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.

These guys are the big side story here. And their prize is astoundingly timed.

This is build-up to quite possibly one of my favourite minor NPC jokes in the game, and I'm of two minds about whether or not I believe the guy. On one hand, Alolan Grimer at work is in itself hazardous enough to warrant qualifications when working alongside one. On the other hand, there is absolutely no clear indication that this area is classed as hazardous.

His supervisor turns to him and scoffs at him about the fact that he tried to chase us away, because the residents should be welcoming of passersby and kids on the Island Challenge need to see the world. While I can understand and even respect that position, there is an upper limit on what locations we should be allowing children free access to- and "places where adults are advised to avoid" is very much a limit we should be maintaining. At minimum, I need adult supervision.

Incidentally, this kid is both the son and the apprentice of the older man. I'd call nepotism, but at the very least, this kid is being put through the same rigours a normal hire ought to receive.

This. This is that joke. I love the half-malicious-compliance, half-lampshade-hanging you get out of the kid just going "I maintain that this kid does not have reason to be here, but I am going to follow the instructions you gave me this second as opposed to the instructions you gave me in the past".

...All the garbage is recyclable? Granted, I'm sure a lot of it gets "recycled" into Grimer's lunchbox, but also do you know how difficult it is to treat every type of material for recycling?

...Or it's just all going in the gullet. You're not a recycling plant, you're a Grimer preservation.

...Is that your Grimer or a company Grimer? Am I going to have to take up a job here because of Woodstock's diet? I'd rather loan Woodstock out to others for that.

Huh, they finally noticed the island challenge amulet. Which basically means, up until now, they've assumed we've just been some passerby kid. Which makes the earlier objection to our presence make even more sense.

...I'd ask if you caught more Pokemon than just your own Grimer, but I look at how Woodstock handled Gumshoos and instead ask "how did you not manage to last until at least Wishiwashi?"

The janitor pauses for a moment and mulls things over.

...Well, I mean, I still think your son has a point about me not being welcome here, but sure.

I think we all sorta knew this was going to wind up a battle anyway.

Muk (Ultra Moon): What look like fangs and claws are actually crystallized poison that will afflict you at a mere touch, so don't get too close.

He's using the evolved form of Grimer, Muk- shame, I was hoping the first time we'd see it would be when Woodstock evolved into it. The funky colouration is attributed to the chemical processes occurring by all the miscellaneous chemicals that have entered its body and reacted with each other due to its extreme diet, but really, everyone knows the Alolan form for looking pretty psychedelic.

Ironically, considering the name "Woodstock", the rainbow effect's real-life inspiration is oil spills.

Yes, Muk is a Special wall, not a physical one, but you ever just watch yourself handily defeat the future evolved form of one of your teammates and ask "is he going to be OK when he's evolved?"

My favourite kind of exercise: The kind where you don't do anything.

...You're going somewhere with that, aren't you?

It definitely felt pretty impressive. (It wasn't quite so easy for Ailey and Noah, but Sue and Gonzales handled themselves pretty well.)

...Seriously, mate? Volunteering him for fighting "a random trespasser"? Even if I hadn't just oneshot you with a donkey, I'd be asking questions about this one.

This explains so much about how he walked away with a loss to Gumshoos. And is absolutely a valuable lesson in parenting you should be getting him to work on.

I maintain that this is not the way to go about it. There's a much greater difference in scope between Gumshoos and Murphy.

And this is around the part where we start to get back into the whole "nepotism" angle. If you don't think your son can handle the rigours of feeding Grimers, find someone else to be your successor. You do not, and probably should not, need to position your son for this job.

It proved a convincing enough argument for him. Probably because I'd start to worry about my job security if I continued to say no. If he's tough enough to put him through the wringer, he's tough enough to fire him.

Fortunately, you are allowed to turn him down and heal between fights, if Shawn's Muk was enough to give you pause.

In he charges, with his own Grimer. It's worth noting that, while neither Trainer has assigned EVs, Natures or Moves, they do in fact have assigned IVs- both of them have 31s in Def and Sp. Def. Equally weirdly, both were knocked down to 30 IVs for USUM. This doesn't even change their defence scores!

I doubt I need to explicitly tell you the outcome of this match.

Oooh, that one's lovely! Toxic is a Poison Status move with 90% accuracy that's dedicated to inflicting the Bad Poison status ailment- the one that deals increasingly more damage with each passing turn. It also has a secret bonus effect introduced in XY: If a Poison-type Pokemon uses the move, its accuracy is buffed to "perfect"- even semi-invulnerability won't protect you. This is a move Flambebe was designed to want.

Also, as one funny note about this battle, but since the Ace Trainer payout coefficient is higher than the Janitor's (and also because in both games, Chase's Grimer is two levels stronger than Shawn's Muk), Chase has a higher payout than Shawn. Considering their respective characters, one feels like an exception ought to have been made here...

In spite of his newfound confidence to tackle life's obstacles, it turns out the girl on an Island Challenge armed with a yet-to-be-evolved donkey remains insurmountable. Not the greatest feedback one could've hoped for.

...I'm with Chase on this one.

...Does he realise he's contradicting himself?

Chase really is the more normal of these two, despite everything.

This actually harkens back to something I encountered with my own first encounter with the idea of persistence, and it's one that I always questioned- by all means, you should be willing to tackle obstacles with the understanding you might fail. But at a certain point, it's important to be able to assess the risks and realise when trying won't actually produce any meaningful results!

...OK, Chase's Grimer managed to get some half-decent mileage out of Minimise against Noah. But honestly, a 1/4 chance at a partial success (Sue made short work of Grimer, and Theodore barely had to think) does not seem like a situation you want to enter and fail anyway. Commit to training for and attempting when you have actual resources to experiment with? Yes. But if you're expecting to come out with a broken neck, persistence might not be the best idea...

...Yeah, not sure I'm jiving with this one so much. Hopefully Chase actually puts up the biohazard and "warning, Grimer" signs.

I suppose I would be a pretty good example here- I'm something Chase could've been, had he not given up so quickly. But I think you ought to have leaned into that angle more to teach the lesson.

And he's sure right about that! The Twisted Spoon is the 20% item for Psychic-type attacks, and while Zapple was helpless against Muk, he's sure going to appreciate this against things that are actually scared of Psychic. And Melia... I think Noah's old friends in Kanto just felt a shudder in fear.

...OK, if you were at the age where you really wanted to retire, I can understand your rush a little more.

(Also, how old is this kid again?)

May you figure out the secret of how Shawn got his Muk evolved eleven levels early. You can get a few early evos like that scattered around, but Muk is not one of them- you want a Muk, you're evolving a Grimer.

Fortunately, this Zygarde Cell wasn't in the cutscene.

This NPC is the payoff to something we've had in the back of our minds for a long time. His introduction is... a thing.

I've not put much thought into it, but with the transition to all these 3D models, it is something that the developers have been able to use to express characterisation. Think about Hau's playful throw versus Gladion's more serious one.

The sheer contrast in comparison to Shawn and Chase... but seriously, he's got a point. A bit of a weird one, considering how it's implemented, but...

No, seriously, you're But Thou Musted into answering yes. Not that you really had to worry if you just ignored him. And this area entirely.

...I know it's entirely because Pokemon is a franchise travelling at a brisk pace and this "fade to black before one might want to animate literally anything" is a problem across the entire game, but seriously, this is the greatest moment in which to do it. It also causes a bit of an issue of presentation.

We have just learned a new Battle Style! What is he talking about, precisely? Now we can have our kids throw their Poke Balls in a different manner! There are seven Battle Styles in all (eight in USUM), and how we encounter them varies greatly.

The only way to change our Battle Style is to talk to him. Note: We only unlocked Elegant, we haven't changed to it yet.

Hm... So how does one go about unlocking the other Battle Styles? Well...

Gester is absolutely unclear on the cause and effect, but Bethany and Noah have three additional Battle Styles that Ray and Ailey do not have.

The girlish style is acquired for defeating Trial Captain Lana.

The reverent style is acquired for defeating Trial Captain Kiawe (Sun) or Trial Captain Mallow (Moon).

And the left-handed style is acquired for defeating Trial Captain Ilima the second time. (Yes, you have to acquire each one in a separate conversation, complete with the same exaggerated reaction and cut-to-black teaching.

I'd show off all the different Battle Styles, but there are several major obstacles to that. One, I don't really know how to go about recording the gifs of my characters doing it. Two, this mechanic is so obscure amongst the Pokemon community that there aren't many pre-existing ones to use, and more than a few videos include spoilery footage. And three, there are two parts to the Battle Style, and one of them only applies in PVP battles. When you battle another player, their model appears in a "You are challenged by Pokemon Trainer X" screen, and their idle pose here depends on their Battle Style. It also changes the animation of the actual ball toss in the single player, but since we always see this animation from the back, it's a little bit difficult to really appreciate.

Also, your idle pose when the Pokemon has been sent out does not change. This really helps the mechanic feel underbaked, especially since there's not really much suggesting it would be too hard to copy+paste, say, Gladion's idle pose onto the player model. I mean, is that not what we're doing for the animations we did use?

I did go ahead and change everyone's Battle Style to be distinct (Bethany's using Girlish, Ailey's using Elegant, Noah's using Reverent, and Ray's stuck on default), at least. And yes, they don't show you what animations you have at all while talking to Gester- you have to actually get into a fight to see your animations, although there is some tall grass on this screen, at least. There are a few cases where you can catch the game using Battle Styles on enemy Trainers, although ironically, Kiawe and Mallow don't use Reverent.

Incidentally, if you're a USUM Trainer and you challenge a SM player to battle while using the new-to-USUM Battle Style, the SM Trainer sees you using the default animations.

Shawn and Chase move over here after defeating them, and mostly just say idle character dialogue.

Thanks, man. Good luck yourself...

OK, you started off pretty philosophical there, but then dovetailed right into a move explanation. It was even kind of interesting philosophy, too.

