Right, time for USUM's turn. The following content is only available to Ray and Ailey, as opposed to the scenes with Ailey last time that were more for convenience than they were required. Also, like most of the stuff seen last time, it all requires having beat Hala.
Entering City Hall now has a Gentleman in a bit of an argument with two non-Trainer Class youths.
Ah, one of these guys.
News flash, sir, it's the twenty-first century. We left that attitude back... uh, not as long as we'd like to think.
...With that said, maybe a little bit of a spine? More for his sake than hers, though, I can see him getting easily henpecked.
That is, if he's not already.
I love how this conversation plays out with the female protagonist. She's sorta implying that she'll marry us if we can beat her dad, just to point out how absolutely stupid the idea of a marriage challenge is in practice. Compatibility goes right out the window.
Is it? Or are you going to invent some other problem with me when I succeed at this?
Random explanation of the Pokemon move Switcheroo during this conversation is random. I think he doesn't understand why his daughter made this suggestion. And/or believes this is a genuine suggestion rather than a "look at how ridiculous you're being" mirror.
Daughter calls him out. I've only known him for five minutes and already I can see where she's coming from.
The hell are you worried about your daughter getting attacked by? Wild Pokemon? Sir, eleven year olds can handle those. I'm not sure what things were like when you were a child and Tyrantrum roamed the earth, but we've invented this little-known thing called the Poke Ball...
As funny (and as apt) as that second response is, you are having this argument in the doorway of a civil services building. I feel someone has to put as top to it, just as a courtesy to the people who don't want to deal with family drama on top of filing their taxes.
The daughter also heals us as a courtesy- the only person in this conversation she's upset with is the person we're going to be fighting.
...Why are you saying that as a brag, sir?
Reginald's Dunsparce has flat 20 IVs, but no serious investments and the default set of moves. This gives it a moveset of Spite, Screech, Pursuit and Mud Slap: Moderately threatening if it knows in which order to spam those moves, but less threatening if it doesn't.
And a nice Intimidate from a Fairy type ought to put the pressure on it immediately. Somewhat hilariously, Steel losing its resistance to Dark happened at the same time Mawile got its Dark resist back for being a Fairy type, so it has never not resisted Dark: the reasons just changed.
That is certainly a number. It is not a big one.
There's a reason Mawile needed the help.
Ow. OK, Intimidate over, let's bring in something with muscle.
I know! The bunny rabbit!
...We need to get you a better attacking move than Pound. It used to have Frustration by now, but that's not how it works anymore, because of the way the evolution mechanic works. Also, Usagi is also friendly enough Frustration wouldn't be much help.
I think I mainly won that one because numbers. I didn't really counter the Dunsparce all that well.
Or maybe you're forgotten to train your Dunsparce and it's fallen behind, same as you have.
At least, since he's a Gentleman, he's still worth that ludicrous pay packet.
...Now, now, slow down. I've proved his idea was unreasonable. I haven't proved anything about you two. He may be listening to you more now, but that's nothing to do with what I've done.
If nothing else, we have managed to put Reginald on the wrong side of the room to block these two from the marriage license desk.
Reginald, now that he's got no chance of stopping his kids, decides to vent his feelings to us while he's waiting. Starting to regret walking into the door.
The man has a point, though. You can't say a Pokemon is right for the team until you've run a few battles with it, and you can't say a man is right for the house until he's lived in it for a few weeks.
I think she already knows. Either that or this isn't the problem with your communication.
A nice 5K Poke. Totally worth it.
Yeah, I think if that's how they act together, they already know.
Oh, grow up, old man.
Well, you say that, but Gastly's level up pool is garbage at best, and it doesn't learn a move that can damage Normal types until level 22 (Sucker Punch). Your Dunsparce has Pursuit. If you let them tag-team, I think they could pull it off if one of them used Hypnosis to put you to sleep and the other one used Curse for passive damage, but this strat is way too risky alone.
This is one of the more remote events you can participate in if you've finished Hala's Trial, and it's actually somewhat amusing.
You can actually volunteer to fill the Trial Guide position temporarily!
Just while he's on his bathroom break, anyway.
Playing Trial Guide is a relatively short minigame, and almost certainly more of a joke slash worldbuilding than something they genuinely expected you to spend time in. There are two things that can happen in this: Either someone will complete Ilima's Trial, or they will fail. You have to set the barricade to the appropriate position in response. This can happen once or twice before the Trial Guide gets back.
I was hoping to see a failure, but I guess not.
...You know, I kinda wish I said no, just to see the look on Ilima's face.
Although I'm sure this guy wouldn't appreciate it. Don't worry, the barricade opens for me again after the Trial Guide gets back.
I also only got one guy. That was the most boring cover shift ever.
You get a Soda Pop (heals 50 HP) for setting the barricade correctly, or a Fresh Water (heals 30) if you didn't. Told you it wasn't worth it for anything but laughs.
You can do it once a day, and I think only for this barricade.
No, I am not in the know. This kid is on Big Wave Beach, at the far west end, and a good chunk of this update will be about what he has to say.
The Trainer School is running an ominous rumour mill.
And since "Ghosts" are Pokemon problems, perhaps someone will be brave enough to provide Pokemon solutions.
Whatever it is, it's got a pretty spooky theme. Also note: You can only participate in this event while the moon is up.
I don't think one needs too much convincing to turn around and leave.
Oh well, there's something good in it for me, I'm game. I mean, what ghost is going to spook Callie?
