Did Pokémon Ultra Sun/Moon RUIN one of the best villains in the series?

Like I said before, they could and should have kept the Nihelego fight but reveal that Lusamine while still mean, abusive, and beauty obsessed still cared for her children, have her pass out the the Ultra Recon Sqaud explain how necrozma was a threat she wanted to fight after fusing with Nihelego.

Lusamine and Guzma “turn good” and find a way to open an ultra wormhole without harming nebby they get sucked in and then just like in the actual game we don’t worry about them until they pop out at the alter begging for help.

That’s when Nebby evolves and faces off Necrozma and then we fight Necrozma

Great video

answer yes

"raw reality" yeah not many abusive parents change after just a "talk"

sm had lillie break the cycle of abuse
usum has lillie right back in a "honeymoon phase"

honestly i liked the normal story. i think lusamine’s character was written VERY well, and they should’ve kept with that, especially in the anime…

Aesthetically, No..

Story & Gameplay wise, Big Ol Yes!!

These game would've succeeded more if they were sequels like BW2, with new towns and city(ies), 4 new gyms that All use Z move or ME, new pokemon and maybe a whole new island to explore in post game.

Instead, they teabagged Lillie and her story with her nutjob mum to make out Lusamine is just misunderstood, and STILL flooded us with Melemele Island endless unskipable dialouge and 'cutscenes' that were no different from its predecessor.

edit

Another thing that annoyed about Both of these games (S&M/USUM) were the game developers going Out of their way to avoid you having double battles and battle 2 or 3 trainers one after another 😒

Nihilego, I believe, feeds on the egos of sentient beings. The more ego a person has, the more nutritious and long-lasting the meal, assuming they can somehow keep their prey. Maybe the neurotoxins induce euphoria, and make the experience of having your ego devoured feel great. It's likely very addictive, but maybe it takes a lot of energy for the Nihilego to make that neurotoxin, and they have to use it sparingly.

Maybe they don't start dumping euphoric neurotoxins into prey on the first nibble, unless they like what they taste. If the target's ego is non-existent or is in fact negative, then the prey is not worth eating, or worth wasting precious neurotoxins on.

Guzma has a lot of bravado, but it is false, I think. Truly, I believe his self esteem/ego are in the garbage, if not worse than that. The Nihilego gave him a taste out of curiosity because he was conveniently in their dimension, and then promptly decided he tasted disgusting, and spat him out. If my logic about the use of the neurotoxins is correct, it would explain why Guzma found the experience to be terrifying rather than addicting. Maybe the Nihilego still use just a little neurotoxin to keep the victim under their control, though. Guzma said he didn't have any control over his body.

Lusamine is an all you can eat buffet by comparison. She's got ego for days, perhaps even months or years before she's nothing but an empty husk of a person with no remaining memories.

Whether Lusamine is addicted to Nihilego or not, her ego is a substantial problem. Being soundly and horrifically defeated by Necrozma is likely enough in the Ultra timeline to humble her a little, but I agree that it is not as effective of storytelling, nor is it as satisfying, as the baseline games.

I like your idea for a combined timeline, where the Ultra Recon Squad has arrived in Alola and they attempted to set Lusamine on the right path, but she still struggles with Nihilego addiction, to everyone's detriment. Maybe I'll write a fanfic that follows that train of thought more comprehensively.

Yes

My take is that both stories take place in their own realities and both come across as a bit forced, but I generally prefer Lusamine's unhinged abusive behavior in the original + Lillie's scenes with her. The decision to change that in the Ultra games really sorta muddies up her character & detracts from Lillie's, plus I feel as if a lot of the new stuff like the Ultra Recon Squad were sorta poorly mixed in to the game, being shoved in with little to no consideration for how it changes the story & experience. For all those reasons, I really can't bring myself to say the Ultra games are equal or even improvements, especially when considering Lillie & Lusamine as characters.
Both definitely needed more time to cook, though. Sun & Moon feels unfinished & the Ultra games feel haphazardly put together.

