researching? One of them is Thrash, which I'm sure would be causing issues around here.

Kukui gave us the Pokedex earlier, but it turns out it's a few bits short of its full potential, and now Kukui is ready to give us the full thing.

...Er, after he gets distracted talking about the feng shui. By which I mean, it's good feng shui, but also...

Please stick to one topic at a time.

I'm sorry, Kukui, but she's just as confused as I am. You need to actually say things, or nothing will happen.

Ah. Yeah, uh... this guy. In order to fully explain what the deal is, I not only have to go into a Pokemon we're not going to see at all in gameplay for SM, but also two entire other franchises of only some relation to Pokemon. Buckle up.

Rotom was introduced in DPPt. You could only encounter one of them, infesting a TV at night, and it plays the legendary encounter theme, which may lead to the conclusion that it's a legendary Pokemon. No, it's just like any other... until Platinum released an exclusive item called the Secret Key, which allows Rotom to infest other machines and change forms.

The general design of Rotom, and its theme of "infesting machines" harkens back to an IP Game Freak developed before making Pokemon, "Pulseman", released for the Sega Mega Drive. While it is not the only callback to Pulseman you can stumble across, it is the most clearly distinct.

Around this point in Japan, another attempt at a monster-catching competitor to Pokemon was starting to pick up steam: Yo-Kai Watch was actually, you know, selling. Game Freak, in its own midst of having a bit of a midlife crisis about how mobile gaming was eating its niche of "cater to kids in the handheld demographic" (be honest, how many parents are buying 3DSes and Pokemon instead of just giving their kids an iPad now?), decided they were going to implement a few of Yo-Kai Watch's little tricks into this series.

The Rotom Pokedex is a comedic talking companion to the protagonist, filling the role Whisper fills in Yo-Kai Watch. Unlike Whisper, the Rotom Pokedex is never a proper character in his own right, and also Pokemon kinda doesn't really want a Pokemon filling the role of Whisper. As a result, Rotom Pokedex... kinda flopped worse than Hau. At least Hau was trying to do something meaningful in the story. And I haven't even got into why no one liked him as a mechanical feature!

Either Rotom or some miscellaneous gadget was missing, but now we're getting Rotom in our Dex.

...Maybe Rotom was always in our Dex, and what was missing was the voice chip?

And that's the story of how we are now the proud owners of a few-of-a-kind bit of tech that arguably does more than the consumer really wanted.

Later Pokemon games still incorporate Rotoms into their hardware, but they also don't talk- presumably, having something smarter than an AI inside did actually lead to hardware benefits, but also people don't typically like being yelled at while they're surfing their phones.

They even changed Rotom between SM and USUM. A lot. He's mostly going to be on the bottom screen, being annoying about the plot because marketers say that's what the kids like to have at hand. I want a second opinion

I'll be doing my best to ignore him, thanks.

...Uh, were we listening to the same Rotom? If he likes me, he sure doesn't sound like it. Definitely still at a distance.

Lillie doesn't quite understand the benefit of having a talking Pokedex. To be fair, neither do I.

That explains that bit. But still, I think Lillie is more than capable of serving as a talking guide. Or Hau. Or other people whose job it is to do that.

When Rotom isn't speaking, the bottom screen will have a map of the area. The map is decent, but not the greatest, especially when "Rotom is speaking" means after every plot beat that sends you to a new area- Rotom has a comment about it that he'll tell you immediately and cover it up.

I never did check the Town Map much (deliberately), but I believe it's mostly the same as the Pokedex's map. Not too helpful, considering how much more elaborate Alola is than other regions.

And Hau came over because, like us, he needs to be properly inducted into the Island Challenge. Not sure what brings him here in USUM, then.

The main reason Hau seems to show up is to look around Kukui's house and be quite fond of it.

Considering how close Kukui and Hala are, it's weird Hau never got brought around for a visit by now.

Hau also comments on the presence of the loft in the corner.

At which point Lillie bursts in to mention that it's where she lives in the house. I'm not entirely sure why it got specific attention, though. Probably to show Lillie's fierce reaction to Hau almost wandering in on his own.

And Kukui takes the time to mention that he's rooming Lillie up there because that's the right thing to do, and no other reasons.

...Does it interfere with his "fight Rockruff" training if Lillie's upstairs doing actual indoor activities?

"And if at any point you want to leave the Pokedex and use your electric powers, that would also be nice."