Oh, you shut up, Drifloon.
Fortunately, you can leave and re-enter the Trainer's School to heal and organise your team whenever.
The seven mysteries, in order. I think this is a good enough order to work on.
...If that's not ghosts, that's fire. That's worse.
...So wait, is the girl the burner or the victim? I feel like you'd be able to tell from the crying.
She says this after every mystery. If you were leaving, you'd be terrified before now.
To trigger the Scary Lights, you need to attempt to walk into the school. Going right to the incinerator is the wrong play.
I think this is the only mystery like that.
Well hello, uh... Hiromi?
Fortunately, it seems she's not setting other people on fire.
...That seems to be the nicest thing we can say.
Since clearly she's guilty of something. Now just to interrogate what.
Well, I mean, I'm hoping it's you. The alternative is that there's someone coming to set both of us on fire, and I dunno about you, but I prefer not to be set on fire.
Burning letters should not be sending up red flag levels of smoke...
Oh, never mind. Lay off the glitter, perhaps? Or is it one of the other craft materials?
...
Oh.
...
What kind of answer is that second one?
Not helping the "not vengeful spirit" case, miss-
Oh. Well, that's good, at least. Deedra is the second of the three Youth Athletes in USUM, although I am at least a little surprised they didn't make it a rematch with Hiromi. Do you reckon the player noticed?
Probably a natural reaction, Usagi. Anyway, there's something I've been wanting to show off, and this is a bit of a random time to show it, but it does mean I can make sure it's been demonstrated at least once:
Splash, as a move, is absolutely pointless. When used, it does nothing except the Pokemon just kinda bounces around. (Its JP name is "Hop", which explains why things that aren't fish know it.) So why have I not gotten rid of it?
Say hello to Z-Splash, the killer joke move that applies three stages of Atk up in a single action.
And the angriest little hopping to go with.
(The -Def is from Leer.)
Z-Splash is kind of a hilarious joke, and a surprising number of Pokemon that start with Splash for whatever reason turn out to be effective physical attackers that have use for it. The biggest problem with it, though, is that it also uses that item slot. Stat stages can be undone by switching or enemy stat reductions. Most of the time, the Silk Scarf, or Normalium Z into Breakneck Blitz, serves Usagi better. But it is a hilarious option.
As long as I'm not burned, I'm good.
Just look at that Pound. Talk about efficiency as you wish, sometimes you just want to see a big number. Even if the game doesn't display numbers.
"Was the Z-Move really necessary..."
Um... do I want to be saying either of those things in this situation? The sentiment's nice, yeah, but also, she's not getting the guy.
...You have bigger problems than not getting the guy and your habit of night-time arson in a controlled manner.
Oh crap, she took the wrong lessons...
...Or possibly she is planning on looking for somebody else, and we've been talking about love in the general sense. That seems like an easy way to get confused, though.
And off she goes. Hopefully, no more exotic fires. Burn your things at a reasonable hour.
"Maybe we should've looked into this before selling the haunted school tickets..."
Right, so who's next?
...You guys know there's Grimer in the grass right outside, right?
Unless you run away to tell the tale. Seriously, who came up with this one?
Must be a newcomer to the region. What other idiot would be stupid enough to hear a Grimer and think "panic and fear"?
...We're a newcomer to the region...
Ailey. I say this with all due respect.
What the hell?
We have successfully escaped the sightline of Lord Slimy, and in exchange, have placed ourselves in some pretty serious peril. Don't go inside lockers. I feel I shouldn't have to explain this one.
And, of course, Lord Slimy realises that this locker shouldn't be shut, and inspects it to make sure there's nothing unusual going on. Like students caught inside. Or Pokemon, probably.
Ailey, apparently having decided locking herself inside a locker wasn't the stupidest thing she wanted to do tonight, proceeds to politely inform Lord Slimy that there is indeed a human inside.
We are so lucky Lord Slimy has someone with the human hands needed to open the locker.
This is someone I alluded to in the main update, because it kinda confuses the issue here- the janitor of Hau'oli Mall, who gave us the Round TM, mentioned a grandson who is a failure of a janitor. This man is a grandson of a janitor, and in no way deserves to be described in that way.
And to make matters worse, their two Grimers know each other. I have no idea if this is supposed to be the grandson character and USUM has forgotten he's meant to be a layabout, or if this is somebody unrelated and they forgot the grandson comment, making this even more confusing.
That... might cover it? Grandpa doesn't like that he doesn't do his share of the work?
Also, we got super lucky that this was also locker cleaning day. Any other day, even if Lord Slimy found us, he couldn't have gotten us. And it would have been debatable if we could've gotten ourselves out.
Imagine this being how the world of Pokemon kills you.
Imagine being unable to tell that the sound was of the equivalent of a mop bucket.
Oh, don't you start your own rumour. Although that might actually encourage kids not to get in the way...
He might bite, but probably stop when he realises what he almost committed to.
And off they go, to clean up real messes.
Also if you know the culture with half a brain.
Anyway, now that we've established the existence of the washbucket, onto the glitchy PA.
"It speaks of... Starmies... from Mars..."
Oh come on, now you're not even trying.
Our stop is this room, on the second floor.
We automatically walk to this tile on entering the room, and must walk back to the entrance.
The school chime plays, before we get some static. Odd, but...
Oh, can't I?
Apparently, I got trapped by the glitchy PA system. Or at least, that's what it told me. Who are you again?
Figured.
That's a new one on me. Slowpoke blockade.
