The Great Big Trial Speculation Thread

[OmegaRuby and AlphaSapphire]

The protagonist's recognition was due to an act of heroism. Most of the non-Kahuna characters who got Z-Rings don't seem to look like they were recognised for being a hero.

See, she can still have one. I mean, Hau, Gladion, Kakui, and even a few non-main NPCs have them. Plus, Kahili was mentioned to have passed the island trial before, and that she was given the position of E4 in the original Sun and Moon must make her someone who can surely impress the Tapus.

 

[WingsofBliss]

TPC just released a clip of the player encountering Hiker Dave at the Wela Volcano trial site instead of Kiawe.

 

[Altairis]

TPC just released a clip of the player encountering Hiker Dave at the Wela Volcano trial site instead of Kiawe.

inb4 someone says hiker dave is the new trial captain just because he's there lol

wouldn't assume anything until we can see the video (not sure why you didnt post it :() with text. could just be for the Best Hiker thing Japan was doing, could be because you find him on the mountain and he says "Oh Kiawe's not here yet go find him at x" or anything else

edit here it is
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xh89YdElp7o


no trial gate or anything, so it doesn't even look like there's a trial here at all.
BTW he just says "Alola! Sate, watashi wa dare deshou?" Which is "Alola! Now who am I exactly?" Or something like that.

 

[Hikamaru]

So I guess it looks like that it's confirmed will be new trials now that Kiawe appears to have stepped away from being a Trial Captain.

I'm guessing maybe he's been promoted to Elite Four, Kahuna, or is neither and just doing something else.

 

[FireSnow]

So I guess it looks like that it's confirmed will be new trials now that Kiawe appears to have stepped away from being a Trial Captain.

I'm guessing maybe he's been promoted to Elite Four, Kahuna, or is neither and just doing something else.

I get the feeling that Kiawe will be more important, it'd be a bit strange to just demote him down to being nothing. Kahuna could be possible since Olivia is now E4 (hope I have these islands correct lol)

Very much hoping theres an Ice type trial but that's of course unlikely since the League is at the only place a trial like that could happen.

Also, with Hala being E4, does this mean Hau could be the new Melemele Kahuna?

 

[Hikamaru]

I get the feeling that Kiawe will be more important, it'd be a bit strange to just demote him down to being nothing. Kahuna could be possible since Olivia is now E4 (hope I have these islands correct lol)

Very much hoping theres an Ice type trial but that's of course unlikely since the League is at the only place a trial like that could happen.

Also, with Hala being E4, does this mean Hau could be the new Melemele Kahuna?

I think out of the Akala Trial Captains, Kiawe looked like the one who had most potential to be a Kahuna. Considering that Olivia became an Elite Four member, there's the likelihood she didn't have the time to serve the Kahuna role anymore so Tapu Lele chose Kiawe to succeed her.

Hau being the new Melemele Kahuna could be a possibility as well.

 

[Phyrrhic]

Hau seems pretty young to be a kahuna unless there was a large time skip between games.

Regardless, I think that there might be more trials, and that he might be a captain.

 

[Hikamaru]

Hau seems pretty young to be a kahuna unless there was a large time skip between games.

Regardless, I think that there might be more trials, and that he might be a captain.

In that case, I could see Melemele's Kahuna either being Ilima or a new character while Hau takes over from Ilima as Trial Captain.

 

[raijin192]

Ryuki as a Trial Captain seems likely as we saw him feature in the trailer, and that would mean we get a proper Dragon trial which I'd be cool with! If Mina doesn't get a more fleshed out trial then I really hope she makes it somewhere as an E4 member or something. As for Kahili, she was showing off a Z-move which means she could be one of the Kahunas? If she is one of the Kahunas then this could still mean her later showing up at the Elite Four giving her more of a role in the storyline outside of the E4 which she should have imo.

 

[MaSterBarth]

Ryuki just needs to show up in the game more.