Your accent switches between rhotic and non-rhotic at an alarming rate

the original sun and moon have a better story but usum is a better experience as a video game to play i think. i wish there was a game that had the best of both worlds though.

I loved the story in Sun/Moon. I feel like it was pretty dark, at least by Pokemon standards. Lillie is probably my favorite character in the entire series. I've never played the Ultra versions because of the story changes even if those versions have a lot of improvements.

I don't actually have a problem with Lusamine being turned into a flawed hero. The way it was executed was atrocious. Instead of writing a whole new script like Masuda implied during the reveal, all the altered or new lines of dialogue in this game were surrounded by mounds of copy-pasted dialogue from the original games, so it naturally leads to sloppy nonsense like Lusamine saying "Calling me mother? I don't have any children!" followed by "My fathomless love will save even someone like you!" There's also the matter of Lusamine fighting so hard to try to retrieve Nebby when the Ultra Recon Squad already had a Solgaleo/Lunana that you ended up using to open a wormhole after Necrozma left with Nebby. It's such a mess. Like, you can tell the Sun/Moon story was specifically written around Nebby and the Aether Foundation while the new elements in the Ultra versions were simply shoehorned into it. I think I was always going to prefer the original story and its focus on dear friends helping each other through their problems instead of one that was centered around stopping a wronged Legendary Pokémon like so many other entries, but it would've been more acceptable to me if it was genuinely original.

Here's my perspective. First of with why Lillie is dressed up like Nihilego in USUM: Is just reused assets, I think we can confidently just agree this is just GF being lazy on how they present the story.

And to my perspective with Lusamine, she's turning to a different outlet to cope with grief. As other people have pointed out, Nihilego could be an allegory for alcohol and abuse. Lusamine in SM could be argued to be an allegory for an abusive parent that's struggling with addiction. And that was really powerful for a lot of people.


Now, I don't blame people for liking this version of Lusamine, and even relating to Lillie, just like I don't blame them from expecting these characters to be the same in USUM. But I think the core difference is the outlet that Lusamine took in USUM. Perhaps instead of Nihilego she encountered the Ultra Recon Squad and that gave her another coping mechanism. As I interpret USUM, she's not an abusive parent, but rather a neglectful one. She's hyper focused with work and claims to be doing all of it for her family and Alola, but in doing so she's losing track of what's important. In my eyes, USUM is NOT an abusive parent, she's neglecting her children (and I know is a form of abuse but that's not the point) and turned into a workaholic.

As I said, I understand why some people think is bad that in USUM Lusamine is "forgive", but I think the context is what's important here. One Lusamine was aggressive and controlling to her children, directly putting them through stress. The other wasn't there, focusing on her job to save the very family she was losing behind her back.

I like both versions.

I personnally loved lusamine in SM and series,ultra isnt that bad,but they sorta made it feel like children were wrong wich was incorrect

"Good question. . . Yes I am complimenting my own question"
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

there is more to the game too pppllllaaaay in the post game of the ultra games

As someone with an abusive mother... I like both versions. In SM, you can see how twisted and far gone she is. And when she's defeated, she finally acknowledged Lillie and her growth. Calling her beautiful... got me in all honesty.

As for USUM, I liked the fact that she just wanted to stop Necrozma out of sheer SPITE for taking her husband away and breaking her family apart. Granted, she did a lot of work on her end to do that but still.

Do I find frustrating Lillie's and Lusamine's relationship starts mending off-screen? Absolutely! But that cutscene after you defeat Ultra Necrozma always felt to me like the START of their relationship mending. I wish it was done on-screen but I did like that a start happened. And it gave me faith that my own mother could turn a new leaf. And she did.

That's why I like both versions. At the end of the day, Lusamine redeemed herself. USUM just gave her a chance to do so. Could have been done better? Hell yes! But a start is something and... I appreciate that.

I think they should’ve made a major story expansion and found a way to give a definitive explanation for lusamine’s abuse and let necrozma be the bigger villain.