...Actually, not really. Slowpoke with chopped tails serve as a mild roadblock in Slowpoke Well in the GSC games. Only a very temporary one, though.
"I just love sleeping in front of Pull doors."
Funnily enough, the "can't get out" thing has nothing to do with the rumour- the rumour was only caused by the broken speakers, not the guy who finally went to fix 'em.
The only person terrified was the guy trapped in a room with a Slowpoke.
All right, it'll be one hell of a time explaining this one...
...No, hun, that's Mario 64.
...Huh.
...This is technical an American school, isn't it? Do Hawai'ians get decent education? Oh, who am I kidding...
...Well then.
That certainly was an Icy Wind.
If you walk over to the bulletin board, the camera zooms in on it meaningfully. I guess it's something we can interact with...
This piece of paper only appears during the mystery, and is the key to solving it.
You see four textboxes, each with a single period in these four positions.
The room is now also filled with four sparkly spots, at both ends of the hallway.
The path is the shape of a letter N, or possibly a Z on its side...
Right. Down we go...
(This does happen in a separate event, incidentally...)
That's the thing about living in the world of Pokemon. Poke the mold and it pokes you back. I think that's actually a Pokemon this generation...
This is a wild Gastly like any other.
With, of course, the exception that he (or in this case she) has the uncommonly high level of 19. I usually don't catch Gastly in USUM, because this one can be more easily and quickly raised to level 25 for the evolution.
Upon either knocking out or catching the Gastly, you clear up the mystery of the Mario 64 stairs and may finally exit the building.
So far, it's been "bit weird, but OK", "some foreigner being really dumb", "a glitch heard at the wrong time" and... "a literal ghost playing pranks".
Either there's been tonal whiplash or the Pokemon world's idea of "perfectly normal" is that much different. I can believe both.
I haven't even found this one yet, where's it come from?
Oh, next to the CYOA Pikachu story!
Never to be seen again, in the horror of the... shivers advanced reading classes.
Indeed, this spot on the shelf has been replaced by a diary. Right, so who shows up if I read this...
Probably a Pikachu or a Magnemite chewing on the power lines.
I told Bethany to feed Zapple before I started this file... no matter, no matter.
After reading that entry, a blur flits past the screen. It looks like the silhouette of a Ghost type, but it moved too quickly to take a shot of.
Even typed, this must've been tedious to write.
They sure do love their pitch-black screens, huh?
Microphone quality was subpar, most of content inaudible over white noise. Worst. Audiobook. Ever.
I mean, is it that bad? We get ample warning of his next action, it's all written down.
The Pokemon playing this prank was Drifloon, as could have been seen in the silhouette that shot by. This Drifloon is also level 19, and is always a Drifloon- unremarkable for Ultra Sun, but it's a daytime spawn available during night hours for Ultra Moon players.
I think there is a horror novel in diary form. I can't name it, but I will say this: If it doesn't exist, I will be extremely disappointed.
Joke's on him, he got kids to read. Or possibly not read. Depending on their survival instincts.
Different Drifloon. I caught the one doing the prank, this one's still here.
That's the most charitable reading, and even that doesn't absolve it of kidnapping charges. Maybe to a jury of its peers.
Next up, what have they done to the classroom?
Laughter? In a school? I am shocked, shocked! ...Well, not that shocked.
I see no reason to deny them.
They can be found in the advanced classroom on the second floor, the one that talks about Abilities during the day. The text on the blackboard is about the non-volatile status conditions, and remains so even while haunted.
I'm being told it, why aren't I feeling it?
I don't know if you can catch Hala singing this song earlier in the game, but Hala sings this song late into SM and was actually pretty amusing for his timing. This scene is still in USUM, but I think they sorta expected this to be something the people who played SM would remember.
I dunno. How do you age?
This must've been a ghost that died before the evolution of modern English.
...Eh, sure.
That's nice.
I think you already are.
...Sounds... great? Which one's my seat...
The only question is how this plan is going to backfire in my face.
Not even bothering with the "new student" pretext. I think you do have to talk to all the kids to get this event to clean up.
...That second one is a very good question. I can only assume you aren't Emily...
As you question this premise, the teacher slips out of character and flickers between her teacher disguise and true form. I seem to have missed the timing.
Iiit's Hypno, a mischievous little tapir that seems to serve as a lightning rod for some of Pokemon's weirder urges. We've already caught the Pokemon that evolves into it, as it happens, but it's certainly an uncomfortable thing to have around a place where children exist.
Later in USUM, we will encounter a group of mischievous Hypno on Melemele. I think this Hypno is supposed to be one of them. Note that there is no battle with it of any kind.
...
Hypno remembers you? I'd be more concerned about that than the rest of this haunting.
Time to answer a question left unasked since the start of this whole mess: What's number seven?
Also, who told me what one through six are?
Well, looks like we have to figure this one out on our own. Top floor room I'm not allowed in during the day? One of the bottom floor classrooms? The temperature gauge out back? Is there something buried under the battlefields?
The girl seems to take a policy of "out of sight, out of mind". With no idea what that seventh mystery is, we've solved everything we need to!
On saying this, the little girl's head wobbles slightly.
That's our reward for solving all six of those mysteries. Glad to receive my pay in...
...Glasses? The Wise Glasses provide a 10% damage boost to all Special moves, making it the boosting item of choice if you need something more specialised. And/or all the other Pokemon are using the specialised items. With how many items we have as choices, it's not that useful, but you never know. SM can only get them through... a source.
