It's kinda weird to think about, but now we have to think about how Melemele Island was as an arc. How do you judge Pokemon in the same way as you would any other RPG?
The thing about Melemele is that it has the burden of starting off the adventure. Giving us our starter, teaching us the important battling loops, many of the Things that a Pokemon fan doesn't realise it's still important to be teaching the new players, as well as how Alola is going to play- both to new fans, who have no frame of reference, and for old fans, who need to be told about the new features specifically. And while it's doing that, it also needs to set up Lillie's arc, and USUM adds the Ultra Recon intrigue into the pile. It is a mess, and a mess that Pokemon has never exactly been good at dealing with. If you feel the cutscene bloat, that's just... a thing Pokemon has.
How well did we come out the other end, then? Well, surprisingly, things aren't so bad the whole way down. Lillie's encounter with the Spearow sets up the Nebby storyline pretty effectively, giving just enough intrigue to explain pretty much everything. I prefer the version where we don't have our starter yet, but both versions do just fine. The Starter spiel's fine, the separate Pokedex spiel is a little weird but allows Rotom Pokedex to breathe, and then we get to the Trainer's School. It's a pretty neat way to dump a bunch of useful mechanics on us early, especially in USUM where they actually use it for that purpose, although I'm sure being advertised as an actual school doesn't help its reputation. SV was a bit of an improvement in this regard- although that claim oversells what SV's Academy is in practice.
After this comes Hau'oli, which is a blitz of cutscenes that have... well, there's a lot of fat here that could use trimming. Poke Finder was just a bad mechanic, dragging that with it. The character customisation cutscene has some important development to build on later. The Tauros joke was honestly pretty weird, I'm not sure it needed us to be involved in seeing it cleared. Team Skull at the Marina was done much better by USUM- having them hassle Hau for his amulet improves both Hau and Team Skull, and it fits in much better than having them hassle Ilima for stealing Pokemon. Stealing Pokemon isn't even really a Skull thing! I think they just got too used to villain teams doing this. Route 2 has another event for Skull to interfere with, to set up them interfering with Verdant Cavern's Trial, and while the Mantine Surf one was funny, this also throws weight behind the Verdant Cavern interference. Mild spoiler, but none of the other Trials actually have Skull interference. Between that and it being unclear how we solved the puzzle of Ilima's Trial without Skull's help, and I kinda want to call it out? Although in this case, more interference was probably the answer, not less. Skull's supposed to be big on challenging the Island Challenge, they need to actually do that.
And then we come to Route 3... and if I must speak truthfully, I am legitimately wondering if any of this is necessary. Sure, keep Route 3 and its Trainers for EXP purposes to give Hala a curve, but Nebby going into the Meadow doesn't expand on the Lillie story at all, and that was literally all this diversion was. There's a later area, unlocked as a reward for beating a Trial, that has no plot reason to visit it. Why not make this one the same thing? Failing that, maybe this was a good chance to have Lillie make the formal request for you to get involved with the matter of Nebby, rather than simply talking about Oricorio's forms. Lillie is going to form the backbone of the lategame story, because of her relationship with other essential characters, and I don't really think I can understate the importance of using her time in the earlygame properly. Even if we are to be kept in the dark on the important facts, there's still good time spent with her (time that changes context based on later reveals) and bad time spent with her (time that doesn't change the player's impressions at all). At least SM gets us off the island pretty cleanly after Hala, while USUM gets bogged down by the extra minigames it has to exposit about (and doing both badly).
In a USUM note, how is the Ultra Recon Squad? Well, remember what I said about good time and bad time? The Recons kind of exemplify "bad time". The Recons are mysterious characters whose importance will be revealed at fixed points in SM's preset plot, and I don't think the Ultra Recons needed many scenes on Melemele to establish them when it's going to take some time to reveal their goals- and explain why we should care. I mean, sure, throw in one or two of them- especially since we need to establish their shaky alliance with the player, but this is weighed down by the fact it's not going to be until like the end of Akala when we learn who their other ally is, and what they offer in comparison to us. Of course, people who played SM have a good idea who this other ally is and can make some guesses into reasoning and motive, but they're not the only people who their scenes are aimed at, are they?
And now we talk mechanically. This was an earlygame of a Pokemon game- a bit of a "press your best attack" fest until we get enough options that type coverage is something both sides need to be paying attention to. Pokemon can't- and honestly shouldn't- try to make it any more complicated than that. The most important part is, and always will be, the transition between "spam A" and "actually have coverage to care about". And there were far worse ideas than setting that transition somewhere around the Melemele -> Akala transition. Both from a level perspective (Pokemon start learning diverse moves around level 20) and especially with USUM's tutors and some choice TMs scattered around Melemele's ending and Akala's perspective, Akala Island is where you learn to start playing this game, and what better way to establish "you're on a new island" than by changing the flow of the game? Melemele shoulders a heavy burden, but it does so to try and prevent Akala from suffering under it too.
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