Wait... so thats why sm and usum are so annoying we are not protoganost but 3 person watcher

I think both are failed attempts at trying to make a female villain, by 'being a woman. She is either the victim of an alien, or a victim of Rainbow Rocket. She ends up getting rid of her kids to try to find her husband, in one world, but finds him in one, but leaves him. Any villainy/character development is wiped clean, aside from 'I'm a leader of a big company. Thankfully the whole family gets put back together in the anime.

All villains have been watered down more and more after gen 6.

I have a theory, maybe guzma was only subjected to the neurotoxins for a short while and didn’t get affected, but lusamine was subjected for years and it took over her. When she got split up from nihelego the toxins stayed on nihelego.

I still think USUM fücķēď her story up

Alchoholic rich mom with exotic pets ruins local ecosystem

it did not ruined her dude, oras confirmed alternate reallities and sun and moon and the ultras confirmed it, those are diffrent versions of lusamine, so they are diffrent it's like in marvel or dc where diffrent versions of a character act diffrent from the other some are evils, others good etc.
maybe she was possed in the first ones but she could just be a really diffrent cersion of her on ultra's you know.

Gods I have so many feelings about sun/moon and the way usum frustrated me that I can't even write a proper comment about it lol. Sun/moon was the game I needed at a time when college was my way out of a terrible situation and I was very alone. I consider Sinnoh my home region and Alola the region I moved to lol, the communal nature of Moon and a plot line that made me feel seen and the hype season leading up to them was just what I needed

Honestly I wished Ultra Sun/Moon were sequels like Black/White 2. It would helped with Lusamine‘s change in personality if this was Lusamine 3 to 5 years from the events of Sun/Moon after she was able to heal from her trauma. But also keep the fact that she was abusive towards Lillie and Gladion but 3 to 5 years in the future she’s healed enough for her children to start to want to have a relationship with her again. I don’t know who the evil team in this rewrite would be but maybe the Ultra Recon Squad? Or at least that in this rewrite the Ultra Recon Squad are a rebel faction against the evil team. And for the purposes of this rewrite the evil team would be the people of Ultra Megalopolis who want to steal the light of other worlds so that Ultra Megalopolis could get its light back. (For this rewrite to happen a lot of lore would have to change but since lore wise this rewrite of Ultra Sun/Moon takes place 3 to 5 years after Sun/Moon I think it could be possible to change some of the lore of Ultra Megalopolis.)

Thing is, it's because she's a woman.
With Ghetsis, they didn't tone it down. They DOUBLED DOWN with him being abusive and insane. Even have him trying to straight up KILL you.
But Female Ghetsis? Nah, it's fine, lmao, lets just forget HER FREEZER FILLED WITH DEAD POKEMON.
Also, I think the first one is more realistic, as Nihilego is obviously alluding to Addiction. And a parent caring more about drugs then their children? Yeah, that makes complete sense.

Does it matter? I guess, yes it does.
GameFreak continuously tampers the original releases with changes, improvements and fixes.. just like how George Lucas modified the original Star Wars to be the "right" way to watch these movies. They don't know how to make and take care of a proper narrative! They introduced alternate worlds, and that was their excuse to sell more and more. No one game is canon, no story is the main one! But at the same time, the latest one might have all the ideas they consider an "improvement".

Just like with Tears of the Kingdom, if you try to care about a Nintendo story.. you shouldn't. Because they don't.

I personally always thought it would’ve been better if the entire story was mostly just the same, but after defeating Lusamine in ultra space on your legendary before being ambushed by Necrozma your way out, forcing you to then borrow one of Recon’s legend Aries to fight Necro

"sorry about the inconsistent frames in the video" that's because you're playing on an emulator, that isn't the fault of the devs, Citra while way better than it used to be is still not perfect when it comes to emulation so there's still slowdown and lag.