...Are you the seventh mystery, kiddo?
Right, now to head off-
And where were you when I got trapped in the Gastly staircase? Only shows up for the misdemeanours...
...That was fast.
...
So where were you when this girl was here?
Also, I solved most of them. I took care of your Gastly infestation, dealt with the mischievous Drifloon, scolded the Hypno (...I think), told off a third trespasser, and... actually, you don't need to know about the other two. Point is, the only problem you have left is this kid.
...
So how long was I alone, exactly? Was I talking to myself at any point before or after you showed up?
Gladly.
Anyway, head back to the kid at the beach who started it all, and you can brag about it to someone who cares.
And since he's a kid, he'll actually believe it. I can't believe I'm calling you the sensible one here...
Another rewar-
I expected too much for something on par with the Wise Glasses. Hyper Potions heal 120 HP (freshly nerfed from 200 in past games), these'll be our bread and butter healing item for a good portion of the game, although we'll be swimming in them by the time we need to start using them.
Why couldn't I have had you pointing me to each mystery?
Wherever it is, I haven't found it. Probably the one the Drifloon's pulling the prank out of?
The whole "maybe paranormal, maybe mundane" thing is a bit of a recurring element of the series starting in... DPPt with the Old Chateau, I think? They like to scatter a few ghosts (the normal kind, not Ghost-type Pokemon... we think) in minor locations around, and to date have explained nothing on the subject. My personal response is to throw it on the pile of intentional theory bait and move on. Whatever you believe is probably the best explanation for what just happened.
USUM's Pokedex completion. No Pichu or Happiny because I'm only grinding out some of those in one file, and weirdly, no Grimer, but overall, a much larger completion set. If I was smart, I'd route it so each version was evolving a specific set of evolutions and then just pretend all four versions were "trading between each other" to fill out the dex, but all the catching I'm doing has a secondary purpose, and there is a certain non-zero amount of grinding I'd have to do to properly fill the dex in anyway. We'll see how I wind up handling that.
Anyway, now we move onto the "story" stuff, although we still have two entire side modes to highlight.
The first of which is our next plot objective, the Alola Photo Club.
We are immediately hauled in for a first attempt on entry.
Obviously, the conceit is that this is an absolutely adorable and fun minigame to play with your favourite Pokemon, but they kinda oversell it and undersell it at the same time?
No, seriously, we're thrown right in. It turns out that this is part of the problem, and not just because it causes people to want to get out of it as fast as possible. (You can just press B to nope out, incidentally).
You are given two options at the initial stage- what Pokemon do you want to bring, and how do you want the image composed?
...What do you mean every Pokemon I put on my person is female?
These are the poses you can choose from. I feel pumped already.
You can have Pokemon play any of their animations to help you pose, although because they're Pokemon, it's a little tricky for you to time it right.
You basically have to keep calling it until it does the right pose and hope you're ready to snap it.
Because you can pose too.
And we have some other buttons to play with. Let's see what we can do...
Our pose list. Right now, we can do the Z-Poses for the Crystals we have. There are some edge cases I'm kinda curious about with regards to later crystals, but for now, I'm going to assume the main set of actions we can get are the other fifteen Z-Poses.
There's also a set of camera controls. Few of which really help on their own...
Anyway, when you hit the button to snap a picture, you do a shutter set of six pictures.
I swear this was the best picture I got with Usagi.
I have no idea how to get into the "SD card" that these are saved into. You can save up to 420 images into your Album. Why 420? No idea.
I don't... think this gives Friendship or Affection?
Hell no.
You get this regardless of whether you took a photo or not.
The Photo Album gets its own dedicated space in the options menu, and there's kind of a funny story about that... We can't do the Photo Club until now, right?
Yeah, uh, whoever redesigned the Z-Crystal tutorial so the screenshots use USUM formatting was filming after getting the Photo Album installed. You can see its icon underneath the arrow.
And then there's a bunch of Stickers to be added in decoration. If I'm bad at the main setting, I'm even worse at this.
But still, let's at least poke our head in.
The Album looks at our SD card for any photos saved as "in Album". Should be just the one, right...?
Hello, Candice, what are you doing here? This is the Ultra Moon file I played to test how well my setup could handle playing the Alola games before I committed to the blog playthroughs, and it played using the custom rules "Ice types only"- hence the traded in Alolan Vulpix there. We'll find where we're supposed to get those much later.
I've got a lot more playthroughs of Ultra Sun with first Photo Club images, but the SD card they're saved to is inside a New Nintendo 3DS that requires unscrewing to access, and even if I got my hands on the card, I'm not 100% sure I have a way to get my computer to read that card. So, we're not seeing all of those runs.
We have a bunch of stickers to collect, and a few more to find for milestones.
It's just a click and drag thing, so a mention of what the red text means: After saving a Photo with Stickers, you can't reopen it and reshuffle the Stickers. Presumably, this is for technical reasons- the photo is saved as a normal image file, and not one with metadata about which parts are stickers and which parts are image- and what the image looks like underneath. Potentially disappointing, but a heck of a lot easier to program.
Starting "Small" stickers. Mostly some standard stuff, as well as early cameos by Pyukumuku and two Pokemon we haven't met in any capacity yet. And surprisingly, won't meet until relatively later in the second island.
Medium sized stickers. Lot more peculiar things here, including those swords (which I think are used in the Swords Dance animation, so maybe some of the other effects come from other moves- say, Moonlight/Moonblast for that moon), as well as a Mantine.
