History YMMV / PokemonSunAndMoon

* TakeThatScrappy: The Trubbish and Kantonian Grimer lines are disliked by many for their uncreative, gross designs. Their Pokedex entries in ''Sun and Moon'' (and ''Ultra Sun and Moon'' as well) state that they're often targeted for extermination because of their gross natures, and that their numbers are on the decline (with Kantonian Grimer in particular being on the verge of extinction).

* UrbanLegendOfZelda: In the days prior to the game's release, bits and pieces of gameplay and lore leaked out on sites such as Website/FourChan, and then further passed on through a game of telephone. This amplified a rumor that Anabel's homeworld, that of the original non-Mega universe, was attacked and/or even destroyed by the Ultra Beasts, with Anabel being the only survivor (while the game heavily implies that Anabel was from the original universe or somewhere very similar and was defending the tower from ''something'', it's never stated that the Ultra Beasts enacted massive destruction or anything like that); this rumor was stated as fact for weeks after the game was released based on the faulty interpretation from leaks. See CommonKnowledge above for more info.

** Acerola. Her constant CatSmile, frequent jumping and dancing around, and [[{{Metaphorgotten}} lack of understanding of baseball metaphors]] cement her as this.

** Press A to pound[[labelnote:Explanation]]Mallow's trial revolves around the player preparing a stew using ingredients found in the nearby wilderness, which culminates in a scene where the player is instructed to "Press A to pound the ingredients." The wording of the prompt caught on with fans thanks to "pound" [[AccidentalInnuendo also being slang for sex]], leading one fan to edit a photograph of the moment to simply consist of Mallow's face and the text "Press A to pound." The photoshop became a popular reaction image in response to characters that internet users consider attractive and inspired further edits where "Press A to pound" is juxtaposed with cropped RuleThirtyFour art and suggestive moments in other works.[[/labelnote]]

** Acerola, the Ghost-type trial captain, very much fits this trope. She is immensely loved for her absolutely adorable appearance, movements in-game (most notably her running animation and her Z-Strike pose), her quirky personality and her friendship with Lillie. She even has a uniquely adorable CatSmile.

** Starting with these games, ''Pokémon'' has foregone the feature where pressing X while in a menu instantly returns the player to the overworld regardless of how many layers of sub-menus they have reached. While this does come with the tradeoff of making rearranging Pokémon and items in the party faster, Pokémon can also be rearranged with touch-screen features and similar tradeoffs are ''not'' introduced to, say, the Bag menu. In the case of PCs, this was mitigated by simply removing the other features of PCs, allowing unique selection modes to be mapped to X. But in a lot of other places, this removal is ''really'' inconvenient.

** The Ash-Greninja you can receive by playing the game's special demo is attributed to Ash instead of the player. While this is a neat ShoutOut to the anime, it means this Greninja will level up much faster than usual due to it being treated as a traded Pokémon. It's already a slight problem that you receive it as a Greninja instead of it starting from a Froakie so you can use it from the start, but now once you ''do'' get your team to level 36 and use it, it will very quickly outpace them and get overleveld, diminishing the difficulty of the game.

** Yungoos and Gumshoos being compared to UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump based on their hair and perpetual scowls. Alolan Rattata are jokingly compared to illegal immigrants which Yungoos are trying to drive out of Alola. The formers' [[AnimalFacialHair moustaches]] don't exactly help discourage any such stereotypes. It has gotten so bad that Wonder Trades often result in people getting these two with nicknames of Donald Drumpf or anything related to him.

** Starting with these games, ''Pokémon'' has foregone the feature where pressing X while in a menu instantly returns the player to the overworld regardless of how many sub-menus they are in. While this does come with the tradeoff of making rearranging Pokémon and items in the party faster, Pokémon can also be rearranged with touch-screen features and similar tradeoffs are ''not'' introduced to, say, the Bag menu. In the case of PCs, this was mitigated by simply removing the other features of PCs, allowing unique selection modes to be mapped to X. But in a lot of other places, this removal is ''really'' inconvenient.

