Didn't play Sun and Moon, but I did play Ultra Sun. From what I hear, it's largely the same until the latter portions. Rather than chasing the World's Greatest Mother down a portal and watch her child disown her on the spot, we're instead treated to lovecraftian horror when our cute lion pal is possessed by an evil prism. Said prism then yeets itself into a wormhole, we chase after it, and it becomes a giant overpowered lamp or something. Then the wormholes open up again and out come every antagonist to try and commandeer Aether Foundation, only to be kicked out by a 10 year old.

Ultra Beasts only really get explored in texts you find scattered while searching for Big Lamp Guy. But even then it's clearly just passing mentions and doesn't go into too much detail.

I wish TPC would realize that they've added in so much to the franchise and would just consolidate them or focus on them. We went from Mega Stones to Z Moves to Gigantamax, as well as Alolan and Galarian formes. It's clear that they don't have a guiding thread and don't know how to handle all the stuff they've added in. And being dismissive of the previous games' mechanics to put the new gen on the spotlight doesn't help.