thealexmott Pokémon Scarlet & Violet Review

Pokémon Violet and Scarlet are the first great Pokémon games since Black 2 and White 2, and hooked me the way that no game had since Breath of the Wild. The best Pokémon games (as far as I'm concerned) are the ones that nail that sense of adventure I felt when I played Blue Version for the first time in 1998. As the series has gone on, new generations have grown increasingly linear and hand-holdy. Sword and Shield had a map that was effectively a straight line, as if they had taken inspiration from the absolute worst board in the entire Mario Party franchise. Sun and Moon created a great world, but strictly limited where you were able to go. Pokémon X & Y famously stopped you from going through certain parts of Lumiose City due to a "blackout". All of these games lacked a sense of agency. You've always been able to pick whatever team you want, sure. But when a set path is enforced, you can only get so much variety into those 6 slots. This is why SV taking place in a legitimate open-world setting makes all the difference. The joy of exploration instantly washed away my disappointment with SwSh. THIS is the Pokémon adventure I'd been wanting for so long! The early inclusion of the box legendary as an improved bike was genius, ensuring that you're able to begin exploring wherever you'd like from the get-go. I played for 3 or 4 hours before I even entered Mesagoza, catching at least one of everything I encountered and exploring as far as I could in every direction. Throughout the dozens of hours that would follow, I was often impressed and sometimes overwhelmed by just how many Pokémon were on-screen at any given point. I'm obviously not saying this was impressive from a technical standpoint, but having completely removed random encounters and replaced it with a buffet where you can actually see every Pokémon you could run into made me absurdly happy. It's a bit of a shame that they didn't keep Arceus's throw-a-ball-anytime catching mechanics, but this is a perfectly enjoyable middle ground. I've encountered and caught two shinies thus far, and being able to see them in the overworld instead of just looking for sparkles in a random encounter made those moments more engaging than any shiny I'd caught in a previous game. Constant items to pick up were great for a DK64-pilled brain like mine, and the ability to send my little buddies out to genocidally auto-battle hordes of Skiddo into oblivion never got old. I do have to say that while I love the idea of using materials to craft TMs in theory, I've only actually crafted like 3 of them so far. Maybe I'll get more into it in the post-game! The different rewards for the three different types of badges and challenges were great. Deciding what to do next became less about whatever was nearby and more about "Hmm do I want to upgrade Miraidon's riding abilities next, or do I want higher-level Pokémon to listen to me first? More TMs might be nice though", and I really appreciated having an actual motivation for going after those goals beyond just checking stuff off a list. The only issue I had with any of this was that there's no EXP gained from the Team Star raids. That felt like a rather stingy omission. Besides checking the "Adventure" box, Pokémon lives or dies with its new monsters. And Gen IX easily has the goofiest batch we've ever gotten. (Some spoilers in this paragraph for Pokémon descriptions if you're going in blind and haven't played yet) I laughed out loud when my Tandemaus evolved from two mice hanging out into four mice hanging out. I felt hilariously conflicted when Dunsparce FINALLY got an evolution, and it was... that. There's a dung beetle! A dead puppy! A dolphin superhero! A cute pink baby thing with a giant hammer! A Godzilla that's even more Godzilla than Tyranitar was! An entire car! And most importantly, the Fire/Grass spicy pepper Pokémon I've literally been wishing for since like 2009! Clodsire and Annihilape are some of the best "new evolutions added to an old Pokémon" designs we've ever had. And these PARADOX MONS you guys. This is the one bit where Scarlet has a bit of an advantage over Violet, as I don't think Robot Delibird or Pokemon Rumble U Hydreigon are anywhere near as cool as Great Tusk or Roaring Moon, but they're all wins in my book. Lastly, to touch on the ending with out any spoilers, I don't think any other Pokémon game has stuck the landing like Scarlet and Violet have. The three different story paths all converge for the climax in a way that 100% worked for me. SwSh were probably the worst offenders for having the game just fizzle out at the end, so the contrast here is night and day. (I considered a Sun and Moon joke here, but couldn't get it to not sound hokey) There are legitimate characters here that I actually cared about, and their involvement in the post-game has got me excited to take on the new challenges the game presented after I rolled credits. I am elated by this new direction for main-series Pokémon. My playthrough was thankfully not affected by any glitches other than superficial visuals, but I still can't wait to see what they can do if they manage to get literally any kind of technical expertise into Game Freak! Anyway, after 86 hours and change, I 100%ed this game. Every trainer has been beaten. Every Pokemon Center prize obtained. Each teacher quest completed. Every final exam passed. All TMs acquired. I had completed the Pokedex right after I rolled credits, but now I'm finally done. What a killer game. But I spent AT LEAST 8 hours just trying to get Sweet Herba Mystica from raids for Mr. Saguaro!!! GAH