Pokemon Scarlet and Violet Complete Journey Review

 Hasta la Vi-Star

The Ballard of the ninth generation of Pokémon will go down as one of the most interesting in the franchises history for it's many lows but commendable highs in Gamefreak's attempt to go beyond themselves and somewhat change the face of the franchise forever. It's been over a year since release now and we've finally received our last DLC. (See that Starfield? We should be wrapping up DLC after Year One- not just getting started!) What this means is that with the entire adventure of Pokemon Scarlet up to grabs, and the game feeling mostly complete as a consequence, I feel comfortable reviewing this game in it's entirety. Barring any sudden explosive developments, this is about as complete of an impression as I can feasibly get.

Firstly, it's worth noting that Pokemon Scarlet and Violet suffered from a legendarily painful launch that had the game riddled with the kind of glitches and bugs that are actually game breaking, not just the odd hiccup that sets 'gaming purist' forums off. What Gen 9 wanted to achieve was to hop off the momentum of Pokémon Archeus to present us the very first fully open-world Pokemon game uncoupled from the narrow design foibles that made the franchise feel so stale recently. Many blame the technological limitations of the Nintendo Switch, but given the release of 'Tears of the Kingdom' and the state that game managed to achieve- I think this is probably more of a comment on the team themselves. They did not have experience building and testing for a game of this size before, and they were stuck to the same extremely narrow window for development that the franchise has been on since the dawn of Pika-man. Early buyers ended up suffering the consequence of those factors in a truly shocking first few months of life.

Being lucky enough to pick up the game a bit after all that mess, I could focus a little bit more on the actual world of Scarlet and Violet and the team's dedication to their open world design; which was stronger than I honestly expected. Generation 8 brought us a giant open field of exploration, and the Isle of Amor expanded that out to an entire, tightly designed, training island to explore. Generation 9 brought the entire game world into the open world, free camera, realm and it slides in just about as well as everyone who has been begging for this believed it would. Rather than give us routes that slowly get tougher, the sectors of the game world are split into levelled regions that players are free to explore at their leisure, and the total elimination of grass encounters means that every single Pokémon is rendered in the game world- imparting a requirement on the design team to be mindful of habitats and thematic consistency, which the game tackles in an admirable attempt.

However, there are draw backs. Whilst I still don't think the Switch is the ideal whipping boy for all of it's problems, it's hardware limitations are no doubt the reason why the game has an abominable draw distance for entities; you'll see Pokémon pop into existence less than a yard from you, and literally feet in front of the player when mounted on the mascot legendary. Pokémon still lack that level of coherent intergration into everyday life that we see demonstrated beautifully in Detective Pikachu, and somehow even with these new deign philosophies all the world's Pokémon still feel like little more than pets. In fact, all the towns feel woefully poorly designed, with wide open nothing spaces one would anticipate from a high-traffic MMO hub-town and not a breathing and living space in a mostly single player game that you are expected to frequent. And don't even get me started on the loading screens! The academy was a nightmare to travel to for all the poxy loading screens!

Curiously, there aren't loading screens into battles anymore. (Which blew me away to realise was still standard until literally this entry.) And the ability to sneak up on Pokemon actually enables a 'stealth Pokeball' move which initiates combat with an initial catch-rate bonus, actually promoting clever use of shrubs and approach angles for those most infuriating-to-catch mons. There is genuine thought that went into evolving the Pokemon playstyle, and if the team were given more than the bare minimum amount of time to get it done, I suspect the released product would have felt a lot more fully formed. As it happens we've had to wait for all the DLC to launch to finally get features that feel like they should have been present off rip- such as the ability to fly on the back of our mount Pokemon, not just glide. But I'm getting into specifics a little early.

The narrative of Scarlet and Violet has the player step into the uniform of a newly inducted student to Paldea's most prestigious, and only, Pokémon school- a giant tower sticking out of the middle of the capital city. As you'd expect from the curriculum of a school set within the Pokémon world, all the school consists of are exceptionally drab (and mercifully optional) school lessons with a memory test at the end of each of them. Thankfully, lessons themselves are not the meat of the game. As soon as you arrive the game gives you a quick introduction, introduces to your rival and best friend- this time wrapped up into the same character: the battle-crazy rich girl Tomboy Nemona- and sets you loose on a free form narrative in the vein of Breath of the Wild or Far Cry 5. Now I'm not typically the biggest fan for this style of narrative because it always seems to sacrifice any situational momentum and all opportunity for agency building in favour of 'choose as you go' objectives who's only benefit is the ability to drop them on a whim like an ADHD struck child. But in the case of a Pokémon game, there isn't much story to jeprodise in the first place- so it actually works to the game's advantage.