I desperately need a mod of this game where it has the story of SM and the gameplay of USUM, maybe if even possible also moving Ultra Necrozma as a post game episode. Ig also a cutscene skip button, I dont mind the cutscenes and dialogue but it can help for repeat playthroughs. To me that would be the ideal game.

I dislike how the neurotoxins are passed off as being unrealistic. It can serve as an allegory of substance of abuse. I live in that reality of living with an alcoholic father who gets unnecessarily violent when he drinks and even controlling. He cant go a single day without a drink. The neurotoxins doesnt serve as an excuse to justify her behavior, but rather it is an explanation. It shows how substances like these are addicting and can change people for the worse. Of course not all abusive parents need substances to be abusive (my dad even has moments when he isnt under influence), but it doesnt make one or the other any less "real". Some people live the reality of USUM and I live in the reality of SM.

I grew up with abusive parents due to substance abuse destroying their minds, so I absolutely refused to play Ultra Sun and Moon when I heard they changed Lusamine's story.

Allegory for loss and dangerous coping through substance.

"kick some ass" LIVE ZORUA REACTION

There HAD to be drama around how to portray Lusamine behind the scenes, in SM she is completely unhinged, in USUM she is both abusive and redeemable somehow, and in the Anime she is just a good guy with very few strings attached.

This is why DLC > Third version. Imagine if all the Necrozma stuff was in DLC. We would have had the best of both worlds.

I prefer the concept of USUM. The fact that Lusamine is just a bad person with narcissistic personality makes it way more real than any toxin explanation. Making her more real means that she is more relatable and therefore the story connects with more people.

However, I think the real problem is that they cut all of Lilys character arch. Seeing her stand up to her mom in the USUM versions would’ve hit harder, as well as the story she tells us in SM being gone. Those would’ve given her a complete character arch and gotten us to empathize more with. However in USUM they throw Lily off the side and make the battle with Necrozma de focus.

In the end I believe USUM could’ve told a better story but sidetracked character moments in favor of a big boss battle.

usum destroyed Lillie's character arc and the story didnt even feel cohesive any more. plus the whole ending sequence with lillie and the player was removed and her giving you her clefairy doll and all that. usum cut so much

ultra necrosma and dawn wings necrosma is 2 of my favorite pokemon

I think I prefer SM Lusamine. I know I prefer SM Lillie. I hope this isn't too much to share but I played original SM while growing up and living with an abusive mother. The portrayal ment a lot to me and I didn't know about the toxin theory at the time I just always assumed she was just abusive. Even without toxin theory she always had the reason/excuse that she was distraught or dealing with PTSD. The fact of the matter is that all abusers have their reasons and excuses. It's part of what makes abuse so insidious and part of what makes it hard to understand what's happening is abuse, especially as a child. At the end of the day though nothing and no one has ever forced the hand of an abuser even as we can understand and sympathise with their situations. I feel this very strongly as someone who had and abusive mother. Many people throught my life have tried to make exuses for her even people who have no knowledge of the situation, but the truth is nothing and no one made her do what she did and the same goes for lusamine. I think the best thing that SM did in regards to abuse is showing through Lillie and Gladion how forgiviness or a lack there of are both viable options. I my self have wrestled with both. To this day I'm still shocked that pokemon of all franchises would tackle these themes in a game. It felt very grounded and real. I do empathise with the fact that changing any parts of the story could have disasterous consequneces, but that they had to change the story for US and UM to bothe feel different and add the new content but I still feel it could have been done better without diminishing the abuse elements.

i wonder if Rainbow Rocket also played a part in it? gamefreak said 'ok too much villainy, lusamine give some to them' lol

The neurotoxins always felt like a substance abuse metaphor.

