So, while some parts of the Ultra games can be shown in tandem with the main file, other parts must be demonstrated separately. And thus, we're going to spend at least some of the time looking at things from a pair of eyes other than Bethany's. We'll also be able to see some of Moon's changes, although I will be making it clear when we're discussing the differences between versions and the differences between vanilla and Ultra. Under the hood, of course, everything is more or less as it is in Sun and Moon.
Although we do have a different look for the language selection and our protagonist's desktop.
Moon has special rules compared to Sun, and all other Pokemon games: the clock has been time-shifted 12 hours. While most Pokemon games had a larger daylight period than nighttime period, the Alola games day to turn to night and vice versa at 6 AM and 6 PM. While Sun and common sense have the daylight hours after 6 AM and before 6 PM, Moon features night time during this period instead. This means that, if you play Moon during the day, you can experience night time (and also night owls can play during the daytime, too). There's a few instances where this time-shift is acknowledged, but mostly in the form of recognising the correct time of day- Kukui commented on it being "afternoon" in Sun here.
(For the player's convenience, days still pass at midnight on the real-time clock, not the in-game one, for the purpose of daily events.)
While Kukui still only sends out one Pokemon for his demonstration, a Cutiefly appears as well while the Rockruff is playing around. Kukui adds it to his acknowledgement when he tells them to leave.
Cutiefly is also added to this scene, which changes the move he refers to our protagonist with from the classic Thunderbolt to the new-to-Alola move Trop Kick. I don't think I'd like to know how either of those feel in practice.
Our protagonist in Ultra Moon will still be the girl, because I have a preference for the girl, but in order to help make her distinct from the main file at a glance, I have gone with the dark skin tone. Her name will be Ailey, as with the Ultra-specific marketing for Alola. Now then, for the plot changes.
Starting immediately with the opening sequence, the whole thing is kinda... shot faster. We see Lillie's pursuers (well, their legs) immediately-
As well as a general... fasterness to ascending the elevator. Similarly, there is no lull in the chase once she gets off- it's right to running immediately.
As such, they show Nebby during a running bit, rather than while she's stationary.
The ambushing characters in the Ultra games are changed to these characters. These are original characters to the Ultra games, and differ depending on whether you are playing Ultra Sun or Ultra Moon. They are the central focus of the new plot arc of the Ultra games, and as such they are... certainly characters.
Honestly, I feel like it's kind of weird in general to include them in the opening sequence, considering their story role otherwise.
Nebby demonstrates a bit more awareness of the situation in using its power, and in general it kinda happens a bit quicker, too.
There's a lot more reaction shots from the new guys as the actual escape goes down.
And title card. The Ultra games go for the unique backdrop, while the originals keep the background of the place Lillie escaped from.
Same opening view of the area, just with a night look because Moon. The exact same as the original.
Since Moon starts at night, Mum praises the moon instead. She's still ready to start the day, though.
Welcome to Ailey's room. It's mostly the same as Bethany's, but she has a different doll, a different souvenir, and has actually taken her hat and bag out of the boxes.
Ironically, no coats.
Ooh, this is nice. Rather having a dedicated option, the Ultra games let you save by pressing Y while paused, as opposed to series tradition of giving it its own dedicated slot. Since there's two pages of slots now, nice to have the quick key.
Few objects round here that may or may not have been in the original, but we have a globe that gets the protagonist to think about her home, and how far away it is.
Our Pikachu doll has been replaced with an autograph from a Kantonian Gym Leader, although the Let's Go games suggest it's probably Lt. Surge's. An especially likely theory if that "Good luck!" was supposed to be in English in the original Japanese- the lightning lieutenant was big on that sort of thing.
Ailey has a Nintendo Switch, although she doesn't identify it by name. Its name was definitely public knowledge by now, pardon?
Oh, I could go for one of those... as long as it doesn't eat me.
Considering how much I weigh, probably pretty likely...