The progression of the narrative is split into three paths that are equitably spread across the game's giant world to ensure you visit everywhere on your journey to championhood, with the level of the local Pokémon in each region presenting the only actual roadblock to progression. You have the challenge battles against the mysterious Team Star, former problem students that are shirking lessons for a secret reason that becomes blindingly obvious upon your first investigation because this game was written for children. The typical 'road to championship' which pits you against the world's gym bosses in order to qualify for a shot at the top position, which feels impressively not-important this go around of the game. And finally the investigation into the mysterious giant boss Pokemon from a different time period that are scattered across the plains, which are tied to the game's unique gimmick: Terrestrialization.

One of the more gimmicky, but still fun, aspects of Gen 8 was the Dynamax and Gigantamax forms of Pokémon that ballooned Pokémon up to giant proportions and powered up all moves to type-specific superforms. They were typically only useful for dens, as the animation to summon them took so long, but the desire to hunt all the special 'Gigatamax marked' variants with their special form-altering giant mode was enough to keep me interested. Terrestialization offers precious little in the way of collectible potential, but is admittedly a lot more sensibly balanced. It's a power up to a single pre-picked element type which makes STAB attacks more powerful and weaknesses just as buffed. There are no special forms outside of those adopted by the cover-exclusive Pokémon in the DLC, and the animations to summon them are still painfully long. At least the dens are better this time around.

Dynamax dens were a bit of a joke in Gen 8. Terra Dens are a lot more serious in Gen 9. Terra Dens are four person raids against powerful raid Pokemon powered up by Terra effects and pumped up with periodic stage effects it can whip out for free at certain timer and health parameters. It also employs a painfully strong damage shield halfway through the fight which is a pain to whittle down without taking advantage of type advantages, your own terra-charge and, to be honest, as much STAB as possible. At the top most end of them, the limited time 7 star dens, these guys are pretty much unbeatable without a team of properly built Pokemon, creating genuine end-game challenge which I hope sticks around in future Pokemon titles. I like the idea of having high-level endgame content that isn't just player Tournaments- it stimulates the adventure.

This adventure counts itself as rather unique to the Pokemon games that came before it, in that the front cover Pokemon is not the end game boss. Actually, the front cover Pokemon is your partner throughout the entire adventure. (albeit only for mounting purposes. You have to unlock their fighter form.) They are basically bikes for the player to ride atop of, capable of swimming, climbing walls, gilding and, at the end of the very last DLC, flying. And good lord is this the optimal way to get around in Pokemon from this point forward. Even the instant fast travel of Sword and Shield started to grate after a while, gliding across valleys and sprinting down canyons is just a much more engaging way to travel, even when there isn't a great lot to be looking at along the way. The fast mode of transport makes the largely plain features of the Paladian landscape actually somewhat forgiveable.

Of course, with all this travelling you'll be doing there would need to be a moment of rest, which is where camping returns with a suitably Spanish-coded variant of the cooking activity- Sandwich making? (Is- is that particularly Spanish?) Once again, we've had significant improvements in this mechanic. Sandwiches are built according to a recipe piece by piece and the player is required to balance all the ingredients on the base loaf and stick the top on without anything falling off- which of course become more difficult for higher level sandwiches. But the rewards are impressively worth the hassle of ingredient sourcing! You get timed boosts for certain damage types, increases to Egg production rates, (Breeding is now done entirely in camp. The convenience is nice but it takes so long that Shiny egg hunting is pretty much dead.) buffs to capture rates which are invaluable for some of the painful Legendary capture rates added in the Indigo Disk and, only available via special ingredients so rare I've literally never found a single one of them in my entire playtime, increased shiny spawn rates! These are all really great buffs!

'Convenience' really does seem to be the 'modus operendi' of the system design for this game, and whereas for most average gamers this improvements seem rather obvious and trite, to us long-suffering Pokemon fans these are tinctures of the god's own juices! You can have a Pokemon remember a move from your menu, without hunting down a hospital! You can change Pokemon names from the menu! Teleport from the map, save anywhere, camp anywhere, throw out your Pokemon independently so it can do auto-battles for you to gather Pokemon resources- the new currency for TM cloning which makes casual battling worth while. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet feel like Gamefreak speeding towards reaching modern game design values so fast that they tripped over and hurt themselves along the way. And though the scraped knees are a little ugly to look at, and they're hobbling about with a limp now- it's so good to see them in such form! Pokemon feels modern- mostly. And I'm here for it!

And yet, Gamefreak always do manage to veer in some directions that irk me. For one, they are pushing really hard in the 'play with friends' angle in a franchise that is traditionally rather solitary. (If I had friends, I wouldn't be pretending to have them in Pokémon- now would I?) The aforementioned 7 star dens can be almost impossible if everyone doesn't know what they're doing, the Orge Ousting minigame for The Teal Mask is genuinely unbeatable without 4 players, the annoying BBQ grinding minigame for The Indigo Disk receives insane multipliers for group play (which is actually non-sensical. They already get more BP because all group side quest rewards are unified, shouldn't the solo players get the extra profitable bonus missions for balance purposes?) and there is one evolution that simply won't occur unless triggered in another player's world. This would all be fine if Pokemon Scarlet and Violent had any modern matchmaking standards but... that's where the team ran up dry. Outside of Raid Dens it's all 'Link Code' matchmaking. No joining randos. A real kick to the nads for players like me. Makes us feel unwelcome.