The way I see it, if you read not just the Pokedex but also the dialogue Wicke has for Nihilego after you catch it in OG SuMo's postgame, Nihilego does not itself have a personality or goals (Nihil- -ego literally meaning "lack of self", which feels really weird to me to be the name given to the creature. This thing appears from an alternate dimension and you manage to correctly name it after the fact it doesn't have a self? How did you know it wasn't sapient or even sentient? "Venomenon" makes way more sense as an initial name - it's poisonous and its entry into our world is an oddity.). Instead, its neurotoxin merely removes a person's inhibitions (which you already mentioned in the video) and also enhances their existing personality traits. This means that OG SuMo Lusamine is not under the affects of mind-altering drugs, she was always like this, just to a smaller degree.

Also, if I remember correctly, Giovanni in the Rainbow Rocket epilogue mentions that Lusamine was infected with the neurotoxins in the USUM continuity, it's just directed in a way to get her to further his goals of multiversal conquest, rather than at "let me live with my pretties forever".

As for the question of "does it matter?" under normal circumstances, I would probably agree with you - the existence of USUM does not take away from the fact that SuMo still came out, the Pokemon multiverse being canon (as finally officially confirmed in these games. Yes, Zinnia mentioned it in ORAS but only as a theoretical, as a justification for why throwing an incoming astroid into a portal with no knowledge of where the other end of that portal leads is a bad idea) means that both versions of Lusamine are canon, and people like me who want to keep the unhinged Lusamine and see Lillie's story as a way to heal from their own parental abuse trauma, can do so. But at the same time, the Pokémon Company themselves like acting as if USUM Lusamine is the only one that matters. She's the only one who shows up in crossovers like Masters, despite that game literally having other universes as a justification for allowing both genders of a game's protagonist pair to exist simultaneously even for games where the other gender isn't used as a rival, and also despite that game allowing players to use much-more-overtly-evil villains like Ghetsis and Lysandre. And so it does feel, to those of us that prefer the original Lusamine due to the more direct way the game shows her abusiveness and comeuppance, that TPC is ignoring our version of the villainess just because she's not the most-recent version.

I actually largely agree with your changes to USUM's story, but I guess I don't really care about Lusamine getting redemption as much as I care about Lillie getting closure. Much like your fix, Lusamine betrays the Ultra Recon Squad in order to use their research to find Nihilego rather than face off against Necrozma. However, I feel like once we get to the Alter on Poni Island, instead of us going through the Motherbeast arc, instead, Guzma falls out of the portal and says that Lusamine went missing before he reached Ultra Megalopolis. You deal with Necrozma first, and continue USUM's story as normal, and only after meeting Lillie in front of the bridge where you two first met and catching Nebby (which she will now only call you about this after you catch Necrozma on the Pokémon League mountain), does she mention that her mother is still missing in Ultra Space and she at least wants to find her. The Motherbeast arc happens as normal, and then she goes to Kanto, with either Lillie or Gladion as her supervisor depending on certain dialogue choices the player made. This does mean that Motherbeast can be postgame depending on when the player decides to catch Necrozma, and if it is postgame, then Rainbow Rocket won't happen until after the Motherbeast arc.

I NEVER CONNECTED MOHN FROM THE MAIN STORY AND MOHN FROM POKE PELAGO OH MY GOD

She wouldn't be villian more so a victom due to the nerotoxins, I pefer USUM due to giving her closure there with Mohn. But it isn't to abuse your children.

Part of the reason the framerate was bad was probably because you were using a emulator.

OH MY GOD THANK YOU- I played the og sun/moon when i was a kid and LOVED the story. So when the ultra games came out i was confused as normal sun and moon hadnt reached the end of its lifespan yet. I then saw they changed the entire story, basically shoving the old characters out of the way for these newer "cooler" characters. Ultra sun and moon are fun games, but i will always hold a grudge to how they just made the original games completly irrelivent. The orignal story was far from perfect, but it deserves to be seen and not just forgotten. Possesed lusimine looks SO FUCKING COOL- the original story gave some well fleshed out characters (except hau. Fuck hau) and the ultra games just completley removed that. Lusimine is such a good villian. Its a shame it now lives in the ultra games shadow. Ultra sun and ultra moon are better games, but sun and moon are a better story