When Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon launched in Japan, the game’s release attracted over 500 people lining up outside the largest Pokemon Center in Japan.

And then things started going downhill.

Just one day after the game’s launch, an avalanche of negative reviews started to pour from customers who pre-ordered the game on Amazon Japan. At the time of writing, here’s how it looks like:

Out of 124 customers, an overwhelming 65 gave Pokemon Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon 1 out of 5 stars. 23 users rated it 5 stars, 11 gave 4 stars, 7 rated 3 stars, and finally 18 gave 2 stars. Due to the high number of low scores received, Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon now have an average 2.5 star rating on Amazon Japan, which is the lowest rating any Pokemon game has ever received on the website.

In fact, things are so bad that Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon are the first mainline Pokemon games on Amazon Japan to receive more one star ratings than other star ratings. For a Pokemon game, it’s really shocking.

Some might claim Japanese gamers are harsher than gamers living in the west, and third versions like Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon, Black 2/White 2 tend to perform worst than their prequel counterparts. Here are some ratings for other Pokemon titles released in the past:

Pokemon Sun

Pokemon Pearl

Pokemon Platinum

Pokemon Black

Pokemon Black 2

But what exactly made Japanese trainers dislike Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon so much? Here are some reviews which don’t mince words.

TETO: I’ll say this from the perspective of something who has spent 1700 hours on Pokemon Sun and Moon, having caught every Pokemon, and having battled Red. Sun and Moon are incomplete titles, Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon (USUM) adds small changes to those incomplete titles, thus USUM are imperfect minor change titles. There’s no feeling of freshness that players felt in Black 2/White 2. On the contrary things have degraded. There’s no National Dex, but only an Alolan Dex unlike in Sun and Moon. Despite that bad explanatory notes still exist in the Pokedex. The Ultra Recon Squad which are new characters in USUM hinder the story’s pace. There is no way to skip the cutscenes, events, and dialogue that appeared in Sun and Moon in USUM. The story’s meaningless conversations and dialogue options along with the story tempo makes everything worse. Although this is a game more toward catching and breeding Pokemon a skip function should have been included to help immerse players in the game. The main story hasn’t changed much and it feels all of this could have been 500 yen DLC for Sun and Moon. If the developers do not reflect on what they have done and continue to run wildly the Pokemon brand will be endangered when more people become indifferent to it. Please reflect on this and make a good Generation 8 game. (1 star out of 5 stars)

Leiden: This should have been DLC. The game has omitted too many crucial steps. There wasn’t any kaizen (improvement) from Pokemon Sun and Moon, which should have been the case. I didn’t expect the game to be sold with the awful friends bullshit tempo. I’m so angry to the extent if Game Freak develops the next Pokemon game I will never buy a Pokemon game again. (1 star out of 5 stars)

Amazo Taro: This game has embarrassed the entire Pokemon franchise. It has only been a year since Sun and Moon were released, making a game with the same story is something I didn’t think they would do. I even had to guess whether there were any changes before entering the (Team Rainbow Rocket) palace from the advertisements. Absolutely disappointing and bad quality. I believe the profits from this game not only go to Game Freak but a considerable chunk goes to Nintendo too. Nintendo is responsible for this too… because Pokemon is a cash cow. (1 star out of 5 stars)

Amazon Customer: This is not a new title at all! I wouldn’t call Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon a poor quality piece of work. It stands at the same level as add-on DLC that should have been made available for Sun and Moon. The developers worked hard on Sun and Moon thus it was evident that the game was profitable. If they did something similar to Black 2 and White 2’s “several years later” setting I would have given Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon 5 stars. Do not trick and exploit children with such copycat behavior! Or else this game wouldn’t yield a profit. (1 star out of 5 stars)

Kyasarin: Thank you Nintendo. With the release of this title I have abandoned Nintendo. I thank you for everything up till today. Please continue to work hard. With that I give this 5 stars. (5 out of 5 stars)

Do you think the Japanese have gone overboard or are completely reasonable with their comments? Let us know in the comments section below. Meanwhile you may wish to consider checking out our review.

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