Haze is a move I personally find really fascinating, because of how much the original RBY used the traditional JRPG grammar and how much modern Pokemon has drifted away from that. Haze is an Ice Status move that resets both the user and the target's stat stages to neutral. This is a nerf from its original RBY appearance, where it also deleted buffs that weren't stat stages, including Focus Energy, Mist, Leech Seed, Disable, the Screens, Confusion, Bad Poison, and the Speed/Atk debuffs from Paralysis/Burn. This thing is, in many ways, Pokemon's counterpart to a traditional Dragon Quest boss trick, Disruptive Wave- and the fact that Disruptive Wave is often described to be "a wave of ice" may have influenced the dev's decision to label this an Ice-type move. Because the move has a semi-limited distribution (it finally became a TM in SV DLC), it has almost never been employed as a "don't use your own stat buffs and fight me on your own" the way Disruptive Wave typically was. Considering most players don't actually use (or often need) stat stages, this is basically a reflection of Pokemon's needs as a game. With that said, there's a fair few Pokemon and strategies that depend on stat stages, and they're often begging for a Haze that they're probably not expecting...

There are five Pokemon that can be encountered in the main story of SM and USUM that can learn Haze. Not the same five, and they also significantly changed the availability on one of the key users, but this is an option for deleting Totem Auras.

Samson has already teleported himself to a new location. Oh, and don't worry, meeting Samson isn't dependent on finding him elsewhere- he genuinely is in like four places at once (plus Heahea Beach in USUM...)

"Naturalisation" is the term given to animals in an ecosystem that were introduced and have since become part of the system. This does include invasives, but some introduced species can achieve an equilibrium that means the ecosystem remains healthy even with them in it. And yes, this does mean there exist naturalised species that we're not even sure are such.

...That's an intriguing idea, if an interesting way to phrase it. Grimer are born from and consume the toxic byproducts of factories that real life businessmen try their hardest not to be responsible for, but in Alola, where none exist, Grimer adapt to eat "anything they can digest"- and the local society deems what parts are undesirable enough to throw down the gullet. Absolutely naturalisation at work there.

Fittingly, Grimer exchanges the Stench Ability for Poison Touch in Alolan form, alongside losing Sticky Hold for Gluttony to communicate the different ways they seek out sustenance.

Shifting gears completely, here's another Apricorn Ball, the Friend Ball. This has a x1 catch rate, but if it is successful, the caught Pokemon's friendship is set to a value of 200. It doesn't work on Pokemon that are hatched (while the Luxury Ball, since it makes Pokemon friendlier faster, does), but it would be a good way to get Friendship evolutions if it was more available.

Unlike most Apricorn Balls, it wasn't glitchy in the original GSC, although one could claim that "Pokemon that hatch from Eggs inheriting the Friend Ball" thing should be fixed. That wasn't a GSC thing, though, Pokemon didn't have a "pass Poke Balls through breeding" mechanic until XY.

...See you later, Samson...?

Anyway, ignoring him completely, let's just grab a few litter items.

I say, despite the fact we are near a place who claims their sole purpose is to dispose of all the region's garbage.

Speaking of rubbish, Trubbish can be encountered in the tall grass here. As a Pokemon, Trubbish is... honestly, kinda legit rubbish? It's not the world's worst Poison type, but as compared to the other pollution-inspired Pokemon Weezing and Muk, Trubbish doesn't have the offensive or defensive power. It is the fastest of the trio, but at 75 base Speed, it's not winning any real speed prizes with that. It can't even claim Toxic Spikes, since it comes too high level for it. Its best move in its learnset is Clear Smog, which can only be learned by Magby outside of it in the Alola Dex, but for most reasons you'd want a Poison type, Muk and Salazzle make better choices.

Trubbish's Abilities are Stench (all moves have a 10% chance of causing flinch, and lowers the wild encounter rate) and Sticky Hold (makes it so it is impossible to separate it from its held item). How funny that it has the exact same Abilities as Kantonian Grimer! Sticky Hold turns into Weak Armour (if hit with a contact move, loses 1 Def stage and gains 2 Speed stages) on evolution, so I'd probably say go for that one. Its HA is Aftermath (the attacker loses 1/4 HP if it defeats Trubbish with a contact move), which is certainly fitting, but not exactly the Ability of a Pokemon you use in the main story.

As a side note, there are two facts about wild Trubbish that somewhat matter for completionist sorts. Trubbish used to have a 5% chance of holding the item Black Sludge, which heals 1/16 HP for Poison types and deals 1/8 damage when held by something that isn't Poison type. A nifty item that, in Alola, can only be found by stealing it from a wild Pokemon. However, starting in Alola, Trubbish no longer have them- they have Silk Scarves instead. Its evolved form does still have a chance at holding Black Sludge, and can be encountered as an SOS call... but only in SM. USUM Trubbish will never call its evolution. Honestly, through, the evo still has a chance of holding Silk Scarves now- if you want a Black Sludge, it's far easier to look for one off a Grimer.

...Well, I suppose we are halfway through the Island Challenge on a number-of-islands basis, but wow... we really are halfway through the Alola Dex now, huh? Ailey, I think, takes a little longer to reach her slightly-higher 50% total, but I think she did so during this update.

And remember, I haven't traded to get the version exclusives and other starters yet!

USUM adds wild Minccino here, who we bumped into in Malie's Gym earlier. Minccino is a Normal type that takes tremendous pride in having access to a certain set of moves to combo with its Abilities, but it depends on the Move Reminder to actually learn those moves. Using the tools Alola offers, Minccino has a pretty unimpressive kit to work with, and while it does have a respectable Atk and Spd stat to offer (especially the Spd), it finds it hard to improve on other Normal types like Stoutland, Tauros and Kangskhan. It's also a Stone Evolution, and when you evolve it, it stops learning new moves at all. Considering the moves it rather likes the idea of from late in its unevolved learnset, not the most inspiring of choices.

Its Abilities are Cute Charm (30% chance of inflicting infatuate on contact) and Technician (increases the power of moves with 60 BP or less by 50%). Technician is, of course, superior, and comboes well with its siganture move Tail Slap (25 BP, 85% accurate, hits 2-5 times), but it doesn't learn enough moves outside of that to really have a place on the team on that basis. Its HA is Skill Link, which allows "moves that hit 2-5 times" to always hit 5 times. Minccino is famous for making good use of Tail Slap, Bullet Seed, and Rock Blast, mostly because B2W2 gave you a free Minccino with Skill Link, but you only get Bullet Seed and Rock Blast by Move Reminder. Tail Slap alone doesn't really give Minccino a niche outside of breaking shields like Sturdy, and Cloyster fills that role better.

This is where I thought the update would be starting- funnily, with an NPC inside Malie.

And as such, he also mentions where to find the library for the plot progress. Been there, done that.

Now then, which route am I going to go down first...

Surprise! Route 11 doesn't have a lot to offer most playthroughs, but it does have enough tangible things to have some value, including a new team member for Bethany.

This NPC actually will heal your Pokemon if talked to. There's a few of them scattered around, but this one feels a bit too close to the Pokemon Centre to really feel necessary. Still nice, though.

There's really not that much here. It's more sort of a warmup route for Route 12.

Heh. But he's not wrong- not only can Pokemon gain a type on evolution, they can also lose types. This is pretty rare, though- Eevee and Cubone are the two main examples of Pokemon that don't keep at least one type on evolution.

I am definitely picking this up before I walk through the grass aimlessly.

Komala (Sun): It is born asleep, and it dies asleep. All its movements are apparently no more than the results of it tossing and turning in its dreams.

Wow, that came quick. Komala is a pure Normal type introduced in the Alola games, and yes, the koalas it is based on are known for sleeping up to twenty hours a day. This is a Pokemon particularly defined by its unique Ability, an Ability so unique it's actually immune to being suppressed. Statistically, it has high Atk, decent Sp. Def, and kinda bad values in its physical bulk and Speed. This leaves it only sorta able to pull off its job, but as an Australian, I feel honour-bound to include this little guy on the team either way. As a pure-Normal, her addition to the team will send Snaggletooth to the bench, but that was always going to be a when anyway, now is as good a time as any.

Komala's signature Ability is Comatose (ぜったいねむり Sure Sleeper in JP), which renders it in a permanent state of "sleep". It is not actually afflicted with Sleep, so it can still act freely, but it can enjoy all the benefits- and downsides- being Asleep offers: It can use Sleep Talk and Snore, it is immune to being inflicted with any other non-volatile status, it takes double damage from Wake-Up Slap (and Hex, were its typing not in the way), it can be hit with Dream Eater and Nightmare, and it can't use Rest. The whole "Comatose cannot be ignored by Gastro Acid, Mold Breaker or anything" strikes me as kinda weird, as while it is pretty unique in the series, it's not a form-changing Ability, like most examples. I think it's mainly there because the game may or may not freak out if you inflict it with a non-volatile, remove it from battle, and then send it out later once it gets Comatose back. I dunno, I wonder what happens if you hack that interaction in.

Komala will not call for help, and does not have a Hidden Ability even if it did.

Komala has a catch rate of 45, and being immune to non-volatiles makes it a right pain in the arse to actually catch, though. Even if you drop it to 1 HP with False Swipe, its catch rate with Ultra Balls is still only 45%. 61% with Dusk Balls, at least, but... if I could put it to sleep, it would be 95% in an Ultra Ball, and a guarantee in a Dusk.

Now that is a perfectly plain moveset you've got there, Cranky. Normal types find their claim to fame most often with their TM pool. I wonder what I've got that Cranky can already get...

There we go. Sadly, Facade does not actually have a power boost if you're inflicted with Sleep. Still probably better than Slam, but a koala can dream...

Anyway, as we prepare to enter Route 11 proper, we get another random instance of something in USUM:

For... no adequately explained reason whatsoever, Rotom just decides, you know what, I'm going to give you a freebie Rotom Prize Money right now. Just... absolutely no particular reason. Ailey used it to get increased prize money from all the Trainers on this route, but after the fact, I thought about it a little longer and realised that you have a better option- get the buff here, fight that first Doubles battle just north of us, and then go back and fight the richer Trainers on Route 10. The extra profit isn't that big, but big numbers are cool.

Anyway, speaking of the Doubles match we have here, we have not only the only instance of an Athletic Siblings in either game, but also the only male Youth Athlete in SM. USUM added a solo instance much later, and they are at least able to appear in the endgame facility, but wow does the fact there's one of you here feel weird knowing that fact. Predictably, male Youth Athletes are Youngsters with sporting equipment, just like females are Lasses.

In SM, they have Herdier and Fletchinder, which I imagine is mostly to give you their Seen entries. It's not the only instance of either Pokemon in SM, though- although it is the only place to find a Trainer Fletchinder in Moon (the other case is Kiawe's).