...Did Hau not get a Rotom Pokedex? I think ours might legit be the only one of its kind around the story. Kukui implies a few more exist, but clearly not in anyone else's hands.

In SM, this is when Kukui starts explaining what the Island Challenge is about. In USUM, of course, this was moved back to when the festival was going on.

The island challenge is all about becoming a stronger Pokemon Trainer by travelling through the region and absorbing various parts as you go. Team-building, new Pokemon, new strategies, that sort of thing.

The way the island challenge works in Alola differs from that of past Pokemon games. In previous games, you completed eight Gyms to earn Badges and qualify to attempt the Pokemon League, where you battled against an Elite Four and Champion to earn your title. In Alola, each island has one to three trials, and completing them all qualifies you to battle the island kahuna, at which point you progress to the next island. Once all four kahunas are defeated, there's another bit, but we'll get to that.

...USUM actually has eight Trials, not seven, but the equivalent speech in USUM is so much more plot-focused than detail-focused that it neglects to mention the topic of Island Trials at all.

It's usually for Alolan children, but Kukui thinks we ought to try it.

If we're that good at Pokemon to start with, then we'll probably be actually good at it going forward.

This raises the uncomfortable possibility that normal people have to do training before getting to the point of giving commands for Pokemon to use moves. Which explains why many Trainers lag so far behind the player's skill.

If you express doubt, Hau urges you to go ahead. It should be noted you can't express doubt in USUM- not that it's paid any mind here.

I mean, Hau's doing it because it's a tradition he was raised to be a part of. I'm doing it because it's there. Bit of a difference to reconcile, and it's not like I should do this.

Our only real justification is "doing it would make Kukui happy". For me, I think the intrinsic value is worth it, but also you're not really selling the extrinsics here, man.

"And also not just slapping the same set of moves on them all!" No promises on that one.

We also get our one of these. This is mostly an in-universe thing we can show to people and say "I am doing an Island Challenge, please treat me like such".

The four colours used in this and other Island Challenge related decorations are the four colours of the Alolan islands- Melemele is yellow, Akala is pink, Ula'ula is red, and Poni is purple.

...You didn't even get your one of these from Kukui? What are you doing here, man? (Since Hala gives us the amulet in USUM, Hau also gets his in that same scene.)

The island challenge Kukui spoke of... It is a journey to overcome your own limitations, as you travel to the far corners of Alola and meet with others along the path. It is the great adventure that children in the Alola region embark upon, along with their Pokémon, once they reach 11 years of age!

Hala's version of the explanation. Suits the dramatic feel of the festival, but skips over the mention of the Trial and Kahuna system. Admittedly, Lillie's explanation didn't go into it in the detail I did either.

Both versions converge here, to usher us to our next destination: Somewhere where they can try to teach us some of the details. Yes, there's stuff there I haven't gone into yet.

They're mostly focused on the obvious stuff, though, not the weeds of what exactly Pokemon is doing to arrive at the numbers it does.

Typically, the Trainer's School was a building in one of the first towns you could visit for set dressing. In DP and BW, they stuck a meeting with the rival there, while B2W2 made it the first gym. Aside from that, though, it was just for basic tutorials.

Now it's a proper area.

...Uh... huh...

That, um... that characterises Hau pretty well...

I'd say make a note of that one.

Lillie, meanwhile, is doing an excellent job of being an author surrogate character despite that being our job. Despite having lived here three months, she hasn't really considered the island challenge in much detail.

I... don't think Rotom ever helps with that.

Hau and Kukui wander off. Even though Hau wanders off down and to the left slightly, he's left the house entirely.

Incidentally, this is an example of what the map looks like. I'm outside in this shot, but inside, you're often just shown as an icon over the thing you are inside, with no indication of orientation or even a map of your surroundings. It's only good if you're lost in the big areas.

Pressing A on the ladder allows us to climb up to Lillie's loft. Which has objects to click on.

...She won't be too mad if I click on them, right?

Poor girl doesn't even sleep on a real bed.

Rockruff, the quadruped, has somehow climbed up here and spent time in Nebby's bed. Or perhaps they tried Cosmog sleeping on the lower floor and had to deal with that as an issue.

...Or this is just a hand-me-down bed of Rockruffs for Nebby.

There's a Murkrow up here, for... messenger bird reasons? It doesn't seem to want to tell us.

