Video Game / Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon

aka: Pokemon Ultra Sun And Moon

New Necrozma formes, Team Rainbow Rocket, and the return of every single mascot legendary from the last 20 years? It's all come together, indeed.

This isn't the Alola you thought you knew...

Alola, again!

Pokémon Ultra Sun & Pokémon Ultra Moon are the second major set of seventh generation games in the Pokémon series, also released for Nintendo 3DS. The games were first announced on June 6, 2017, and released worldwide on November 17, 2017. The games are updated rereleases of the original Sun and Moon, featuring several Pokémon that didn't appear in the original set of games, increased difficulty, and an alternate story that shifts some characterization and quickly diverges from the plot of the original installments to place far greater emphasis on the Alternate Universe elements.

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Spoiler Warning: Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, just like their predecessors, is very popular and contains lots of spoilers here and its subpages. Due to this, it is recommended to have the spoiler view turned off if you don't want to be spoiled. This game has many plot twists and surprises, and most spoilers are marked. Some of them are unmarked, however. You Have Been Warned.

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Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon contain the following tropes:

#-C

• Adaptation Expansion: We see the Island Kahunas (besides Hala) about to face the Ultra Beasts, an event that was mentioned but not shown in Sun and Moon. Also, the developers have described the game's plot as longer than the original games.
• Adaptational Sympathy: In the original games, Lusamine cruelly disowned her children and it was mentioned that Mohn (her husband) went missing, but it wasn't an aspect that was bought to the forefront. In this game, however, Lusamine is given more sympathetic qualities. When she disowns Lillie and Gladion, she looks disappointed and hurt that they would steal Type: Null and Cosmog, and it's made clear that she's very distraught about the disappearance of her husband. Additionally, she does get to see Mohn again, but he no longer remembers her. She is sad, but she decides to let him go so that he will be happy.
• Advanced Tech 2000: Subverted: The Colress machines appear to use this format, but the number actually determines how many their titular creator made at the time of writing, meaning at this point, he has literally invented over one-thousand Colress machines.
• After the End: The Ultra Space world in which you can catch Guzzlord, the Ultra Ruin, is actually the ruins of an alternate Hau'oli City, after a catastrophic power plant meltdown took place and the survivors escaped the planet, leaving only one person behind. It is implied by the only human left that this meltdown happened a very long time before the player arrives, given Guzzlord being in the world before he could even remember and his grandfather being opposed to the power plant project.
• Alliterative Name: New Z-Moves include Splintered Stormshards, Searing Sunraze Smash, and Menacing Moonraze Maelstrom.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Team Rainbow Rocket takes over both the Festival Plaza castle and Lusamine's mansion to use as their headquarters.
• Alternate Self:
  • The villainous team leaders who join Team Rainbow Rocket are not the same ones the players have met in the past games. By their accounts, they each succeeded in their various plans, but were suddenly transported to this world by an Ultra Wormhole to serve on Team Rainbow Rocket. Maxie and Archie, in particular, seem to be from variants of the original universe before Mega Evolution was introduced, given they use their "classic" character designs. Giovanni himself is seemingly from the same world as the player, judging from some Rainbow Rocket grunts' comments about how they have been "reborn" and the fact that he invades the Aether Foundation in order to gain access to other worlds.
  • It's heavily implied that the Legendaries available in Ultra Space are from the 'non-Mega' universe that Zinnia suggested due to the usage of the original themes. However, Mewtwo uses its Pokémon X and Y theme (unlike the Legendary birds who use the Red and Blue version), which might indicate it comes from the 'Mega' universe.
• Alternate Universe: This set of games is described as an "alternate re-telling" of the story of Pokémon Sun and Moon, which is similar to the third games of Generations I to IV. Additionally, a new group introduced is the Ultra Recon Squad, consisting of individuals from an alternate universe whose light has been stolen by Necrozma, and you can travel through Ultra Space by riding Solgaleo/Lunala, even visiting the respective home dimensions of many Ultra Beasts as well as areas implied to take place in other regions in the "non-Mega" timeline. In addition, all villainous Team Leaders in Rainbow Rocket except for Giovanni hail from worlds where their plans were never foiled, while Giovanni himself ends up travelling to an alternate world at the end of the RR story.
• Ambiguously Human:
  • The Ultra Recon Squad are an unusual group who dress in futuristic suits that obscure most of their bodies, except for their hair (which isn't unusual for Pokémon) and their faces, which are unusually pale, almost blue in fact. They also apparently come from a world beyond Ultra Wormholes, are privy to knowledge about the Ultra Beasts, and even train a few. They are also seemingly unfamiliar with Alola's culture, performing the traditional Alolan greeting as a square rather than imitating a rainbow.
  • One of the Ultra Spaces you can visit is the Ultra Forest, which is exclusive to Ultra Sun. This world is inhabited by Kartana who also apparently live in harmony with people known as Kartenvoys, who resemble old Asian men in traditional Japanese garb. They're battled with Kartana that aren't even kept in Poké Balls. Very little explanation is given as to how they got there and what their story is.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • While Giovanni is suggested to be from the player's universe, it's unclear whether or not his Mewtwo (an unambiguous Single Specimen Species) is also from there, or if he captured one from another universe (which, given the below point and his familiarity with other worlds by then, may be likely).
  • While the other Legendaries in Ultra Space use their original battle themes to suggest they're from other worlds, Mewtwo uses its X and Y theme, which may or may not indicate it comes from the player's universe.
  • Aside from Ghetsis (who unambiguously won in his world) the other Team Rainbow Rocket leaders were all pulled away just as their plans reached their conclusion, leaving it open-ended as to whether or not they succeeded, or if they failed even without the player's interference.
• Androcles' Lion: ON Exeggutor Island, you'll notice that several Exeggutor are agitated, and when you approach them, they're being accosted by a Pinsir. Defeating the Pinsir calms them down, and as a reward they'll help you get to higher areas in Exeggutor Island.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: In addition to the Shiny Charm and stamps in your passport, completing the Alola Dex and speaking with Game Freak's Director will also award you with clothing for your character, one article for each island. Black Belt clothing for male players, Pokémon Center Nurse outfits for female players.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • Unlike the previous game, earning BP is now easier due to the addition of Mantine Surfing, along with a "Normal Rules" setting initially applied to the Battle Tree which allows you to send in banned Pokémon along with the level cap removed. You can still play "Normal Rules" after "Super Mode" is unlocked. However, "Normal Rules" means that you cannot meet special trainers.
  • Poké Pelago's Isle Aphun now has a "Play Longer" option, which will cause Mohn to automatically check the structure for you and allow you to set the playtime again, making the whole ordeal of taking at least one Pokémon out a lot less harrowing.
  • At Team Rainbow Rocket's Castle, you're required to solve a memory game, but later versions have you engaged in a battle in an attempt to distract you. If this works and you have to do the puzzle again, you won't have to do the battles either.
  • Sun and Moon didn't have many options when it came to end-game leveling. This is no longer the case as wild Chansey were added as ambush encounters in Poni Plains, and they give tremendous amounts of experience when defeated and can easily be chained through SOS battles. Even better, they have a chance of calling Blissey as allies, which have the highest base experience yield in the game, period. They also know only two attacking moves, Egg Bomb and Fling, with the former having a paltry 75% accuracy and the latter only working if the user is holding a Lucky Egg, itself a rarity, and both run off the line's pathetic physical attack stat, meaning they won't be able to do much damage even over longer battles.
  • Having trouble with the Ultra Warp Ride because of motion controls? There's an Aether employee in Heahea City that allows you to switch controls to the Circle Pad instead.
• Anti Poop-Socking: If you've been playing the game without saving for a while, Rotom will give you the option to save.
• Artificial Brilliance:
  • Despite that the Totem Pokémon were toned down a tad, they can still be challenging for the fact that their AI and movepools are actually pretty smartly designed.
  • Ultra Necrozma has a moveset perfectly tailored to countering its weaknesses, as well as hitting as many types as possible for super-effective damage to get the boost from its Ability. And if there's a weakness it can exploit against a Pokémon, it will exploit it. The only type it can't hit for at least neutral damage is Steel.^{Explanation (spoilers)}As a Psychic/Dragon, it uses Smart Strike to deal with Ice- and Fairy-types (and Rock), Power Gem for Bug- and Ice-types (and Flying and Fire), Dragon Pulse for Dragons and STAB, and Photon Geyser for STAB and Poison- and Fighting-types.
  • Although Giovanni uses Mewtwo in both versions, its moveset is altered to play to each of its Mega Evolutions' strengths; while Ultra Moon has a special moveset that would hit hard even on a vanilla Mewtwo, in Ultra Sun its moveset is entirely physical to reflect Mega Mewtwo X's higher Attack.
• Ascended Extra:
  • Several characters who had minor roles in Sun and Moon play bigger roles in these games. For example, Mina, the only trial captain to lack her own trial in the original pair, now has her own trial in these games.