Whimsicott (Sun): It rides on the wind and slips into people's homes. After it has turned a room into a cotton-filled mess, it giggles to itself and takes off.

In USUM, they instead use the evolved forms of Cottonee and Petilil, Whimsicott and Lilligant. Somewhat ironically, both are more common elsewhere (Lilligant is actually used by a boss), but fair enough, they like Doubles Pokemon to actually be related to each other in some way.

I dunno, though, I think Herdier/Fletchinder is actually going somewhere. Funnily enough, the SM pair even has assigned moves- Ember, Peck, Quick Attack for Fletchinder, Helping Hand, Take Down and Crunch for Herdier. Not great ones, but for random Trainers, I'm surprised they're set.

Whimsicott and Lilligant aren't set, but at their levels, Whimsicott gets Tailwind and Lilligant gets Quiver Dance, which kinda make them terrifying if you can't immediately shut them down.

Sam is mostly here to show off Beak Blast.

Yes, Accelerock does that to something with a x4 weakness. It also goes after Sam's beak heats up.

Dangit. Oh well. There's Black Belts on this route.

Herdier's, uh... not going to get a second try.

Red Rover is, apparently, a children's game- it's not one I've ever heard of, and apparently it's the kind of game schoolyards ban for physical risk. It requires a playercount in the 10+ range, which I suspect is part of the reason for that reputation, despite largely being a variant of the common game of tag. Still, though, the line comes out of nowhere, especially when compared to Sho complaining about his actual skill in Pokemon battling- or, well, a Pokemon-specific thing.

Good luck with that. I totally get that one, too, but it's a little harder to "practice" Pokemon battles- unless you count what we just did as such.

Gyro Ball is a relatively unique Physical Steel move. Its BP is calculated formulaically, as (25xTarget's Speed)/User's Speed + 1. There are quite a few Pokemon that get this that are slow enough to have some impressive BP values with this move, but with only 5 PP and a BP that depends on your opponent's stats, it's hardly a move that you use if you have better options. Still, though, being a Steel move makes it fairly nice for hitting Fairies as coverage.

...Honestly, I'm more surprised we're still fighting Preschoolers. Kinda feels like we should be a little bit past that now.

Dedenne (Ultra Sun): It sneaks into people's homes and steals electricity from their outlets. When your electric bill seems off, it's the handiwork of this rascal.

He uses a Stufful in SM, and a Dedenne in USUM. Dedenne is Electric/Fairy type, and happens to be the "obligatory Pikachu knockoff" introduced in the Kalos region (it's Fairy type because Fairy was new at the time). ...I'll be honest, I'm a little impressed we haven't seen the Alolan representative in that archetype yet.

I'd scoff at the choice in Stufful, but no, genuinely, Hayden is the only Trainer to use either of these Pokemon in each game.

Credit for actually switching his loss dialogue to accomodate the fact that Dedenne isn't quite as fluffy as Stufful. I'm not sure I'd cuddle either, though.

So does "messing around", when done properly- you have to know if your opponent is either a) the type that doesn't want to take things seriously, or b) so pathetic that messing around puts you on a more even footing.

I think you might count as both.

...Bit of an odd way to phrase it. But yeah, bamboo is pretty invasive, and it seems some of it has wandered onto Routes 10 and 11. Both routes include a chance of encountering the panda-alike Pokemon Pancham...

Pancham (Ultra Moon): It's desperate to intimidate its opponents. Be nice and pretend to be scared if you catch it glaring at you intensely.

Here we go. Pancham is a pure Fighting type, although it gains a the Dark type on evolution. Pancham's another Fighting type that goes all in on high Atk, decent HP and passable values in the other stats, and would be unremarkable without having that Dark STAB option. With that said, it also packs pretty good Abilities and moves to help it pull ahead of the pack, and almost made it onto Noah's team. Unfortunately, Alolan Pancham doesn't really learn Dark type moves for a bit longer than I was willing to wait. It's not awful... if he wasn't already using Pinsir for Fighting moves.

Pancham's Abilities are Iron Fist (boosts the power of Punching moves by 20%) and Mold Breaker (ignores the effects of most Abilities when calculating damage). Both are solid choices, although Iron Fist is a lot better in USUM. Its HA is Scrappy, which allows its Fighting moves to hit Ghost types- I mean, yeah, that's good, but also what's the Dark STAB for if not that?

Pangoro (Moon): From the slight twitches of its bamboo leaf, it deduces its opponent's movements. It's eager to tussle but kindhearted toward its companions.

Pancham has a chance for calling for help from its evolution, Pangoro, and strangely, I got that outcome both times I had a Pancham attempt a call for help on the first try- Pancham know the move Circle Throw, which can eject you from battle if you're lower levelled than it, so I mainly caught them with Quick Balls. Pancham evolve into Pangoro when levelled up to at least level 32, and require a pre-existing Dark type in your party. The fact that Pangoro draws heavy influence from bancho delinquents implies a sense of "falling in with a bad crowd", although Pangoro remains fairly honourable after the fact- just carries a few more below-the-belt moves than average.

Incidentally, I would not recommend catching Pangoro directly if you want one for your team. Pancham learns the Steel type priority move Bullet Punch as an evolution move, which makes it something Pangoro does not have access to in its standard level-up kit. This means it probably won't have evolved for the Electric trial (which is actually something it kinda resents in both games), but it gives it such a handy option for later battles that it's hard not to want at hand.

On the subject of other Pokemon to find here, using Island Scan on Fridays gets you a Vigoroth with Hammer Arm in SM, and a Monferno with Power-Up Punch in USUM.

...What mechanic are you talking about? Z-Moves based on status moves? That's not a Z-Power field thing, that's just standard stat stages. Maybe they're talking about the stat buff being applied during the "filled with Z-Power" part of the animation? That just feels like a poor way of looking at things.

...I mean... we're on a route. Most Trainers around here don't take no for an answer.

...Bewear is your what?

This Bewear, which only appears in USUM, does in fact have investment. While the rest of its IVs are flat 15s, its Atk is 31, it has 252 Atk EVs, and an Adamant Nature. No assigned moves, so it's running a default kit: Brutal Swing, Take Down, Flail and Payback. So, you know, just Normal/Dark- it's running a Normal type's kit with a Fighting type defence. At this point in the game, there's not a ton of ways to resist both.

But on the other hand, if you've got a non-contact weakness of his, he's a chump. Psychic, obviously, but also Air Cutter, Air Slash or Fairy Wind.

Although it's a Special move, Draining Kiss is contact, and thus must navigate Fluffy.

...You missed. You dolt. (Take Down is actually only 85% accurate...)

I dunno, mate, I think it's Bewear that did the failing here.

...The ability to communicate with Bewear would be nice, but I'm not sure this is a guy I'd trust with that power. We'd like them not to hug us so much!

We did not acquire a copy of TM66 Payback from the Malie City shop in USUM, while we did in SM, and, well...

For whatever reason, they decided to put it here. Your guess is as good as mine.

A few of the NPCs who gave you the Payback TM in the past tended to talk about how Payback wasn't a great real-life strategy as compared to in Pokemon battling. They didn't even bring that one up.

...There's also the possibility that he's just talking out of his ass here, and this isn't a valid style so much as him trying his hardest to fight like a wild red panda that doesn't even know their own strength.

Yeah, that's being a Bewear, all right. Most people consider that a reason to give the family a wide berth.

Now granted, most people isn't Bethany, but, well, you can't meet her.

Oh hey, an NPC that acknowledges the Island Trials we've been doing!

The worst part is, I totally believe it.

...Are you doing sit-ups?

Another Black Belt with a single Hariyama? The worst part is, this one also has the maximum Atk investment Alvaro's Bewear does... and Clayton has been incorrectly designed to have a Z-Ring on his wrist. He doesn't actually pack Fightingium Z, thankfully, but I can see why they cut the boss Trainer with it in Diglett's Tunnel.

But really, why all the Hariyama? We have Bewear for that now.

Every time I see this, I get kind of worried, but fortunately, these items do come back. This would be the rudest thing ever if it didn't, though.

Not half-bad damage, though, for a non-STAB resisted attack.

Although because of Hariyama's phenomenal HP stat and Draining Kiss's 75% leech, Razzly's healed the entire thing off.

I... don't know if there's any real shortcut. Just stick to it, you know?

We see, rather fittingly, that the Trial Barricade has been placed next to Route 12, rather than the rather harmless Route 11. Practically, there's not that much here on Route 11 if we can't get to 12, though.

No Electrium Z means no visiting the rougher mountainous terrain. First time we ever bounced off a Trial Barricade.

There's a bunch of hidden stuff on this route, including a lot of sellables, around here. Most of it hidden items.

Also a night-only Zygarde Cell.

Now then, to travel in our actual direction. Content-wise, Route 10 is actually rather barren- just Trainers, a very small selection of Pokemon, and a plot flag that only shows up once you've talked to Lillie. They did add one thin for it, though...

This lady.

...Not that I'm unwilling, but why specifically a trial-goer?

...OK, I'm even more confused. There are wild Pokemon here, and this is a through-route for normal travel. Outdoor places to take your pets without the need for a leash do exist, but we usually put them in places where people who do not want to be in such an environment can avoid them. And also in places where they're not likely to be bitten by a snake and killed. Route 10 meets neither criteria.

Also you should probably teach your Stufful to come when they are called before you can rely on public outings like this. Failing to do so is asking for trouble.

If they're not coming when you call them, I hardly think they'll listen to me.

...Then again, I do have the Island Challenge Stamps for the obedience...

If they're as smart as that, they'll find their way back on their own. It's just a question of when at that point.

Well, might as well. Probably for the best they don't get eaten by something else, after all.

...Wood and bamboo both. Very interesting for nature.

There are four shaking trees along the route, all of which contain visible encounters You can find two options in SM, three in USUM.

80% in SM, 50% in USUM, it's just a Fearow. We already know plenty about these guys.

Skarmory (Ultra Sun): The wing feathers it sheds can be processed and made into knives whose sharpness is recognized by the finest chefs.

