There is a trend with the villains in Pokémon, where the crazier your hair is, the more evil you are (or, maybe the other way around, not sure). Observe the bosses of Gen 4, 5 and 6:

Gallery

Now, you are presented with two organizations this time around, Team Skull (mean thugs with hip-hop inspired leitmotifs) and the Aether Foundation (dedicated to the preservation and conservation of Pokémon). Now, tell me which of these guys is more evil:

Gallery

Right.

Anyway, in all the games, the main villain wants to use the power of the legendary Pokémon to take over/destroy the world. But, I really enjoy the twist this time around. The villain actually doesn't give a shit about the world, and just wants to become a horrible squid monster. Is that really so bad?

The final battle against this thing was really weird and great. I'm disappointed that you don't fight her directly, but the fact that she has all Totem Pokémon is kinda crazy anyway.

Unrelated to the above, I'm kinda blown away that they decided to throw you into a Legendary battle during the post-Pokémon League cutscene. Like, here's 10 minutes of cutscene, then (still in the cutscene), you go find a Legendary, have a battle where you capture (or, I guess defeat) it, and then have 20 more minutes of cutscene/credits. Like, what the heck!? Cool, but unexpected!

Games are so unoriginal. If it's not the ancient precursor alien race, it's squid monsters.

I really didn't expect there to be a legendary fight immediately after the ending cut scene. And without an opportunity to save no less! I went in without spoiling myself, so I had no idea that you can end the fight and still come back later to catch him. So I masterball'd that sucker. It was late, I wanted to go to bed, and I was afraid I'd accidentally kill it or it would wipe my team resulting in me doing the entire battle against Kuikui again. Luckily it doesn't sound like there are any legendaries that flee this time, so I don't mind having to soft reset for the rest. And Tapu Koko is the coolest one, so he's pretty worth it for me.

I'm kind of glad we didn't fight the Lusamine/Nihilego hybrid directly. It wouldn't make sense from a story perspective. Conceptually speaking, Nihilego is a parasite that is mind controlling Lusamine. Why would it risk it's host and its own body to try and fight when she has a team of pokemon available. Pokemon who have been in the ultra dimension long enough to absorb extra energy, so really the smartest choice is to use others to fight. Plus, it's a pokemon game. We're not about to beat the hell out of a child's mother right in front of said child.

I really enjoyed the more low-key (if you can call dimensional travel low-key) villain plot this time. It wasn't about destroying or re-creating the world or any of that doomsday nonsense that's made me eye-roll hard in recent pokemon games. It was simple. A mother driven to insanity due to an obsession with collecting every pokemon, and very likely the added influence of Nihilego's toxin from before we as a player meet her. It was a story about trying to save a family and prevent any collateral damage in the process, and that was a nice change of pace from every game since gen 3.

Also, your boy Guzma is the man. Dude just aligned himself with the one person who treated him like he was worth something, and he just wanted to catch some crazy pokemon. Almost kind of easy to relate to in a way.

You guys should head back to Aether Paradise and talk to Wicke, the extra backstory about Lusamine is really interesting and makes her a better villain.

So much post-champion stuff, I haven't touched the Battle Tree yet, the Looker stuff, the Battle Royale stuff... Right now, I'm collecting Zygarde pieces (I'm currently at ~70%).

Ugh, the Zygarde cells what's up with them? Is it just me, or is this quest complete bullshit? Surely there must be something more to it than "wander around the whole world, hoping you see the glimmer (but also do it twice, since some of them only show up during the day/night)". Ocarina of Time, nearly 20 years old, managed to put markers on the map for the Gold Skultulas when you found all of them in an area. I mean, the reward for getting 100% is much more satisfying (I hope).

Speaking of dumb things, I made it to the Battle Tree, and was immediately greeted with a battle against Blue (or Red, you get to pick, but I picked Blue). Only problem was that half my team was dead, because the area before it was actually above my level for the first time in the game. Managed to squeak by with liberal item usage, but this game really likes throwing unexpected tough battles at you, huh?

Rues of Pokemon games. If anybody starts talking about how much the love Pokemon and how much they want to keep them safe, dats da badguy.

You can just knock it out and go back again later.

@planetfunksquad: I know, I mentioned that in my post. I was playing the game without looking anything up though, and didn't find out until after.

I will bet any amount that this will happen, but only in Pokemon Stars on the Switch.

I think that one of my favorite "twists" this game did was that Lunala/Solgaleo was Cosmog, wich meant that the legendary at this point in the game was more than just a cool rare pokemon that the player had never interacted with before. We had actually some kind of emotional bond with it, and I thought the scene with it and Lilly was very sweet. Especially that last picture in the credits. Couldn't bring myself to name it anything other than Nebby when I caught it either. =P

Well, it's been a busy week and a half, and now I'm back having done all the post game stuff too. The UB stuff was interesting, mechanically. Go catch these Ultra Beasts... actually no, go catch, like, four of each! (And keep them safe in your box forever.)

But, anyway!

So, this is actually one of the more interesting parts of the story, as far as I'm concerned. This is a spoiler thread, so screw those spoiler tags.

What we know about Anabel:

• She came out of an Ultra Wormhole
• She doesn't know what happened before
• She remembers Hoenn, and being the guardian of a tower.

So, this wormhole travel makes her a Faller, just like you (and presumably Lillie, Guzma and Lusamine). But, that's not the crazy part. The crazy part is that in the world of Sun & Moon, Hoenn only has one tower, which is the Sky Pillar. But, if we assume that Sun & Moon take place in the same world as X, Y, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, then Zinnia is the guardian of that tower (according to the Delta Story). So, it can't be that.

Then, what tower is she remembering? If you recall the Delta story from OR & AS, Zinnia hypothesizes a parallel world without Mega Evolution, where the war in Kalos never took place, etc etc. She was worried that simply opening an Ultra Wormhole (not stated, but in retrospect...) and shunting the impending meteor into the other world would doom them, since they didn't have the cool stuff that the Infinity Energy gave them.

The world she refers to is none other than the world of the original Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald. And, Emerald had another tower, the Battle Tower. And, if you go back and take a look, the leader of the Battle Tower was Salon Maiden Anabel. Therefore, Anabel isn't from this world, but a completely different world/timeline.

What we can infer from this, is that the remakes of the games not only do not replace the original in the timeline, but in fact take place in parallel universes from them. And, not only is this not a crazy fan theory that a nutjob like me would rant about on a forum somewhere, but actual canon.

What I'm saying is that we're only one or two gens out from Pokemon Generations.