That's a girl who takes her diary seriously. I would not be surprised if I was allowed to read it if it wasn't locked.

Funny story, actually.

(It's explained later.)

Aww.

...Wait, did she bring that with her from wherever she came from?

It's good to see Lillie's actually learning fields beyond what we're expected to do. It's not like we're miles ahead of her and she's not miles ahead of us in something else.

Admirable, of course. You may want to think carefully about how you treat them still, though- just because they're family doesn't mean you can forgive everything unquestioningly.

Downstairs, of course, we can see Kukui's high-tech equipment. Probably for the best it's downstairs, less likely to be collapsed in on.

I thought this was a more involved mechanic under the hood, but in the battles we can do, only three moves are dependent on your terrain to change effects: Secret Power, Nature Power and Camouflage. I'm sure in reality, a lot of Fire and Water moves would be impacted.

...Can we actually see those pictures? There's some images of something on the board I can't make out, but those also kinda look like graphs and not Pokemon. Either way, clearly he doesn't just research Rockruffs.

This is a bit of a recurring trend among Pokemon games that Alola proved a bit of a tipping point on. Remember how I said Rotom could change forms if exposed to appliances? Yeah, because you can import an old Rotom from previous games into Sun and Moon, even if you can't catch one natively, the game has to find some corner of the map where it can put appliances so you can change Rotom's forms. Here, it's nice and natural, but Pokemon has kinda been picking these like flowers...

The back bookshelves include books of Kukui's notes to read about moves in general. Some basic, but nice, notes to look at.

• "Over 600"? We're close to 700 in Generation 7!
• The four move limit is an important part of team-building: Many Pokemon that would be terrifying if they had access to all their moves are limited because they can only choose four of them. Choosing the right four for your situation is an essential skill.
• Pokemon can learn moves by level up, by being taught, and by breeding, largely. There are a few different kinds of teaching we'll encounter, though.
  

This notebook instead distinguishes the three categories of moves.

Physical, Special and Status, of course. Do they use Atk/Def, Sp. Atk/Sp. Def or do they not do direct damage?

Nothing special on the sign, sadly.

Not only is this girl teaching us the type triangle some more, but she's also going over one of the basic fundamentals of team-building: If you have a good Pokemon, fill some team slots with Pokemon that can counter its weaknesses.

She won't actually fight us, by the way, she's busy with her hunt for Wingull and Slowpoke.

Down here is a cave area, but it's currently blocked off until we get a later upgrade.

Oh come on, Wingull outsped Pichu? Fleeing is legit 100% likely if you're the faster Pokemon. (Wingull has a 25 base speed advantage.)

The Tauros has moved, allowing us into the city, but there's one more thing I want to quickly go and show before we enter...

Route 1 is also open again! We can finally go and obtain the last Pokemon available in the first patches of grass.

Spinarak (Moon): Some fishermen weave its sturdy thread into nets to catch fish Pokémon.

Taking Ledyba's slot in the encounter tables at night time is Spinarak, a Bug/Poison type that also adopts some of Ledyba's weaknesses. By which I mean "it's about as good as Ledyba". Ledyba seems designed for team support by setting up screens, while Spinarak is designed for team support by setting up unpleasant things for the enemy, like Spider Web and its new signature move Toxic Thread. Unfortunately, it's atrocious Speed and its middling-to-bad bulk means it's probably not going to even get the chance to fire it off, and its "high" Attack stat isn't high enough to scare things- especially since Bug and Poison are difficult types to use offensively even for the best of each.

Anyway, with Spinarak in Noah and Ailey's hands, let's go learn about Pokemon Centres. There's been some changes.

Talking to Nurse Joy is a free full heal. All Pokemon Centres (with, funnily, one exception in this game) are free, and the fact that Pokemon has health care down pat establishes this world as one where we're not going to see people struggle to achieve their basic necessities. Because sometimes you just don't want to deal with that.

...Honestly, Lillie's doing a lot of legwork borrowing from N's playbook, despite the fact that Sun and Moon won't be interrogating that part of the lore like BW did. Lillie is supposed to be playing with a character archetype that N began, but this part just doesn't feel right when presented in the way it is. You honestly have to do your own thinking to realise where it comes from and what it means.

Also free for all Pokemon Trainers is a computer with which we can access the Pokemon Storage System. I assume this functions like library computers, and our Pokemon are stored "in the cloud" when they're not in our party. There were other things PCs could do in older games, but Pokemon has decided "nah, those were just clutter" and slimmed it down to just the Storage System in this game.