At 20% in both SM and USUM, one can find Skarmory in the trees- they can also be found at 10% in the tall grass. Skarmory is a Steel/Flying type, and is one of the best Physically defensive options in the game. Its strong typing is weak only to Fire and Electric- slightly unfortunate but not insurmountable- its moveset is filled with great defensive moves like Spikes, Tailwind and Defog, and it's immune to Poison and Ground (well, unless Salazzle is doing the poisoning). Its physical Atk stat is a mere 80, though, so its value in the main story is more questionable. I ultimately passed, but it wouldn't be awful to try.

Its Abilities are Keen Eye (ignores anything that lowers its accuracy) and Sturdy (will survive an attack that would oneshot from full HP with 1 HP). Sturdy is the way to go, mostly for Special threats. Its HA is Weak Armour (-1 Def, +2 Spd when hit with a contact move), which doesn't really synergise with its battle strategy. Skarmory didn't exactly get lucky here.

Another 5% find, and this one's a weird one. On its own, the Metal Coat is the 5% item for Steel moves, found on Magnemite, Skarmory, and a third Steel type in the next area. It's similar to Black Belt in the "why don't you have a freebie location?" thing, but it also has a second use- it can be held by Onix (USUM Island Scan) and Scyther (which is in the Alola Dex) in order to induce their evolutions. Item evolutions are awkward at the best of times, but you can often get examples like this where the item is locked behind ridiculous requirements for what I can only comfortably say are no good reasons.

USUM added a freebie Metal Coat in the postgame.

Pineco (Ultra Sun): Motionless, it hangs from trees, waiting for its bug Pokémon prey to come to it. Its favorite in Alola is Cutiefly.

...Pineco is a predator? News to me. Pineco is a pure Bug type, evolving to gain the Bug/Steel type on evolution, and if Skarmory is one of the most effective physically defensive options, Pineco is an equal contender. Bug/Steel exchanges its weakness to Electric for doubling its weakness to Fire, and while it lost the Ground immunity, it has the same number of Resists. Honestly, I kinda think Pineco has the better stat line- same Defence, higher Atk and HP. But while Skarmory's moveset is mostly too geared to defensive prowess to serve for the main story, Pineco's offensive options are even worse. You really have to trawl all ends of its moveset to find the moves it needs to succeed, and while competitive has the leeway to do so, I wouldn't really say the main story has the same leisure.

Pineco's only Ability is Sturdy, to prevent it from being OHKOed. Fair enough, especially if Fire is an option. Its HA is Overcoat, which renders it immune to damaging weathers and spore moves. Since it's already immune to Sandstorm, all this does is prevent chip from Hail and being statused by Stun Spore and Sleep Powder. Not an outstanding blocklist.

You mostly get Wings as drops from the birds, but for some reason, the Pineco drops Chesto Berries instead. Not even sure why, but I suppose they do have reason to not be sleeping.

The grass has nothing new (other than Pancham and Skarmory), but with Island Scan, you can get a Staravia with Roost in SM and a Pidgeot with Steel Wing in USUM on Thursdays.

...I suspect this started life as actual litter, not just "litter".

Ladies and gentlemen, the only Firefighter in all of SM. USUM added a second one, but also this Trainer Class has never come back. Why bother going to all that effort?

Octillery (Ultra Sun): The ink it spits when escaping is special. It contains a substance that dulls the sense of smell, so Pokémon with keen noses get lost.

Poliwhirl in SM, Octillery in USUM. Both pure Waters, both can be dealt with in similar ways, but Octillery looks a bit more like a fire hose. Octillery, incidentally, is the evolved form of Remoraid, and is, in part, supposed to resemble a tank- as in, the military hardware. They drifted away from that design- a lot- but its signature move is still called Octazooka.

By this point, most Trainers aren't too bad so long as you have something ready for them.

...I think that's a "you" thing. I'm staying away from that.

The "gun-like fish into tank-like octopus" is very surprising without the theming intact, and the series just tries its hardest to make do.

Just south of Alex is our first Stufful. They like to hide behind foliage and such.

Like so.

This is just east of the Stufful in the above picture.

This Berry Tree, incidentally, grows the six Berries that give Friendship at the cost of EVs. In the order shown above, HP, Atk, Def, Sp. Atk, Sp. Def, Spd. I am going to be spending a lot of time growing these, and feeding them to Bethany's team so they can finish up their EV spreads.

The big berry pile here is the only place to acquire the Kee Berry, a new Berry to XY that was added because of the developer's insistence on making the most ridiculous mechanics possible- you got it as a mutation of Ganlon and Liechi Berries, in themselves very rare finds. All of this for a Berry that, when consumed, increases your Def when hit by a physical move. After taking the hit. Basically, imagine a one-use Stamina in your hold-item slot.

Funnily enough, the Kee Berry could be used to get one of XY's EV-reducing methods. It is one of the more terrible choices of one, though, that game has Super Training.

...Apparently Stufful aren't the only things hiding behind the bamboo!

It was a Beauty. I do not feel like answering that question, considering the circumstances.

Steenee in SM, Flaaffy in USUM. Slightly different approaches required here.

And both of them can be very annoying in their own ways.

I'm not one for someone that has to rely on the passed turns given by confusion and paralysis, either.

I'm sure it is. You offered the same courtesy, I'm sure?

Another Stufful up here...

I'd love this mechanic a lot more if they didn't change it on you whenever you got a new button. With Poke Pelago, I don't have to worry about that anymore, but still, really set the tone there.

Also a Stufful behind that sign.

And a Zygarde Cell further up, off being green on green and slightly irritating.

It's fun until the instant one of those Tauros needs to change speed for whatever reason. You need a lot of training for that kind of precision, and good luck finding people who can handle that environment.

This Stufful is just hiding in some tall grass.

You know all those decent items you can only get from stealing them from wild encounters? You ever think about those?

Well, that was easier. I think it's supposed to be behind that bamboo, but...

OK, copper, what did the Stufful do?

...Never mind, he's just an idiot. The Alolan tax dollars at work.

Growlithe in both games. Mildly irritating with Intimidate, but...

Scald is just as effective on Fire types as they are on anyone else.

Although speaking of Physical coverage, Kasplashle is considering their options. Dive is an 80 BP Water move with a turn of semi-invulnerability, and unlike Fly and Dig, it's a lot harder to hit through Dive. This makes it not a horrible option if Kasplashle's got some passive recovery to think about.

...No. Bad cop. Sprays face with Wishiwashi.

...Whoops, I missed one. What part of the route is it standing behind this time...

Ah. There was one right next to the Berry Tree, I didn't think they'd be right on top of each other. Oh well.

No problem. Next time, though, I'd consider a more encouraging environment to set them to walk about.

You get two prizes in both games, although the item differs from game to game.

In SM, you get a second Never-Melt Ice (the first came from Seaward Cave). USUM picked up on the need to put something interesting here... and moved the freebie Muscle Band here, since the battle for Lana's Battle Style is no longer present this early. Either way, I can't help but wonder if a Black Belt might've been nicer...

The other prize is 15K Poke, but both sides get that.

Can't argue with that. I'm not a fan of "Pokemon should be like", but I do kinda have a soft spot for that kind.

...Already? I guess there aren't a ton of evos to go around, but I haven't even done the cross-version trades!

(...Not that many of those are applicable to Ula'ula yet...)

Anyway, now that everything on Routes 10 and 11 have been caught, Bethany and Noah can go get their freebie Happiny from this lady. This also lets Noah take a Happiny at all.

...You have a Dark type, right?

Happini's stats. Her max IV is in Sp. Atk, and she has her best Ability, but also she is level 27 and it's slightly frustrating to have go through the unevolved stages longer. Especially since Noah has to remember to evolve it into Chansey by Oval Stone during the daytime. Oh well, that's what Poke Pelago is for.

While going back to Malie City after cleaning out Route 10, I check in on the Kantonian Gym and notice that the man in red is still here. This'll be our chance to do battle with him!

He's got a fairly nasty team on him, so might as well kit out appropriately. Callie going for that Reflect right away.

I have a bit of a lack of coverage to hit him, and Usagi can't really afford to set up Z-Splash, so the Silk Scarf will have to do.

Jynx (Ultra Moon): Its strange cries sound like human language. There are some musicians who compose songs for Jynx to sing.

Shiva evolved into Jynx during Route 11, and she'll be a keystone of this battle.

Jynx, as a Pokemon, has a bit of a long and storied history- design-wise, she seems to be intended to form a Fire-Electric-Ice trinity with Magmar and an Electric type we'll happen to see later this update, as human-like powerful Pokemon that appeared as single stages in RBY, getting a Baby form in GSC... and then Jynx didn't get an evo in DPPt. That is because she was almost immediately hit with accusations of being a racist caricature- probably an unintended connection, since there are multiple innocent explanations, but the accusations held merit, and Jynx's skin tone was changed from black to purple starting in the international releases of GSC. And Pokemon proceeded to do their best to not poke that Beedrill's nest from that moment forward. Honestly, I don't think most fans mind- Jynx lands in a bit of an uncanny valley in design, being just a bit too human-like for fans to be comfortable with her, in much the same way Mr. Mime hits those same wrong notes. Somewhat annoyingly, with the exception of a single legendary, the only options for Ice/Psychic types continue to be Jynx and Mr. Mime to this day,

Back to Pokemon we have seen before, Chip. He continues to be Chip, but he's got the burden of doubling our prize money- important, since we're going to lose out on 1K of it as an admission fee.

I brought both Chip and Ridley to this fight! They both have good reason to be here, really.

And I can never go wrong with bringing Hawkeye to a tough fight.

Ryuki is a Trainer who appeared in a one-off appearance in SM, and his appearance here in USUM is to give him a bit more of a character.

It's particularly interesting that he got called to Alola for a Gym Challenge. Why come here for Gyms, there are plenty of Gyms elsewhere. We've got Trials!

...I want to be non-judgemental, but you are going to Hawai'i for the McDonalds.

Still, I'm happy to take you on.

Pokemon Trainer Ryuki is an expert in Dragon-type Pokemon, something that cannot be said about any Trainer native to the Alola region. Despite his characterisation as a foreigner who really doesn't understand the local culture, he is using the local Alolan Pokemon.

Turtonator (Moon): It gushes fire and poisonous gases from its nostrils. Its dung is an explosive substance and can be put to various uses.

Starting with Turtonator, a Fire/Dragon type original to the region. It is exclusive to the Sun games, and is a Pokemon I'm considering putting in Bethany's rotation for a little bit, although that Pokedex description is... something, Moon. Ryuki's Turtonator has the IVs 20/20/25/20/25/20, no EVs or Nature, and the moves Flamethrower, Dragon Tail and Iron Defence, with the Shell Armour Ability.

