Pokemon Sun Postgame Battles: Washed Up and Out

Now then, there's a lot of stuff we can fight for around Alola, and now we're going to work on getting our hands on them.

Pokemon Sun Postgame Opening: The Four Corners of the Region

On rebooting the game after defeating the Pokemon League, you are loaded in your bedroom. This is a tradition of all games, and it makes as much sense as any other, I suppose. This can really suck depending on the game, though.

I was hanging out in here doing Poke Pelago until I was ready to start. Since a few files actually got lucky, I should mention that Poke Pelago's Isle Abeens has postgame-locked encounters: Mismagius, Scyther, Lapras, and Emolga in SM, Snubbull, Tropius, Honchkrow, and Litleo in USUM. Nothing you can't obtain elsewhere, although some of those are new to us.

Mum still hasn't finished unpacking. To be fair, this is our stuff...

It turns out there's actually an event in our bed that I've missed... since we first put on our hat.

For all the beds I've slept in, surprising I missed mine.

Meowth crawls up, and starts staring at us judgementally.

He climbs up, meowing at us...

And apparently tries spraying us with an Awakening.

Hapu's bed was supposed to be a call back to this.

The normal message. Very fitting, of course.

Also, the USUM versions of the bed have Pokemon on the sheets. Ray gets Pinsir and Ailey gets Eevee, in one of the weirder gender differences I've seen. Really enforcing that "guys = cool, girls = cute" dynamic, huh?

This line reads a lot different now that Lillie is the thing in Kanto we are apart from.

Pokemon Alola Bonus: Ultra Warp Ride

Consider this update, for the most part, non-canonical: Both Ray and Ailey got a new Electric type to use as a paralyser, and of course, they're filling out their Pokedexes with some of the new finds, but aside from that, I don't intend to seriously use anything we find in here in a real fight. But there's plenty to find, and we might as well look!

"Return to the Ultra Wormhole" will send us into the Ultra Warp Ride. We'll sit through the tutorial again (although it will always show the Legendary you're using, which might be why), and then we're free to see the full mechanic.

White wormholes are still available in the full mechanic. They're the ones that have new Pokedex entries, so look forward to that.

Pokemon Sun Hano Grand Resort: Vacation Brain

So long, Mr. Stoutland. May you have been deprived of all the litter items you picked up for blocking a public street so long.

Hano Grand Resort is its own (two) separate areas, but mostly it's just a really big place to keep NPCs. There's also one new Pokemon and several Trainers and events, which why this update has plenty of content.

...Hm, I mean, you've already been everywhere on Alola? On the other hand, perspective flips that come with experience...

...Is this one a staff Pelipper or a wild one?

...On second thought, I don't know which one I'd rather it were.

Oh, wow, Mum's asking the same question. Now might be a good time to usher the kids along inside, though...

...Typically, a place with architectural differences was constructed on by multiple settlers at a time. Also, I'm amazed how little emphasis is being put on what the Alolans, themselves, are adding to the pot.

Pokemon Sun Post-Olivia: Working Hard and Hardly Working

There wasn't that much to do on my list, but there's a surprising amount of stuff to see scattered around here. I didn't think I'd have to, but we're not making it to Hano in this update.

First order of business is to check in with the story-important character.

There's a bit of an issue here that isn't obvious at first glance, but becomes more apparent when you think about a problem the game has later (well, actually, it's suffering this problem now, it's just not obvious how). Professor Burnet having an item here is a sign that the game has no more use for Burnet in the story. I just... she has such an important role as a character, it's amazing to think they never try to do anything else with her.

To add insult to injury, it's not even a good item.

Pokemon Sun Poke Pelago: The Great Tutorial

In Pokemon Sun, after completing Kiawe's Trial, there will be a twelth option on the bottom tab unceremoniously added. It does get mentioned on the next route, but it's a good idea to check in on it now.

As a side note, for some asinine reason, they put it on Page 2 and throw Festival Plaza and the Photo Club to Page 1 even if you rearrange your bottom screen menu to put the empty space on Page 1. This is presumably them setting a default, but seriously, why does the default have Pokemon Refresh on Page 2...

In USUM, you don't get it right after Kiawe, but you have to walk most of the way to the Route 7 barricade instead.

The justification for locking Poke Pelago to this point is that we have to Charizard Glide there, although it has been mentioned a few times before now and some features kinda feel odd to be dropped at this point.

Yup. This will be a feature related to catching a lot of Pokemon. You been wondering why even Noah and Ray have been working on that?

As a side note, Poke Pelago can be accessed anytime, not just in areas that are valid for Charizard Glide. If you are considered "indoors", you spin around in a sort of "warps somewhere" before triggering the Charizard Glide.

Poke Pelago is super bottom screen, but most of the explanations will be conducted on the top screen.

(Whether the proprietor is wearing red or green is based on SM/USUM).

Pokemon Sun Post-Water Trial Exploration: Fish?

In addition to Brooklet Hill, we're going to be re-exploring a lot of water areas, including some Melemele cleanup. So, you know, this is gonna be a lot of blue.

Starting with our first fishing encounter...

Magikarp (Ultra Moon): Thanks to their strong hold on life, dirty water doesn't bother them at all. They live in waters all over the world!

None other than Magikarp! Famed the world over for its incredible seven foot leap, Magikarp impresses with not actually being the record holder for lowest BST before Sunkern (that was Caterpie, actually). It is a Pure Water type that only knows Splash until level 15, where it finally gets Tackle. Magikarp evolves at level 20, an agonising process made worse by Magikarp's presence in the Slow Experience group, but on evolution, gains acclaim among Water types as being one of the better options, statistically, we'll get in this batch- held back by sporadic access to new moves. But really, we'll see so many of them we'll get sick of it.

Magikarp's Ability is Swift Swim, but it changes on evolution. It also has a HA (Rattled), but that also changes on evolution. Not that it would make good use of any Ability on its own. Note that, when it calls for help, it can summon its evolution.

There's something about that dead-eyed stare, open mouth, and static-y cry that makes you feel kinda blegh about seeing a Magikarp.

Worst part is? I had a 70% chance of hooking a Magikarp there.

If you want decent odds of hooking the things that aren't Magikarp, you need to find these bubbling spots. When you fish in a bubbling spot, you have a different encounter table- which can often mean higher levels as well as more chances at the unique finds. Bubbling spots have three big downfalls: They go away if you run over/near them, you can only get one thing out of them before they disappear, and you have to reload the map to get them to respawn.

Old games made rarer spawns more likely by tying them to which rod you choose to cast. By consolidating the Rods into one item, they made fishing way more complicated than it needed to be. So much for streamlining the process. At least this means we can get the new fishing spawns as soon as we arrive in a new route.

And yes, sometimes the fishing rod doesn't even hook. If nothing bites, the bubbling spot remains, but failing to hook does dispel the bubbles. It's literally just a time waste.

Magikarp has a 50% encounter rate in bubbling spots on Brooklet Hill's main area.

Did you want people to go fishing?