...In general, the way you're trying to sell me as being awake enough to be up and about at night feels really weird.
They sorta tweaked the whole timezone joke thing from Kanto into this line for the Ultra games, which is... better than what they did with SM, but still misses the fact that Hawai'i is only five hours off Japan, not twelve. The timezone directly opposite Japan is, I believe, GMT -3, which is observed largely in South American countries like Chile and the Falklands.
Weirdly, the responses you can give to Mum are actually different depending on whether you're a boy or a girl. We're excited to see some Alolans, yeah, but there's more than just those out in the wild here...
Kukui does not appear in your house for the opening- your mum immediately kicks you out to go poke the wildlife and see how it responds.
This is what we Australians call a terrible idea.
Immediately going and grabbing our stuff. Ailey's design is a lot more beloved than Selene's, especially since she's not stuck with the chicken hat. Not sure it's agreeing with the black skin tone, though.
Mum still laughs at Meowth as we leave, in a shot framed as if Kukui was still in it... even though he's not. The Ultra games have a lot of these moments, look out for those.
Fortunately, there's a way to get to Iki Town without passing through any tall grass whatsoever. That's our hands clean!
Maybe someone up there lends out Pokemon to random kids? I'm getting a lot more of an "I dunno, we just want to get the plot started" vibe from this whole setup.
On the topic of objects scattered around the house that we can click on, we've got a Wailmer Pail and Meowth's favourite Berries, some nice familiar objects from Hoenn and "the series", respectively. From a design perspective, I think these Berries are Chople and Jaboca, respectively. The latter is only normally available by external event in these games!
Also a mix of old and new furniture, depending on what it made sense to pack and bring to Alola and what it made sense to buy here.
Time to go exploring Alola in the dark! It's at least well-lit by the moon, although it might be a little intimidating...
No Kukui means we're actually allowed to try exploring to the east side!
Never mind. The Rockruff kid from the vanilla games is off using his Rockruff, and he advises us not to go poking in that direction. Looks like it's west again.
Going onto Route 1 like this early also allows us to see the name of the area we live: "Route 1 Hau'oli Outskirts". It is slightly different from Route 1, but only mechanically, rather than technically.
There is no explanation provided for why we can't go to Hau'oli City. The black and yellow bars are declared explanation enough.
That's... a lot cuter of an "explain how to run" bit, I suppose...
There we are, the initial runup to Route 1 in Moon. The starry background really pops.
The "Technology is amazing" guy has also changed his tune, now more accurately describing the trade mechanics as they function. The horrible, horrible trading functions. But that's something to discuss later.
...Now where the hell did you spring from? No, seriously, scroll back to the opening image shot and look at the route we're taking between our house and Iki Town. No tall grass there! It'll be mighty difficult to get to where we're going without-
That.
Fortunately, it's just a Yungoos. As threats go, this is... not one of them. Well, OK, if it bites us, it'll hurt a lot, but it's not that fast. It's more ferocious than it is threatening, especially since humans win the endurance contest.
Still, it is non-zero enough that we may want a better plan than "hope we run away faster."
That one will do. You guys are early.
Yungoos may be a fellow hunter-by-exhaustion, but it is is cognizant of the fact that losing a contest of exhaustion is a bad time for it. Anything that's too much effort, he's better off cutting his losses and abandoning.
On a related note, since it's actually kinda relevant to their lore, Yungoos are diurnal. I'm somewhat surprised Ultra Moon doesn't replace this encounter with the nocturnal Rattata.
The starters cheer for their success, and then turn to preen in our direction.
At which point Kukui comes by to give an explanation for what's going on Ailey can understand. We parse some of it because of SM's context, but a brand new player, probably not so much.
Kukui vaguely recognises us from the intro, and checks after us.
Lucky we had a triple-threat to protect us!
This sudden helpfulness comes as a surprise to Kukui, but it's a welcome one and probably something he'd have ordered had he, you know, had the time.
If you say you're scared, Kukui admits so was he.