Ryuki in general uses mixed offenses, and I was far more scared of the Physical than the Special threats.

...You thinking what I'm thinking?

I don't like that, change your mind.

...I only got one of Reflect or Light Screen, although I wonder if maybe I should've squeezed them both in. I mean, I can abandon the Psychic moveslot if necessary...

Turtonator is weak to Ground, Rock and Dragon. Which probably means Sue was probably the way to go (minus her own weakness to Dragon), but I had issues remembering the uncommon type weaknesses and thought my options were more limited than that. So I went for the "strongest type-agnostic damage" options.

There goes Callie. Ryuki's higher levelled than us, and while it turns out he doesn't have EVs (I was assuming he did), he does mean business.

Chip coming in to get the Amulet Coin effect off.

And while Dragon's resistance to Water makes this neutral, Adaptability keeps it tough.

Gabite (Moon): Shiny objects are its passion. It can be found in its cave, scarcely moving, its gaze fixed on the jewels it's amassed or Carbink it has caught.

Thankfully, Gabite came up next- this is the other thing Reflect was for. Gabite is a Dragon/Ground type middle-stage evolution for a psuedo-legendary family, and lucked out huge in the stat distribution. 90 Atk and 82 Spd as base values? Gabite is usable in the middle stage! Ryuki's has, for some asinine reason, gone with 20/20/25/20/25/20 IVs, and its moves are a pretty terrible set of Dual Chop, Take Down and Sand Tomb- and the Ability Sand Veil isn't much better. Dual Chop is the move to watch out for, being a Physical Dragon move with 40 BP, 90% accuracy, and lands twice. We are thanking our lucky stars Ryuki hasn't invested in it or taught it Bulldoze.

If it had done either, there were good odds it might be able to outspeed Shiva. Plus, Frost Breath isn't exactly 100% accurate itself.

Drampa (Ultra Sun): If a child it has made friends with is bullied, Drampa will find the bully's house and burn it to the ground.

That was Ryuki's ace, by the way. He made out pretty well with the backup being the new Pokemon Turtonator and Drampa. Drampa is a Normal/Dragon (probably being such mainly to have a Normal/Dragon) exclusive to Moon as Turtonator's counterpart, but with a massive downside- while Turtonator is in our near-future, Drampa is endgame locked. This Drampa runs the IVs 25/20/20/25/20/20, carrying the moves Glare, Echoed Voice and Dragon Breath. As one might expect, pure Special from this one. Its Ability is Berserk, which causes it to get +1 Sp. Atk if it drops below half health. This Ability is unique to Drampa, and Turtonator's equivalent selling point is a move it learns at a higher level.

I wasn't really scared of Drampa, but Drampa does have a high Sp. Atk base of 135, so it would be absolutely terrifying if I ordered any other move.

Those are some pretty impressive Dragon types, I was actually worried there with this team.

That prize payout is well worth the cost of admission.

Literally- Dragon types are weak to Ice moves, and because a lot of them happen to be Ground and Flying types, Ice is a great move to bring to any Dragon boss. Even with his final team, Ryuki carries two such Pokemon- the diversity's gotten better, but not perfect.

Yes, the transition is that jarring. Ryuki will only offer one Dragon Scale for any Trainer that challenges him, the first time you pull it off. The Dragon Scale can be used to evolve Seadra into Kingdra as a held item while traded- we can find Horsea by Island Scan, but it will not be necessary to complete the Alola Dex.

Finding that out naturally was probably a pain in the ass, I'm not sure anyone's done it.

What's this I'm hearing about Alola transitioning to the Gym Challenge? You go back to Unova and you appreciate Drayden, thank you very much.

You can rematch Ryuki, but only on a different day.

Anyway, got what I came for, I spent way too much money on this. So long and thanks for all the soda.

Anyway, with our business on the bottom of the mountain complete, it's about time we checked out this whole "top of the mountain" thing. Unfortunately, Team Skull are hanging around a bus stop, so it might take us some time...

...

Guys. Guys. You are seriously trying to steal a bus stop? I could almost believe this being somewhat disruptive, but this is a tourist bus with two stops, not a metropolitan bus with like fifteen. They're gonna notice immediately.

They decide to intimidate us into ignoring them, a technique with a 150% failure rate. Their loss.

Ooh, Golbat. These things can actually be pretty tough to fight if you're not carrying one of their weaknesses, owing to their high Speed, fondness for Confuse Ray, and actually passable defensive stats.

One good hit is enough to knock off a good chunk of HP, but Golbat can quickly get annoying if left to its own devices.

I actually had to redo this, because of a silly mistake, and in the first run it landed Confuse and became a massive issue. On this second try, he went with Air Cutter, which... doesn't really have any way of slowing down Lycanroc? B for effort, though.

But priority wins.

You must be new to this whole "fighting Bethany" thing. It does not end in success for the guy with the bling.

Oh hey, a battle of two Skull Grunts one after another! A little weird they both have one Pokemon, though, but that's just the Alola games for you. I've seen Grunt ambushes with one guy that had more Pokemon than this.

Raticate on the second go. Since it's two different Trainers, your lead has to be prepared for both, and Golbat and Raticate do not share weaknesses. So, odds are you're switching.

I actually remembered/managed to get a still of Bethany's new Girlish Battle Style! She kinda skips forward a little as she throws the Poke Ball. By "Girlish", they don't mean "feminine", they mean "like a little girl."

To be honest, I could not describe any of the other Battle Styles in text only. I'm not sure if that's because of their lacking personality or because of their being visually distinct only.

Lord Huggington is the way to go for Raticates.

...Crunch is legit one of, if not the scariest Dark type move in the game. It's also contact and resisted. Yeah, uh, Lord Huggington is good.

Never mind. Hyper Fang is a Physical Normal move with 80 BP, 90% accuracy, and a 10% flinch chance. For whatever reason, Rattata learns this at level 16, and it's part of the reason it's so functional from there to the point its stats drop off. Surprisingly, only four other Pokemon can learn it, only one of which is in Alola- Gumshoos gets it at 43.

Thanks to Fluffy and Raticate's own poorer stats, I'm not taking much in damage here, but I'd like not to make it a habit of flinching.

Gotcha.

The fact it is that heavy is wasteful, but it is a reality because assholes like you think it's a good idea to steal it from its usual position. Lots of people depend on that bus stop being where it is.

Houndour (Ultra Moon): They make repeated eerie howls before dawn to call attention to their pack.

In USUM, they use Houndour -> Golbat instead. Houndour is a Dark/Fire type with a bias for Special attacks, although has a level-up pool with plenty of physical moves. It's a pretty cool Pokemon and one I'm more than fond of, although it has an unfortunate issue of being version-exclusive to Ultra Sun and having a heavy type overlap with Theodore.

With that said, now Skull is using two Pokemon weak to Rock in a row. Lead with a Rock type and this is the easier fight.

...And... then what? The tourists and everybody that wants to climb Mount Hokulani will take the more dangerous foot route? Again, I'd sooner see the bus drivers replace the bus stop and continue their routes rather than find other ways to spend their time. You're making up issues here.

...You guys live in a mansion? I live in a house with a mother that loves me.

At least, I think we live in that house. She still hasn't unpacked her stuff from the move.

Oh, hi, Kukui. Did you see the Skulls?

They were trying to steal a bus stop. Their foolhardiness has reached a new low. On the plus side, their ambition's looking promising.

...

...

Come again, Kukui?

Fun fact, he's actually going to explain as soon as we get to the top of the mountain. No talking on the way. It'll hurt the drama.

All aboard!

Wait, hold on, that's a train...

Mechanically, yes, the game automatically skips over the time spent on the bus.

Narratively, I hope that bus is going at reasonable speeds for going up a precarious, winding mountain road.

We're actually kicked out of the cutscene, for, uh... some reason? I assume mostly if you accidentally went too close to the Skulls and weren't quite done with Route 10 yet- for example, if you needed to turn in the Stufful hunt.

That's a more reasonable request when you're not standing literally right next to it.

Because the in-game clock runs purely on real time, the bus always arrives the instant we check it. No futzing around waiting for fifteen minutes like with a real bus.

...Ideally, it won't. I hope to still be alive when I get to the top of the mountain.

Fortunately, the Exeggutor Express backs up the spirit of their boasting and not the letter. Darn zippy.

...How does he get around so fast? You just got off the bus with us!

True fact: The twin peaks of the Big Island, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, are the two highest points in Hawai'i- Wela Volcano Park's inspiration, Haleakala, takes third, although weird mountain technicalities means that Haleakala looks taller than Mauna Loa when measured from human-accessible vantage points.

Where things get a little more weird, in the roots of the matter, is which Alolan peak is which Hawai'ian one. Mauna Kea, the highest point in Hawai'i, is a snow-covered mountain, while Mauna Loa, the second highest, is the active volcano. From this line of dialogue, we can be reasonably certain Hokulani is supposed to be Loa. Except that Hokulani Observatory does have a real-life equivalent: The Mauna Kea Observatories.

On maps of the Big Island where North is oriented to the top of the page, Mauna Loa is the southern peak. I'm not sure if Pokemon's mountains are the wrong way around or Ula'ula is just oriented differently to the Big Island. The maps I've been trying to use as orientation, particularly this one, make it look like Pokemon's the one who's stretching the truth, but I'm not going to say for sure.

For whatever reason, this scene of Kukui showing us the distant peak of the other mountain is a full cutscene.

This would actually mean Bethany could emote, and I think the kids who have less hair on the sides of their face can be seen emoting, but we're sure not doing a good job of that.

...Is there... something on top of it?

This is about to be one of The lines of all time, right here. The top of Mount Lanakila is of immense spiritual importance to the Alolan people.

And Kukui is planning on developing it.

They have this moment where the protagonist turns her head slightly to stare at him. Because the Alola protagonist has a stuck face, it's impossible to tell what the developers were going for when they added this beat frame. But as someone who's looking at Kukui right now and going "...hey wait a second, are you the good guy right now?", I can't help but project that same mild indignation onto Bethany. If I was going to express my dumbfounded confusion as to what Kukui is thinking right now, this is a pretty good approximation.

