Pokemon Alola Guzma 1 Bonus: Rock Does Not Resist Bug

Right, so then, let's fight Guzma with a few of our other kids. Shouldn't be too hard.

Pokemon Sun Malie Garden 2: Knuckleheads

Electrium-Z in hand, we can head over to Route 12... and find the Trial Barricade is still up. What gives?

It is a long walk from Malie Garden to Route 11. In part because the only way for the player to get onto Route 11 is on the west side of town (as the Murkrow flies, we're only like fifteen metres away), but still. I don't see how this is any of her business. Oh well, it's volunteer work, you get what you pay for.

Let's go check on on this garden.

Pokemon Alola Bonus: Electrium Z

We start off with Noah, and well, he's off doing the Molayne fight and picking up some EXP. No team preview yet, but that may be for the best.

Pokemon Ultra Moon Electrium Z: The Other Trial of Hokulani Observatory

Ailey's turn at the Trial of Hokulani Observatory goes... much differently. So much so I'm mostly giving it the same coverage as Beth got, and the boys'll wait a little bit further.

This leg of the conversation is mostly the same.

The most obvious difference is that this isn't leading in to a battle with Molayne.

Instead, he jokes about introducing us to the Masked Royal. He's really trying to reveal the truth about Kukui to us by any means possible- he just won't shut up about it.

Kukui's follow-up lines immediately following the teasing feels more appropriate, although the first line feels divorced from context (nothing about the preceding conversation is talking about Ailey's strength) and the second line ignores the way Molayne needled him this time (he never said introducing the Royal meant pointing at you...). C-.

...Beg your pardon, Kukui?

Either way, Kukui's job here is still done, and he'll still be heading over to Malie Garden.

Molayne does, however, hand over the Steelium Z immediately. While, strictly speaking, this does increase its availability, practically it's not that much of an improvement. If anything, Sophocles's new Trial is more hostile to Steel moves than it was already. Not helping is that none of the Status Steel moves get much out of going Z.

Pokemon Sun Electrium Z: The Trial of Hokulani Observatory

With all that taken care of... it's time to see what's going on in the observatory.

For some reason, Kukui comes with us to introduce us to this man. I have no idea why, but it happens in both games.

This guy is apparently someone in on the "secret" that Kukui is the Royal, since he drops a lot of the textual hints. Other than Bethany knowing immediately.

Molayne is... a semi-important character. He got a bit of an importance buff in USUM, but on a grand scale, he does a lot more things narratively than mechanically.

For instance, him and the Electric Trial Captain are closely acquainted, and he continues to serve in an advisory capacity.

...You know, this is probably why Trial Captains aren't supposed to have real jobs.

This is a bit of an interesting point, and part of why I'm counting this in the Electric Trial: He only does this in SM.

Pokemon Sun Mount Hokulani: Establishing the League

North of Malie City is this minor area, "Outer Cape". It was supposed to squeeze in during the rest of Malie City, but both the main city and the outer cape proved so dense I had to chop it. Breaks work a lot better when the format was designed around them- which you'd think a handheld game would be better at, but I digress.

Oh hey, it's our first Janitor! The only Janitors in the game are two out here in Malie Cape, some of these unique classes continue to surprise me. Janitor did appear first in the BW games, and while the pose isn't the same (BW Janitors posed with a mop), the design is pretty close. Janitors have a payout factor of x40.

Trubbish (Sun): Unsanitary places are what they like best. They can be spotted in Alola, often with Grimer in hot pursuit.

Melvin shows off a new encounter, Trubbish. Trubbish is a pure Poison type that many describe as an icon of modern Pokemon's lack of creativity, and I never really understood why. It's both hilarious and adorable, and its evolution fits right in with Grimer's Kantonian form and another old Pokemon called Weezing as various forms of pollution.

It proves a bit rubbish at taking a hit from our newly evolved Zapple, but it is lower levelled.

Melvin's other Pokemon is a second Trubbish. It fails to make more of an impression.

...I have no idea why he's saying that, but I love it.

This is a pretty neat move, but if you're thinking of using it to reuse a one-use item, it's a bit of a hard sell. You have to use the item, and then have the spare turns to pop this move before the battle is over and you lose the item. Most uses of the move Recycle are done to do something like recycling a Figy Berry to get multiple 50% HP heals in one fight, as well as being a key move in dedicated SOS Battle builds that aim to keep the chain going as long as possible- you need to regenerate your own Leppa Berries to pass onto the thing you're using to chain off of.

Trubbish can use it (hilariously), but you can't catch any that know it. It's only on one Pokemon in SM naturally, with USUM adding a second and also a Tutor (it was back on Big Wave Beach) so you can give it to several candidates.

...Good to have when working with Poison types.

Speaking of recycling, this seems to be the main purpose of this north area! I can't tell if the joke is that the building is made from recycled material, or if the building used to be used for something else before being converted to this. The latter is the easier way to go about it, but they never mention what it started as.

Pokemon Sun Malie City: A True Kantonian

Right, with our visit to Kukui done, now we can talk to Lillie and debrief about... well, a lot of things.

There's a really strange moment here: What we are about to see is a build up to SM's climax... but it only happens on USUM, where it is robbed of some of its context. It's really hard to tell if this was an intentional dissonance or not, mostly because of the problem being caused here.

Lillie, who actively decided not to go to the Aether Foundation, asks us our opinion on the President. If she really wanted to know, she would have come with.

As it happens, I can't offer my real opinion, so this is the closest I've got. She's bad news, I'm not compelled to make a habit of travelling to that particular location.

Lillie brushes off that response as... us having not met her. Either this is part of Lillie's continual practice of not sharing accurate opinions on her situation, or this is USUM putting its thumb on the scale to attempt to colour the audience's perception.

If you instead tell her that you swallowed her rhetoric, she tries her hardest to pretend she did too.

Anyway, onto her real question.