    • The biggest example of this is Colress, who does get involved with the Ultra Recon Squad over an unknown subject, gives the player the means to fuse Necrozma with the Sun and Moon box legendaries via two of his Colress machines, and ultimately, serves a crucial role in Episode RR by helping the protagonist rescue Lusamine, get rid of the team leaders assisting Giovanni and saves Lillie from an irate Ghetsis.
  • Necrozma, who was only a post-game Optional Boss in the original pair with no plot significance, is the focus of these games' plot.
  • Aside from Nihilego, the Ultra Beasts were largely endgame content with no bearing on the main plot. They have a larger prominence this time around, with the player visiting their habitats in Ultra Space, potentially encountering them shiny, Buzzwole, Pheromosa, Xurkitree, and Guzzlord wreaking havoc in Alola, and new Ultra Beasts as the first new Pokémon species to be introduced mid-generation.
  • The Rotom Dex, despite being a Fairy Companion, had little interactivity in the originals. Now, a player can answer questions from it and get reactions, gain O-Power abilities using the "Roto Loto", and even make it more like them as they use it, to the point of strong compatibility allowing for the use of Z-Moves more than once in battle.
  • In the main games, Mewtwo was always little more than a Superboss fought after the main story was over. However, not only is the player able to capture it before the Pokémon League for once, but it appears in Team Rainbow Rocket's headquarters as Giovanni's ace Pokémon, essentially promoting it to True Final Boss status as it's the last Pokémon faced over the course of the postgame story.
• Aside Glance: During the festival celebrating Alola's first champion, all the Trial Captains and Kahunas perform their Z-Move pose...except Mina does hers behind a tree away from the stand. She then notices the camera being pointed at her...
• Ascended Fridge Horror:
  • Guzzlord is described as having an incredible appetite and it will consume and devour nearly anything, including entire buildings. Here, we actually see this in its habitat, the Ultra Ruins, which is a destroyed and broken town that's implied to be the ruins of an alternate Hau'oli City. The entire town is broken and Guzzlord continues to eat away at everything it can.
  • These games go into the topic of what happens to all the Pokémon you just leave behind in your PC: When a Trainer dies or goes missing for a long period of time, all their Pokémon are released. This would be averting the trope, except that there's the occasional Pokémon in denial that refuses to go and stays put, futilely believing their trainer will come back (Pokémon being able to prevent themselves from being released actually was shown in previous games when the player tried to release one with a necessary HM move).
  • The possibility of Ditto and Zorua learning to imitate and replace humans are shown in these games. For the former, a side quest in Konikoni City tasks the player with finding runaway Ditto who have transformed into humans. They don't exactly have a good grasp of the English language however, thankfully.
• Ascended Meme: One sidequest has you go look for a Meowth. The first hiding spot is under a truck outside the motel. There was a popular rumor for Red and Blue about Mew (a feline-shaped Pokémon) hiding underneath a similar truck.
• Apathetic Citizens: When Necrozma takes control of Solgaleo/Lunala, the sky around Poni Island goes completely dark. If you go talk to people on the island, nobody seems to care about it.
• Back for the Finale: In a End of an Age sense for the handheld games, we have all of the previous Legendaries, and every single previous villainous team leader. Unfortunately, however, Mythical Pokémon remain available only through their respective events.
• Badass in Distress: Solgaleo/Lunala is seen being defeated and absorbed by Necrozma, transforming it into its Dusk Mane/Dawn Wings Forme.
  • Necrozma itself after the player defeats it; it flees to Alola from Ultra Megalopolis and crashlands on Mount Lanakila, completely drained of power. The player must help it by sharing the light of their Z-Power Ring with it.
• The Bad Guy Wins: The evil team leaders each come from a world where, before they were summoned through an Ultra Wormhole to aid Giovanni, they succeeded in their plans because there was no player character to stop them. Maxie controlled Groudon and began drying up the oceans, Archie controlled Kyogre and began flooding the land, Cyrus took control of Palkia/Dialga (depending on if you play Ultra Sun or Ultra Moon) and started to create a new world, Ghetsis took over Unova and banned all Pokémon, and Lysandre finished the Ultimate Weapon that he intended to wipe out everyone except Team Flare. Subverted for most in that their plans ultimately blew up in their faces anyway, but Ghetsis' plan didn't involve any catastrophic destruction, so his went off without a hitch.
• Bait-and-Switch Boss: A few boss battles are played out to happen just like they did in Sun and Moon, only for them to turn out to be different at the last minute.
  • During the original version of Lana's trial in the original Sun and Moon, the Totem Pokémon was a Wishiwashi. In this game's version of the trial, it seems like the Totem Pokémon will also be a Wishiwashi, with all the Wishiwashi you've been herding forming into their School forme...right up until the actual Totem Pokémon, an Araquanid, pounces on the school, scattering it, and attacks.
  • Mina's trial requires the player to battle most of the previous Trial Captains. Acerola is not in the Aether House because she's left to join the Elite Four; in Ultra Moon, Nanu battles the player in her place.
  • Kukui seems like he'll be the Final Boss again, until he says that he's kidding and Hau comes up the stairs to be your final opponent. This is even played with in terms of the music used in the final battle against Hau - it starts out just like the title defense theme in Sun and Moon, only for it to suddenly turn into a remix of Hau's battle theme. ^note Battles against all other challengers use the first title defense theme.
  • Molayne replaces Hala as a member of the Elite Four. This creates a problem if you thought Hala still retains his position and you have a Fairy-type and neglected to bring an appropriate Pokémon like a Fire or Fighting type.
• Beware the Nice Ones:
  • When Ghetsis threatens to kill Lillie if the player doesn't throw away their Pokéballs, he notices that they're shaking furiously. Luckily Colress steps in before anything else happens.
  • Despite Colress' very friendly exterior, he will show how much he despises you if you get on his bad side. Thankfully, he wholly supports the protagonists and banishes Ghetsis back to his reality as well as the other team leaders.
• Big Bad Ensemble: The game has numerous villains, with Guzma and Lusamine returning from the last games, Necrozma arriving to steal Alola's light as the primary Big Bad, and in the postgame, Team Rocket makes a comeback as Team Rainbow Rocket, with Giovanni at the helm and aided by Archie, Maxie, Cyrus, Ghetsis, and Lysandre.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • A cute version—when you wander into the tall grass near your new house, you will be attacked by a Yungoos. As it bares its teeth at you, the three starters (Popplio, Rowlet and Litten) all appear out of nowhere and run to your rescue.
  • For a more serious one, During the Rainbow Rocket episode, Guzma arrives to assist the player and Lillie when they are confronted by Team Rainbow Rocket Grunts. Later, Colress arrives after the battle with Ghetsis, sending Ghetsis back to his own world and having a plan to reverse Team Rainbow Rocket's control of the Aether Foundation once the player defeats Giovanni.
  • An earlier serious one is at the Hokulani Observatory's trial, where Sophocles' and Molayne's machine heavily malfunctions and threatens to endanger the Chargabug powering it. The Togedemaru on site for something like this attempts to absorb the electricity, but Molayne points out that despite its abilty; Lightning Rod, its electric sacs can't handle that amount of electricity. Then the Totem Togedemaru breaks in from the ceiling, takes the normal Togedemaru's place and absorbs all the electricity. Then the battle begins...
• Book Ends: As far as trainer battles go, the main story begins and ends with you facing Hau. Doubles as a meta example for the franchise as a whole - The exclusively-portable era of Pokémon begins and ends with a rival battle (Blue at the start of Red/Blue, Hau at the end of Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon).
• Bootstrapped Leitmotif: When everything's started to go south during Sophocles' trial the song 'There's Trouble!' plays, which, despite its apt name, only played during Ultra Beast related events in the previous games.
• Boss Bonanza:
  • Having every previous Big Bad making a comeback not enough for you? Try having every single Legendary Pokémon from the past six generations being available for capture. And none of them are Shiny-locked, making this the first opportunity the player can legally capture Shiny Xerneas and Yveltal.
  • Late in the game, from Vast Poni Canyon and onward is full of nothing but tough boss fights. First there's Totem Kommo-o, just like in the originals. After that is Dusk Mane/Dawn Wings Necrozma, fought at the Altar of the Sunne/Moone. Then there's its stronger form, Ultra Necrozma. Right after that, there's a fight with Mina to kick off her trial, and then she sends you to fight the Trial Captains from the previous trials that you've done. The trial is then concluded with the Totem Ribombee fight. Then the Grand Trial commences, which is a fight against Hapu on Exeggutor Island. And finally, you face Gladion at the base of Mt. Lanakila, just like in the original. From the end of Vast Poni Canyon, that's at least eleven boss fights pretty much back to back. Mt. Lanakila itself is actually full of trainers this time too, quite a few of which are very strong, and this precedes the actual Boss Bonanza that's tradition to the series being the Elite Four and Champion fight.
• Breaking Old Trends:
  • Mascot Legendary Pokémon have long been part of a Pokémon villain's plan, and/or key in defeating them, but this is the first core game where the mascot Legendary itself is the Big Bad.
  • These are the first games to add completely new Pokémon mid-generation.
• Broken Bridge: One point of contention about the Justified Tutorial from the base game was the Pokémon Center right across the street from your house. A trainer and his Tauros just wouldn't let you pass. In this game, the Pokémon Center is still under construction, so the path is completely blocked off.