The large stickers. That metal sheet is, I think, Iron Defence, the hexagons are probably Protect or something, while those two Pokemon are another pair of new species to Alola. We won't actually meet the palm tree until fourth island, although it makes so many cameos that this fact may come as a surprise. That is a much bigger sticker than it looks.
Some various text stickers to place.
As well as frames to surround yourself with.
There are various unlockable Stickers to collect throughout your adventure. The only two that are not just "reach a certain story flag" are a special background and a special frame. Both come up on the second island, incidentally.
Sure, we'll go with that, why not?
Which backgrounds you can choose from increase as you progress in the game and find new areas to snap pictures of. Pretty much all the unlockable backgrounds are just "visit the area the background is of."
Do I have to take the photos at a Photo Club? There's only two locations in the game...
Anyway, there's one feature about the Photo Club I was planning on showing incidentally that kinda accidentally unlocked the whole thing for me, and it has to do with this lady.
She comments on how Ailey, personally, is from the Kanto region. This is flavour text, because she can tell us something special that the Photo Club tracks...
She can tell us what region our Pokemon are from!
Well, I mean, that's not too special... Usagi's from Sinnoh, Shade's from Hoenn, Nephenee, Callie and Crysantha are all from Kalos...
...Nope? It turns out that she means this on a per-Pokemon basis. Buneary, as a species, is originally native to the Sinnoh region, but Usagi, our Buneary, was born in Alola and she joined us here. If we want to participate in this feature, we're going to need to do more than just Trade.
Fortunately, Ray knows just who to call.
Say hello to some Pokemon that, for the most part, you are never going to see again. I tried to choose Pokemon that didn't appear in the Alola Pokedex even with Island Scan or other methods, but it turns out it was a little harder than expected to avoid overlaps.
(To be specific, while Hitmonlee, Plusle and Galvantula are all properly unobtainable by any means purely within the Alola games, Exeggutor has an Alolan form here, Mamoswine is available by Island Scan, and Pyroar is in the Alola Pokedex in a lategame area in USUM only- I overlooked it when choosing my Pokemon).
Ray decides to not take a photo when initially prompted, a first for me.
This still gets us the Photo Album, but I want to talk to the lady with this team.
Dunban the Hitmonlee appeared in a Pokemon Leafgreen run I completed casually, no special rules. I've only played through the Kanto games twice, and I'm surprised I could find a save file from such a game. What she is looking for, specifically, is that this Hitmonlee was originally generated in a save file for either Pokemon RBY (they're on VC, you can get them from that) or FRLG (you can technically still have a route from an original Leafgreen cartridge from 2004 to here with official hardware, but good fucking luck starting from scratch). It is possible to visit Kanto in other games, but this check isn't that advanced.
Having an old save file Pokemon allows you access to a unique background only accessible with the old save file Pokemon. Sadly, I cannot take a picture of Basilissa on Indigo Plateau, despite Basilissa being a species from Kanto.
Xero von Moon the Exeggutor is from a Soulsilver file (that I was really thankful I still had accessible). This run was mostly exploring some hard-to-use Pokemon- which honestly describes a lot of Pokemon in that game- and Exeggcute was one of them. To obtain Bell Tower, you must have a Pokemon from Pokemon GSC (also VC) or HGSS. Again, once you actually boot up the game, she doesn't care whether it's from Johto or Kanto, just that this is the save file it came from.
I really should've transferred in Grit the Kingdra, for no overlap. Kingdra is technically in by Island Scan, but also you need to trade the Seadra you get anyway...
L'ARACHEL the Plusle should be familiar- this is, in fact, the very same Plusle who appeared in my team for the Brendan playthrough. This one was a no-brainer: I just semi-ironically love Plusle too much to not have picked her, even though I think Swalot is also not available in Alola either. To obtain Seafloor Cavern, you need a Pokemon from Pokemon RSE or ORAS.
Nikol the Mamoswine appeared in a run of Pokemon Platinum, which had two major objectives: use hard-to-find Pokemon within Platinum, and use a team with only five Pokemon on it. They let you carry six, but the five Pokemon strat allowed me to have a spare team slot at all times, which is a handy thing to have in Platinum, let me tell you. Less coverage overall, but this team made it work pretty well. To get the Spear Pillar background, you need a Pokemon from DPPt. "Do BDSP/Legends Arceus work"- no, those games were released later regardless, they can't send back here.
Galvantula doesn't have a nickname because it's a very special Pokemon: This Galvantula originally belonged to N, a major character in the Unova games, who releases all his Pokemon after every battle for philosophical reasons. You can recatch these in B2W2 with a special feature, so this Galvantula joined a mono-Bug team that played through Black 2. In addition to Galvantula not being in the Alola games, I found it fitting that one of N's Pokemon got to make the trip. To get Skyarrow Bridge, you need a Pokemon from any of BW or B2W2.
Lilina the Pyroar was the most frustrating of the six to transfer in on a conceptual level. I have played X and Y multiple times, but never have I played them where their save files are compatible with this setup, so I had to manually recreate a Pyroar from an old, casual run of Y I did. I was originally going to recreate Nagini the Heliolisk, but then I remembered Heliolisk is available in the Alola games. And then I didn't check if Pyroar was. In hindsight, I really should've just used one of the Nidokings I used in my mono-Poison run of Y that I haven't yet deleted the save data for- I know they're not in, and both Nidokings were pretty cool in their own ways. Anyway, to unlock Lumiose City, you need a Pokemon from Pokemon XY- even though they're on the same console, you will need Pokemon HOME for it still.
