AWKWARD ZOMBIE

I feel warm and fuzzy inside seeing all these amazingly creative nicknames.

Current team is Robin Hoot the Dartrix, Modest Mouse the Pikachu, Rocky the Crabrawler, Honeydew the Ribombee, Liz Taylor the Salandit, and Ursula the Mareanie.

Crabrawler pretty much destroyed Olivia's team.

Your team seems pretty similar to mine, Rinoko. Hell, your Dartrix and my Decidueye both have the same nickname. Only differences are I switched out my Ribombee for a Wimpod and I have a Mudsdale instead of a Mareanie. I nicknamed my Crabrawler Ali and I considered naming my Salazzle either Sally or Vanessa, but I settled on VenoVidiVici. Once I find the Name Rater I think I'll name my Mudsdale Bud (or maybe Bud Heavy).

Ever think about how maybe there should be Poison moves that inflict status conditions other than poison? Like, maybe a neurotoxin move that inflicts paralysis? Come to think of it, shouldn't Acid inflict burn?

EDIT: Finally found a Jangmo-o, but fucking Emergency Exit forced me to run. Sigh.

XYORAS are looking to remain my favorite games of the series. The 'call for help' mechanic is some bullshit, the capture rate for everything seems to be garbage (I ended up just selling off 90 of the 100 free pokeballs I got with the dual pack code. Legit considering just giving Moon to my brother for christmas) and it's amazing how they simultaneously made it way easier (being able to cure every status ailment after a battle for free, effectiveness spelled out on your moves after just a single encounter with a pokemon even if you don't catch it, handing you shitloads of cheddar to start the game with) and annoyingly harder (Did they tweak stats for wild pokemon? I feel like everything I fight is both more resilient to my attacks and better at killing my mons, which combined with the fact that these pokemon who you can no longer reliably one-shot can attack you and call in a second copy of themselves at full health is just, seriously, what the fuck, this violates the RPG bro code.) Plus the fact that they did not bring back the pokemon tracker (WHYYYYY, THAT WAS THE BEST FEATURE) and the translations in the friendship plaza are embarrassingly cringeworthy and stilted engrish.

I have had a couple pokemon that HAVEN'T sucked, at least. Pichu was surprisingly effective (as long as she wasn't hit with a physical attack because goddamn she squishy as hell even with the enemy charmed down) and useful for Static/Thunder Wave but Grubbin/Charjabug so far has wrecked face and has thus ensured that now that she evolved she's getting replaced. Munchlax might stick it out even after it evolves just because Hold Back is practically fucking REQUIRED to catch anything. Dartrix is the usual OP as fuck starter so I haven't actually used it whatsoever in a long while. Machop's been a solid new addition and kicks quite a bit of booty despite only having fighting type attacks so far. I caught a wild grimer that had black sludge on it and that guy was a fuckin' tank but who I replaced since I already had like 3 mons that knew dark type attacks. I have a male Growlithe and female Rockruff pair which I thusly named Dogamy and Dogaressa because I am undertale trash and they are both curly-tailed precious puppers.

Lol, managed to catch Lunala with a Moon Ball. Trying again since it ended up with a terrible nature, but while it took me a while to catch it the first time, I think I've got a good strategy figured out, so the next time shouldn't be so hard. For anyone having trouble catching Lunala, it really helps to have something with the ability Bulletproof, like Kommo-o, in your party. Lunala will just keep using Shadow Ball and it won't do any damage. Just hope it doesn't switch over to Moongeist Beam. Also, I found having Raichu use Z-Thunder Wave and Sweet facebattle helped.

Just about done with the main quest (I assume), and I gotta say, I really liked this game! Can't speak for the postgame content yet, of course, but I think this has the best writing we've seen in the series since Black & White. I think I said the game was a bit too easy most of the time earlier, but if you turn off the Exp. Share, it gets a hell of a lot more challenging. Also, I absolutely love some of the new Pokemon; Salazzle one of my new favorites, and Mudsdale's up there too.

EDIT: Beat the game! My only big problem with the ending is it drags on and on and on. It's like Return of the King all over again. That said, I really like that I finally got to battle a Professor at the end of the game; I've been wanting that for years. He was pretty tough, too, and it took me 2 tries to beat him. I might've been a bit underleveled…switching off the Exp. Share might've been a mistake…

Anyway, now that I've saved all of Alola and become the first-ever Alolan champion, I will make it my mission to not only harness the power of the Ultra Beasts for myself, but also travel to each island and capture and enslave each of their guardian deities. Y'know, like heroes do.

I think I'll recommend this to people who liked Black and White because my experience with them both has been very similar. Frustration and lots of grinding.

Difficulty does not translate to fun for me. I don't want to be constantly challenged, I want to relax. A random encounter with a fucking Delibird should not turn into a nightmarish war of attrition because seriously why the hell can they summon full-health allies without using their turn to do so, that is asinine. Thank god that they seemed to have reduced how common things have Sturdy as an ability because unless you have multi-hit/multi-target moves you will lose.