"Don't mind the mongooses, those aren't ours. Other than that, we're a nice place to live!"
This is actually a classic bit of the opening spiel that XY started to phase oue, because it was kind of ridiculous: When the Professors introduced themselves, they said "people call me the Pokemon Professor". While Kukui doesn't do this in the spiel, he does it here, and a grand total of zero people ever call him (or any other Professor) "the Pokemon Professor" in dialogue. There's a reason they phased it out.
...Mate, you already did the spiel. Remember? That was the opening sequence of the game. Do we really need to go over it again?
The duality of "you'll be fine as long as you have Pokemon" and "Wild Pokemon are freaking terrifying" is always amusing. They never fully interrogate the fact these are two very different views of the Pokemon world coexisting, which is probably why it passes muster.
Now then, going over the three starter options, most of my comments on them remain unchanged because I didn't discuss their in-game viability directly. I did not do this for a reason, and I do think I'll largely continue to abstain, but as general overviews:
- Rowlet has more or less the same tools, but he doesn't like some of the changes USUM made to the enemies.
- Litten really likes the new tools USUM gives him.
- Popplio loses something rather important to her, but she can live without it and got something of a different sort of value in exchange.
Because I'm big on Popplio, I can't say much about how each one plays out other than in theory.
But we do get to choose one, so which one shall it be?
The protagonist is a veritable magnet for these new Alolan Pokemon, isn't she...
Now then, which one am I packing this time...
I really wanted one of the main runs to be Popplio. In fact, I originally had in mind that we would see the Ultra games in Ultra Sun, which would use Popplio because of something that kinda replaces the need for Litten. Switching to Ultra Moon as a convenience thing for a few miscellaneous features necessitated jumping ship to having a starter Litten. I guess this means I'm getting a proper chance to use both the starters I don't use much because I'm a Popplio main, huh?
They have a really condensed version of the "make sure the starter likes you too" ceremony, but really, the way the starters got rearranged in the opening really feels like they wanted to address the criticism of "long starter resets" in SM. If you're a speedrunner or savescumming for a female/shiny, having to save after saving Lillie at Mahalo Trail and watch that entire cutscene until you can check if you have the starter you want is painful. While you can tell that USUM's opening was not written with you having your starter quite this early in mind, SV did write in an early starter sequence from the ground up later. SwSh wasn't quite so careful, though...
...What? Bethany got Oatchi, it's only fitting that the other captain running parallel gets Moss!
(Moss is female in Pikmin, and while I would like for this Litten to match, I'm not SRing for it, so it'll be a male for this update.)
...Is that what we're going to emphasise first now that we have a starter? Rather than working together with Pokemon or being friends with them, it's the battling that's got you interested? Kukui is a battle-oriented professor (as opposed to, say, Birch or Juniper, who study topics unrelated to battling prowess), but still.
...I don't think SM went out of its way to mention that they also gave us the Poke Ball Litten came in? This is our Litten, though, although gifting Pokemon works weirdly in the lore depending on how it's done. Mostly because it's a plot point in SV.
Although we got the thing we went to Hala for in SM already, that's not stopping us from having a Hala scene anyway.
It's only courteous, since we were supposed to talk to Hala. Plus there's more to mention.
I wasn't planning to, and I don't think they let me anyway.
They actually specify "put your Pokemon in its Poke Balls". A popular mechanic (admittedly not one I particularly cared for) was having Pokemon walk around with you on the overworld, and this almost feels petty. The mechanic was reintroduced in the next games, the Let's Go pair.
Look, cut to black, end of cutscene. Much shorter than the one in SM, and significantly earlier.
...Hold on...
What's stopping us showing off our cool new Pokemon to Mum?
"I didn't think you'd actually get one!"
Ailey explains things in the usual way for a silent protagonist: lots of ellipses. It just works.
Well, I guess that's us not getting out of accomplishing the plot objectives. Onward, to progress!
