>>54871119Ah, Alola.
So the region itself was beautiful. In the running for my second favorite region overall, behind Hoenn. Guess I'm a fan of the tropics more than I thought. I liked the islands, including the Aether Foundation. Areas were cool, aesthetically pleasing, just a cozy region.
Plot was decent. I still don't care much for Ultra Beasts, I don't think they fit in Pokemon. Mixing things up with Trials instead of gyms was a neat concept, even if it wasn't executed as well as it probably could have. The characters were fine though, for the most part anyway. Hau I never cared much for, and Gladion was just too edgy for me. I really liked Kukui and Nanu though. I hated the former being replaced as Champion in USUM, especially by Hau, and I always wished Nanu was in the Elite 4.
Pokemon designs in Alola were really hot-or-cold, they were either excellent of really sucked. Fortunately, all the starters I really liked, probably my 3rd favorite trio out of all the gens. Again, I hate Ultra Beasts though. They would've been fine as bosses, but it never made sense to me how entities out of our dimension were just Pokemon that could be caught, tamed, and function exactly like Pokemon. I know this was the first attempt into regional forms, but doing only KANTOOO sucked for variety, some of the designs weren't great, and some just should've been different Pokemon altogether. Snowshrew and Snowslash the most obvious.
By far, the worst part of SM/USUM was just how hand-holdy the games were. It felt like every few steps you took, there was a cutscene or something. Like, stop taking me out of the game and just let me play please. If there isn't already, I would love for there to one day be a mod on emulator that cuts most of the hand-holding out of it.
Overall I think I liked SM over USUM. USUM may feel more complete, but it also made some unnecessary changes I really disliked.