• Broken Record: Most of the time, the Rotom Dex will give you advice that you didn't even ask for after you've bonded with it enough. There are 30 tips in total, some of it being things you've probably learned about from the original games or have already figured out through experimenting. Being that there are only 30, Rotom Dex will eventually start repeating advice you've already heard and it does this frequently. The only useful advice are a few number of tips such as telling you that the geothermal plant at Blush Mountain is now a spot for special evolutions.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • Team Rocket, now re-branded Team Rainbow Rocket, is the subject of a postgame quest. Not only is Giovanni back to rule the roost, but so is every prior Team leader. Of particular note are Archie and Maxie, who are seen as they were in Gen III.
  • Due to this Lusamine never being exposed to Nihilego's toxins and becoming the Big Bad, she is well and able to be the Aether Foundation's president, leaving Gladion free to go to other regions to train. He'll later come back as a challenger for the Title Defense after a real-life month has passed since you completed the main story. Defeating him leads to a very special event at Aether Paradise...
• …But He Sounds Handsome: With the heavy implications that the policeman's partner in Akala is a Ditto who learned how to talk, his description of Ditto's abilities to transform ends with him calling Ditto "an amazing Pokémon".
• But Thou Must!:
  • The player can happen upon Nanu offering a choice of starters to a boy. The boy, unable to decide, asks the player to choose for them. All three starters are Meowth.
  • Two in the post-game:
    • Once you meet Hau, Wicke, and the Ultra Recon Squad at Ancient Poni Path, and complete two encounters with Blacephalon or Stakataka, it sends you back home, where you are met by Sophocles. He takes you to Festival Plaza, which has been infiltrated by Team Rainbow Rocket. You have to help him beat them. He will not take no for an answer. The rest of the Team Rainbow Rocket arc after that can wait until you go to Aether Paradise.
    • Lysandre presents you with two buttons, one of which will activate a superweapon and the other which will allow you to proceed. No matter which one you pick, it will activate the weapon, and Lysandre battles you to prevent you from pressing the other button to deactivate the weapon.
• Camera Abuse: In-Universe: When Team Rainbow Rocket take over Lusamine's mansion during a news broadcast, they knock over the cameraman and cause them to drop the camera, landing on its side.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • The Battle Agency, a new facility in Festival Plaza that allows the player to rent Pokémon (not unlike the Battle Factory) becomes instrumental in taking back Festival Plaza from Team Rainbow Rocket.
  • After clearing Acerola's trial, the Trial Guide at Haina Desert gives you a Fresh Water due to the high temperatures. While this isn't a problem for you, the Fresh Water will likely be given to a lost Hiker you can find in the desert, who happens to be the trainer of the Stufful in the nearby Motel.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • You'll probably say hello to Colress a lot during the main story. He secretly keeps tabs on the protagonists at Team Rocket's Castle and sends back all the evil team leaders to their realities and saves Lillie from Ghetsis.
  • At Hokulani Observatory, Sophocles and Molayne have a Togedemaru on site to use its ability, Lightning Rod, in case of an electrical emergency. It protects the Charjabug in the trial when the machine designed to summon the Totem goes awry, only for Totem Togedemaru to show up and take its place and start the battle.
• Chest Monster: Electrode disguised as items appear in Team Rainbow Rocket's Castle.
• Climax Boss: Ultra Necrozma. It's got a high level, a massive stat total, all of its stat get a boost during battle, and its moveset can prey on a lot of types, making it quite a challenge to fight. The atmosphere is also quite epic, facing it atop a large tower in an Alternate Dimension. Its battle theme is just as epic, with synth and organ sounds that make the track rather reminiscent of a classic JRPG final boss theme. With all this, the battle against Ultra Necrozma is quite the climactic showdown.
• Clown Car: If you attempt to walk into the trailer in Pikachu Valley, a Pikachu, or sometimes three, will appear at the entrance and walk out, preventing you from getting in. No matter how many times you try to enter the trailer, more Pikachu will be ready to walk out. A Trial Guide standing by the trailer is keeping count and can tell you how many Pikachu have exited the trailer, though he'll eventually lose count.
• Coincidental Broadcast: The player's pet Meowth turns on the TV at the beginning of a news broadcast at Aether Paradise, which is then followed by Team Rainbow Rocket's takeover.
• Collection Sidequest: This time around rather than Zygarde cells, it's Totem Stickers, which are mercifully always visible, just not obviously so.
• Console Cameo:
  • The Wii U that used to be in the player's bedroom in Sun and Moon has been replaced with a Nintendo Switch. The Wii U can still be found in the game however, namely in Guzma's old house on Route 2, and in the Shady House in Po Town.
  • Like in previous games, children can be seen playing on the current portable system, this being a Nintendo 3DS with Pokémon loaded on it.
• Continuity Nod:
  • The recreation of the Nugget Bridge Challenge in Malie Garden still exists, and Veteran Don (implied to have once been the Grunt from the original challenge) notes that Team Rocket fell apart years ago. In-Universe, it has indeed been at least seven years since their defeat in Johto, and at least a decade since their disbandment at Giovanni's hands in Kanto.
  • On a related note, Giovanni notes that a young kid opposing him really shouldn't be the case, but somehow makes him feel nostalgic.
  • The residents at Malie City have tried to recreate Lt. Surge's Gym from Kanto. For those who've played the original game, have fun laughing at how inaccurate it is.
  • Team Rainbow Rocket's new logo has green, blue, and yellow along with red, referencing all the Gen I games.
  • Necrozma being found in the middle of Mount Lanakila, Alola's Victory Road, resembles Moltres being encountered in the middle of Kanto's Victory Road in the first generation games.
  • An NPC in Paniola ranch has a Miltank whom she nicknames Whitney, inspired by the Gym Leader of the same name who is a Wake-Up Call Boss in Gen II and its remakes.
  • A post-game side quest involving your pet Meowth and an Alolan Meowth battling follows a format that is similar to the Gen I Games.
  • A side-quest involves a Rising Star who was trained by a person named Arabella, one of the gym trainers in Viridian City gym during HeartGold and SoulSilver.
  • Team Rocket still has a bad habit of putting switches behind things like posters or paintings.
  • When Giovanni is defeated, he says the exact same quote he said in the original.
  • Cyrus gives you a Galactic Key. Inspection in the Bag has it hold the exact same description as in Diamond, Pearl and Platinum. Sadly, it's as flimsy as the Storage Key...
  • The animated credits sequence, complete with dancing Totem Pokémon in the corners of the screen, are quite reminscient of the credits in Pokémon Gold and Silver.
  • If you score the highest at all the Mantine Surfing Spots, you get the Surfing Pikachu. The flying Pikachu is also mentioned.
  • Sophocles still has the Totem Pinger. Inspecting it notes that it uses too much power.
  • Lysandre still has those goggles he used on his desk.
  • The Sadistic Choice Lysandre gives the player before their battle is the same one offered the player of Pokémon X and Y by Xerosic before their main game battle.
• Convenient Weakness Placement: Much like the original Sun and Moon, NPCs can sometimes offer to trade you for Pokémon that would have an advantage against an upcoming trial.
  • Lass Hila at the Route 2 Pokémon Center replaces the Machop she offers from Sun and Moon with Hawlucha. Not only is this a good choice for Verdant Cavern, but Hawlucha's flying-type also gives you an edge in the Grand Trial against fighting-type specialist Hala and the first trial on the next island, since Lana's Totem Pokémon is the bug-type Araquanid.
  • Rising Star Kihei in Route 5's Pokémon Center replaces his trade offer from Bounsweet to Noibat. Not only is Noibat also effective against Araquanid like Hawlucha, but its secondary dragon-type gives it resistance to water attacks.
  • Cook Yuichi's Barboach in Royal Avenue is perfect for the Wela Volcano Trial. Additionally, a Cubone caught in Wela Volcano can be taught Thief that could also cripple Marowak by stealing the latter's Thick Club.
  • Backpacker Miyo's Arbok can has a good fighting chance against the Lush Jungle Trial and its Totem.
  • Hiker Sill will offer to trade a Phantump with yours to evolve them into Trevenant, just in time for the trial at the Abandoned Thrifty Megamart.
• Crapsack World: Even though the home universes of Team Rainbow Rocket's leaders (where they won) are implicitly not nice to be in, the player never sees them. What they can see is Ultra Ruin, which is a post-apocalyptic Hau'oli City, in an alternate universe where a nuclear power plant was built in Alola, and prompted a meltdown to occur. If that wasn't enough, several Guzzlord somehow appeared and started devouring everything in sight, causing everyone to evacuate to other planets, leaving behind the Guzzlord and one lone human in a hazmat suit. By the time the player arrives, Guzzlord's numbers are dwindling, implying the world is so bad that they're now running out of things to eat.
• Creator Cameo: Shigeki Morimoto, who had already appeared as an NPC trainer in Sun and Moon, is now joined by game director Kazumasa Iwao, to fight the player in a daily double battle. Unlike Morimoto, who uses a standard Veteran model, Iwao uses a unique trainer model that is based on a Black Belt.
• Crutch Character: See the series' page here.
• Cute Bruiser: Two of the new Totem Pokémon, Togedemaru and Ribombee, while cute, will give you trouble.
• Cutscene Power to the Max:
  • Necrozma provides a Curb-Stomp Battle to a fully-evolved Nebby in both versions. In actual gameplay, Necrozma would be losing; Solgaleo's typing makes it doubly resistant to Necrozma's Psychic moves, and Lunala has a singular resistance to Psychic in addition to its Ghost typing allowing it to deal super-effective damage to Necrozma.
  • The likes of Lava Plume, Eruption, and Magma Storm usually ensure a swift end for Buzzwole, but in Ultra Jungle, it flies out of an erupting volcano none the worse for wear.
• Cyberspace: Festival Plaza seems to be set there, as seen during the post-game when Team Rainbow Rocket invades and redesigns it simply by hacking, and Sophocles manages to effortlessly teleport TRR grunts away from it once he restores his admin privileges.

