Wow, look how far we've come. We started this island having barely got a team that could do more than click their STAB move, and now not only have teams switching out as the situation demands, but can also cover outcomes beyond what is written on the box. So how has this come about, and how has our understanding of the story evolved alongside it?
On arrival in Heahea City, we have been introduced to Akala's more involved Trial process as compared to Melemele's, as well as seeing Lillie duck out of the story for a segment to wait on (and fail to meet) a contact. Lillie then proceeds to largely stay out of our way until all three Trials are complete, which mostly works on the grounds that Lillie doesn't have too much more to do until we learn a few extra details, but also there's a general reluctance to share those details in a timely manner. This seems to be a bit of a "the middle is the hardest part of writing", but for right now, the gameplay seems to be doing quite well on its own, and Lillie could use a break- even if she's spending her time stressing about Team Skull.
Before Brooklet Hill, we get another battle with Hau, as well as one with newcomer Gladion. I like the idea of having these two battles so close together for juxtaposition, but it does kinda feel like it hasn't been long enough since our last battle back on Route 3. Considering I previously said the Route 3 content could use trimming, perhaps this is the battle to keep, and have Hau come in with Eevee, Pikachu and his Normalium Starter. And of course, first we have Hau, the friendly rival who heals us up before we get into an "old-timey shootout" in a "Western set", and then we have Gladion, who challenges us before asking questions and dismisses Hau as flighty. Gladion is 100% the more serious opponent, but with his encounter with Team Skull after the fact, it is made clear that his serious behaviour is as much a presentation as anything.
From here, we have three Trials to conduct, and they happen in an almost rapid sequence. We beat Brooklet Hill, walk south to Royal Avenue, do a Battle Royal, slip around behind it for Wela Volcano Park, and then go north and around it straight to Lush Jungle. It's likely they didn't want to leave you without your Starter's Z-Crystal long no matter who you picked, but wow they don't really feel so close together until you realise that Wishiwashi and Lurantis are four levels apart. At this stage of the game, four levels isn't much, certainly far too narrow a gap to separate bosses two notches apart. Gameplay-wise, we're spending this time gathering new teammates, and many of our next encounters narratively want to be at a point where we're operating from a position of power.
After this, we stop in the Dimensional Research Lab to plant the seeds of inter-dimensional activity that will be sprouted later, and then head south for a blitz of plot developments. We're introduced to Aether Foundation- something a long time coming, considering the time we've had where we could talk to them mechanically. Almost as soon as we are introduced, we are swiftly followed with an invitation to visit them on their home turf, we have a battle with Team Skull's Admin that's largely a continuation of all the miscellaneous Skull stuff rather than the major plot, the Grand Trial with Olivia itself squeezed in there, and then the proper major introduction at Aether Paradise, introducing, in rapid succession, Faba, Wicke, Lusamine and UB01-Symbiont. There is almost certainly an argument for spreading these out, even if Lusamine and UB01 should be nowhere else but the very end. Slip the Aether introduction in between one of the Trials, just to explain them before we get proper Aether outposts to visit, make Plumeria part of the Diglett's Tunnel encounter (or honestly, put Faba here, so him inviting Hau makes more sense), just... I know I praised a gap in plot developments during the Trials, but we have a whole island for this sort of thing. I'm not saying move anything new in here, just let it spread itself out a little more.
There are a few miscellaneous encounters scattered in here. In SM, we meet Sina and Dexio, who give us SM's island-spanning fetch quest, Hapu, a story-important character to this game, and Colress, a previous-game cameo who has some relevant to the plot of USUM. In USUM, we additionally meet the Ultra Recon Squad, who kinda cheat a little bit and show off our first UB (UB Adhesive Poipole) before we even learn about Ultra Wormholes, and then we get another cameo encounter with Looker later- and ironically, Looker was far more important to SM than USUM. Hapu kinda gets to hide her relevance here to people who don't recognise the classic characters, but mostly, I see a bunch of people using up the time that Alola's story could be spreading into. Not particularly urgently, but in general, the previous game cameos seem to be more because "SM is the 20th anniversary game and we're going to be celebrating series history" than a part of the cohesive whole. Considering how little of this carried into SM's own legacy, it is hard to describe what happened here as anything but a failure.
Lusamine's introduction at the ending serves two major purposes, depending on which game you're in. In SM, it is the payoff to a barrage of very suspicious Aether details, giving you an ostensibly philanthropic woman whose brand of smotherliness is off in just the right way to come out in front, given a new goal in "adopt the alien UB01 by whatever means necessary", and in exactly the same place that we saw Lillie escape from in the game's opening- a place Lillie shows no intentions of returning to. Even if Hau hadn't explicitly connected the two characters, we would know that Lusamine is the one pursuing Lillie, and we also have a few clues as to what Nebby has to do with anything. In USUM, the addition of the Ultra Recon Squad refocuses Lusamine towards trying to "deal with Necrozma", a situation that makes her look far closer to the role she claims for herself... but with all the hints that something's not right here left intact from SM. Even UB01's appearance feels kinda detached from the new plot, and only considering USUM's story, I'm not 100% sure what it does other than showcase UBs for Hau- something that might've been better served by us having our first battle with Poipole, had we not been in the conservatory. USUM's reliance to sticking rigidly to SM's story means that Lusamine still has an antagonistic role to play in USUM's story, but even this early, we get the sense that USUM is chafing against this requirement.
Gameplay-wise, well... when dividing a Pokemon game into four mechanical acts, Akala corresponds to the "fair-game" section. For most players, no matter which game you're playing, the largest portion of your team is typically going to come from this section, where type diversity is much greater than the early-game, but your team is much more in flux and open to comers as you find things you need to be including. The wide diversity available across the ranch, the brooklet, the volcano park, the jungle, the tunnel and the outskirts helps add plenty of environments from which to draw Pokemon, and many of our teams have found a strong core that includes something from Akala. Ula'ula will see very few additions, and most of the Pokemon that get added will be in types that we haven't seen much of- Electrics, Ices, Steels, and so forth. We also got a bunch of strong-but-not-endgame TMs like Scald (OK, maybe not that one), Flame Charge, Bulldoze, Leech Life and even Psychic at the very end. As we enter Ula'ula, we're actively thinking about our learnsets, and indeed, in this game, many Pokemon we have yet to meet will suffer because they don't have access to key moves available early in their learnset.
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