Way back in BW, they decided to put the Poke Mart inside Pokemon Centres, and it's so much more convenient. Poke Marts will sell you all the basics, and some Marts have specialty items. Such stores have a second, separate clerk: This store only has the one clerk, so it'll only sell the basics.

And new to Alola is a third facility, the cafe. The cafe owner will let you take a relaxing drink, give you a random piece of advice (which can get rather profound from time to time), but mainly he gives you the specialty Full Heals from all the different regions and more Poke Beans to feed Pokemon in Refresh. This is a daily (ie real time day) sort of thing, so it won't be a huge focus.

There are six possible drinks you can pick up: Lemonade, Tapu Cocoa, Moomoo Milk, Pinap Juice, Roserade Tea, and Komala Coffee. Each cafe sells three, and that is static from cafe to cafe. There is no difference between the drinks.

If you want it, it's there, but it's easy to ignore.

All cities have a Pokemon Centre, so we're never too far from a bit of R&R. Except in caves, of course, but the option is always there. Do you want to spend the time on going and healing or can you press on with what you have? It depends on what you have.

I'm leaving the Trainer's School for separately. I feel a little like these should be combined, but they are starting to get kinda chunky...

One thing you notice if you've played a lot of Pokemon over the years is that they've slowly but surely trimmed textboxes off Nurse Joy's spiel. It's very annoying to heal in DPPt, where she goes over "we restore your tired Pokemon to full health" every time.

The visual effect has your Poke Balls enter a machine, they get bathed in light with an iconic chime. You'll also hear this if you get healed in a cutscene- it's mostly an indicator that yes, you have been healed.

And I hope to be seen again.

We've done enough catching to get to that point, but that's not the norm. What's going on in our PC boxes?

Something like this, operated by the touch screen- despite the first game with touch controls being DPPt, I don't believe it was until HGSS that they let you use touch to move things around, and even then it was a bit clunky until XY. You start with 8 boxes, each of which can hold 30 Pokemon. If you put one Pokemon in every box you have, log out, and then log back in, you can get eight more boxes, up to a maximum of 32- the main reason you don't start with them is just to make things easier when you don't really have the need to have that many Boxes. Obviously, if both your Party and your Boxes are full, you are not able to catch Pokemon, but I think you have other problems if you're running into that limit.

The top screen will display this information about the Pokemon your cursor is currently highlighting.

To quickly go over the buttons at the top of the screen, the ones on the left change our organisation mode from:

• "Sort Pokemon" (left, moves around Pokemon)
• "Sort Items" (middle, allows us to move held items automatically without fiddling with each Pokemon one at a time)
• "Battle Boxes" (which allows us to set ready-made teams for the purposes of battling other people, we're not using this). 

"Sort Pokemon" is the main one we care about, although "Sort Items" is important for some later good items.

The top-right corner has three different settings, which can be mixed and matched. The defaults are normally good enough.

• Red cursor: Allows you to select a Pokemon and do some actions like checking its Summary by clicking on it.
• Blue cursor: Skips the selecting process, best used for moving multiple Pokemon around at a time.
• Green cursor: Allows you to select multiple Pokemon in a rectangular grid and move them all at once, if you happen to need that sort of thing. Sadly, it's not like modern PCs that let you hold Ctrl. and click on all the files you want to move individually.
  

You can also modify the Wallpaper between 16 presets and give each box a 12 character name. It's not important, but if it helps, it helps.

"Search" allows you to look for any Pokemon along these attributes ("TMs" being "can they learn this specific move", not "do they know this move", which is a bit confusing, but whatever). I find I don't really need to use them, but if it helps, it helps.

Pokemon are just too important to the world to not pay for these things.

Yeah, you can also sell things you don't need- mostly stuff designed only for selling, but who knows what all that clutter is worth?

The prices are static, but the wares expand as we complete more of the Island Challenge. For now, we can buy Poke Balls, Potions, the full complement of status cures, Escape Ropes (instantly leave a cave on use) and basic Repels (work for 100 steps). Remember that money is not renewable in Pokemon right now: You have a big budget, but you've still got a budget.

For now, I just want more balls for catching the early route stuff. The status cures aren't relevant yet and most of the other stuff gets outclassed by the time we really want to have a bunch of it.