D-K

• Demoted to Dragon:
  • Salazzle is now an assist Pokémon to a Totem Marowak instead of being a Totem herself.
  • All of the villainous Team leaders from other worlds are technically demoted to Elite Mooks for Giovanni, although most of them are content to just do their own thing.
• Demoted to Extra:
  • Looker only appears in passing during the game and doesn't have any subplots. Similarly, Anabel just has a brief scene with him postgame on your way to the Battle Tree, adding herself to your Multi Battle partner options.
  • Nihilego isn't the source of Lusamine's villainy here, and as such the battle against it in Aether Paradise is its only role in the story, meant to show how the Aether Foundation is struggling with their experiments to open an Ultra Wormhole.
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: Faba still retains this. In a different way, he still tells the protagonists that Lusamine's hiding in the Aether Mansion, and later trying to stop Lillie from telling Lusamine of his involvement of Team Rainbow Rocket's takeover in an attempt to get away scot-free, he ends up telling her everything he did, which she had no idea about. Guess what happens next.
• Disc-One Final Dungeon: Vast Poni Canyon becomes this here, as it was essentially the final dungeon before the endgame in the original, but not only are there more bosses here that follow, Mt. Lanakila is also reworked and populated with trainers to really make it the Very Definitely Final Dungeon like any traditional Victory Road.
• Disc-One Nuke: See the series' page here.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • If you have Roto Bargain active, your coupon at Thrifty Megamart won't be acknowledged.
  • During Mallow's trial, if you managed to complete it without having to battle any additional Pokémon due to stealing ingredients they wanted, Mallow will congratulate you for this.
• Dressing as the Enemy: When you buy the Skull Tank from the Team Skull Grunts at Po Town, they take it further by giving you a Team Skull Cap for free.
• Easter Egg:
  • If you use the Pokémon Bank to transfer Pokémon over from the Virtual Console versions of Pokémon Red, Blue, Yellow, Silver, or Gold, Morimoto over at Game Freak's headquarters on Akala Island will tell you some interesting history behind the development of the Pokémon games. If you have a Pokémon very specifically from Silver, he will tell you a very touching tribute of how the late Satoru Iwata's contributions ended up saving the entire franchise.
  • When Molayne gives you the Masked Royale's mask to give to Kukui, you can show it to the Masked Royale fan at the Battle Royale Dome, who will comment on it.
  • Pokémon in the overworld will react to Ride Pokémon.
• Easy Level Trick: A few of the scarier fights in the game can be cheesed if you know where to look.
  • Did you remember to grab the Thief TM from the first Trial site? When you're at Wela Volcano Park for the Fire Trial, catch a Cubone and teach Thief to it. The Totem Pokémon for the Fire Trial is an Alolan Marowak holding a Thick Club, which doubles the Attack of Marowak and its pre-evolution. Cubone will have Bonemerang when it's caught and can use Thief to steal the Thick Club for itself, letting it slap Marowak and its partners silly with its own weapon. This also gives you a relatively rare item very early^*The only other way to acquire a Thick Club in Gen VII is to find it on a wild Cubone at a 5% chance.. For added fun if you're playing Ultra Sun, if you want to use Thick Club Marowak in main story, the Totem Alolan Marowak you can buy with Totem Stickers comes at a low enough level to learn Shadow Bone by level-up,^*Learned at Level 27, while Cubone only evolves at Level 28, so a regular Marowak would have to wait until meeting the Move Reminder at the end of the game. giving you a powerful Disc-One Nuke that will last for most of the game.
  • This one combines 3 new things: the Move Tutor, the Flyinium Z (namely that it no longer requires Machamp Shove to access like in Sun and Moon), and the Hawlucha from a trade. If you got the Disc-One Nuke Cha, the Hawlucha through an in-game trade and the Flyinium Z, by the time he's with you, his level will be high enough so that his Supersonic Skystrike (with Bounce as the base) can one-shot the infamous Totem Lurantis.
  • In Ultra Sun, if you got a Cranidos from Konikoni City and evolved it to Rampardos, you can teach it Iron Head and give it the Steelium Z to one-shot the dreaded Totem Mimikyu through the Disguise with Mold Breaker Corkscrew Crash.
  • If you bothered to catch and train a Zorua early on at the Trainers School, it will pay off at the climax of the plot when you take on Ultra Necrozma. Stick something with a weakness to Psychic in the back of the party, lead with Zoroark, and laugh as the boss spams its ineffective STAB and just lets Zoroark KO it.
  • Despite being a daunting opponent, all of Ultra Necrozma's moves are resisted by Steel. A sufficiently-leveled Metagross or Aegislash (just to name a few) can thus tank its moves and hit back.
• Eldritch Ocean Abyss: Ultra Space, the home of the alien Nihilego, was renamed Ultra Deep Sea, evoking this.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Par for the course in the series, but there's an instance where its played literally by a little boy and girl at the Trainer's School.
• End of an Age:
  • Meta-Example, as confirmed by Shigeru Ohmori, these are the final mainline Pokémon games on the 3DS handheld, and in a broader sense the final games released on a purely-handheld console (as the Switch is a hybrid console). International markets, however, got a physical release of the earlier-released Detective Pikachu in March 2018.
  • These games would be the last time a mainline Pokémon game allowed the capture (or transfer) and use of any known Pokémon at the time of release. All following mainline games, original or remake, would include a specifc selection of Pokémon ingame, with only a few carve-outs by transfer or events and around 200 extra by downloadable content if the game received it.
• Enemy Mine: Guzma joins the player in fighting Team Rainbow Rocket, although by that point he's disbanded Team Skull.
• Evil Is Cool: In-Universe, when Team Rainbow Rocket takes over Festival Plaza and gives it a red and black color scheme, the player has the option to say it looks cool, to which Sophocles agrees. He proceeds to keep it as an optional cosmetic theme for it as well as putting a boss themed after them.
• Expendable Alternate Universe:
  • Ultra Megalopolis had its light drained away from it long ago by Necrozma, and at no point does it ever come back. It pretty much only exists to show what will happen to Alola if Necrozma successfully drains all light from it. Admittedly, the ancient inhabitants brought it on themselves, but since no present-day civilians besides the Ultra Recon Squad appear, we don't know how everyone else feels about it considering they're not at fault. Further, their fate is mitigated by the statement that with Necrozma beaten and the light it had devoured released, light will likely return to the world of Megalopolis, though it will also likely take a long time.
  • The home universes of Team Rainbow Rocket's members. The game treats the player's reality as the only one of consequence, and doesn't touch on how nothing really changes about the other universes. Even by the end, Giovanni is free to start the whole thing up again in another universe! Mitigated slightly by things like Colress noting that the experience of defeat will likely make Ghetsis easier to deal with back in his world, plus Cyrus is implied to have still been stopped by Giratina, Archie and Maxie note they were taken from their worlds just as their plans had succeeded (Plus they were taken right before they drowned and fell into a pit of lava, respectively) leaving it ambiguous as to whether them being taken away at that moment could change things when they get back, and Lysandre's Pokémon are conspicuously still alive post weapon-firing despite his claim that "Pokémon will no longer exist".
  • Nobody, certainly not the player character, seems to care that Ultra Ruin is the devastated remains of Hau'oli City on an irradiated and dying planet, infested with Guzzlord devouring everything in sight. Granted, it's not as if there's much anyone can realistically do aside from catching a Guzzlord or two to save them from a world that is struggling to support even them. Plus while that planet was ruined, the population was able to escape to space and survive.
• Failed a Spot Check: Despite Archie and Maxie being told that the switches behind their paintings had a red/blue counterpart to each other and likely that someone else was meant to be guarding it, neither side put two-and-two together and realised that they were in the same building on opposite sides.
• Final-Exam Boss: Mina is the final Trial Captain, and like the challenge she imposes on you on Poni Gauntlet in Sun and Moon, you have to defeat several trainers to pass her Trial. In this case, however, you have to fight some of the previous Trial Captains.
• Fish out of Water: The Ultra Recon Squad. They're absolutely unfamiliar with the Pokémon world and even with what a festival is.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing:
  • Right before Team Rainbow Rocket attacks, Faba can be seen sneaking offscreen from the current conversation. One of the RR grunts also mentions a turncoat a few steps before Faba reveals that he did indeed betray the Aether Foundation.
  • When battling every single evil team leader at Team Rainbow Rocket's Castle, regular players of the Pokémon franchise will see a huge red flag when they've fought Cyrus and Lysandre. Wasn't someone else in between them? Say hello to Ghetsis as the penultimate boss.
• Forced Tutorial:
  • Just as the first game was filled with them in early moments, the first moments of Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon are tutorial after tutorial, with the Pokémon School still being a necessary visit.
  • Hau will halt your progress and whisk you away to the Festival Plaza to help Sophocles set it up, assuming you haven't done it before arriving to that point. You can't skip the tutorial on how to use Festival Plaza and you'll have to go through it sooner or later. There's a good reason for this: Team Rainbow Rocket will seize hold over the Festival Plaza soon after you've become the Champ of Alola, and you'll be forced to drive them out when that happens.
  • You already know how to surf the waves with Mantine, but you started over on your Pokémon adventure? Well, if you did that, you will have to start over on learning the ropes of that mini-game, and just like the Festival Plaza tutorial later on if you didn't do it sooner, you cannot skip this, either.
• Foreshadowing:
  • When the player talks to Looker for the first time, he mentions several plots perpetrated by villainous teams from previous games. Come the postgame, you get to meet all the team leaders.
  • When Molayne gives you the Steelium, Kukui speaks to him and asks if he accepted his offer. Also, when the player comes to challenge Sophocles during Mina's trial, Molayne is seen departing for somewhere unknown. Turns out he's replaced Hala in the Alola Elite Four. Also during Mina's trial, Acerola is not in the Aether House when the player comes to challenge her because she's also joined the Elite Four.
  • During the final trial, Hau will say that he wants to have a serious battle with you. Likewise, after battling Gladion on Mount Lanakila, he talks about how much Hau has changed, and it's no surprise at all he's beaten Hala. This culminates in Hau eventually completing his own Island Challenge and replacing Kukui as the new Final Boss.