I don't necessarily want the game to be insanely difficult, but I like to have a decent challenge, and this game thankfully provided that towards the end. It can get frustrating seeing my team getting swept, but it just adds to the satisfaction when I succeed. When I beat Diantha in X & Y, I just found myself saying, "That was it? That was pathetic!" In this game, after I beat the Elite Four and Kukui, I really felt like I had accomplished something. If the game's too easy, like it was in gen 6, I feel like I'm being coddled, and it pisses me off. I will agree, though, the SOS system is bullshit. Worse than Horde battles. No, game, I don't want to fight an endless army of Petilil. Why would I want that?

I've been sending hand fulls of Alolan Sandshrews and Jangmo-os over Wonder Trade to make some early players' day. The best I've gotten are Abras, but I suppose I shouldn't expect much this early after release.

My current permanent members are Ch'klitiel the Vikavolt, Py'llrin the Alolan Ninetails, Katasalri the Oricorio, T'chika Li the Lurantis, and what will be a Kommo-o.

The temporary members are Itta the Litten that'll never evolve, and Catrali the Ribombee with her Stun Spore.

This game is real heckin' good.

The fucking Ghost Trial holy shit I was not prepared.



Also me and Grimsley are twinning

Yeah, that Mimikyu was surprisingly tough.

The SOS system is MADDENING BULLSHIT. I thought, there's no possible way they could call for reinforcements if they're asleep, right?!? NOPE. I just want to catch some goddamn Grubbins to wonder trade. If you're going to pull this shit, let me catch pokemon when there's more than one active.

And it's still not hard enough that I ever feel like I'm going to completely lose. It's just hard enough that I find myself having to constantly backtrack to the pokemon center. Or on Route 5, punching my way through the trainers so I could just goddamn heal already without having to backtrack a quarter mile, my weaker pokemon who I want to get the experience be damned.

Beat the game, here's some advice for what I'm sure will be the first thing you do in post-game.

Don't be afraid of the fact you have limited Beast Balls for Ultra Beasts, every time you capture one, you get 10 more, it may seem more daunting(especially in Sun where you gotta catch 4 goddang Kartana), but you get 10 more every mission you complete. The catch rate for these things is also extremely high, so just get it to red health and at the very least paralyze it.

The UB's are HARD. Their best stats are heavily buffed, making them monstrosities. ESPECIALLY Xurkitree and Kartana, who's Special Attack and Physical Attack are through the freaking roof, so they're gonna barely one-shot KO your Pokemon unless you come prepared.

Warning: Spoilers for near-endgame events and lots of nerdy rambling

LUSAMINE, YOU GOT SOME 'SPLAININ TO DO

As much as I enjoyed this game, there are a lot of things that make me say, "Yeah, that was awesome, but it could've been so much better!" I immediately see ways in which certain things in this game could have been (IMO) done way better. One of these things is the final fight with Lusamine. Personally, while I really liked the first battle against Lusamine, I found the second fight against her pretty disappointing. Not only was her team exactly the same as before (albeit at higher levels), her AI was terrible. Her Mismagius never used anything but Pain Split, and her Bewear even used Pain Split as soon as it came out. It was at full health and my Pokemon was down to about 1/3, so Bewear took massive damage and my Pokemon was fully healed. What the fuck, Lusamine?

Probably the most disappointing thing about this was that it was just another trainer battle. The buildup was great, but as soon as Lusamine takes on this bizarre, almost Lovecraftian new form, she just whips out her Pokeballs and starts battling. Boring. Lame. It's like that Robo-Groudon from Colosseum; what's the point of having this mech/alien form if you're just going to battle the same way as before? Personally, I would've liked it a lot more if Lusamine was the creature we had to fight. It would be something like the battle with black/white Kyurem in B2W2, but hopefully a lot more challenging. They could actually get pretty creative since this wouldn't be an enemy we could catch, and therefore they could make its stats, type, and moves whatever they want without having to worry about players getting their hands on something absurdly overpowered. Just off the top of my head, I'd probably make its stats (not base stats, stats for this battle) something like 400HP/100ATK/250DEF/100SPA/250SPD/90SPE. That way, its attacks would do considerable damage, but they wouldn't be too horribly powerful. Its horribly high HP and defenses, on the other hand, would be to ensure that it would last long enough to force players to use most or all of their Cockfighting Society. As for moves, I'd probably give it something like Dragon Pulse, Fire Lash, Flash Cannon, and Recover, and make sure that the first three have more PP than normal so that it doesn't end up using Struggle. This way, its attacks, while still formidable, still wouldn't be unfairly strong, but I think it would probably be able to do neutral damage to just about every Cockfighting Society. Hell, as long as we're going all out, we could even give it six moves instead of the usual 4. Refresh? Haze? Superpower? Earthquake? To cap it off, I'd probably want to give it some sort of typing that would have few to no weaknesses, or not give it a type at all. After all, thanks to the move Burn Up, we now have Cockfighting Society that can have no type at all. Why not do the same for Lusamine? I mean, she is supposed to be an alien at this point. Wouldn't it make sense to make her as strange and otherworldly as possible by not giving her an identifiable type?

RAMBLE OVER

Anyone else who's beaten the game: any thoughts on this? Do you think this would be an improvement, or is this a terrible idea? I'd like to hear your thoughts!

I finally got Sun.

My Rowlet just evolved and Dartrix's Pokédex entry. It's a Blade Quill Pokemon and the entry starts out "A bit of a dandy."

All I can think of is this.

I am really liking Toxapex. My little guy is defensive as fuuuuuuck