Game Freak on Pokemon Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon – development, new features, and more

The highly anticipated newest games are changing more drastically than thought!?

Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon is coming out in a rather fast pace – one year after Sun/Moon. After finishing work on the original, Iwao said they still want to do a lot of things in Alola. One of them is Mantine Surf. Since Alola is based on Hawaii, people will definitely want to surf there. However, waiting for 2-3 years would be too long, so they wanted to provide a game that shows more of Alola’s nature before players’ views on Alola became solidified.

Mantine Surf looks like a Pokemon Ride at first, but in actuality it’s more like an action game on its own. But since it’ll also play a role in the story, they don’t want to make the controls too complex. Players can simply use the left analog stick to control, but they made it so that they can still feel the tension of challenging nature.

Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon are not sequels to Sun/Moon, but it will rather be taking a slightly different branch. The world settings and character personalities are still based on Sun/Moon, but in this game they’re delving deeper into their psychological descriptions and motives.

There will be new characters, the Ultra Recon Squad, whose appearances will change the story axis. They appear straight from the opening, making exciting story developments right from the start.

Other than having a different story development from Sun/Moon, Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon will also have additional episodes after the Hall of Fame. The ultra-changes are expected to be even more massive than Platinum.

On the concepts and directions for making these games, the dev team agreed that they must create them in a different way from Sun/Moon, because the latter took over three years with the entire company staff working on it. Meanwhile, Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon only have one year of development time, so they can’t put in the same amount of power and have to think of a different way to evolve things. That’s when they came up with “Deepening”. Then they have to think again what should they do to deepen something in the game, and they came up with the keyword “Kernel”. So thinking about something’s kernel means deepening it. When the dev staff make a new idea or decision, they’re unifying the team’s thoughts by placing this Kernel word. So while being based on Sun/Moon, Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon are being created as different games, while adding more depth to everything and getting closer to the kernel as its theme.

The topic then moved to the Dusk Lycanroc. Iwao had to reexplain that Lycanroc evolves from Rockruff with different time-based forms (Midday and Midnight). The change of time is a big factor in Sun/Moon, and by adding a new Dusk form, it’s for further emphasizing the change of time. Dusk Lycanroc will symbolize the evening, when light is fading out. He also digresses to mention that Necrozma exists between the sun-ruling Solgaleo and the moon-ruling Lunala.

Ohmori added that Necrozma also appeared in Sun/Moon, with the setting of stealing light. So what will happen to Alola when it goes to the main spotlight? Necrozma will absorb Solgaleo and Lunala, and what will it do after the light has been absorbed? That will be an important factor in the new story.

New Ultra Beasts are added in Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon, but this would mark the first time ever brand-new Pokemon (not new formes) are added in an ‘expansion’ game. Iwao noted that some of the UBs are met beyond the Ultra Wormhole, but it’d be better to consider that as meeting existences that are never seen before. Ohmori pointed that if there are Pokemon in different worlds, there may be also beings there that can treat Pokemon like trainers.

The Ultra Recon Squad will come from another world to Alola through the Ultra Wormhole to investigate about Necrozma. Something is happening in their original world, and they also feel signs that the same thing is going to happen in Alola as well. This signifies that not only Ultra Beasts will come out from Ultra Wormhole.

Players will be able to travel to various different worlds with the Ultra Warp Ride, which has totally different action from Pokemon Ride, just like Mantine Surf. Famitsu noted that the point of users being able to enjoy various kinds of action controls in Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon is becoming its own characteristic. Iwao said that Ultra Warp Ride is one of the ideas that came to fruition when he personally wanted to make a game that looks more like a game than Sun/Moon.

However, Iwao also noted that Ultra Warp Ride’s features are completely different between the first and final iterations. Ohmori added that in Game Freak, people would often progress through their work while talking with others. They’ve made an organizational structure in Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon where staff can properly share opinions with each other.

Although Iwao is gathering the foundations and directions as a director, he is leaving the process of fulfilling project requirements to the respective people in charge. Ohmori added that the working method is too flexible and the specifications would change too often, which may have put some strains on the programmers. But even all programmers there have the strong desire to make good games, so they would cooperate with believing that things would definitely get more interesting if they change them.

Famitsu remembered a legendary time at Game Freak when Shigeki Morimoto got a Mew on his own during the development of Red/Green, but they noted that the DNA of prioritizing interesting things is still alive until now. Ohmori agreed with that. Although it’s very difficult to maintain that, due to the short deadline and a staff team with just around 100 people, they’ve come to understand that it’s part of their culture, so they are doing it while keeping that part important.

After all that long digression, they went back to the Ultra Warp Ride. It has deep gameplay that makes it playable multiple times, so it won’t just act simply as a movement method.

By the way, Iwao also mentioned that Shigeki Morimoto himself is supervising the Ultra Warp Ride as a system planning director. With a veteran like him in the workplace, it’d be easier for the younger staff to learn things. Ohmori noted that they have a good workplace environment where new staff can create games while talking with veteran staff from the Red/Green era.

Everyone in the interview also noted that it becomes much easier to collect and raise Pokemon in Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon than Sun/Moon. Another big factor in Ultra is that the Rotom Dex is getting expanded. By befriending Rotom, you can get special items via the Roto Loto feature that can temporarily increase Exp. Points and Gold, or chances of capturing Pokemon.

There are still a lot of other new features, but Iwao touched on one of them. Among the worlds that can be visited with Ultra Warp Ride, there are worlds where you can meet legendary Pokemon. For example, you can go to a place where you can meet and capture a Mewtwo. Because it has become easier to catch legendary Pokemon, Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon are recommended to those who just started playing the Pokemon series.

Ohmori mentioned once again that other than the new storyline with Ultra Recon Squad, there will be also new episodes after the Hall of Fame. There will be also about 100 new minor sub-events added. So the overall scenario volume will be about twice the amount from Sun/Moon.

Another new feature added is Alola Photo Club, where you can take photos together with Pokemon and add decorations to the photos. It’s added to leave a proof that you’re spending time together with Pokemon. Iwao encourages bringing Pokemon from other titles with the Pokemon Bank to have their photos taken in Alola Photo Club.

Famitsu thinks the above new feature will be popular especially since uploading pictures to social media is trending nowadays. Iwao thinks this feature will be recommended to people who want to always love and admire their Pokemon.