  • Some of those "Punk" trainers you run into look a lot like Team Skull Grunts, don't they? A new scene in the ending shows they are.
  • Early in the game, you can see the Ultra Recon Squad talking to Colress. They asked him to create a device to control Necrozma, but while it ended up not being used, it was modded to fuse Necrozma with Solgaleo or Lunala and became the N-Solariser and N-Lunariser.
  • After you first visit Kukui's lab, the sky goes dark due to a solar/lunar eclipse. Necrozma does this to Poni Island after escaping.
  • When Archie and Maxie encounter each other, they decided to battle outside...only to then mysteriously get kicked out of the reality. Someone is helping you.
  • Can be caused if the player catches Necrozma at Victory Road before becoming champion, as Colress shows up to tell you how to draw more power out of Necrozma and gives you two of his Colress machines to actually perform this. After that, Rotom Dex states that he likes him more than Faba. Come Episode RR, where both show up; Faba joins Team Rainbow Rocket and backstabs the Aether Foundation, while Colress helps you defeat Team Rainbow Rocket and save Lusamine.
• For Want Of A Nail:
  • The story doesn't heavily diverge until you reach the Aether Foundation, at which point Necrozma throws everything off the rails.
  • The villainous team leaders went unopposed in their worlds, because the player character didn't exist.
• Friend to All Living Things: Your player character. Random Pokémon across the Alola seem to take on a certain interest in you as you walk by, even though they've never seen you before, and want you to play with them. That's not even going into the Rotom Dex itself, who becomes more and more attracted to you as the adventure goes on, in both platonic and...non-platonic ways.
• Fusion Dance: Necrozma is able to fuse with both Solgaleo and Lunala by absorbing them and becoming Dusk Mane Necrozma and Dawn Wings Necrozma respectively. This fusion also grants it access to its partner's moves, typing, and powers.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • The Festival Plaza is a nice feature in the original games, but ultimately didn't serve a purpose to the story. Team Rainbow Rocket attacks it shortly after they set up in the Alola region, forcing you to fix it.
  • Despite the fact that trainers received a buff, Team Skull is largely unchanged, remaining a non-factor at worst and an annoyance at best in terms of team accomplishment. (Only Guzma and Plumeria even try.) By the time the player gets to Po Town, they will most likely see the Team Skull grunts are mere annoyances rather than a threat to defeat...which is exactly what the Alola region thinks of Team Skull: An annoyance.
  • It is an established fact that the Ultra Recon Squad have no experience with Pokémon Battling, so don't be surprised when they use Nasty Plot to sharply raise Poipole's Special Attack, only to then use the physical Poison Jab.
  • Evolving Pikachu, Cubone or Exeggcute while in Ultra Space will turn them into non-Alolan forms of Raichu, Marowak or Exeggutor respectively. Quite fitting, since Ultra Space is obviously not part of Alola, some areas implied to be other regions.
  • Judging by their design, Maxie and Archie hail from alternate versions of the original Ruby and Sapphire worlds, and indeed they only use regular Groudon and Kyogre instead of their Primal counterparts and are very confused upon encountering each other since in their respective world of origin, one defeated the other.
  • Poké Balls are an invention unfamiliar to the Ultra Recon Squad. Another group of humans residing in Ultra Space, Kartenvoys, battle the player with Kartana...who are already present on the field, instead of emerging from a Pokéball like other Trainer-owned Pokémon.
  • A Togedemaru on site at Hokulani Observatory makes well good use of its Lightning Rod ability when something goes awry at the trial. Molayne however, is troubled by this since he knows the limitations of how much electricity Togedemaru can store in its sacs.
  • Like in the previous game, trainers now use a specific type of Poké Ball pertaining to their personality.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • Necrozma, in its weakened base form, manages to easily defeat Lusamine, Guzma, and Solgaleo/Lunala, despite the fact that, besides the former, they all have advantages in battle against Necrozma: Guzma's Bug-Types are super effective against a Psychic-type like Necrozma, Lunala resists Necrozma's Psychic-type moves and has super effective Ghost-type moves, while Solgaleo, as a Psychic/Steel-type, is doubly resistant to Necrozma's Psychic-type moves.
  • After completing the main game, you can capture Solgaleo/Lunala at the bridge behind Iki Town, while Lillie watches on. The problem is that you can do this at any point in the Post-Game, even when Lillie is preoccupied battling Team Rainbow Rocket. This leads to some really jarring Offscreen Teleportation.
  • You can still see Mohn at Poké Pelago even when he's paying a visit to Aether Paradise.
  • An amnesiac woman at Seafolk Village who can't remember certain species of Pokémon requests you to show her one based on her vague description. One of them is obviously a Salazzle, except she won't recognise it if you brought a Totem Salazzle.
• Good Counterpart: Rotom Dex considers Colress to be this to Faba. The former ultimately plays this when he plays an epic Big Damn Heroes moment in Team Rainbow Rocket's Castle, in contrast to the latter, who backstabbed Lusamine and the Aether Foundation for the sole purpose of advancing his career.
• Graceful Loser:
  • Several trainers, such as the new Surfer archetype have defeat animations showing them not at all frustrated with the outcome.
    • This sometimes contrasts between the current animations and the dialogue, such as the Kantonian Gym trainers (reusing the 'Beauty' archetype) looking frustrated and hoping you had a fun time.
  • All of the RR leaders (barring Ghetsis) accept their defeats and acknowledge the player's talent.
  • As with his loss to Red a decade before, Giovanni takes his loss to the protagonist in stride and comments on their talent as a trainer.
  • When defeated in Title Defense, Lusamine takes it much better than last time.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • The QR code for Magearna's event in Sun and Moon also works in these games, but you are never told so.
  • The first time you cross Ultra Space, you move your cover legendary with the motion sensors. You can set controls to use the Circle Pad, but to do so, you need to talk to an Aether Foundation employee in Game Freak's building. This is never hinted at any point.
  • You don't need to catch the two Blacephalon/Stakataka when you are asked to encounter them. You can faint them or run away, and return after Episode RR begins, but the game never hints such a thing. They aren't even shiny locked, either!
    • But if you're going to complete your Pokédex, you'll probably want to catch both of them, with one being used to trade for the other version.
  • Pertaining to Title Defense:
    • Gladion won't be available as a challenger until a real-life month has passed after beating the main story.
    • Lusamine is only available as a challenger on the first day of every month.
  • Ultra Plant has a few hidden Thunder Stones. And you cannot call Stoutland to sniff them out, so you'll have to either scour every inch of the place or look up their locations.
• Heel–Face Turn: The player can invoke this on Necrozma. After Ultra Necrozma's defeat in Ultra Megalopolis, it flees back to Alola before running out of energy and crash landing on Mount Lanakila. The player finds the monster in a sad and weakened state. By catching it for real this time, with access to Solgaleo/Lunala and the Z-Crystals the player alone can restore Necrozma's light, without it having to go on a rampage and threaten the world.
• Hidden Depths: Your mother regularly joking about undergoing the Island Trials with her Meowth isn't just lighthearted talk. If you interact with your mother's Meowth after becoming Champion, a scenario ensues where your mother deals with a woman who barges into your home just to trash talk her Pokémon. You quickly learn that not only is her Meowth battle-ready, with a moveset that includes Iron Tail of all things, but that your mom was an infamous Pokémon trainer nicknamed the "Scratch Cat Girl", who was known even outside of Kanto for her battle prowess.
• Human Aliens: In addition to the Ultra Recon Squad, Ultra Forest has Kartenvoys — who, besides their Kartana-inspired kendo outfits, look exactly like old men.
• I Choose to Stay: The survivor in the Ultra Ruins remains in the area to monitor the Guzzlord rather than choosing to escape with you to a far safer reality.
• In Spite of a Nail:
  • Despite Lusamine being sane and neurotoxin-free in this version of the story, she still kidnaps Lillie, then fights the player and throws herself into the Ultra Wormhole alongside Guzma, but this time for different reasons. Giovanni also hospitalizes her with an injection of UB (implicitly Nihilego's) toxins meant to brainwash her anyway. Thankfully, she gets over it later.
  • Also, in both this version of the story and the original, Ultra Beasts are summoned to Alola via an Ultra Wormhole, and we see the Island Kahunas step up to fight them. In both cases, Hala is walking to a laguna as the Ultra Beasts invade.
  • No matter which version of Ghetsis you are, Colress will despise you.
  • Though it is rather ambiguous, it's implied that even without the player characters' interference, the Team Rainbow Rocket leaders all had their plans go up in smoke before they could win. The one exception is Ghetsis, who flat-out won.
• I Shall Return:
  • Implied to be the case with Gladion leaving for other regions to train, as he returns when a real-life month has passed.
  • Mohn plans to work with Lusamine and the Aether Foundation on the efforts on Pokémon care and preservation.
• It's Personal: The reason Colress comes to send Ghetsis back to his own world during Episode RR.
• Irony:
  • The recreation of the Nugget Bridge Challenge in Malie Garden still exists, and Veteran Don (implied to have once been the Grunt from the original challenge) notes that Team Rocket fell apart years ago and wonders how "Mr. Giovanni" is doing...just as the resurrected Team Rainbow Rocket under Giovanni makes their move in Aether Paradise.
  • An Office Worker in Malie City's Kantonian Gym tells you that the gym is a perfect recreation of one from Kanto, specifically, Lt. Surge's. Anyone who's actually challenged the original gym in the original games and their remakes can spot a few errors. (See the Funny page for the complete list.)
• Jump Scare: After Cyrus and Lysandre let you activate the mirror teleporter in Lusamine's room, you're likely making a beeline for it to face Giovanni, but if you forgot about someone else...Ghetsis appears in front of you right when you're about to use it, not in a cutscene.
• Just Here for Godzilla: In-Universe: A Team Rainbow Rocket Grunt admits that she only agreed to go to Alola to see the Alolan Muk since she's a Muk fan.
• Justified Tutorial: The Battle Agency has one of these in the postgame. During the prologue of Episode RR, when the player helps Sophocles try to reclaim Festival Plaza from Team Rainbow Rocket, they find that the system has been hacked to prevent outsiders from using their Pokémon. In order to let the player actually fight the Grunts, Sophocles activates the Battle Agency module, letting the player use its rental Pokémon and occupy the Grunts long enough for Sophocles to regain his admin privileges.