Never mind, now we have Pokemon, we can roll random encounters! I'll explain random encounters in more detail when we encounter them in Sun, because suffice it to say they're actually more of a waste of our time now.
Although funny that we got this one first. If you're familiar enough with Pokemon to know what a Rattata is, you might remember it as purple, quadrupedal, and with whiskers instead of a mustache. This here is Alolan Rattata- Alola introduced the concept of regional forms to the series, Pokemon who share a name and most of a statline with a familiar Pokemon, but have a new type and Abilities to separate itself. These are justified as evolutionary adaptations to a specific region's environment, and breathed new life into old classics.
Alola only used Pokemon from the original 150 when designing its regional forms, but Galar, Hisui and Paldea would expand the idea to include later Pokemon too. It's a cute mechanic, and I'm considering Alolan forms allowed in terms of "only using new Pokemon" in Sun.
Time to Run away. We can't catch this Rattata yet, so no need to act like we can do anything.
Since we also have Pokemon early, we're getting a few basic tips on the basics. Potions are single-use Bag items that heal a Pokemon for 20 HP, and will be really helpful early on until they are pretty much outclassed by the time we're level... 10ish?
Oh hi there, Hau! You're here early- we haven't even met Lillie yet!
...Excuse me what are you talking about, Hau? Remember, at this point in the story, Ailey doesn't even know you exist. We're not playing, say, RBY or DPPt, where the protagonist starts the story in the same town they grew up in- this is a game with a protagonist that moved from far away.
Hau does remember he is a stranger to Ailey, and this whole confusion does seem to be lumped under Hau's general "lack of paying attention to things" established flaw, but he does still treat this interaction as something that had some degree of forethought and planning. No, Mum just sent us out of the house and asked us to go poking around. Her dialogue doesn't really suggest she knew what Kukui had in mind, nor would keeping that a secret from us really make much sense. Maybe the apple didn't fall too far from the tree.
Litten, who was previously told to get into her Poke Ball, comes out to introduce herself to Hau. It makes a hilarious way to answer the question without having Ailey say anything.
Hau doesn't change his expression at all on realising "oh, uh, those plans we had didn't happen..."
Kukui comes up to explain things... although doesn't entirely explain that said "accident" involved us being assisted by the starters because we were being attacked by a particularly adventurous Yungoos. "An accident" doesn't exactly paper over something like that.
Hau takes it in stride, like he does most things.
Kukui then allows Hau to pick up where this conversation would have left off if it happened as normal- by him getting to pick one of the ones we didn't. Odds were, even had we arrived as expected, we would have still gotten first pick- protagonist privilege and all.
Much like in SM, Hau always chooses the starter with the type disadvantage against your own. Unlike SM, he makes this choice knowing our choice, but he fails to acknowledge it. I don't think any of the rivals- even the antagonistic ones near the start of the series- acknowledge that them making their choice second means they understand where they stand on the Grass < Fire < Water triangle compared to you. Blue and Nemona are the only ones I suspect that actually are aware of how their choice will impact their battles with the player.
The game also subtly puts the two starters Kukui brings over in such a way that the one Hau picks is always the one on his left (Hau's left, Kukui's right), so this camera shot is always the same.
Nobody tell him about the Popplio he has in the SM file. Or the two Littens he has in my other two files.
Hau even gets his own miniature "starter chooses you" ceremony, complete with the same pose the protagonist takes, although he gets to speak for it. Were we supposed to do the same thing with Litten?
While the fate of the third starter is left unmentioned in SM (partially because Hau's own starter is not the same one from our choice), it does get an explicit home in USUM: Kukui's going to look after it. This is a line that comes off differently if you've played the original SM, since while they didn't mention it at the time, our Sun playthrough will bump into Incineroar in the end...
...Kukui being the one to be so insistent on this is weird. Particularly since he's also one of the more reckless characters and probably wouldn't think about the problems of this on his own. Maybe this is him overcorrecting on that flaw in-universe.
