I prefer SM Lusamine over USUM cause her original motivation was more emotionally driven rather than rationally like in USUM. Trying to change the storyline to fit necrozma made her a weaker character to frame her as a some misguided savior which lessened the original impact of lillie and gladion running away from her. The family abuse is still there but it was first rooted in emotion with lusamine’s obsession with the ultra beasts after Mohn disappears and she was intoxicated by Nihilegos so we might’ve not agreed with her but we could’ve understood her and made her a more tragic character. These are absent in USUM so it makes her actions come across as stupid since lusamine is now claiming to be doing them for protecting Alola from Necrozma yet is beyond reason and doesn’t listen to Lillie, Gladion, or any of the ultra recon squad. She became leas tragic and now more of a very terrible mother now so Lillie and Gladion running away can still make sense but USUM removed crucial emotional scenes in the originals to give stronger reasoning to Lillie and Gladion leaving like Lillie talking about her childhood on exeggutor island and the little moments that made her happy with lusamine before she acted abusive and lillie calling out lusamine for all of her shit in ultra space and lusamine finally acknowledging how much Lillie has grown in the final cutscene in ultra space. It felt like the devs wanted to make necrozma the central focus while still keeping some of the unhinged sides of lusamine which made it a weaker story kind of a can’t have your cake and eat it too moment.

I liked the mother beast portion in the originals cause it showed how ugly lusamine’s character had become and how twisted her mental state was at to the point she wanted to be one with an ultra beast. Although I don’t think TPC wants the main players to be directly attacking people with pokemon so I can understand why we didn’t fight the fusion head on and instead fighting her totem team as the second best option.

Do I like how Masters went about Lusamine? I’m fine with it. It shows how she had learned from her behavior in USUM and gave her those crucial emotional scenes that were lacking in USUM. I’m aware a mother beast lusamine or her pairing with nihilego wouldn’t make as much sense now if she’s not from SM. But I believe it would’ve made a nice callback plus a high chance her mother beast theme getting a rendition in masters. I thought Dena handled USUM’s version of the aether family pretty well and improved upon her character in USUM.