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Here you are, riding on the back of Lunala or Solgaleo, hoping to enter one of the wormholes of your favorite Ultra beast... if you have one? What were your thoughts on the games implementation of "aliens" and do you think they executed it the right way? Do you have a favorite Ultra Beast? Least favorite? How come?
I think I found solgaleo easier to ride on despite liking lunala better. I got pretty good at doing this from playing the minigame so much, eventually to the point that I could find shiny pokemon.
My favorite Ultra Beast is Nihilego as I think I just found it fascinating for some reason. Least favorite is Celesteela because it's a stalling monster being a steel type with leech seed, toxic and protect. So painful to fight.
I was horrible at that minigame and never bothered getting good at it. I think I did like a couple attempts and just never did it again. I just could not be bothered to get good at the minigame.
Fav UB is Pheromosa, always liked the sassy bug. Don't care about any of the others you could catch.
Poipole is the only other UB I like, but it's a gift mon. It's evo is meh.
I'm still a little on the fence about the UBs. It's probably due to me never having done much with them. I played Moon and even completed the Pokedex of that game. But I actually even touched the Postgame. So all the UB catching was something I missed out on. Also due to my competitive fatigue starting at the end of gen 6 I never really got to see them in action, either.
Some of them look really good, though. Kartana or Pheromosa, for example.
I think it was a good idea and executed really well. The only thing holding me back in the designs of some of them. The only ones I really like are nihilego kartana poiple and pherimosa, nihilego, poiple and kartana I loved from the start. Pherimosa grew on me. The rest I can't get myself to like
I like Ultra Beasts - some of them are cool and have interesting histories, especially if you've watched the anime (like Guzzlord and Celesteela among others). But it's Poipole that I really love... it's just adorable and climbed its way to my top 10 really quickly once I saw it in the anime.
like ???? it's so! cute!!
Other mentions go to Nihilego and Blacephalon. No least favorite! I enjoyed seeing all of them in action.
I had to spoiler some parts for length, so...that tells you a little about the intensity of my feelings. Lol
I love the Ultra Beasts so muchhh ;_; I mean, come on alien Pokemon! It's like my dream concept. I think they did perfectly in making their designs unsettlingly yet intriguingly different from other Pokemon (it's hard to put my finger on, but in my opinion, the biggest factors are the use of color...configurations? that regular Pokemon usually don't have like gradients, intricate patterns or transparent sections, a greater level of detail and/or a greater amount of realism, and many of them having no face or a strange-looking face), and I like how they don't all look non-standard in the exact same way, especially since they all come from different worlds. (I remember that the first time I saw some of the Ultra Beasts was in that Favorite Pokemon Picker website, and I knew there were some Alola Pokemon I hadn't seen yet, but I was still like ?!??!?! lol)
My favorite Ultra Beasts solely in terms of design are:
Spoiler:
*Nihilego - simple, yet effective at evoking an inscrutable alien parasite - definitely the best choice for the first/main Ultra Beast you see in the story - also, I think it's really clever how they made it look slightly like the silhouette of a little girl.
*Celesteela - can you imagine the sheer awe/horror of seeing this 30 foot steel and fire propulsion creature that looks like a living spaceship just hanging in the sky above the Alola region with no idea where it came from?? I pretty much like the Ultra Beast storyline as it is, and I can't think of what I'd change to make this happen, but man, part of me feels like this thing deserves to be the final boss of something, maybe a spin-off?
*Xurkitree (completely inorganic, but still recognizable as a living creature, probably the most typically "futuristic" looking alien design out of the Ultra Beasts, and an underrated detail that I like is how it sorta has a vague amount of limbs between "two legs, two arms and a tail" and "5 limbs that go in the ground and are vaguely equivalent to legs" depending on how it's posed. Plus, they somehow managed to make it look so adorable despite not having a face!!
*Poipole - I said I liked how all the Ultra Beast designs get across the concept of "alien" in a different way, so it only makes sense to have one that does it in a typical-pop-culture-alien way. It's interesting - we already had a pop-culture-alien Pokemon line, Elgyem and Beeheeyem, and I quite like their designs, but...somehow, Poipole just looks more out of this world than the regular Pokemon with the same concept.
