Pokemon Sun Elite Four: The Island's Strongest

Here, at the top of Mount Lanakila, awaits our final challenge. This challenge will prevent us from doing a number of things, but chief among them is switching our team members. The six Pokemon you are about to see will be the only Pokemon who can accompany me to the final boss. That's not to say the rest of the team won't have a role in the postgame, but in the end, there can only be six.

Our first partner, here to help at our final juncture. Oatchi was non-negotiable, and he will have a legitimate part to play in the upcoming battles- I'm not just bringing him out for favouritism.

Nebby could probably run rampant over the final bosses. I'll try to hold him back, but sometimes you're going to need Nebby.

Switching Flare Blitz for Crunch was for one specific purpose. I just thought I'd mention that now.

The queen of victory dances, Flambebe isn't really ready for a specific fight, but we'll be glad she's there. Of anyone, she's the only party member here for favouritism, and were I to replace her, it would be with Murphy.

Keokeo is pretty and she shoots Ice Beams. Her coverage won't go amiss, either. She is a bit on the weaker end, though, and that might cause issues.

Lord Huggington wishes he had a Fighting move that didn't induce a stat drop. It could probably afford to fit Close Combat into his kit, but that would be playing with fire.

Sturm is... Sturm is hilarious. And it turns out we are going to see that he makes a great ally. In spite of appearances.

Pokemon Alola Bonus Mount Lanakila: Final Rivals

This is going to be a bit awkward, and also a ton of stat pages. Battle-wise, we've got Noah and Ray's respective Gladions, and also Noah's Hau. In this case, simplicity's sake is that I do Noah first and then Ray. Right... let's get to it.

Pokemon Ultra Moon Mount Lanakila: The Dragon Atop The Mountain

The one Trial Guide in SM was replaced by two Ace Trainers in USUM. They haven't changed their dialogue, this mostly just makes Victory Road look closer to other games'- where Ace Trainers typically stood in front of Victory Road and/or the League itself.

Gladion's still waiting for us here, so we still need to consider our team.

Pokemon Sun Mount Lanakila: The Final Speedbump

Bethany has been spinning wheels on the Altar of the Sunne, where Kahuna Nanu has shown up after Lillie gave us Nanu.

One wonders why Nanu got stuck with messenger boy duties. Surely there was someone else who'd be more willing to lend a hand.

To be fair to Kukui, part of the reason Nanu is available is because he refused a more strenuous task here.

Bethany finished up her Island Trials before the events in Ultra Space. But now that she has no prior arrangements, the time has come for her to approach this duty.

Nanu also mentions the last job being "defeat all four kahunas". One thing that the change this year fixes is that now Nanu has less responsibilities on his plate.

Nanu actually tells us what it is ahead of time- Kukui's finished the job on his whole "shake up the Island Challenge by doing what everyone else is doing" thing.

I guess we've got no choice but to see whether Kukui's pulled this one off for ourselves.

The content of this update will be focused on climbing Mount Lanakila, the game's equivalent to one of Pokemon's traditional final challenges- Victory Road.

Nanu offers to fast-travel us to the base of the mountain, too, while he's here. Tapu Village is one of his stops on the way home, which is the main reason I expect he's doing this.

He drops us off without a word in Mount Lanakila directly. Fortunately, he doesn't start the immediate next event, but it's worth mentioning, since the last thing Bethany did was catch Nebby- the first event is a Battle.

Mount Lanakila is probably the coldest Victory Road in the series- where other games have icy mountains as destinations, they're usually separate from Victory Road.

While Mount Lanakila is the first Victory Road to have a unique name, it's not that unique- Lanakila is the Hawai'ian word for Victory.

Pokemon Ultra Sun Bonus: Fairium Z & Groundium Z

Ray's got a lot of fights to do today, some of which Ailey didn't do. No better time to get started!

Pokemon Ultra Moon Groundium Z: Grand Trial of Poni Island

Now then, the first thing we do happens immediately after Mina's Trial, but I felt it fit better in here.

Hapu and, strangely, Hala show up to introduce us to USUM's Grand Trial. Just an introduction, though.

Surprise! Exeggutor Island is now a Trial site! Nanu doesn't have a proper Trial site, just dumping his Grand Trial on us before we sail off to Aether Paradise, but Hala and Olivia challenged us in Iki Town's ceremonial challenge site and the Ruins of Life, respectively. Hapu getting delayed allows her to choose her site freely.

Hapu shares some words with Hala, and then wanders off to Exeggutor Island. We have to travel there manually, but first we need to talk to Hala.

Oh hey, that's neat! Hau's textually gone back to Hala and got his Melemele Grand Trial certification. Honestly, doing his Mina Trial might give him the chance to finish up any Trials he's missed along the way. I'm not sure which ones, but he's the one that needs to know.

Well, that's nice to know, but I'm not sure what you came to me specifically for? I guess you just wanted to gush about your grandson? There are worse things to do, I suppose.