 

[HeroLinik]

In regards to Totem Pokemon, get rid of Kommo-o and replace it with literally anything else. It's fairly embarrassing that most people who have played these games struggle with Mimikyu and Lurantis but one-shot Kommo-o with Ribombee or (insert Fairy-type here).

I'm pretty sure the reason they chose Kommo-o as the last totem was because he was the pseudo-legendary so comes with supposedly intimidating stats, and was also a new Pokemon, like with all the other totems - the 4x Fairy weakness is irrelevant. Of course, they could have thrown in a different pseudo like Garchomp or Salamence (the former would be devastating if it called in a Pokemon that could use Sandstorm), but the whole point of the totem is that you've never encountered that Pokemon before, and so you need to figure out how to kill it by yourself. Also, about the 4x Fairy weakness, I'm actually a bit surprised that people rag on about Kommo-o being so easy to kill because you get Dazzling Gleam and Twinkle Tackle during the trial, but nobody rags on about Raticate being easy despite the fact that it's 4x weak to Fighting, you can catch a Makuhita on the nearby route and can also get Brick Break, a very powerful move for this stage of the game, so you could theoretically one-shot it for an easy totem.

As for the trials, I suspect trials will be here to stay because nothing has been said about whether they'll put gyms in or not. However, like a few people have said, I can see new trial captains like Ryuki and Kahili taking role and hosting different trials, or maybe older kahunas like Nanu stepping down and choosing to host trials instead. I'd really love to see Ryuki getting a trial, and if it involves using a guitar and having a jam session with Ryuki, and you get to keep the guitar after the trial to play music with it at your own pace, like OoT, I'm sold.

 

[Hikamaru]

I'm pretty sure the reason they chose Kommo-o as the last totem was because he was the pseudo-legendary so comes with supposedly intimidating stats, and was also a new Pokemon, like with all the other totems - the 4x Fairy weakness is irrelevant. Of course, they could have thrown in a different pseudo like Garchomp or Salamence (the former would be devastating if it called in a Pokemon that could use Sandstorm), but the whole point of the totem is that you've never encountered that Pokemon before, and so you need to figure out how to kill it by yourself. Also, about the 4x Fairy weakness, I'm actually a bit surprised that people rag on about Kommo-o being so easy to kill because you get Dazzling Gleam and Twinkle Tackle during the trial, but nobody rags on about Raticate being easy despite the fact that it's 4x weak to Fighting, you can catch a Makuhita on the nearby route and can also get Brick Break, a very powerful move for this stage of the game, so you could theoretically one-shot it for an easy totem.

This is why I think Kommo-o made sense for the final trial, but like he said it's not the only one easy to defeat thanks to a 4x weakness. As he said with Raticate in Moon, you could catch yourself a Makuhita and easy destroy that thing with Fighting moves. Heck, if you have a Mudbray you can easily take out Salazzle in one hit due to 4x Ground weakness.

 

[HeroLinik]

In part, that could be because there was also no synergy between Kommo-o and Hakamo-o and Scizor; there was nothing particularly threatening about the both of them, unlike Solar Blade Lurantis and Sunny Day Castform and even Lurantis and Trumbeak, or Mimikyu and Hypnosis Gengar.

There was also no synergy in the Vikavolt trial either, in terms of the Pokemon being called. I get why they chose Charjabug as the totem's allies, but the problem is the Vikavolt has a physical movepool and so can't make use of Battery, thus making it much easier than it should have been.

 

[Hikamaru]

There was also no synergy in the Vikavolt trial either, in terms of the Pokemon being called. I get why they chose Charjabug as the totem's allies, but the problem is the Vikavolt has a physical movepool and so can't make use of Battery, thus making it much easier than it should have been.

I do give Game Freak credit for giving it an Occa Berry so that you can't easily wreck it with a Fire move. However, a Rock-type can still easily kill it. But yes, why give it a moveset that couldn't take advantage of its own ally's ability?