Hau immediately turns around and asks for a battle, and figures, you know what, it makes sense if he asks before we put our Pokemon away.
(If you say no, you're allowed to run around and, presumably, save or train or whatever. The former's the only thing you might care about, and even then, it's a starter battle with elemental advantage.)
Kukui will also fully heal Litten, in case you actually did decide to fight anything on your way up.
And we get our first battle- against Rival Hau- much earlier, too. It does technically count as the tutorial on Pokemon battling, and addresses the complaint of not having the series' main gameplay loop in the opening. Which is a criticism levelled against some other JRPGs- looking at you, DQ7, you know what you did.
Despite the earlier setup that we're doing this "while our Pokemon are still out", the animations still show us actually throwing our Poke Balls.
Litten vs Rowlet is the cleanest of the three starter matchups. Litten's base speed is so much higher than Rowlet's that, when you take the preset stats of Hau's Rowlet into account, result in Litten always outspeeding- even if you roll a Litten with bottom of the barrel Speed and a -Spd Nature. In addition to this, Ember has a bonus effect- it Burns the target- and while the odds of that actually happening are rare (I didn't get it), if it does, it reduces Rowlet's already halved damage even further.
Fortunately, Burns aren't as much of a problem for Popplio users facing opposing Littens, although the speed difference does mean he gets an extra chance for shenanigans.
No need to worry so much. It'll be in the fights where we've put in some thought where that's warranted.
At least he's taking it stride?
I... think? There's no real comment either way on "not fighting fair"- if anything, the fact that the friendship stat drops when a Pokemon faints is technically a penalty on allowing close matches- but it is one of the series' core tenets. It makes more sense when you think of matches as something that happens in-universe as opposed to a boss battle that actually has to exist in an RPG, though. That's just something the series has to deal with.
We'll save that comment for a fight with more than just our starters, Kukui.
Right, time to head over to Iki Town.
Hala's still gone off to do "something". Since were not actually depending on him so much, it's not as much of a problem, just a mild inconvenience.
Hau gets to explain what happened, and it sounds like Hala did what Hau likes to do and go wandering off completely distracted. I'm starting to doubt this man's credentials, despite his magnificent moustache.
Hau is unceremoniously removed from the story by taking the time to show his mum his new Rowlet. The narrative does not expect us to have done the same thing.
Kukui, since we know where Hala is and have a rough estimate on when he'll return (soon enough), decides that he's going to send us on some other errand.
That being to go all the way up to the Ruins of Conflict and make a prayer to Tapu Koko of introduction.
He provides no clarification on how exactly one goes about showing Tapu Koko his due respect, and in general phrases it in a very "why don't you go try our tradition to find Mew under the truck" rather than "please share in our culture by acknowledging our god".
Although perhaps the latter is... not Pokemon's tone.
Eventually he will. His house is here, as is most of his stuff.
The guy who tells us not to enter Hala's house is still there, but he's changed his exact story on why he's chasing you away. The gist is the same.
The guys out in front of the Mahalo Trail have changed position and dialogue- the guy in black into somewhat interesting dialogue, while the fisherman is much less so. The same is not true of most of the people in the houses.
There's an old lady on the trail now, though.
More well-wishes about trying to actually meet Tapu Koko.
...Although I notice we haven't actually seen Lillie yet, as Ailey. I mean, technically, we had the opening, but-
Never mind, there she is.
We see one of those things that the Ultra games did well, and speak volumes of the simple magic of editing. In the vanilla games, these two pieces of information were delivered in separate cutscenes, with "I am going to the ruins" as she enters Mahalo Trail, and "we could get in trouble if someone sees what's in my bag" here, when she leaves it. With a simple rephrase, some clever editor has conveyed the same information in a single cutscene, and made it a concise introduction to Lillie's deal and why we should care about following her. Honestly, seeing it done so splendidly here only emphasises that maybe SM had a little bit further to go before they could claim to be ready.