L-N

• Last Disc Magic: Upon defeating Necrozma, the player is free to explore Ultra Space at their leisure, even exploring areas to capture Ultra Beasts and Legendary Pokémon (which, barring version exclusives, is all the ones from the previous six generations). And all of this is before the final Trial, making it possible to rip the endgame to pieces with the likes of Mewtwo and Primal Groudon on a team (or even by themselves).
• Late-Arrival Spoiler:
  • The official website for the game spoils many of Pokémon Sun and Moon's twists, such as the truth behind the roles of Nebby and Lusamine, and the fact that Ultra Beasts can be caught and are functionally identical to Pokémon. Lillie's Significant Wardrobe Shift is openly not a secret anymore, with it having official art and appearing in marketing.
  • The website also assumes you're a long-time veteran and that you've played every prior Pokémon game, and thus makes no attempt to hide the truth about the multitudes of antagonists that appear from past games, such as the fact that, say, Ghetsis was the true mastermind of Pokémon Black and White.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • Like the previous game, there's a Breeder at Paniola Town's Pokémon Center who suspects that someone's looking down on everyone and deems it to be the Tapu. Or someone holding a 3DS...
  • Giovanni finds it somewhat nostalgic that he's facing off against a child.
  • Rotom Dex sometimes suggests that there's an alternate reality where the Pokémon there are different to the ones it's seen with you.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Lusamine's sudden decision to fight Necrozma head-on alongside Guzma pretty much obliterated the Ultra Recon Squad's plans and burned the ashes.
• Legion of Doom: Giovanni is finally back with Team Rainbow Rocket, and he's brought together all the other previous evil team leaders: Maxie of Team Magma, Archie of Team Aqua, Cyrus of Team Galactic, Ghetsis of Team Plasma, and Lysandre of Team Flare. However, this so-called evil leader team never operates as such at all. Every leader has his own agenda (and practically all of their agendas involve destroying the world or 'just' causing the end of civilization in some way or form), Maxie and Archie don't know they are on the same team (and start fighting as soon as they find out), and Ghetsis wants to manipulate Giovanni as he did with N, while Giovanni himself sees the other leaders as mere Elite Mooks.
• Legacy Boss Battle: You get to fight the evil Team Leaders from previous generation Pokémon games and the legendaries.
• Let's Fight Like Gentlemen: When Archie and Maxie find out they're on the same team, they bicker, and then decide to fight outside to determine who gets to do what to Alola. However, Colress kicks them out of the dimension before they get a chance to.
• Limit Break: New Pokémon exclusive Z-Moves are introduced in these games; including Splintered Stormshards for Lycanroc, Clangorous Soulblaze for Kommo-o, Searing Sunraze Smash and Menacing Moonraze Maelstrom for Solgaleo and Lunala (and Dusk Mane/Dawn Wings Necrozma, respectively), Let's Snuggle Forever for Mimikyu and Light That Burns the Sky for Ultra Necrozma. By forming a connection with the Rotom Dex, it can even use Z Rotom Power to allow Z-Moves to be used multiple times in a single battle.
• Loophole Abuse: Despite the similarities, Ultra Burst isn't noted as Mega Evolution, meaning that you can have both Ultra Necrozma and a Mega-Evolved Pokémon in one match.
• Luck-Based Mission: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
• Made of Iron: The player character. They're able to survive searing-hot temperatures in Haina Desert without need of water and spend a few minutes in a heavily-irradiated and toxic alternate Hau'oli City without any ill effects.
• Magical Girl:
  • The Luran clothing set, available only for girls, resembles a magical girl outfit themed on Lurantis. It is insanely expensive, however, at a total price of 2400000 Pokédollars!.
  • A Preschooler at the Battle Tree claims to be this.
• Mission-Pack Sequel: Very little is different from the original Pokémon Sun and Moon (which are effectively beta versions of these games). Alola isn't even as heavily redesigned as Unova was in Pokémon Black 2 and White 2. The only major differences are the addition of minigames and a few Pokémon species not in the original (including four brand new ones), a slightly different story (that still hits most of the same beats until 3/4ths of the way in), and a slightly larger postgame episode with Team Rainbow Rocket.
• Mon Tech: The N-Solarizer and Lunarizer are required to fuse Necrozma with Solgaleo or Lunala to form Dusk Mane Necrozma and Dawn Wings Necrozma, respectively, who both in-turn require the Ultranecrozium Z to become Ultra Necrozma.
• Money Sink: The Kommo-o and Luran clothing sets at Hau'oli city are priced at a respective total of 2400000 Pokédollars.
• Monstrous Scenery: The Ultra Plant, home dimension for Xurkitree, has, apart from the one Xurkitree you can catch, gigantic Xurkitree in the background that can't be interacted with, and a regular-sized one running down the giant Xurkitree vines lower down the cliff from your current position.
• Motor Mouth: A Collector in Kahuna Olivia's jewelry shop in Konikoni City gets very excited if you show him a Diancie, and begins talking so quickly that his dialogue is almost impossible to read.
• Moving-Away Ending: The game plays with the original's ending by showing Gladion leaving to Kanto instead. For him, it's a continuation of his journey as a Pokémon Trainer. Once a month, he may also return to Alola to challenge the player for their Champion title, using Pokémon from the Kanto region.
• Mundane Utility: One sidequest has an NPC ask if the Rotom in your Rotom Dex can fix a vending machine by possessing it.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Mewtwo being under Giovanni's command calls back to the anime series and Pokémon: The First Movie, where Mewtwo was created by Team Rocket and under Giovanni's command for a time.
  • Rowlet's Ultra Moon Pokédex entry states it has been sighted taking naps on its trainer's bags, referencing the behavior of Ash's Rowlet in Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon.
  • In the previous game, there was an empty lot being worked on by Machamp in Hau'oli City. Here, it's now the Alola Photo Club.
  • Giovanni commands his Pokémon with a Badass Fingersnap, just like in Pokémon: The First Movie, where he signaled Mewtwo to start a battle at Viridian Gym.
  • The fates of the Rainbow Rocket Archie and Cyrus are eerily similar to what happened to them in Pokémon Generations, as Archie was apparently eaten by Kyogre during a raging storm and Cyrus was banished to the Reverse World by Giratina, but didn't mind at all since it's exactly like what he wanted in the first place.
  • The pre-battle poses that Archie, Maxie and Cyrus make resemble the poses their sprites did in the pre-3DS generations.
  • During the conversation in the post-game battle with Madame Meowth, one of the player's quote choices is "That's right!".
• No Endor Holocaust: Realistically speaking, Necrozma stealing all light (particularly sunlight) from the world would be catastrophic. Temperatures would plummet below freezing (turning water and even the atmosphere to ice), agriculture would be difficult if not impossible to perform, and as a result of the former two factors, all life would eventually die out. Good thing for Ultra Megalopolis that absolutely none of that happens to it!
• Noodle Incident: How exactly Giovanni found and captured Mewtwo is never explained, which is especially odd since, unlike all the other Big Bads, capturing a Legendary Pokémon was never his goal, and he seemed to have no idea that Mewtwo even existed. What also isn't explained is just how he attained the necessary tools and strong bond with Mewtwo to Mega Evolve it.
• Non-Indicative Name: There's a set of clothes that can be bought in Hau'oli's shopping mall that are named after Kommo-o. However, the clothing pieces resemble its pre-evolution, Hakamo-o, when put together.
• No Sidepaths, No Exploration, No Freedom:
  • Were you hoping to explore the vast-looking Ultra Megalopolis? Too bad; the streets are permanently blocked with caltrop-esque barriers, leaving you with only a small, straight corridor to Megalo Tower. The other areas of Ultra Space aren't much better, either.
  • Like before, Lusamine's mansion for some reason, has two doors and both staircases barred off, leaving a straight path to her bedroom and entrance to her Trophy Room. Averted in Episode RR, where Team Rainbow Rocket has expanded the interior thanks to dimensional warping and unlocking the doors and staircases.
• NPC Roadblock: Exploited, Parodied, and Played for Laughs: A large group of Team Rainbow Rocket Grunts form impassable barricades by interlocking their arms to make a wall. This would've worked if the first row stood in front of the Warp Pads that would derail their entire plan.

