Let’s be honest: the competitive Battle Spot is a ghost town. The Festival Plaza is a silent mall. But updating to Version 1.2 does three things for the preservationist:

Headline: Is your Pokémon Ultra Sun up to date? Version 1.2 is essential!

On the main title screen (where you press Start to open your save file), look at the bottom-right corner of the top screen.

Approximately 539 blocks (about 67.35 MB) of space on the Nintendo 3DS SD card.

This update is mandatory for accessing all online features, including Link Battles and the Global Trade System (GTS). Major Bug Fixes

This was the main purpose of the update. Without Version 1.1, you cannot transfer Pokémon between Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon and the Pokémon Bank.

If you are playing Ultra Sun today on original hardware (3DS), this update is essential for . Without Version 1.2, you cannot access: Link Battles: Challenging friends online. Wonder Trades/GTS: Trading Pokémon globally.

However, the update also highlights a point of contention in modern gaming culture: the necessity of patching. The fact that a player purchasing a physical cartridge of Pokémon Ultra Sun today cannot access all online features or transfer Pokémon without first downloading a separate patch serves as a reminder of the ephemeral nature of modern software. While the update fixed problems, it also cemented the idea that the "definitive" version of a game no longer exists solely on a physical cartridge, but rather in the combination of that cartridge and the downloadable data stored on Nintendo’s servers.

: Once you update to version 1.2, any Battle Videos saved under previous versions (1.0 or 1.1) will no longer be playable or shareable.