...OK, this line is a little weird, and I think it's trying to convey a thought I'm fairly sure is true in-universe. Basically, as currently stands, after the part of the Island Challenge where we've beat all four Kahunas in their respective Grand Trials, we're supposed to climb Mount Lanakila and battle all four of them in a row to receive the actual accolade of "Island Challenge Champion". There's a few lore nuggets here and there that imply this is a thing, and I'm like 90% sure this is supposed to be one of them, but Kukui has phrased it like a tongue twister and is vaguely implying he is describing what he plans to implement, not what has already been implemented.

And then we get to the heart of the matter, and one where I think SM has crossed a few wires on series commentary and accidentally created something that plumbs far greater depths than it thinks it does. There are two things going on here:

First, we are taking a tradition of a native people, one based explicitly on a coming of age journey, and turning it into another rendition of the League Challenge. At this point in the series, the League wasn't too much different from what the Island Challenge was supposed to be in concept. As soon as the very next games, the League was reconceptualised as being more of a sporting league that required official endorsement, and while that level of exclusivity is limited to Galar, Paldea's interpretation leans further away from it too. Even without the drift into "we're tearing out an important part of Alolan childhood" that this later implication offers, the fact that Kukui's even going this far feels somewhat inherently uncomfortable, when the real-life version of Hawai'i has infrastuctural issues due to being part of the United States- an arrangement it entered against its will.

Second, the Island Challenge is, from Pokemon's perspective, a deviation from the series standard of the Gym Challenge, and they chose to use Totem Pokemon instead of Gym Leaders deliberately- to consciously not reiterate on a formula that a non-zero percentage of their audience was starting to tire of by the 20th anniversary. The Island Challenge is new, it's fresh, and while some of the Totems have issues of whether or not they have the level of difficulty their aiming for, this is not a criticism that you can't point right back at the Gym Challenge. To have the very game challenging that norm to come out and im- no, explicitly say that the Island Challenge is lesser than the Gym Challenge, and that Alola can only be considered a legitimate League if it adopts the same structure, devalues their own experimentation. A different (well, I hope they're different) faction of the fanbase genuinely believes that the Totem Pokemon are not real bosses the way Gym Leaders are, and it's difficult to argue against that position when the game seems to agree with them.

The problem here is not that we shouldn't be doing this. The problem is the assumption that we should be the ones changing here. No, if Macro Cosmos doesn't think the Island Challenge Stamps are worth the same as Gym Badges, they're the ones that can shove that up their ass.

If you are going to be this phenomenonally committed to the bit, please, Kukui, I swear... don't hire Ryuki as a Gym Leader.

For once, I'm OK with Rotom Dex ignoring the massive bombshell Kukui just dropped.

Rotom: The Pokémon League! It sounds so cool! I bet you want to check it out, too, right? Zzrt?
I'd love the challenge!: I bet you could become the best Trainer in all of Alola, <player>! Truzzzt me!
Not sure if I can handle it...: Oooh I see... You're scared of becoming the Champion, bzzzzt?

Because USUM shows the alternative. And it turns out the writers really do think this is a morally neutral, or even positive, idea.

We get dropped here after that cutscene. Kukui's still standing here in USUM, but in either case, we're free to go exploring anywhere on this mountain.

We can totally talk to this guy whenever to go back to the bottom of the mountain. There's no real reason to, this is now a Fly point.

I feel like, if you find anyone who needs help that far off the beaten path, you may rather have a Flying type than a Mudsdale.

This lot is completely fenced off in SM. In USUM, there's an entrance to it, but there's nothing inside it.

In addition to putting an eye on the cosmos, many of the Pokemon in the nearby tall grass here are cosmic in some way. In a game that's all about the alien UBs, we're still going to be acknowledging the Pokemon that come from our dimension, but a different planet.

Yes, I see you there, sir. I am going to be avoiding you and saving you for next update, for reasons.

This item is kinda weird- there's a gap on the fences to the north, but not the south. Also you can't just reach over what Ii assume is an ankle-high barricade.

We're going to be seeing a few Apricorn Balls up here- four in all. The Level Ball works most effectively when your Pokemon is a higher level than your target- you enjoy a x2 catch rate if you're higher level, x4 if you're double the level, and x8 if you have an advantage of at least quadruple level. Very effective for backtracking, but it really depends on what you're backtracking for here. By around level 10, it starts getting harder and harder to reliably hit that x8 multiplier.

GSC glitch: They forgot to include the HP/Status in the formula for Level Balls. Somehow. There were actual wizards involved in the coding of that game.

Samson is also hanging around on this mountaintop, which means a second Apricorn Ball.

But first, he's going to talk about a local Pokemon- and this time he's not talking about a regional form! Instead, he wants to gush about Minior falling from the stars.

He does acknowledge his usual specialty, though, in that there are seven "alternate forms" of Minior. These alternate forms are purely cosmetic, and Samson has no idea what's causing it, but he does have it on his radar, just in case.

Oh, this one's had some rude design. The Moon Ball's purpose is to have a x4 catch rate on "Pokemon that evolve by Moon Stone". We'll get to how badly it did this in GSC in a second, but first I want to highlight a change made to it between its fixed appearance in HGSS and now. In HGSS, the Moon Ball works on any Pokemon that belongs to an evolutionary family that includes a Pokemon that evolves by Moon Stone. Starting in exactly SM, they changed the rules, and now it works exclusively on the Pokemon that directly evolve by Moon Stone- Nidorina, Nidorino, Clefairy, Jigglypuff, Skitty, and Munna. Only two of those are found in Alola, and one of them is found here on Hokulani itself. Remember, it's Clefairy that gets the bonus catch rate, not Cleffa.

In GSC, it was glitched so that it only worked on Pokemon that evolved by Burn Heal. Yes, this made it a fancy Poke Ball, what of it? We do know how this happened- the Moon Ball was programmed to work on Pokemon that evolved by using the item at index 0x0A, which is where the Moon Stone lives in RBY's code, but at some point in transferring everything to GSC, they moved the Moon Stone to 0x08. Frankly, this raises further questions.

I've got something in mind for that.

Seriously speaking, there's another bus stop at the bottom of the mountain that allows you to go to Route 10. Not sure who's getting off at that stop.

This'll come up formally in a bit, but we're going to meet the man who developed the Pokemon Storage System in Alola, a man by the name of Molayne. In previous games, when the player encountered the developer of the storage system, the storage system permanently renamed from "Someone's PC" to "[Developer]'s PC"- for example, "Bill's PC" or "Bebe's PC". That is no longer the case, but that's mostly because logging onto a PC immediately dumps us in the storage system.

Honestly, it always bothered me that our Pokemon were stored in what is labelled as somebody else's PC. I mean, the last thing I want is someone other than me messing with my Pokemon Storage System!

Either that or it's telling you it wants to go outside. I suppose it all depends on whether it's done its business on the carpet.

If it is sending an intergalactic message, I don't speak a word of the language.

The second counter here sells the six vitamins for a fairly respectable 10K a pop. At maximum rank in Pelago, 10 EVs takes 90 minutes to acquire. Depends on the precision and real time you care about, although at those prices, you are spending real time to gather that money somehow.

I hope you're not slacking off on your real job there.

Presumably due to the logistics of importing them up here.

...So how did they fix that, then? Surely it's not just putting a cafe here and expecting coffee to happen, right?

This Veteran here happens to be a Route Boss for Mount Hokulani. We'll get to him at the end of the update, of course, but he's quite the character.

You. Remember how I mentioned having to redo a bit here for a dumb reason? I was planning on doing my catches before my Trainers, but this one caught me on the way over. Always frustrating when what looks like a good run gets forestalled.

"Parabolic antenna" describes something you're very familiar with, even if you haven't heard that term before- that's just a dish antenna. It's, like, the third most recognisable part of an observatory, behind the domed structure and the optical telescope. Although why you're looking between your legs stretching during this is another matter.

Clefairy (Moon): On nights with a full moon, they gather together and dance. The surrounding area is enveloped in an abnormal magnetic field.

Clefairy is the original lunar Pokemon, with a strange habit of dancing around space rocks and making absolutely no sense while doing so. Despite this, they were pure Normal until they finally retyped it to Fairy when that got added. Clefairy was also originally designed to be the mascot for Pokemon, until they decided to go with the more boy-appropriate Pikachu. There are times when I wonder what Pokemon would be like if they stuck with the original plan. Good odds would be "shorter", though.

Clefairy have some fairly decent moves kicking around, but this one decided it was going to pack, and use, Double Slap. Its Atk really isn't worth the effort.

Ooh, that's good to know. Clefairy can have the Ability Magic Guard, which means this had 50/50 odds of not winning me the fight this turn.

Turns out I won that coin toss. Still, I always tend to assume worst-case scenario, so I don't really prepare for the better outcomes.

I guarantee you there is one species that a) can and b) hates us for clouding its view with them.

Anyway, now we can get to the tall grass in this area. In SM, all of the grass patches had the same encounter tables, but in USUM, you can't find two possible encounters in this upper part and have to go further south, past a second Trainer. Fortunately, one of those two encounters is Skarmory, who we've already seen.

I'd like to know what the rate on that is, by the way.

This is the location in which Bethany and Noah will be catching their wild Dittos. These ones can also call for help, if you want to try and get one with Imposter, but that's not really a maingame trick.

Beldum (Ultra Sun): Instead of blood, magnetism flows through its body. When it's feeling bad, try giving it a magnet.

Beldum is a fascinating Pokemon on multiple fronts, not the least because of how weird its magnets apparently function. Beldum is a Steel/Psychic type, and in most of the ways the player cares about the topic, it is a second psuedo-legendary from the Hoenn region. Beldum and Bagon pulling double-duty is the only example of such a thing, Beldum is the only non-dragonlike one of the bunch, and it also has some other unique traits to set it apart. Really, I kinda feel like it's given the label of "psuedo-legendary" by accident. Nevertheless, Beldum has appeared in official merchandise that advertises itself as including what the Pokemon community has labelled "the psuedo-legendaries", so a member it is!

As a Pokemon, however, Beldum is... again, one can be of two minds on the topic. Practically speaking, it evolves one level after it is caught (its "normal" evolution level is 20, and it is found much higher than that here), and immediately learns its STAB moves. In USUM in particular, it will wind up with endgame STAB moves before we've even made it much past this area (it prefers to attack physically, hence why it's not calling Psychic such). It achieves its final evolution at level 45, which makes it evolve earlier than non-psuedo-legendaries we have seen! As such, it probably qualifies as "perfectly usable", even if its middle stage has a few shortcomings (to be fair, it's not that far off Skarmory's stats...) and has to be used during a particularly climactic leg of the game. Ray will be using him.