O-S

• Obvious Rule Patch: Transformation can't be used to gain access to Z-Moves while in a Super Mode that normally doesn't have them. Most of the patches for this were already in the original Sun and Moon, but one added here is that a Pokémon transformed into Ultra Necrozma can't use any Z-Moves except Light that Burns the Sky.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome:
  • Like the previous game, the Ultra Beasts arrive, forcing the kahunas and the Tapu to fight them, only this time, Hau fights alongside Hala.
  • During Team Rainbow Rocket's takeover of Aether Paradise, Lillie tells you to go on ahead while she takes on a Grunt. If you go back after defeating Faba, you'll find out that she won.
• Offscreen Teleportation:
  • Lampshaded by Professor Kukui at the Trainer School:
  Kukui: Huh! Guess I must've passed you somehow!
  • During the second trip to Aether Paradise, Gladion and Hau will be waiting for you at the lift. However, should you choose to return to Malie City, Gladion will still be there at the pier asking if you want to take his boat to Aether Paradise.
  • If you didn't choose to catch Nebby until the RR episode, Lillie will jarringly be locked in combat with a RR grunt while simultaneously standing with Nebby in Mahalo Trail.
  • You can still meet Mohn at Poké Pelago while he's currently at Aether Paradise.
• The One Guy: There is still only one male beside three females in the Alola Elite Four, Molayne having replaced Hala. This is the only change to the Elite Four's lineup, as the rest of the Elite Four remains the same.
• Outside-the-Box Tactic: Ultra Necrozma is far and away the hardest battle in the main story, being fully capable of tearing down anything in one or two hits. However, outside of using a Steel-type to tank its attacks or stalling with Toxic, a Zoroark disguised as something weak to Psychic can fool it into spamming its Psychic move, leaving it open to attack as Zoroark No-Sells it.
• Parental Marriage Veto: Upon entering Hau'oli City Hall, you see a young man and young woman arguing with the young woman's father. It turns out the young couple are here to get marriage licenses, both because they love each other and because their Gastly also love each other, but the father won't give the young man his blessing because he insists that he only wants his daughter to marry a "strong trainer". The young woman enlists you to battle her father instead so he can "cool off", and after you win, the young couple proceed to get their marriage licenses from the woman at the reception desk. Then the father confesses to you in private that he wasn't really concerned about strength; he was trying to goad the couple into battling him with their Gastly together because love is like Pokémon training, you have to work together with your partner and get to know each other every single day.
• Peninsula of Power Leveling: See the series' page here.
• Permanently Missable Content:
  • The Ditto Five in Konikoni City don't respawn when they are defeated, not even after defeating the Elite Four. What makes them different from other Ditto is that they have set Natures and a few fixed IVs, making them useful for breeding Pokémon with an ideal Nature and IV spread if they're caught.
  • Averted with the Ultra Beasts unlike the previous game. You can now visit their native homeland, and a new one will spawn with each new visit if you can find your way back there. They can even be Shiny this time!
    • Played straight however with Stakataka and Blacephalon, as only two exist per game at Poni Grove. While they can also be caught Shiny, you can't get the Shiny Charm to ease the process without help from friends, as you can't access Poni Gauntlet (the last area with new wild Pokémon in the game) until after the Grove UB's are defeated.
  • Averted in terms of the items you forgot to pick up in Team Rainbow Rocket's Castle, since a Janitor will give you them outside Lusamine's Mansion after Episode RR.
  • Downplayed with the Electrode in Team Rainbow Rocket's Castle. While it is perfectly possible to get one through other means like trading, the GTS or Pokémon Bank, this is the only time you're legally able to catch one in Alola.
• Photo Mode: There are two Photo Clubs in Alola which act like a photo studio, allowing you to customize backgrounds, poses of yourself and your partner pokemon, and set stickers and frames.
• Porting Disaster: In-Universe: The attempted recreation of a Kantonian Gym by the Alolan natives ends up turning into something resembling an attempt to recreate a Gym by someone who hasn't played Pokémon at all. (See the Funny entry for the complete list of reasons how.)
• Post-End Game Content: Similar to Pokémon Black 2 and White 2, the (semi) last part of the New Alola Regional Dex ^note 364-381 contains Pokémon only available after becoming Champion.
• Potty Emergency:
  • A Team Rainbow Rocket Grunt has one while in Cyrus' hideout, but can't leave because of all the arrow panels.
  • Sometimes, the Trial Guide outside Verdant Cavern needs a break because of this.
• Power Up Mount: Mantine is added as a Ride Pokémon, where the player surfs across the ocean between Alola's islands while avoiding hazards and doing tricks. Solgaleo and Lunala also get in on the fun, as the player rides them through Ultra Space akin to a space shooter.
• Promoted to Playable: Replacing Zygarde Cells/Cores as a Collection Sidequest are Totem Stickers, which lets the player unlock the Totem Pokémon to be part of their teams.
• Puppeteer Parasite: Essentially what happens when Necrozma fuses with Solgaleo or Lunala. It takes over their bodies, shown by the fusions being classified as Necrozma formes. Parts of Necrozma's armor are fixed onto Solgaleo/Lunala's bodies. Also, Dawn Wing Necrozma's Pokédex entry in Ultra Sun indicates that Solgaleo and Lunala no longer have a will of their own while fused with Necrozma, and Necrozma forcibly absorbs the light emitted from their body.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: When Team Rainbow Rocket takes place over Festival Plaza and the Aether Mansion, both places are refitted with a red and black color scheme.
• Red Herring:
  • Once both you and Hau choose your starters, Kukui says he'll take care of the third one. While it implies that, like in Sun and Moon, Kukui will be the player's final challenger of the main story, with a team featuring this third starter fully evolved, once the time comes, the player's final battle turns out to be against Hau. However, Kukui is still a Title Challenger for the post-game, with the third Alola starter on his team.
  • The promotional material regarding the Team Rainbow Rocket arc shows Colress among the Rogues Gallery of Evil Team Leaders. Instead, he helps the Aether Foundation and the Player Character reclaim Lusamine's mansion. He even has a Big Damn Heroes moment where he gets to take down Ghetsis specifically.
• Remixed Level: Mount Lanakila has an expanded layout, and quite a lot of trainers, effectively becoming a true Victory Road. You can also access the entrance as soon as you reach Tapu Village, so unlike in the originals, you can get Crabominable before the very end since there's a small patch of tall grass which is technically part of the mountain.
• Running Gag: Wicke giving out Malasadas in almost all her appearances in the game, no matter how inappropriate for the current situation.
• Sadistic Choice: During the Team Rainbow Rocket postgame, Lysandre forces you to choose between two buttons, with one activating the Ultimate Weapon, and the other activating the teleporter in Lusamine's office to open to way to Giovanni. Subverted in that BOTH buttons begin powering up the weapon. When you beat Lysandre, he allows you to hit the other button to power it down.
• Schmuck Bait: Each time you grab a required item in Mallow's trial, she warns you that a Pokémon may not like that you are taking that ingredient. If you choose the wrong area for each ingredient, you are followed each time to add a preliminary battle to the trial proper: Fomantis, Comfey, and Sudowoodo.
• Sequel Hook: Right at the end of the Rainbow Rocket arc, we see one last scene of Giovanni watching the heroes celebrate, only for him to say, "Now, what new world can I unleash my evil scheme upon...?" and flees the current reality.
• The Seven Mysteries: A new sidequest in the game involves a girl what appears in the Pokémon School and you investigating seven mysteries what has been happening in the school, half of them being mundane happenings and the other half are different Pokémon messing around. The seventh mystery is that the girl and her Drifloon are actually real ghosts, with them disappearing after you solved the other six mysteries.
• She Is All Grown Up: A variant. An old message in a bottle you can find on Heahea Beach tells you to take it to a dancer at the Tide Song Hotel. When you give it to her, it's revealed that she wrote the message to herself as a child as per Alola traditions where she wanted to be a dancer when she grows up.
• Shout-Out:
  • A side-quest after you clear Olivia's Grand Trial involves two Pyukumuku...named Mukeo and Mukiet.
  • A Preschooler near the Name Rater at Heahea City who tells you that you can't re-nickname traded Pokémon, such as her Magnemite, whose name is Chrome Dome.
• Situational Sword: The Colress machines and their titular creator return, and they're still created for one individual purpose. The ones we see are the N-Solariser (No. 1198) and N-Lunariser (No. 1199), both meant for the fusing of Necrozma with Solgaleo or Lunala respectively which started out as a device to control Necrozma but was later modified, and No. 1102, which alters dimensional channels corresponding to foreign lifeforms such as Archie and Maxie from the GBA titles and Ghetsis, and sends them to their original realities.
• Significant Name Ovelap: In-Universe: Apparently, Beach Points earned at Mantine Surfing were a different currency than Battle Points, but due to confusion between the two, both facilities accept them as 'BP'.
• Smug Snake: Most of the opponents at the Battle Tree are like this.
• Spared by the Adaptation: In the first games, her symbiosis with Nihilego leaves Lusamine in a seriously compromised state. Since her obsession with the Ultra Beasts and Nihilego in particular is Adapted Out in this version, she isn't seriously hurt, merely emotionally traumatized by the battle with Necrozma. She's rendered unconscious in the Team Rainbow Rocket postgame, but wakes up when they're gone. She even becomes one of the potential title challengers in place of Faba.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Giovanni and Team Rocket. While Team Rainbow Rocket also has the bosses of Teams Aqua, Magma, Galactic, Plasma and Flare, and the base and resources of the Aether Foundation, everything else about it is pure Team Rocket, with Giovanni as its leader and Final Boss of the scenario. Rainbow Rocket also, for obvious reasons, only has Team Rocket Grunts and Kanto Pokémon, hence the absence of Pokémon from other generations and villain teams.
  • Out of all the returning Team Leaders besides Giovanni, Ghetsis gets to shine through the most. He is the final one faced before Giovanni, rather than Lysandre (as until you face Lysandre you face the bosses in the order in which they debuted in real life), has the by far largest ambition of all the bosses, is often considered one of the most difficult bosses in the franchise, and is the only one that gets to interact with members of the cast other than the player, striking down Lillie and having an encounter with Colress following a beautiful recreation of his original Villainous Breakdown, when all the other leaders just take their losses in stride.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: In a Pokémon parody of the Trope Namer, you can help reunite a male and female Pyukumuku named Mukeo and Mukiet. In true fashion, they get separated when a Pyukumuku chucker throws Mukiet into the sea. That's the last time you see them.
• The Starscream:
  • During the Rainbow Rocket plot, Ghetsis comments that Giovanni, being evil and selfish, will be easier to manipulate and predict than N, so he'll set up the same plan he did with Team Plasma: convince everyone to rally behind Giovanni as a Puppet King and Ghetsis will be The Man Behind the Man. Not that the player (or Colress) gives him the opportunity to make good on his plan.
  • After Team Rainbow Rocket is defeated, Faba is revealed to be this. He sells out the Aether Foundation to Team Rainbow Rocket, and for the sole reason of furthering his career. Of course, because of the meddling child that is the protagonist, Team Rainbow Rocket is thwarted and sent back to their own world and for being such a traitorous prick, Faba is forced to step down from his position as Branch Chief and demoted to Intern.
  • A benign variant occurs with Olivia and Kahili as part of the Elite Four. Both admit how much they want to defeat you, but they take their losses in stride.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: As Lillie is about to tell of Faba's betrayal to the Aether Foundation to Lusamine after the defeat of Giovanni and Team Rainbow Rocket, Faba quickly cuts her off... only to stupidly confess that he allowed all this to happen just to further his own career anyway. As a result, Faba is fired from his position as Branch Chief and is reduced to an intern. He probably could have been given criminal charges, but given his incredibly ego-centric character, everyone involved feels this punishment is much crueler.
  • There's a more lighthearted example if the player initially refuses Hau's invitation to Mantine Surf with him to Akala Island. Hau just really wants to ride on a Mantine. The professor's boat being a junk heap has absolutely nothing to do with it.