Buying 10 Poke Balls gets you a bonus Premier Ball, a special Poke Ball that has no other real purpose but to be cool- it has the same catch rate as a Poke Ball. Starting in ORAS, you got Premier Balls for buying 10 of any kind of Poke Ball, but it's not until Let's Go that you get to "buy Premier Balls in bulk", as it were- one Premier Ball per purchase.

That's all well and good for him...

Honestly, it's not that often I find trades that benefit both parties.

He says the time, but it's only the hour, not accounting for the minute.

Here's what we can get at this Centre.

The price is always set at 198 Poke- enough that I round it down to 0, but do remember it's there.

The cup got changed in USUM to depict what it is you're drinking, but in some cases, it was a mistake.

Moomoo Milk was one such example.

Although I would rather that's not how you described Moomoo Milk. USUM toned that one down, and thank goodness.

We will have to talk about that nightmare hellscape, but I'm gonna do my best to ignore it until absolutely necessary.

The free tea biscuit is determined by day of the week, and is as follows:

• Sunday: Sweet Heart, introduced in Gen V and seem mostly to be a novelty thing. They heal 20 HP and even beyond that seem to be hard to get in the numbers you really want them in. Perhaps they were a bigger deal with BW's online services.
• Monday: Lumiose Galette, a cookie sold in the sprawling Lumiose streets of XY. Full Heal (heals any and all status conditions).
• Tuesday: Rage Candy Bar, a candy bar that was sold to you by a pushy guy in the Lake of Rage in GSC. HGSS made it a trade item for an Explosion TM, but otherwise it's good for 20 HP until Alola, where it became a Full Heal.
• Wednesday: Casteliacone, an ice cream designed to look like the Pokemon Vanillite, sold in the dense streets of Castelia City in BW. Full Heal.
• Thursday: Old Gateau, a lump of some kind of candy that you find lying around a haunted house in DPPt and for some reason consider food. Full Heal.
• Friday: Shalour Sable, a special Full Heal item that, despite being themed around an XY town, was first introduced as an ORAS item in another one of these "just dump all the local confections" features. Full Heal.
• Saturday: Lava Cookie, the first of these items proper, sold on Mt. Chimney after the Meteorite situation is resolved in RSE. Full Heal.

There are some clear examples of inventory clunk, but I'm not even sure why they bother to keep these around. Would anyone miss them if they were dropped and they stuck to just having the local confection of the region you're in?

You get 12 Poke Beans, the colour of which is also based on the day of the week. The colour doesn't matter as much, but then again, it's not like the confections did.

I have another use in mind for these ones...

Now that we have visted our first Pokemon Centre, new options have been added to our bottom screen- and annoyingly, they do move around the ones we had already despite being far less useful.

• Quick Link: Allows you to connect with local players of Sun and Moon. I've never had cause to use this, so I can't say how much better it is, but...
• Festival Plaza: This is where all the Trading and Battling happens. It's also absolutely not designed to have these features, but it does anyway, because I don't know.
• Battle Video: You can save replays of battles you do with other people, and this is where you can rewatch them.
• QR Scanner: Each Pokemon in the Alola Dex is assigned its own QR Code, and scanning them allows you to register them as Seen ahead of time. Scan ten of them, and you can perform an Island Scan, which allows you to catch a Pokemon not found anywhere else in Alola, with a free Egg Move to boot. There are 28 Island Scan Pokemon in all, one per day of the week, and one per island, and most of these are different between SM and USUM. Actually going through Island Scan in-game might be a bit much, and I have no plans to use any Island Scan Pokemon this playthrough, but this is a feature I do love to have in my back pocket.

These five QR Codes are special. When these games were new, they ran Global Missions for the entire Pokemon community to participate in, and one of them was "do a lot of Island Scans". To facilitate this, they released these five QR Codes, which just give Seen entries in the Pokedex for five consistent Pokemon (Bagon, Dhelmise, Lapras, Mimikyu and Stufful, incidentally), but are worth double points for Island Scan. Scanning these five QR Codes lets you do an Island Scan, rather than ten. Since you have a limit of one scan every two hours, holding ten scans at a time, that is a huge benefit- it lets you do two Island Scans a day. (Well, two Island Scans in 20 hours, which for most people rounds to a day). If you want to get some Island Scan Pokemon for your team or just in general, I'd recommend using these.

Next time: The Trainer's School is now in session.