** Yungoos and Gumshoos being compared to UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump based on their hair and perpetual scowls. Alolan Rattata are jokingly compared to illegal immigrants which Yungoos are trying to drive out of Alola. The formers' [[AnimalFacialHair moustaches]] don't exactly help discourage any such stereotypes. It has gotten so bad that Wonder Trades often result in people getting these two with nicknames of Donald Trump or anything related to him.

** When Ash-Greninja was revealed to be available in a ''Sun'' and ''Moon'' demo and was implied to actually be Ash's Greninja from [[Anime/{{Pokemon}} the anime]], a few fans cried foul over it. However, the anime has always had a major influence on the games; ''Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire'' had Steven mention the Mega Evolution Specials when you show him the promotional Shiny Beldum, Pikachu's PokemonSpeak since Gen VI, several movie characters cameoed in ''VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl'' ([[InconsistentDub although their localized names are different]]), ''[[VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue Pokémon Yellow]]'' is directly based on the anime, and several characters from the anime had their Pokémon made available in the games through event distributions.

** Incineroar was never a proper scrappy but it was given flak due to beliving it to be the umpteenth Fire/Fighting starter. As you can guess, people were relieved when it turned out that Incineroar is actually Fire/Dark.

** [[TheStoic The protagonist keeps a mostly unchanging facial expression through the game]]. This by itself would simply be [[DullSurprise inappropriate]] during important plot segments, but it's worse when put together with other characters that ''are'' more expressive. For example, during the [[spoiler:Ultra Wormhole opening]] event, the camera panning shows [[spoiler:Lillie and Hau]] being clearly horrified, [[spoiler:Gladion]] being upset, and the protagonist...simply smiling and spacing out. Made more glaring by the fact that there are a couple of cutscenes where their expression ''does'' change--namely [[spoiler:the first time they witness a wormhole opening and most of the cover legendary-related plot scenes]]--killing any possible excuse as to why they're so blanked out every other time, along with how the protagonists in the previous generation's games had appropriate expressions during dire cutscenes.

** In the Japanese version, the leaders of each island are called Island Kings and Island Queens. The English version chose to give them the title of Kahuna, which is a Hawaiian word to refer to either a wise person, or a leader. The usage of the term easily fits the Hawaii based Alola region.

** One fandom rumor surrounding the Ultra Beasts spread like wildfire just after the games were leaked online, namely that the Ultra Beasts [[spoiler:had destroyed multiple universes (including alternate universes that Gens I-V were set in, as alluded by Zinnia during the [[VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire Delta Episode]])]]. Many take this as fact in order to play up the horror factor of the Ultra Beasts, and even many tropers on this wiki took the information to be true (it did not help that this theory had the most followers during the post-leak period, when few people would even have the game due to risks associated with hacking, as well as during the early weeks of the games' release, when few people would have reached that point of the game). It doesn't help that the Dex entries also allude to their destructive power, like how Guzzlord is capable of devouring entire buildings, with many people even believing it could swallow entire ''oceans'', which could certainly be the cause of planetary destruction. Within the games themselves, these rumours are only ''vaguely'' implied, and while the Ultra Beasts are said to be very dangerous they are not anywhere ''near'' the level the rumor stated. [[spoiler:The closest thing to them attacking other universes is one of Anabel's (who is strongly suggested to be from the original games' universe) vague memories of defending Battle Tower against a threat before she fell through a Wormhole. Even if the Ultra Beasts were the threat in question, attacking the Battle Tower (and by extension, the Battle Frontier) is a far cry from being capable of destroying an entire universe.]]

* EnsembleDarkhorse: [[EnsembleDarkhorse/{{Pokemon}} Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.]] This page lists the more notable examples.
** Pokémon:
*** Alolan Vulpix and Ninetales gained a lot of fans shortly after their reveal, thanks to their adorable and beautiful designs, and Ninetails' unique Ice/Fairy typing. Being Lillie's first Pokémon in the [[Anime/{{Pokemon}} anime]] definitely helps.
*** Golisopod, the badass evolution of Wimpod, was met with an overwhelmingly positive fan reaction thanks to its cool design and its semi-unique type combination (only 1 Pokémon before generation VII possessed it). Helped that it's the signature mon of another fan favorite, Guzma.
** Humans:
*** Surprisingly enough, Youngster Tristan, one of the trainers you have to face [[spoiler:when you defend your title in the Pokémon League,]] received a lot of positive reception for being just a kid [[spoiler:who managed to beat the Elite Four and being one of the first people you meet when the player moves to Alola]]. It helps that he has a very balanced team that utilizes various different types of Pokémon.
*** Hiker David is popular due to him randomly photobombing Kiawe's trial.
*** Considering how she has by far the least screen time out of all the Trial Captains and how she hasn't set up her own trial, Mina is surprisingly popular, with many fans latching on to her "quirky artist" personality.