The desk lady also comments on only the first Pokemon in my party. I don't know if she does it every time, but she only did it for Hitmonlee this time.
Which means I didn't know if I can see the other quotes for other region's wallpapers here.
I did later find out you could, but, uh... we're talking third island later.
She'll also quickly mention the whole thing about checking what other region mons you have that can use exotic frames here. Anyway, let's quickly open photos with each mon to see what these backgrounds look like and-
...
...
There's an advanced mode?
Advanced Mode adds several extra features to this menu- including background selection, changing our outfit or removing us altogether. I seem to have neglected to screenshot it, in the sheer shock of what was going on (and focusing on the screenshots of the new backgrounds I came for), but there's also extra options you can do with the camera, too, to actually get half-decent angles for dynamic cameras.
They force you to go into the Photo Club and come close to forcing you to take a photo at all. And they don't even so much as hint at half the features that you can use here. This is my reaction to learning the Advanced mode existed because I was going out of my way to show off the legacy backgrounds.
You can take photos of any area you have visted thus far- which is plenty of them by the time you unlock the Photo Club- plus four rule of cool ones at the bottom I might wind up trying out if I make the Photo Club more of a regular thing.
But what I'm here for is listed above the four at the bottom, but after the location ones.
Anyway, the default poses for the six special backgrounds. Poor Indigo Plateau and Skyarrow Bridge look terrible at this angle...
Rotating the camera.
Right, let's take a peek around at what I can find on the Seafloor Cavern, so I can take a good photo with L'Arachel, and...
...Those Pokemon in the background there are animated. I assume this image of the Seafloor Cavern is ripped straight from ORAS, but the implication is that the Alola Photo Club backgrounds have animation.
And you were trying to sell me on the Photo Club with that generic dirt path Usagi got.
Some better angles of the backgrounds, although perhaps not so great angles of the Pokemon. We can actually see Bell Tower and the Skyarrow Bridge with this newfound freedom to turn the camera! Lumiose's background takes place in front of Sycamore's lab, with Vernal Avenue behind us- that Skiddo is not animated, but I'm not 100% sure it was in XY, either. Indigo Plateau and Spear Pillar feel like the weak links, but to be fair, I'm not 100% sure where those assets for Indigo Plateau came from except maybe a Let's Go prototype, and Spear Pillar is likewise running on "that place was the most cool 3D place in the DPPt games, let's just roll with it". The Bell Tower representing Johto looks like it comes from the cool 2D eyecatch translated into 3D somehow.
Anyway, back to Ailey and things that make sense, there's a Comfey to play with in the Photo Club. Not that we can catch Comfey for a while.
...I feel insulted by this, considering what I don't see.
Sorry, got held up learning the Photo Club was good actually.
...Also you've evolved your starter, Hau. Way to show Oatchi's second form before I do.
Oh, who am I kidding- Hau was probably showing off Oatchi, Moss and Sirehound's evos before I did in the next fight. If not, cutting it very close.
No, Buneary, and it wasn't a great shot.
Anyway, that's enough messing around with that feature, time for some better content... wait-
I can totally believe Hau has the attention deficit to fall for this. Honestly, I'm more surprised he caught himself first.
Dartrix is the best starter for this joke.
Who knows. Probably tougher than Ilima, though.
Anyway, about the whole "riding that boat of Kukui's over to Akala"...
We're not doing that.
So yeah, similarly to the Photo Club, we're going to be strong-armed into participating in another of USUM's new mechanics in rapid succession. In contrast to the Photo Club, though, Mantine Surfing is actually meaningful.
Aw, come on! I really want to ride on a Mantine! Don't you? And I'm totally not just saying that because the professor's boat is such a junk heap, either.
Hau's line if you want to ride the boat. I mean, I'd like to ride the boat just to spend some time with Kukui and Lillie, but Kukui's all right with suggesting you take Hau up on his suggestion.
"And despite our claims otherwise, Ailey doesn't get any say in this."
Sometimes USUM fixes problems with SM. Sometimes it just invents new problems.
Off Hau goes to wait for us to go over to Big Wave Beach.
And Lillie takes this opportunity to ask us to help her find Nebby's home. All the same dialogue, and one moment isn't any less opportune than the other. But it does feel a little stronger in SM, when we're both about to be travelling in the same boat, than in USUM, when we're both about to be travelling via different methods.
...You do know that, if I wipe out, you don't get a choice, right?
This is also true of Oahu and Maui, the real counterparts of Melemele and Akala. Although the distance between the two islands ranges from 72-115 miles (115-186 km), depending on what parts of each island you're measuring from, the curvature of the earth and the presence of Molokai and Lanai (smaller Hawai'ian islands missing from Alola) disrupt most lines of sight. I'm told it's theoretically possible, given perfect viewing conditions, but good luck.
...Well, OK. You'll take care of Lillie, right?
On the way to Big Wave Beach, you are interrupted by a scene that kinda has to happen right now, but still comes out of nowhere.
It doesn't help that we haven't even met you yet, random citizen.
Not to be confused with Samuel Oak, the local Pokemon Professor of the Kanto region. The two can be distinguished by the length and colour of their hair- their faces are uncannily identical.
In SM, he was a researcher of regional forms, but he seems to have shifted focus to Totems for the benefit of a new mechanic. In all honesty, they really needed to assign this mechanic to a different character.