Honorable mention is Guzzlord - I have a hard time gauging my feelings on it partially because I am quite afraid of it, actually, why do they have to keep making Pokemon that just eat everything, but I like how many little details its body has - on a normal Pokemon or even a legendary, it'd look overcrowded and unnecessary, but here it just looks like another unique way to get across the alien look. Also, this isn't really "design" per se, but the fact that the anime has it just scream in a human voice is just...
My favorite Ultra Beasts overall (assuming we're only counting the ones with Beast Boost) are:
Spoiler:
*Nihilego - so creepy but so cute! ;_; I just love how this thing is a living nightmare of an antagonist (if something completely amoral and visibly running on pure animalistic predation can really be called that) for the entire game, but then you still get to meet one that's trapped in another world against its will, learn about how scared it is and catch it and care for it and make it your own. That's just so Pokemon, you know? Also, if there was any way to do the human/Nihilego fusion thing safely, I would be so up for that, just stating the truth
*Poipole - I am basically obsessed with Ultra Megalopolis and all things related to it, so yeah. I have more ideas for fanfiction involving Poipole than I care to admit. Also, I realize this Pokemon decided it likes you and wants to join your team! is FAR from an uncommon concept throughout the games, but the fact that this little creature chose to move to another dimension to be my Pokemon is just so heartwarming. Had to rearrange my E4 team to give it a spot after that.
*Pheromosa - uh...this is awkwardly personal, but: I have some sensory issues due to autism, and when I first read about how it "doesn't want to touch anything it considers unclean, which seems to include everything in this dimension", it immediately had my heart. 🥺
Honorable mention is Xurkitree, because, like I said, adorable. (Also, I like the implication introduced in Us/Um that the Xurkitree we catch is, basically, just a baby of the species.)
My least favorite, and the only Ultra Beast I really dislike, has to be Naganadel. :/ It's just...not my cup of tea, compared to Poipole. Doesn't have the same charm. Also, there might be and I'm not aware, but is there even any lore reason behind this evolution? It seems like an interesting idea, the Pokemon learning how to use Dragon techniques and thusly becoming a Dragon, but to learn said Dragon technique it has to be actively taught by a human from a place outside its world of origin, like the Dragon inside of this species was forgotten somehow (potentially because, as is mentioned throughout the games, humans don't really train Pokemon to battle in Ultra Megalopolis), but it's never really explained or elaborated on.
The way they implemented the "aliens" was ok I guess, not really sure what else they could have done to make it better so I'll just say that it was good even though I wasn't super impressed with it.
My favorite Ultra Beast is Naganadel because I like the type combination and the design is also better than most other UBs imo, I also used it a lot on Battle Spot so that's another reason. My least favorite is either Celesteela or Guzzlord, Celesteela is just boring in both design and the way it's used to stall in battle so I don't have much love for this UB and Guzzlord just looks horrible (I know looking/being horrible is kinda the whole point of this Pokemon but still...) and it's also pretty weak in battle, especially compared to other UBs.
I liked the Ultra Beasts concept and I'm fine with their designs.
I just wish some of them were actually weaker. Why every UB except Poipole had to be a 570 BST Pokémon that's only obtainable pretty much at the end of the game? Imo they should have made at least a couple of weaker but more accessible UBs that I could use for the in-game, because if you're a player that just don't like using legendaries they're basically just a bunch of Pokémon to collect and box (because that's what they are at the end, legendaries with a different name)
I also don't like the fact that all of them have Beast Boost. UBs are supposed to be unique, giving all of them the same Ability goes against that idea.
With the worm hole.... I was never really a fan of the concept.... especially if you were trying to get shiny pokemon which was just a job compared to other ways of getting shiny pokemon, alas it is the only way I can get a Shiny Latios which I still haven't gotten.
As for the concept of Alien Pokemon.... it has kinda been around since Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald with Deoxys and honestly, their designs are similar so I never understood why people hated them so much. I mean Deoxys could even be classified as a Ultra Beast in my opinion. Kartana looks more like a pokemon than Deoxys ever did. I think it was executed as best as it could have been. We have countless space pokemon.
As for my favorite, honestly I've always liked Guzzlord. I think that is mostly because of its shiny form. A close second is Nihilego and again I think it is because of the shiny form which, to me, is beautiful. I also like Poipole, but it loses points because I am not a massive fan of its evolution. It just loses all recognition and is like one of those pokemon that have drastic evolutions which I've never been a fan of. I think there should have been a middle stage and I wish it had kept its smooth form because half the time, it is hard to tell what part of Poipole's evolution I am even looking at.