As a cutscene, they presumably had very little in the way of actual ability to re-animate this, so it's identical to the original. They did add some cutscenes, but most of them depict new content rather than enhancing the old.
That's foreshadowing for later.
In general, the Lillie sequence is mostly the same from SM, so I'll skim over it a bit, but her reason for not approaching the Spearow is that she is not a Trainer and does not have the same defences as one. A more reasonable fear, albeit one she could not use on Bethany because Bethany was not a Trainer.
Lillie gives you a free heal, to cover from whatever you took from Hau, and sends you to go deal with the Spearow. So far so good.
And we even get to fight one off! It's level 4 and goes down to one or two Embers or Water Guns, although I must admit I don't fancy being the Rowlet trainer right now.
Weirdly, this Spearow knows Pursuit despite Spearow not getting that until level 8, so I suspect they have quietly removed Peck from its set to not disadvantage the Rowlet trainer unfairly.
It does not actually get rid of one of the Spearow circling Nebby, so who knows how many we'd have to fight off, but still. Three Spearow like the one I just fought? Easy.
...Maybe we shouldn't have been spamming Ember.
The number of small jolts that happen to the player is the same as they attempt to cross the bridge, and now we get into a bit of a microcosm of why the Ultra games don't fully capture what SM do.
Ailey does the same thing Bethany did despite the Ultra games giving her a Litten. We got our starter early, and our new tool allows us to attempt an alternate solution, but in order to stick rigidly to the structure SM provided, we are ultimately told to do the same thing, and the story loses something in translation.
In the original, this moment of Bethany protecting Nebby at her own personal risk offers an emotional keystone moment, and arguably kickstarts Lillie's arc. The fact she didn't have a Pokemon yet added to the stakes, both physical and emotional, while the fact Ailey does have a Pokemon she decides not to use after having already used it robs the moment of even the stakes it ought to have had. It makes it clear that this is not the natural conclusion of the events, but a conclusion the writers are actively engineering.
We know the answer to "why didn't she just chase the Spearow away with
Litten" is "because SM demands we get the Sparkling Stone from Tapu Koko
here", but also, Ailey already being a Trainer kinda messes with how Tapu Koko's approval is written. In the original, Bethany receiving their approval almost comes off as a reflection of her inner nature- that very spirit that drove her to go onto a crumbling bridge to save something she doesn't understand on behalf of a girl she's just met. Ailey, as a Trainer who tried and failed a more conventional approach, doesn't really have anything particularly special to govern why she should receive a blessing over any other Trainer, other than the obvious thing about her actions being controlled by a being greater in power than Tapu Koko- you know, the player.
Weirdly, they trimmed the bit where Lillie insists she doesn't want to see Nebby get exhausted again. I have no clue what it did to offend them.
Lillie gives her name when this discussion is happening, but otherwise answers none of Ailey's questions.
Strangely, Kukui is standing on the stage, rather than beside it as in the vanilla game.
He still mentions this, since Lillie did not, but Lillie does not followup by nervously explaining herself a little bit to Ailey. Overall, this didn't add much, since Lillie is going to be involved with us either way, so this little "Kukui prevents her from trying to lock her saviour out of the loop" dynamic just gets dropped entirely.
They replace it with a clarifying note on what exactly Kukui thought was going on. It seems Hala's disappearance had more of an impact than just what it meant for us. Almost certainly, it's the reason we're even talking to Lillie as much as we are so soon.
Lillie does not tell Kukui this was because of Nebby. Sounds like it's not just us she's playing her cards close to her chest over.
This line also saw some minor edits, improving its message slightly. Since we are living next to Kukui's lab, Kukui thinks Lillie should ingratiate herself with us, as a matter of convenience. While ideally, only trustworthy people get involved in this mess, the fact remains that the people physically closest to you are the people you have to pay the most attention to, regardless of whether they do actually know the secret.
This element, about Kukui's lingering connection to us from his Kantonian visit, remains.
Anyway, time to check back in on what happened with Hala.