Maybe they could even have tied this into Ultra Recon somewhat- although that has its own flaws, considering they're strangers to the region in a completely different way. But nevertheless, this does mean that both Samson and the Ultra Recon Squad are looking into the Totem Auras, and Samson doesn't seem to care about the Ultra Recons.
Samson's mechanical purpose is to bestow upon the player their rewards for gathering the Totem Stickers scattered around the Alola region- Totem-sized Pokemon to add to their collection. This entire mechanic is so clearly grafted-on as both an improvement on what SM has instead and as a means of acquiring Totem-sized Pokemon, but I imagine a more robust system might have run up into development time issues.
Know what would make more sense? Showing Totem Stickers to the Trial Captains to get access to a harder Trial that allows you to catch the Totem-Sized Pokemon at the end. Granted, this doesn't cover all the Totems they need to distribute, but it's a start.
Again, I'm not 100% sure this is an officially endorsed part of the Island Challenge, since Ilima's so concerned about Team Skull interfering, but it's something we, the player, are encouraged to do.
I am indeed taking an assiduous rifle through all the Totem Stickers, but that's because Ray wants to use the prize for 40 as a team member. I haven't decided if they count as "new options" for Ailey's purposes, though.
...Why did you feel the need to pop up just because your name was mentioned?
Anyway, he sets up shop on Heahea Beach, and will remain there for the rest of the game whenever we want to turn in our Totem Stickers.
Anyway, now we get to Big Wave Beach and can start trying out this whole "Mantine Surfing" routine.
...That is a question. Even for the possible relevance it has here, shouldn't it be "are", not "were"?
Because it is Hau, we're going to be ignoring that entirely.
Time to get started on one of the more important mechanics to USUM's identity.
To actually Mantine Surf, all we need to do is click on a Mantine. For now, though, a short diversion:
Mantine Surfing awards Beach Points, which can be spent here. Earlier, I showed the prizes from the other counter, and those were all good. But this is where the real rewards are, and now that we can start gathering BP, it's time to see the moves.
...Well, OK, this beach isn't too amazing at first glance, although it does have one pretty nice move right off the bat. These are basically TMs that cost currency and can only be learned here, in practical terms. So, what is on this list?
- Snore: A 50 BP Special Normal move. Can only be used while the user is asleep. A nice surprise for opponents who thought "being asleep" was a free opportunity for attack, but a later move serves this purpose better.
- Heal Bell: A Status Normal move. Heals every Pokemon in the party of any non-volatile status conditions. Better competitively than in the main-game, where we have Bag items for that.
- Electroweb: A 55 BP, 95% Special Electric move that hits all opponents. Will lower the Speed of all hit targets by one stage. An absolutely amazing move for Pikachu in particular, and anything that learns it in general.
- Defog: A Status Flying move. Decreases one opponent's evasion, and clears the whole field of screens, Safeguard, Mist, and entry hazards. Note that this also includes the effects of such moves that benefit you, but depending on what the field looks like, that might not matter so much. Note for people familiar with SwSh and later: It does not clear terrains yet.
- Low Kick: A Physical Fighting move with varying BP. It calculates its BP based on the opponent's weight, as determined in the Pokedex. It is 80 BP if the opponent is heavier than 50 kg, 100 BP over 100 kg, and 120 BP over 200 kg. The question is, are you fighting opponents heavy enough to prefer this over a consistent Fighting BP move? Not this early you're not.
- Uproar: A 90 BP Special Normal move. Will be used for three turns consecutively when selected (at the cost of only one BP). While in this Uproar state, Pokemon are unable to fall asleep. Aside from its high BP, the fact that it forces you to keep using it makes it a difficult option, although it might come in handy as a source of a powerful Breakneck Blitz...
- Bind: A 15 BP, 85% Physical Normal move. Will inflict a trapped status on the opponent for 4-5 turns. A general use trapping move, mostly good for being widely distributed rather than having something that makes it better than its ilk for any reason.
- Helping Hand: A Status Normal move. Has +5 priority- the highest in the game- and if used in a Double Battle, will increase the power of your ally's attack by 50%. It sure would be nice if we had any Doubles for that to be useful in, wouldn't it?
- Shock Wave: A 60 BP Special Electric move. Never misses. There's a ton of these moves scattered around- Aerial Ace is the most famous example- and they primarily have the job of being your answer to a Pokemon spamming evasion-boosting moves. Of course, you have to know in advance when to be scared of those...
- Block: A Status Normal move. Prevents the opponent from switching out. A Mean Look clone, and such moves do not scare the opponent enough to be useful.
- Last Resort: A 140 BP Physical Normal move. Cannot be used unless all other moves the user knows have been used. This is the sole purpose of the Move Deleter, and Last Resort is also good for Breakneck Blitzes, but do you really need it?
- Worry Seed: A Status Grass move. Will change the opponent's Ability to Insomnia. Unless you like Sleep, this is a good move to have if you don't like the Ability of your opponent. Note that a lot of "fundamental" Abilities starting here in SM started being immune to this.
- Covet: A 60 BP Physical Normal move. If the opponent has an item but the user doesn't, the user steals the opponent's held item. A Thief clone, and barely one that changes the distribution. Thief is better, even- nothing's immune to it.
- Bug Bite: A 60 BP Physical Bug move. If the opponent is holding a Berry, this move will consume it and automatically apply the effect to the user, if it would have one. Bugs mostly like the move as STAB, the bonus effect is just that.
