To be fair, Sun and Moon is being compared to ORAS, which is a VERY high bar.

I liked SM quite a lot. there were some things i disliked like the plaza but there was one thing that to me made SM very special:

Culture

More than any other game, in SM the "world of pokemon" actually felt like an actual world. No longer were regions a copy-pasted format of gyms and pokemon leagues, but introduced the idea that different parts of the world will grow differently. Regional variance was introduced to evolution, something that logically would be occurring in every region. Of course they did that somewhat with Shellos in Sinnoh, but not to the same level. I found it fascinating to see the professor highlight the differences of lifestyle between Kanto and Alola. Alola culture did not develop around HMs but instead rode pokemon everywhere. the same with Mega-stones. Alola didn't have them, but instead developed their own version in Z-moves.

I didn't care very much that we didn't have mega stones because Z-moves WERE megastones, simply the Alola version of them. I liked the trials because it portrayed the differences in Alolan culture compared to other regions. Even the structure of the way they worshiped their individual island deities reflected this. The UBs were kind of confusing for me but.. oh well, they look cool. And what's more is that all these things are special only to Alola. You're not going to find the same trials in any other region. You won't find the same variants anywhere else. and (probably) you won't be seeing Z-moves featured outside of Alola. Though they might use it as a way to keep the number of megastones from getting out of hand.

I will say I was disappointed by two things: one was the plaza, which was very inconvenient for multiplayer compatibility (Probably the game's biggest fallback, ORAS' popularity was by a large part due to its extremely easy method for playing with those around you) Second was of course the limited customizing of trainers clothes and looks, but I guess it could have been worse.

Also there was Type:Null. i HATE Type:null It's the embodiment of an angsty teenager who thinks the world revolves around them but doesn't. I could go on ranting for a while about this one, But I'll spare you the text wall.