T-Z

• Technician/Performer Team-Up: Zig-zagged by the duo of Red and Blue when they team up for multi-battles in the "Battle Tree", whose personalities do not match the style of their teams. Red is The Stoic (normally a Technician trait) who fields a team of Signature Mon hard-hitters but which lack synergy (more of a Performer trait). Blue is an arrogant, loudmouth jerk (though he got kinder since his introductory games), typically more Performer traits, but fields a far more technically sound, balanced, synergistic team with moves to cover their weaknesses and even strategic moves like Trick Room (which allows slower Pokémon to move first and greatly benefits his team). Combined, they make for an incredibly challenging multi-battle duo.
• Thematic Sequel Logo Change: The Japanese version of the logos have prisms in the lettering to represent Necrozma's prism core, who the plot's climax revolves around. All versions of the logo also have a black background, and Solgaleo and Lunala's symbols now have black surrounding them to represent Dusk Mane and Dawn Wings Necrozma, who are the results of Necrozma forcibly incorporating its respective box legend into itself.
• Theme Naming: The members of Ultra Recon Squad all have names related to marine plants.
  • Phyco is derived from Phycology, a modern term for marine biology study.
  • Soliera is derived from Solieriaceae, the name of a red algae family.
  • Dulse is an alternate name for Palmaria palmata, a type of red alga.
  • Zossie is based on Zostera, a small genus of seagrasses.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Lillie, compared to Sun and Moon. In this game, when Nebby is attacked by Spearow, she says she cannot act due to not being a trainer, instead of being too scared like the original games. Also, she becomes a trainer, teaming up with the player to battle Faba and an Aether Foundation employee during Episode RR. Afterwards, she also becomes a Multi-Battle partner in the Battle Tree.
  • Team Rainbow Rocket is a revival of the original Team Rocket, and while the grunts have the same incompetent streak as before, they are by far the highest-leveled grunts in the entire series, also using fully evolved Pokémon.
  • Giovanni has acquired both a Mewtwo and the tools to Mega Evolve it.
• Tragic Villain: Necrozma only acts the way it does because it is suffering from a Game-Breaking Injury and needs light to survive, and it's consumed with a pretty justifiable rage toward humankind due to inflicting said injury upon it. Its original form "The Blinding One" was a benevolent deity who gave light to all, before the people of Ultra Megalopolis tried to take its power for themselves.
• Trailers Always Spoil:
  • A short while before release, one trailer featured artwork of the protagonist facing Ultra Necrozma, something that doesn't happen until the game's climax. While the specific details are slightly hidden, no effort is made to hide that it's a powered-up form of Necrozma. Another trailer—albeit one released a few weeks after the games launched—drops all pretenses and flat-out spoils the twist's existence. Hope you beat the game before it dropped!
  • Though only a few new Pokémon were added to the game—all of them Ultra Beasts—the trailers showed off almost all of them, including their typings (though their names were at least kept secret). The only new Ultra Beast not shown prior to release was Naganadel, Poipole's evolution...and even then, it appeared in the post-release trailer that spoiled Ultra Necrozma.
  • Despite the scenario being a post-game surprise, the marketing wasted no effort in spoiling Team Rainbow Rocket's appearance in the game, and their use of Legendary Pokémon in battle. For that matter, the ability to capture every past Legendary Pokémon was no secret before release.
• Traitor Shot: During a cutscene in the post-game is Faba walking out of the frame seconds before Team Rainbow Rocket invades Aether Paradise in the middle of a press conference with him, Wicke, and Lusamine.
• Tranquil Fury:
  • After Ghetsis threatens to kill Lillie, Colress calmly rescues her, simply reveals to Ghetsis how much he hates him, and sends him back into his own reality without breaking a smile.
  • After Faba tells Lusamine exactly everything he did to betray the Aether Foundation in an attempt to get away scot-free, Lusamine is not happy.
  Lusamine: Branch Chief Faba...

  • Cue Faba knowing exactly what's coming next.
• Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay:
  • In a world where Talking Animal is still a rarity, interviewing a Pokémon won't give you that much information.
  • Taking a photo with your Pokémon reflects taking a photo with you and a real-life pet; while you're able to hold a pose for the camera, it's not so simple with a pet or any animal in general, as they can't hold poses for long.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight:
  • The one other person you meet in the Ultra Ruins easily takes it in stride that you're someone from another dimension if you choose to tell them, and doesn't even bother mentioning the Ultra Wormhole that's appeared in their underground hideaway, nor thinks of following you through it.
  • Few people seem to bat an eye at the Ultra Recon Squad despite their unusual appearance.
  • No one in Poni Island comments on the sky growing dark after Necrozma absorbs its light.
• Updated Re-release: Unlike previous third versions, which combine both base games together along with new features, Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon are two updated versions of their previous forms, each with their own unique differences, such as who among the Ultra Recon Squad shows up in which game, though most of the significant changes are reserved for the postgame, with the main adventure remaining mostly the same.
• Urban Ruins: The Ultra Ruins are implied to be an alternate version of Hau'oli City ravaged by Guzzlord.
• Video Game Caring Potential:
  • Scattered throughout Alola are Pokémon in the overworld that you can play and interact with. If you do it enough, they'll begin to follow you around until you leave the area and will be overjoyed when you return. You can't actually obtain these Pokémon (they already have Trainers, who are nearby), but it's still adorable. Some of the Trainers will even comment on how much their Pokémon likes you.
  • When you reach Exeggutor Island, you'll find that there are some Exeggutor flailing wildly about, due to some Pinsir that are disturbing them. Clear the Pinsir all away and the Exeggutor will calm down. Out of gratitude, one of them will help carry you to the top of the island where the Sun or the Moon Flute resides.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: The story makes note of the fact that Necrozma is constantly in pain due to a lack of light, and absorbing Solgaleo/Lunala soothes it. There's absolutely nothing stopping you from leaving Necrozma in its base form once you catch it, though, and it will habitually clutch itself in pain during its idle animation.
• Villains Out Shopping: Apparently, Giovanni decided to give you a bunch of stickers before leaving to try and conquer another reality.
• Villain Team-Up: Team Rainbow Rocket contains all of the villain team leaders from the previous games as well as Faba from the Aether Foundation.
• Wake-Up Call Boss:
  • An early example is Teacher Emily in the Trainer School. In Sun and Moon she used a Magnemite and Alolan Meowth, but in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, she uses the Starter that's strong against yours, which can catch you off guard if you haven't added any 'Mons to your team yet.
  • The first battle with Gladion retains this status from Sun and Moon. He still has his Zubat and Type: Null, the latter of which has high stats for that portion of the game, but here he has one more Pokémon, Zorua. This one is disguised as Zubat, and not only is one of its weaknesses Psychic (to which Zorua is immune), but all three of Zorua's weaknesses are types that Zubat resists, so it's likely you will waste at least one turn if you didn't see it coming, unless you opted to focus on Zubat's flying weaknesses instead.
• We Can Rule Together: Ghetsis and Giovanni will each offer to let you join them in their evil conquests. Subverted, as they both know you aren't serious, and you have to fight them anyway.
• We Interrupt This Program: Team Rainbow Rocket begin a takeover on Aether Paradise during a news broadcast.
• Wham Line:
  • Lusamine gets this gem alongside her three wham shots, after admonishing Lillie for stealing Cosmog from her.
  Lusamine: It's so terribly unattractive. But know that my fathomless love will save even someone like you...when I protect this entire world from darkness!
  • When you get to Megalo Tower:
  "Necrozma's aura flared to life! Its stats rose!"
  • During Episode RR, the battle with Lysandre reintroduces Mega Evolution, a characteristic otherwise mostly unseen in the Generation VII campaigns:
  "The opposing Gyarados' Gyaradosite is reacting to the Key Stone!"
  • And then there's the Final Boss battle of the arc. If Giovanni sending out Mewtwo of all Pokémon wasn't surprising enough, what goes next probably will be:
  "The opposing Mewtwo's Mewtwonite X/Y is reacting to the Key Stone!"
  • When a certain visitor arrives at Aether Paradise and talks to Lusamine, one line provides significance if you've studied the lore.
  Lusamine: Is this your first time to Aether Paradise?
  Mohn: Indeed it is. Why do you ask?
• Wham Shot:
  • As you're progressing through Mount Lanakila, you eventually reach a clearing. Continue walking forward and the camera pans down, revealing Necrozma, kneeling in a crater it apparently created in a crash landing after you defeated it in Ultra Space.
  • So you've defeated Gladion at Title Defense. You decide to visit Aether Paradise...hang on, isn't that Mohn?
  • Interestingly, three occur in the form of the absence or change of one present in the originals and all of them involve Lusamine.
    • The first one is when Nihilego makes a surprise appearance at Aether Paradise, Lusamine doesn't give a Slasher Smile here after its defeat, giving an early indicator that she's different here.
    • The second one is when Lusamine disowns Lillie for running off with Cosmog, her crazed-with-rage expression from the originals is changed to a hurt and disappointed expression.
    • The third one occurs before Lusamine teleports to her lab: instead of giving a Slasher Smile during her Kick the Dog moment to Lillie in the originals, she gives an oddly beautiful smile while thanking Lillie for keeping Cosmog safe, as shown here◊. This, alongside the second one, reveal her relationship with her children as far better than the originals.
  • You take a trip down Ultra Space and land in the Ultra Space Wilds. A few steps upward...wait, that shadow looks familiar...Cue a fight with a legendary.
• What If?:
  • The game answers a very popular question in the fandom: "What if the Big Bad of each game won?"
  • The game also answers another question that fans have asked: "What if Ditto was able to transform into humans?"
• What the Hell, Hero?: Dulse or Phyco, depending on the version, calls out Lusamine for asking for their help after running off alone to stop Necrozma and utterly failing.
• The Worf Effect: Necrozma establishes itself as a threat by defeating both Lusamine and Guzma offscreen; for reference, Lusamine is one of the toughest trainers in these games, and Guzma's entire Bug team has a type advantage over Necrozma. It then follows up by effortlessly overpowering and absorbing the now-fully-evolved Nebby, despite both Solgaleo and Lunala having an advantage over it in stats and typing. And this is in its weakest form.
• Would Hit a Girl: After his defeat, Ghetsis strikes Lillie.
• Would Hurt a Child: Overlaps with Would Hit a Girl, after the player defeats him Ghetsis loses it and attacks Lillie, then threatens to kill her in order to get the player to surrender.
  Ghetsis: "You! Tiny intruder! If you value this girl's life, throw aside your Poke Balls! At this moment!"
• Wrong Genre Savvy: A majority of the events and battles have been changed, meaning that you'll often get blindsided preparing for a battle you won in Sun and Moon, only to find yourself at a possible disadvantage due to the different Pokémon.
  • For an example pertaining to puzzles; the password quest in Po Town which featured questions about to Guzma, the questions and answers here are mainly about Plumeria instead.
  • Ghetsis thinks that just because this reality's Colress isn't the one he met, he thinks that Colress wouldn't have a reason to antagonise him. Colress, however, doesn't care.
• Your Head A-Splode: Blacephalon's main attack is slithering behind prey detaching its head, blowing it up, growing another one, and using the element of surprise inflicted on their opponent to slurp up their life force, hence the Fire-Ghost typing. This is actually its signature move, Mind Blown. Heck, its Japanese name is literally Zugadōn, or "head go boom" in English.

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