Hala actually mentions what was going on- apparently there were some territorial Rockruff going on too close to the public.
...Hey, you know that kid that closed the east side of Route 1? Starting to get the feeling it wasn't just us he was roadblocking...
This exchange is pretty much the same.
Although since Hala does not have to go on to give us a starter Pokemon in response, the ending changes to just Hala being pleased to meet a trainer like us.
Which means we skip right to this point about Nebby coming out of the bag, which happened after we got the starter.
Since she's not talking about our new Rowlet Litten Pokemon, she instead finishes her thought with a note that reflects a little on what, exactly, the whole "Nebby get in the bag" joke means, in-universe. Lillie is not a Pokemon Trainer, and had an unusual childhood that meant she had little exposure to actual, real Pokemon- her understanding of Pokemon welfare is much more theoretical than practical. As a result of this, Nebby doesn't respect her, and reflecting on an actual game mechanic, is acting disobedient. It is quite likely that the plot would go much smoother had someone considered the possibility of putting us on "babysit Nebby" duty, but for a mixture of Lillie's "pride" (or, perhaps more accurately, her desire to not be a freeloader) and "wanting us to proceed on our whole first Alola journey unhindered", we never consider this.
Can't forget this.
Oh yeah, this, too. I'll throw in a Popplio entry, too...
Litten (Ultra Moon): Its coat regrows twice a year. When the time comes, Litten sets its own body on fire and burns away the old fur.
(Honourable mentions to its Ultra Sun entry, which characterise its desire to be touched, or lack thereof, by even people it trusts as pretty much exactly how real cats behave.)
Popplio (Moon): This Pokémon can control water bubbles. It practices diligently so it can learn to make big bubbles.
Honestly, Popplio's got the weakest set of entries.
This is unchanged.
And also canonically introduce Litten to Mum, yes.
Lillie's dialogue about checking the Pokedex is replaced with her being grateful for saving Nebby. All these little fixes...
Kukui doesn't keep the joke about forgetting Hau, but does kinda repeat what Hala has to say as a result.
At this point in the writing room, somebody realised "oh shit, we're out of excuses to talk to Hala and Ailey hasn't turned over the Sparkling Stone yet", so we need to go add in something to let that go happen.
We do never find out what Hau wanted to tell us before we left. He instead uses the opportunity to snipe at Hala's well-intentioned question, despite the fact that Hau's small attention span is his own biggest flaw as a person. While yes, it can be a good thing to remind Hala he's not immune to it...
It really makes it blatantly obvious you're making stuff up to put this cutscene here.
This conversation is identical to the SM one, with the exception of this line after Hala takes the Stone. He said, substantively, the same thing in SM, but he has chosen to use the word "light" in this game. Light is the major thematic element of the new content of the Ultra games, and while it is largely discussed by and around the new elements, it got slipped in here too.
One laugh track joke later...
Since we got sent to Iki Town, we get a different response from Mum, although she sent us to go look at Pokemon, not Hala. Maybe she did know something after all?
This conversation is appropriately modified to reflect the new starter circumstances, down to the dialogue option. Although it is just as pointless as ever.
I imagine Meowth is somewhat less than pleased we got a new cat instead of a new owl, though.
My issues with the Ultra games ultimately reflect on the fact that the new content inserts itself in when it thinks it needs to, with no regard for how the content around it looks for context. While as examples go, this opening example is rather benign, it boasts the hallmarks of this approach that lead directly into how the worst examples- those we will encounter at the story's climax- work. Fortunately, this doesn't result in a pervasive experience, and I must say, I am quite surprised by just how regularly little bits of editing to make the story tighter crop up. It really says a lot about the original games, and Pokemon's later expansive issues with trying to produce monster tamer RPGs on a yearly basis, that what is otherwise a "do everything the same" port released a single year later managed to show off how editing magic can make an experience smoother. Ideally, this editing should have been done a year sooner, but that's not how you support an expansive trading card game...
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