Much like the two of you, I also expected that of Skull/Aether. Aether seemed WAY too goodie-goodie in the trailers, even without the intro explicitly showing Lillie trying to escape them. What I DIDN'T expect was Team Skull to try to steal a bus stop. This cemented them as my favorite team ever, they're such lovable dorks.
This is probably my favorite stand-alone entry in the series on it's own merits (I mean, OR/AS were amazing from a competitive standpoint, but just okay on it's main arc.) I actually wanted to keep playing to see what happened next (Speficially, if Lillie would try to tell Solgaleo/Lunala to get in the bag. Just kidding. Partially. I want a fanart of this, though.) and I was rewarded with moments like the Fire Trial Photobombing.
My issue with the main story is that it's way too predictable. Skull and Aether? Check. Lusamine's relation to both Lillie and Gladion? Too obvious. Hau dissappearing constantly to get fat on malasada in every single city and barely being around for most of the game except when showing up to challenge you? I had this pegged the moment he first mentioned getting some.
As for the game itself and it's balance/distribution of pokemon? I caught a Grubbin on Route 1. I kept Charjabug in my party until Poni Poni Canyon. What a dissapointment. That right there summarizes most of my issues with the game; you get a lot of things WAY too late, with way too much of the game being the typical Rattata/Yungoos/Spearow/etc stuff. On the flip side, look how early you can snag a Wishiwashi, and that thing's Schooling Form has a higher BST than pseudolegendaries. Much like in Gen 1 how you can't get a fire type besides Charmander until Cinnabar Island, right before the 7th gym, I think Sun and Moon could stand to take notes from X and Y in terms of good early game variety and differentiating each route's pokemon more strongly. Being able to get a level 9-12 Salamence is freaking hilarious, though.
My issues mostly stem from the Postgame. The moment I became league champion, I began to struggle with battles, for some reason. I actually had to reset against postgame Guzma and Blue, since I just had the wrong setup for dealing with their teams. Keep in mind, I didn't even come close to struggling throughout the main story (Even if Totem Mimikyu did get me down to 2/6 because haunter's hypnosis would not miss.) And then I tried the Battle Tree. Remember when the battle tower/frontier/maison/etc would start you on easy opponents for some quick BP? Nope. It's like the 2015 meta all over again. First battle, I go against a Togekiss/Rotom lead. FML.