Beldum's only regular Ability is Clear Body, which protects it from hostile stat stage drops. An awesome Ability to raise an awesome Pokemon higher at its final stage. Its Hidden Ability is Light Metal, which halves its weight value. Hilariously, its final evolutionary stage is actually so heavy that Light Metal does not reduce the damage it takes from Low Kick and Grass Knot. Imagine actually being that useless.

Beldum is a right pain in the arse to catch. The only move it naturally learns is Take Down, a move that makes it take recoil, and it has the lowest catch rate of all Pokemon- 3. At exactly 1 HP and Paralysed, your odds of catching one in an Ultra Ball are a mere 8%. And then it knocks itself out the next Take Down. This is why there is room for catching to be made easier- when you're doing everything right and your odds are still this low, your mechanic probably needs retuning.

(For comparison's sake, the next-lowest catch rate one is likely to encounter in the Alola games is 25, seen on the likes of Skarmory and Mantyke. At 1 HP and Paralysed, the odds of success with an Ultra Ball are 40%. For non-Beldum psuedo-legendaries, which have a rate of 45, the odds are 61%.)

Minior (Sun): Originally making its home in the ozone layer, it hurtles to the ground when the shell enclosing its body grows too heavy.

Ah, there we are! We've heard plenty about you! Minior is a meteorite Pokemon, and the developers have a fascinating understanding about the physics of low orbit. Just call it an alien, it makes more sense that way. Minior is a Rock/Flying type that is defined heavily by its signature Ability, which allows it to change forms. Right now, it is in Meteor Form, where its stats are flat 60s with 100 in both defences. It is also immune to all status ailments.

And it happens to know the move Self-Destruct at the levels which it may be caught. Self-Destruct is a 200 BP Physical Normal move that causes the user to faint after being performed. Anything that knows this move when you're trying to catch one is worse than dealing with Beldum sometimes. Minior's catch rate is 30, so you've got about 30% odds with a Quick Ball, but still. Self-Destruct and an immunity to all status ailments is an unfun combination.

Minior Core (Ultra Moon): This is its form when its shell has fallen off. The color of its core depends on the materials that made up the food it ate.

At the end of the turn, if it finds itself at half HP or less, its meteor coating will break off, and it will become Core Form. In this form, its stats pivot to being 60/100/60/100/60/120, although it does lose the status immunity. Minior can be very annoying to deal with, but it is difficult to say it works here. It's a very charming Pokemon, though, and in spite of it having a pretty lousy moveset (no matter whether you want to run Physical or Special, you're making some sacrifices), I think Bethany will give it a go.

Shields Down is the only possible Ability you can get for it. It won't even call for help at all, like Komala.

Prepare to meteor doom! Yeah, strangely, Minior displays in Core Form, despite it supposed to be Meteor Form by default. It will transform into Meteor Form turn 1 correctly, don't worry about the opponent getting a free hit on Core Form. It's not that badly designed.

There are eight Core Form designs- Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet and Shiny. Yes, as if Minior's design wasn't terrifying enough, Shiny-hunting the thing is even worse. Which is a shame, because Minior actually has a pretty cool Shiny.

Sturm's default kit. I'm going the direction of giving it Special moves, which gives me the option of bypassing a few high-Def Rock-weak walls in the boss fights coming up, but forces me to forsake its Flying STAB. I have Dottie for that, really.

Incidentally, no, Breakneck Blitz off a Self-Destruct isn't any higher BP than Self-Destruct.

Here in Hokulani, only at night-time, we can find Cleffa. Clefairy, as a player Pokemon, has some interesting foibles. Number one, its set as a Cleffa is pretty terrible, and if you don't evolve it immediately (or, better yet, catch a Clefairy through SOS), you might miss out on some pretty cool moves available to it like Minimise and Stored Power. Number two, it's a stone evolution, which means either staying as a Clefairy for a good chunk of the game progress or going into its TM pool, both prospects which don't work out great for it. Practically speaking, you're not getting a Fairy move on this until endgame, regardless of whether you evolve it early. I really wanted to use one, but this just isn't its game.

Cleffa's Abilities are Cute Charm (infatuates at 30% odds if valid) and Magic Guard (grants immunity to all forms of indirect damage). Magic Guard seals Clefairy's power as a tanky-type Pokemon, unable to be Poisoned, fitting on weather teams without fear of reprisal. Its HA is Friend Guard (reduces damage taken by its allies by 25% in Doubles), which gets replaced with Unaware (calculates damage as if the opponent has not changed its stat stages) when it evolves. Unaware turns Clefairy's evolution into a surprisingly effective answer to opponents reliant on setting up, and also means she has things to say about the Totems. I wouldn't say she has the kit to fight back, though...

It should be noted that in SM, Cleffa will call for help from Chansey, but USUM Cleffa calls for Happiny still.

Elgyem (Ultra Sun): It controls tremendous psychic power. Most reports of alien sightings are actually just people mistaking Elgyem for an alien.

"Mistaking". Sure. Elgyem is a pure Psychic type found only in USUM, after having landed in the world of Pokemon around 50 years ago in 1947- despite the fact that it didn't appear in the games until 2010. Once you get over the fact it's a literal alien, it's... nothing special. Pure Psychic type, high Sp. Atk, low Speed, stronger in Special Defence than Physical, these things are dime a dozen, and Elgyem's offering to the pool is an assortment of "weird" moves. And unfortunately, Simple Beam (forces the target's Ability to be Simple) is the only easily accessible one in its level up pool. Hardly going to have much luck taking home the Miltanks with that.

Its own Abilities are Telepathy (renders it immune to its allies' field-targeting moves) and Synchronise (inflicts any status condition it's suffering from on its opponent). Synchronise is awesome if you're in the market for using it for its field effects, but not so great for battle. Its Hidden Ability is Analytic, boosting the power of its moves if it acts second in the turn by 30%, and it says a lot about the other options that it might just be the best user of the Ability.

Elekid (Ultra Sun): When it hears the crash of thunder, Elekid's mood improves. It can be useful to record that sound and play it when Elekid's feeling down.

Found only on the lower grass in USUM, one can also find Elekid. This is not, however, a new Pokemon to USUM- SM will catch it after the Electric Trial. Elekid is a bit of a weird Pokemon, especially when directly stacked up against its direct counterpart Magby. It's a pure Electric, and it focuses on high Sp. Atk and Spd, like Magby... but when it evolves into its final stage, it pivots an becomes a high Physical attacker that hasn't invested quite so keenly in its Speed. It's not quite bulky enough to pull this off, but I did decide to put one on Ray's team as well.*

Elekid's only natural Ability is Static (inflicts paralysis on contact 30% of the time), but unlike Magby's Flame Body, it changes on evolution. Its HA is Vital Spirit (blocks Sleep), which does not. Static is the way to go, though. Much like Cleffa, it summons its first evolution and Happiny in S.O.S. Battles.

*For the first time to date, I actually got my wires crossed on what Pokemon each one of the kids was using, and forgot to actually pick up my Elekid before fighting the Trainers on Mount Hokulani. This'll cost me a bit in the Electric Trial, but not too much. And honestly, it's probably more of a surprise it took this long.

Island Scan has Axew on Saturdays for both games: Iron Tail in SM and Counter in USUM.

The real reason to dip into this patch of grass is to find the TM on the other side. Volt Switch is a Special Electric move, 70 BP, that causes the user to switch out as soon as it lands. Basically, Electric U-Turn, and not a horrible move to have in your pocket, since most Electric types are fast and frail. Does depend on the user and the situation, though.

For... some reason, the cop's down here in USUM. Maybe so he's actually doing his job?

The Fast Ball is an interesting Apricorn Ball, because its glitch case in GSC actually got patched out before the glitch did. These days, one can use the Fast Ball to get a x4 catch rate on Pokemon that have a base Speed stat of 100 or greater. That's base speed- it's inherent to a Pokemon whether it has that value or not, and will not be altered by IVs, Nature and stat stages.

GSC Glitch: It was intended to work on Pokemon that have a chance of running away from battle, but only checks the first three entries and works only on Magnemite, Grimer and Tangela. The concept of wild Pokemon running away from battle was such an unliked mechanic that they dropped it before the Fast Ball came back.

Rare Candy in this bush, on the first elbow turn.

And a Hiker on patrol here. You've gotta squeeze past this guy to get to Elekid's grass, but he lost one of his Pokemon in USUM.

His first Pokemon, the one he doesn't have in USUM, is Boldore. Nothing remarkable here.

Although his two-hit Rock Blast did some pretty serious damage to Oatchi. That's annoying.

Geodude (Ultra Moon): Geodude compete against each other with headbutts. The iron sand on their heads will stick to whichever one has stronger magnetism.

Oh, hello! It seems we've found our wayward Geodude, and it seems he's picked up an electric charge. Geodude, in Alola, is a Rock/Electric type, and was the only Alolan regional form to not have been revealed in the prerelease. Bit of a shock to see it when it turned up in-game, eh? That explains why Roggenrola filled his job earlier, at least.

Unfortunately, while Rock/Electric has less weaknesses than Geodude's standard Rock/Ground type (losing Steel and Ice as weaknesses entirely and exchanging its x4 weaknesses to Grass and Water for one to Ground), most players have fought more than their share of Geodudes in the past twenty years and learned the four weaknesses Geodude retains in its new typing better than the ones it shed. It is easy prey, if it wasn't for the Sturdy Ability it's picked up since it was super common. (Geodude have always had Sturdy, but games where Geodude are plentiful and games where Sturdy has its modern effect rarely overlap.)

It went for Stealth Rock with its free move. Poor choice for something slower than a koala.

I always thought Hikers enjoyed the thrill of the trail more.

...Is this a Japanese stereotype of hikers? I don't think rice is a food we associate with Hikers in the West, although it does fit the sort of diet they'd expect in their favoured environments.

Here's the Elekid grass.