- Snatch: A Status Dark move. Has +4 priority. If somebody else attempts to apply a beneficial status move, the user of this move will steal it, and its bonus effect, for themselves. It's a move that you wish you had, but can never justify actually bothering with.
- Recycle: A Status Normal move. If the user used to have an item but has consumed it, this will restore the item. It depends why you're restoring it, really- some sets make great use of this, but it's often not worth the moveslot.
I think a bit more slippery, they are rays, after all.
Since we don't sail to Akala on the boat, we don't get that cutscene, although they do have one for getting on the Mantine's back.
And yes, they thought of that, there's a harness for you to stand on rather than finding grip on the Mantine itself somehow.
This cutscene mostly just shows the protagonist slowly and steadily coming to grips with the Mantine's movements.
Now then, we saw what happened to the poor Photo Club game, so is there anything similar here in Mantine Surfing to look out for?
As a matter of fact, yes, there is, although it's the opposite problem. The Photo Club didn't even show you half the features.
Mantine Surfing makes this already slightly long minigame take even longer by walking you through the four phases of a Mantine Trick individually.
Lesson 1: Flick the Circle Pad back and forth to wiggle up and down the wave to pick up speed. There are three speeds- white, yellow and orange, in order.
Lesson 2: When you have some amount of speed, hold the Circle Pad right so you can jump off the wave.
Why this deserves its own lesson, I'll never know.
Lesson 3: While airborne, flick the Circle Pad in a cardinal direction to perform an air roll. If you perform a certain set of three-four rolls in sequence, you will do a special trick, worth additional points.
If you attempt to perform a trick you know exists in the game but haven't formally learned, it won't count. Performing four rolls that do not correspond to a valid trick produces the special trick Magikarp Splash.
There's also a bit of a timing element to it, with doing each trick in a rhythm rather than just spamming the actions, but I don't know how well I'm doing at it. Honestly, I just do the tricks and whatever my score is, it is.
Lesson 4: Landing.
You can't say you have not been instructed on how to play.
In addition to the Landing Bonus, failing to properly land on the wave will cause you to wipe out. You'll respawn in a few seconds, but you will have to start gathering speed again from scratch.
No.
They try to set this up like it's a valid tactic, and while it sorta is, I usually just use "seeing the flags that mark the end of the course" as the cue to finish up. Not that there's anything special you need to do at the end of your performance.
Now then, to actually Mantine Surf. Mantine Surfing has a neat theme, but it does tend to overstay its welcome a tad. Nevertheless, it awards valuable BP for learning those special moves, so it's good to keep in mind.
Not mentioned in the tutorials: In the real courses, there's Tentacool, Pyukumuku on rocks, and shadows with Wailmer lurking underneath to weave between. These will be the only obstacles for the first two courses, but later courses add some more aggressive ones. Hitting them will cut off a significant chunk of your speed.
It's also not particularly easy to see them at night. Ultra Sun has it easier in that regard.
You have no real feedback while playing the game how many points you're getting. For the most part, all you really need to know is that Magikarp Splash is actually worth quite a few points the first time it is used, and you can usually do two Spirals in one jump if you're at max Speed.
At the end of the minigame, it scrolls through every single air roll you did. Fortunately, you can skip this, but is it any wonder I have no idea how this number is calculated?
Doing the first Mantine Surf starts up our Akala Island. The main SM playthrough has neatly chopped this up, but unfortunately, to show the ending of a Mantine Surf, I have to show the opening of Akala early. How inconsiderate.
We are in Heahea City, the main city of Akala Island, and particularly its Beach. This Beach area is also brand new to USUM, mainly here to facilitate the Mantine Surf minigame.
SM has Lillie rib him for this. Since she's not here, Hau goes unchallenged. I prefer the SM version.
Not sure if there's an answer on that one.
To proceed, we have to converge on SM by going to see Kukui and Lillie and watching that cutscene. That involves walking there, and that will be beyond the scope of this update.
Anyway, at the end of a Mantine Surf, we have a chinwag with a male Swimmer who will give us our assorted prizes.
There are preset scores you have to beat. They aren't high. (Big Wave's high score is 12,200 points).
I think you get items for beating high scores. They're usually just selling items, I don't care too much.
This is more valuable, though. It'll take a few sessions of Mantine Surfing, but we will get those moves.
On beating the high score of a course, we will learn a new move. The new moves usually have better possible scoring potential, making later courses that much easier to master.
Lanturn 360 gets a score bonus if the wave you jumped off was high. Sometimes I struggle to tell when the wave is high enough, but a bonus is a bonus. Lanturn 360 is performed as Up, Down, Up.
I said something about Mantine Surfing to show off the Battle Buffet?
Yeah, look at those scores. I think you get better scores on the later courses because they go on longer. Also, I think I crashed into, like, everything on that second attempt of Normal.
Nope, no prizes for new high scores on old courses.
The prize I got for Heahea's Surf.
And the new move, Primarina Twist: The move to use on low waves. I'm not sure if transitional waves that give bonuses to neither kind of trick exist or it's always "either Lanturn 360 has a bonus or Primarina Twist does". Either way, I wish I knew which was which.
Overall, we got a lot of new content, although it's difficult to point and say at what was better than not having it in the original. Mantine Surf is huge for the BP thing, of course, the the Photo Club is a cool feature that the game really didn't pull off as well as it could have, and the haunted school was... Pokemon's kinda usual weird for "maybe normal, maybe paranormal". I do like the event with Gentleman Reginald, though.
Next time: Akala Island.
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