Generation 9!

 Back on the Pokeball grind

It hardly seems real, doesn't it? Even though the time we've waited seems about right, with the way the world has been going since Sword and Shield, hardly moving at all, we almost don't seem ready for Generation 9 right now. I, for one, am not ready to leave behind Hop, Marnie, Klara and Melony as we zoom away from the Galar region; but then the ride doesn't stop and linger for me, now does it? No, the journey of the perpetual 10 year old who relives their path to ascension in different bodies time after time must go on! (Nintendo did say that Pokémon Home is supposed to feel like a home people come back to between Pokémon journeys, didn't they? So our trainer must be some sort of shape shifting timelord who takes over the bodies of children across the world in order to destabilise the careful balance of talent and supremacy in each region one-by-one. When will this ultimate Pokémon tale be told?) The world has turned and dumped about a hundred new Pokémon on our doorstep as this ever expansive world of Pokémon teeters towards becoming too unwieldy to manage. I mean, how are they going to cherry-pick out of the soon-to-be 1000 Pokémon in order to decide which roster will rock up to these wilds? Soon favourites are going to start being left behind.

But there's no time to threat about all that, not when we have Nintendo security guards breaking into company offices whenever they find a slightly ajar door so as to be unwittingly sucked into an episode of the Twilight Zone. (Seriously, that was a really weird premise for a Pokémon reveal trailer. "Remember kids: B&E can lead to some real cool stuff if you pick the right door!") Now we have seen the biggest step forward for the franchise that we need to talk about; those textures: Good lord what is up with those textures? Seriously, some parts of this trailer looked downright ghastly thanks to the rendering, and I don't know if this is supposed to represent a beta-build or if Gamefreak are trying to tell us that this is the extent of their graphical prowess balanced with the scale of this project in question; all I know is that Monster Hunter Rise looks crisp and it's several years old at this point, so they cannot turn around and tell us that the Nintendo Switch is too weak for a decent resolution wall.

In all honesty, though; Pokémon Scarlett and Indigo? Is someone going to need to explain the disparity there, or did Gamefreak seriously just give up their naming convention of related elements for their titles? That was a part of their identity for so long, with significant thematic relevance stretching across alchemical properties, historical importance and just different martial weapons. Red and Blue might have been as cookie cutter as it's been for game names so far, but even those two titles had the perceived effect of being opposite colours. (Although one might say Red and Green are the true opposites. But then Pokémon Green was a thing in Japan, so all bases covered!) And now we have Scarlett and Indigo; which are just colours, I guess? Scarlett is a slightly deeper red and Indigo is a richer blue with some red in there... so does that mean this relates to the originals? 'A new beginning' maybe? I think I may be grasping here, lets see if Gamefreak manage to cook up anything satisfying for this in the limited time they have left until launch.

The big takeaway from this trailer, what we're all supposed to be hopping up and down about even though it's never explicitly said in the trailer and we had to read the official press release after the reveal to confirm it: Is that this will be an open world game! It seems that Pokémon Legends Arceus was not quite the flash-in-the-pan experimental title we were led to believe, in fact the team were already hard at work converting the whole franchise to the open medium all this time and we just didn't realise it. All's the better for us, because it means we no longer have to prove why the Pokémon games are better like this, with Gamefreak themselves geeking out about how we'll now be able to see Pokémon everywhere, in the sky, in the sea and possibly (hopefully) maybe inside of settlements doing daily Flintstones-esque jobs just like New Ryme City in Detective Pikachu. (Just, you know; nowhere near as big.)

Of course that also means we're getting a brand new region to explore which remains as-of-yet unnamed but we can still get a good idea of what sort of geographic theme the team are going for if we squint through the mush-texture packets real hard. There's obviously a Mediterranean vibe here, what with the palm trees and the rolling sapphire oceans gushing with pearly foam in that special, inviting fashion that you just don't get over here in dreary England. (God I want to move. Or have a vacation.) There are also the iconic slopped orange roof slats that are instantly placable with golden sands and beech-white plaster walls, baked pale from an unrelenting sun. Of course, I'm not exactly a king of placing places so the best bet I could make was a toss up between Italy and Greece, but I'm hearing most are agreeing that this is supposed to be Spain so I guess I'm the idiot here.

One thing Gamefreak did not want to provide for some reason, is anything in the way of new Pokémon to look at. Practically every shot in this trailer was from Mons we'd already seen. Including a wild variant of Meowth who looks exactly like Aloan Meowth except for the brown tail tip of normal Meowth. (Does... does that really count as a new variant?) What we did receive, however, was our customary look at this region's starters and... I'll be honest they look kinda lame. Sprigatito, Fuecoco and Quaxly all have hard to pronounce names and there's not a one I'd consider to be the one for this gen. I suppose none of them look humanoid, which was complaint about the Gen 8 starters, but until we see the evolution lines I'm at a toss up when it comes who to fight with. When in doubt- go for the Water starter, I guess.

What I want to see from the new Pokémon we're yet to be introduced to, is just a bit more effort going into their personalities and how the player interacts with them. For example; some Pokémon require players to go through an extra effort in order to evolve them, such as take them under a certain arch with a certain amount of health, or score a number of crits, or level up your friendship rank. We need diversity like that from this new Pokémon lineup so that we players can feel more involved in the journey to 'catch them all' beyond just ticking off numbers from a list. Oh, and it would be real nice if Gamefreak could manage to model all of the past Pokémon for this upcoming game; these models are from the same console afterall, and though some have noticeable improvements; (I saw how shiny Magnemtie looked) I don't know if I can bear the thought of a full Pokémon adventure without my Shiny Yellow Zeraora at my side. Or my accidental four Zarudes! (Don't ask.)

And the most startling thing about this announcement, although at this point it really shouldn't be, is that the team are planning a flash release for the game in less than a year's time. Yep, they want this thing to be out for Christmas, keeping the Pokémon machine just chugging along at full steam. Whether keeping up with the schedule like this, married with such a big change to the well-established Pokémon formula, is going to have any residual effect on the quality of the final product remains to be seen; but I just hope that his whole 'open world' initiative isn't used by Game Freak as an excuse to ignore any of their other pressing criticisms from Gen 8. Most pressingly; that there's typically nothing to do in the endgame. We had to wait until the DLCs to give us purpose in Sword and Shield. Can there at least be a freakin' Beauty Content minigame or something to pass the time for this entry? We can only hope, I guess.