** Po Town is full of potential, being an abandoned, run-down town taken over by Team Skull. Exciting possibilities include getting to see inside the inner-workings of Team Skull, finding abandoned items among the ruins, seeing which types of wild Pokémon would thrive in such an environment. Fans hoping for a taste of ''Pokémon: {{VideoGame/Fallout}}'' are left sadly disappointed, however. Only two buildings are accessible, there are no wild Pokémon to be found, there are few items to be found (and the items which are found are fairly standard), and the battles with Team Skull grunts aren't anything out of the ordinary. It essentially ends up being the franchise standard "Evil Team Hideout," just surrounded by inaccessible buildings.

* EnsembleDarkhorse:
** Pokémon:
*** First seen in a split second shot in one of the May 2016 trailers, [[PreciousPuppies the adorable Rock puppy Rockruff]] gathered a lot of fans very quickly and people were keen to guess what it looked like before its official reveal in the July 2016 issue of ''[=CoroCoro=]'', which only gave it more fans. Its [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent evolutions]] only made it more popular, with Mignight Lycanroc in particular getting a lot of love from [[PopularWithFurries the furry demographic]].
*** Mimikyu, who wears an old, poorly drawn Pikachu rag just to [[IJustWantToBeLoved become as popular as Pikachu]] is beloved for its tragic backstory, as well as being a Ghost/Fairy type and having a powerful ability that allows it to avoid damage once.

*** Type: Null's odd design and backstory have captured a lot of speculation to its origins, and most people have flocked to it due to potential [[TheWoobie Woobie]] status. Its evolution, Silvally, became a near fan favorite overnight after its reveal for its badass design, all of TheWoobie status of Type: Null with an extra dose of ''[[SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments heartwarming]]'' due to evolving when it recognises that it shares a mutual bond with its trainer, and a unique ability that can make it '''any''' type it wants depending on the special item it's holding, an ability very similar to Arceus itself. In fact, it even seems like a deliberate attempt to recreate Arceus both in-universe and out, as implied by the ability name, and this caused no small amount of FanficFuel. Most art of Silvally also portrays it as a FriendToAllLivingThings, especially Gladion! Awww.

** Ultra Beasts:
*** UB-02 Beauty [[spoiler:better known as Pheromosa]] has garnered its fair share of love, for its elegant design, great competitive use as a GlassCannon and FragileSpeedster. And in Pokémon Refresh, it's fairly cute as well, with an [[WhenSheSmiles adorable little smile.]]
*** UB-03 Lighting [[spoiler:truly known as Xurkitree]] has been basking in quite a bit of popularity due to its CreepyAwesome design that also resembles Guzma, as well as its cute dancing animation in Pokémon Refresh. In competitive play, it is one of the best Ultra Beasts available, due to its sheer power and having Tail Glow as a move letting it steamroll most stall teams. It also helps that its defenses, while rather pale, aren't as paper-thin as fellow Ultra Beasts Beauty [[spoiler:(Pheromosa)]] and Blade [[spoiler:(Kartana)]].
*** UB-04 Blaster [[spoiler:otherwise known as Celesteela]] is also quite popular due its almost "beautiful" and "cute" design. Its also popular in competitive play due to the fact that unlike most of the Ultra Beasts, most of its stats are balanced enough that Beast Boost can be tweaked to increase whichever stat the player would want (apart from speed, but even that can be remedied with Autotomize). It also boasts the most powerful Heavy Slam in the whole series, due to being among the heaviest Pokémon and getting STAB on top of that.