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Honestly, I think that SM is a bloated game that would require huge rewrites to be more consistent at all. There are just too many things going on. The main campaign consists of your Island Trials. But the central conflict is more about Lillie and her family issues, which have nothing to do with you at all. The Ultra Beasts have some really interesting lore, but nearly all of it is relegated to the post-game. Then you have Team Skull as an extra, 'red herring' bad guy, but it just adds to the bloat because everyone knew that Aether was the real threat. I feel like these games go back and forth between all of these subplots without really giving them proper time to develop.
The UB Task Force is probably my favorite part of the game (despite being so small), because it has a clear idea for what it wants to do. Each little missions reveals more about the UBs, Ultra Wormholes, and their impact on people. So much of SM is just mundane character interactions with no weight, and this was a really interesting change of pace to me.
Ultra Changes broadens the scope of this concept with various homeworlds, but it's completely underdeveloped. Everything is a hallway. There's so much untapped potential here, like in pic related. Another Alola where the UBs have taken over? Ultra Recon Squad? Alien 'mons like Naganedel being like a 'starter' for people in other worlds? Seriously, I feel like there's almost enough content with the UBs for an entire adventure. Maybe something like Colosseum and XD, where the goal is about catching and taming these rogue Pokemon rather than becoming another Champion. Of course, that might be too much of a departure for Game Freak.
So it gets lost and underutilized. Shuffled around with a bunch of other plot points. Lillie, Lusamine, Team Skull, Island Trials...etc.