And there's the fourth Apricorn Ball around these parts. The Heavy Ball works especially well on Pokemon that are heavy, but it does so in a rather interesting way. Instead of being a multiplier, it instead modifies the Pokemon's catch rate directly. If a Pokemon is lighter than 100 kilos, you have a penalty of -20 catch rate. If the Pokemon is heavier than 200 kilos, you get a bonus of +20 catch rate. Heavier than 300 kilos, +30. The way the formula works, I think this works out more effective than if the bonus had been x1, x2, x4, etc., but it really does have a way with the numbers. Surprisingly, GSC didn't have the worst glitches with this thing.

GSC glitch: In Crystal only, the Pokemon who have index numbers divisible by 64 do not have their weights read correctly, and are given a +40 catch rate bonus because the number the game reads is massive.
HGSS glitch: The check for whether the -20 catch rate should be applied is incorrectly defined, and any Pokemon that is supposed to fit in the +0 category gets the -20 rate instead.
SM glitch: If the -20 penalty is applied to a Pokemon whose catch rate is already 20 or less, the catch rate is capped at 0 instead of 1 as it was previously. This means that any such Pokemon (the only one available is Beldum) are unable to be caught in a Heavy Ball at all- while there are many situations where the odds are stacked against you, it is never supposed to be impossible for a ball to work at all. USUM fixed that.

Poke Finder spot on this cliff. You can get Beldum and Metang, Elgyem in USUM, and Clefairy, Clefable and Magnezone at night.

I can only assume one of the Clefairy spawns is the Clefairy dance.

This Trainer only exists in USUM, and he's... weird. How did you get there, why are you practicing your golf drive there, how do plan to leave, and how do you plan to retrieve your golf balls? Sadly, I suspect the answer to four is "he doesn't".

Sky has a team consisting of three Minior, each of a different colour.

This also shows off how, in battle, you see the Core Form first, and then Shields Down kicks in to bring the Meteor back up turn 1.

Strangely, they actually all have assigned moves. Probably so they don't blow themselves up. One has Tackle, one has Take Down, one has Double-Edge, and they all have Rollout.

Second one went down to Ridley.

And the third one did not like Genevieve.

Unfortunately, we cannot have another chat with this man, because he's too busy being stranded on a tiny rock outcropping. Perhaps it's for the best.

Even in SM, though, you still want to be careful in this grass- there's a different guy down on the south side.

Oh hey, I explained that last time we found a Collector. This guy's not here to tell you where to find Pokemon you probably haven't seen- there have already been clues on where to find his Pokemon.

He's here to give you the Dex entries for Passimian and Oranguru. This is the case in both games.

Oranguru survived a hit from Razzly, but it spent its turn going for Psych Up and didn't wind up coming off great in that encounter.

Treasured info. Right.

...After all these Apricorn Balls in easy reach, that's the item that's at the very bottom of the route?

...I think you and I have vastly different opinions on the topic of "Advanced Tips". Not only is this basic information they tell us whenever we change our hairstyle- and is readily apparent whenever we check our Trainer Passport- but there's no reason to care about what our Trainer Passport looks like. What, now that we've gotten this far in the game, we suddenly care about "hey, is this game realistic about the bureaucracy we've gotta go through to update our passport in real life?"

Here's the bus stop at the bottom of the mountain. Just in case, you know?

...You know, I don't really have a firm grip on whether this mountain is supposed to be cold or not. I guess it is.

"The" one? About an office worker, a hiker, and a collector? (And in USUM, a very confused golfer)?

You just get weirder and weirder the longer I talk to you.

I think there are a few words whose definition you could use a little revision on, mate.

Veteran Akira has one Pokemon in SM, two in USUM. And this battle is where things are going to start getting... funny.

Absol (Ultra Sun): The only thing unlucky about Absol is its appearance. It protects fields and warns people of disaster, so one ought to be grateful for it.

OK, for starters, we get an early appearance by a pure Dark type with huge fandom popularity, Absol. Absol is a bit slow, but has some terrifying Physical power under its belt. I'll go a bit more into the mythology when we find it, but for now, Akira's Absol is running the IVs 31/31/15/15/15/31, 170 HPs in each of Atk, HP and Spd, an Adamant Nature, the moveset Night Slash, Slash and Quick Attack, what I can only assume is the Super Luck Ability (+1 crit ratio), and a Darkinium Z. Theoretically, a pretty tough foe.

Lord Huggington goes for a weaken, first, to scout what it's doing.

Apparently, the best it can do. Yeah, Lord Huggington makes Dark types cry, but, uh... Is that really the best you could do?

Oh.

...I guess it is.

I'm not sure if what just happened says more about Bewear or Absol... well, OK, I have an idea, but...

Once again, I am questioning your phrasing deeply. Especially since I'm female.

Snarl is a move introduced in BW... as an event-only move. An event-only move that required cross-generational mechanics. They stuck it as a normal TM in B2W2 and it's not that worth the hype. Snarl is a Special Dark move with 55 BP, 95% accuracy that hits all opponents in battle, and will always decrease their Special Attack by one stage on hit. It's good- anything that can drop Sp. Atk is good when there's no Special equivalents to Intimidate or Baby-Doll Eyes- but it's not event-lock good.

Also, Penny finally has STAB. Just throwing that out there.

...I'm going to go over there now.

Florges (Ultra Sun): It controls the flowers it grows. The petal blizzards that Florges triggers are overwhelming in their beauty and power.

Well, OK, this was funny. To prepare for the fight with Akira's improved team in USUM, I actually finally committed and evolved Crysantha into Florges. I dunno- I always kinda preferred the design direction of Floette better. But still, the stats are stats, and I'm not making it all way to level 46 for Moonblast, best to get it done sooner rather than later.

In USUM, Akira's lead is no longer the Absol, but a Persian. Running IVs of 30/30/20/20/20/30, 252 EVs in Atk and Spd, an Adamant Nature, and the moves Fake Out, Feint Attack and Screech, Persian is as Persian often does in its kid. It uses moves to be annoying, not to be threatening.

Ampharos (Ultra Sun): The light from its tail can be seen from space. This is why you can always tell exactly where it is, which is why it usually keeps the light off.

Speaking of evolutions we're just seeing in this fight, Ampharos! The pure Electric final form of Genevieve, this sheep might not be woolly, but she's still cutie. More importantly, Static and Signal Beam are great things to have against this guy, so that's why she's running lead slot.

No luck getting a Static on the Fake Out, though.

Ampharos is running base 115 Sp. Atk, she's really good. Her problem is just not having a ton of options. This is one of her good ones.

Tch. Lost to Screech, but I did wind up coming out of that with a Static landed. Genevieve did well.

Crysantha finishes.

Akira's Absol has had its IVs adjusted to 30/30/20/20/20/30, EVs to 252 Atk/Spd, and its level bumped up by 3. Let's see how that helps it do better against Hawkeye.

...

Well, it did have less HP than SM's Akira, but it got more Def to compensate? (100/45 vs 95/51 bulk).

Even Noah is laughing.

No, the only fight that actually let Akira pull off his Z-Move is Ray's.

Metang (Sun): When two Beldum link together, their psychic power is doubled. Their intelligence, however, remains unchanged.

We start the fight off by deploying Ray's new Metang, for EXP. We could have given this EXP to Ghondor, but water under the bridge... Metang has Brick Break, but also it's weak to Dark and really has no business here.

Alena's the one who's going to deal with the Persian.

Technically speaking, the benefits of using Alena for this only apply if I actually had Alena out Turn 1, but Deep Blue is very EXP hungry.

Low Sweep doing plenty of damage. Also lowering his Speed, but not enough for Alena to clinch out the speed victory.

Fortunately, Persian decided it needed to land two Screeches before damaging Alena.

And I finish with U-Turn. This turns out to not have been the best idea, but this is because the interaction of the mechanic I plan to exploit does not work out the way I had in mind.

Free Switch-Mode Light chance to get off an Intimidate on Absol!

...Wiingo did not get to Intimidate. Technically speaking, what happened was Wiingo's switch-in and Absol's deployment happened on "separate turns", so Absol's switching in to Wiingo rather than Wiingo switching in to Absol.

I decide it's better if I start lowering Speed values rather than switch out and hope for the best.

And that is the story of how you're seeing Black Hole Eclipse at all today.

The Pokemon throws a black hole forward, appearing behind the target. I really feel weird about this one being in Dark, Dark's whole thing is supposed to be underhanded tactics. Black Holes feel more like a Psychic thing.

The black hole grows, and grows...

And swallows the target whole.

It actually knocked out Wiingo. I had hopes, but I guess that needed the Intimidate.

Fist Jr. probably couldn't have survived being switched in, especially without the Spd drop.

Penny will thank you for your sacrifice. Hopefully.

Checking in on Ailey's Pokedex, I notice whoa, look at all those Pokemon entries later on in the Pokedex! Aside from Elekid's strangely early appearance, we have dex entries for Turtonator, Houndour, Dedenne, Geodude, Gabite, Drampa, Absol and Vulpix despite not being able to acquire any of these Pokemon yet. A few of them will open up in the next area, but a few are a little further. Not a ton further... well, except Drampa, I guess.

Got a big enough stockpile of the EV down Berries that I'm starting to feed them to the SM team and shore up their EVs. Those primary stats of theirs are going to be shooting up now that their remaining EVs aren't hanging around.

And now then... one last thing to mention, because it is a right pain in the arse even on console and I had to put in a lot of work trying to figure out just how it is I get it to happen with my setup. Inkay has a special evolution method, where it evolves if it is levelled up at level 30 or higher and you are holding your 3DS upside down. I've always struggled with registering this: even when I have a solid grasp of what "upside-down" looks like in a physical reality, I also have only a vague idea of when you need to turn the 3DS upside-down. I believe it must be held upside-down at this exact moment: when the EXP reaches a full bar and the level up occurs. To be safe, I'd save, fight something that levels up Inkay, and hold the 3DS upside-down for a fat safety cushion on either side of this moment.

Malamar (Ultra Sun): When it comes to strong hypnosis, there's an endless number of people who utilize Malamar for their nefarious deeds.

For some reason, the lore people had a lot of fun with this one. Yes, turning Inkay on its head evolves it into Malamar, and in a series that loves the idea of "no bad Pokemon, only bad Trainers", Malamar is one of the few cases of the opposite position. They had way too much fun with the gimmick, though- just because the 3DS has a gyro sensor doesn't mean we need to implement it.

Next time: Not that much to see, to be honest.