In it's basic narrative wraps the story of Scarlet and Violet around the mystery of 'Area Zero' and the 'time paradox' Pokemon who all appear to be variants from across history brought into the modern age. (The future or the past depending on your version.) It's a pretty loosely tugged on narrative thread, even more so now that Pokemon splits it's narrative efforts down three paths, and events only really pick up in the final act where the professor of your game finally drags you down into a thematically really exciting looking finale, with no weight behind any of it because you know next to nothing about the area, the mystery of the terra Pokemon, or even why your Legendary Pokemon has a special place in the story. It's not even unique, this is the first Pokemon game to present two capturable versions of the franchise Legendary. (It allows you to capture one and trade to complete your Pokedex, but narratively- it slightly knocks you down.) The actual meat of the story was left, presumably, for the DLC to pick up on.

The Teal Mask was the first DLC released in the early months of this year and it introduced the player to a field trip that took them to the land of Kitakami, one of Gamefreak's weaker locations in visual design. It's kind of just a small Japanese town with a mountain range, there's no real individuality beyond those basic geographical elements. Rather than touch on the narrative of the main game at all, this DLC focuses around the legend of the mountain Ogre and builds up the Legendary's... well... Legend to a degree that the main game lacked. It also introduces us to two new best friend characters in Kieran and Carmine, which seems bizarre given that the main game already had a cast who don't show up in either DLC. What, is Nemona busy having dreams about when she next gets to ambush me for a Pokemon battle? Is Penny hiding for fear of another tongue-assault from Koraidon? Thiers is a pretty bizarre omission. At least the Ogre ousting minigame is fun, if solo player exclusionary.

And finally, the second half of the DLC slate: The Indigo Disk. An excursion to the Blueberry Academy off the coast of Unova where you, an exchange student, embark on a mission to battle some sense into the emotionally broken young brother of your Nemona-replacement, I mean 'Carmine', following the events of the Teal Mask. I'm quite impressed with how the DLC's were able to maintain a consistent narrative and the characterisation of Kieran's descent into obsessive perfectionism was rather well done, if hugely derivative in the anime space of storytelling. (It might have been more impressive if they didn't get it right with all the reference material to 'borrow' from.) The tighter focus on this one plot point does wonders with enforcing what actually matters to the story- which is why it is so galling then that the ending chapter is so bad. Having you finally address 'The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero', which was the naming convention of the pack we bought to access this content, the game proceeds to unveil nothing.

I wish I was kidding, but this game's final chapter must have been written by the same screenwriter who penned 'The Secrets of Dumbledore' because there is no narrative substance to this 'hidden treasure' whatsoever. The Legendary, Terapagos, is given absolutely no build up. No backstory. No explanation as to it's connection to the Terrestialization phenom that is said to be the entire purpose of the study into Area Zero. Nothing is resolved by your capturing of Terapagos aside from the 'goodening' of Kieran and it leaves the story of the entire game in a kind of weird limbo state of non resolution- closing out nothing of significance to the world. And speaking of non-satisfying conclusions- I'm sorry to say that despite the recent eye-brow raising trend of requests from fans, (fans who I assume are hopped up on Baldur's Gate 3) Gamefreak have not introduced the ability to rizz up characters from the game. Sorry, Rika fans. Nemona stands. Penny lovers. Dendra simps. Carmine Carers. Pokemon just ain't that sort of game.

At the very least we have a secret hidden epilogue scene where you are caught in an inexplicable time paradox with the real version of your version's professor whereupon you initiate a paradoxical time loop by instilling in them a curiosity to begin the studies that you will later become involved in to learn about Area Zero to being with. A cool idea if it wasn't so slapdash and poorly explained. (Clever concepts don't quite work unless their presented... you know- in a clever way!) We do know there's an 'as of yet' unannounced secret hour of content with a brand new Mythical Pokemon at the end of it waiting to be unlocked, presumably with the next few months, but I doubt they're going to get around to patching the flapping maw of void that is this game's finished story. Such a shame that Gamefreak failed to stick the landing even in a story as basic and straightforward as this one.

Scarlet and Violet is easily Gamefreak's most ambitious game to date, and it's in the spirit of that ambition that I feel softer on some of it's rougher elements. The rendering failures, the arguably empty feeling world- the nowhere narrative is less forgivable, but they had a lot on their plate- maybe they forgot to actually sit down and do the writing until the last week or something. Still I was actually surprised about how much Gamefreak had to pull out of their sleeve in order to make the free world plains of their first totally open game not a boring waste like a Ubisoft Far Cry game. Paldea has personality and charm, and I genuinely enjoy travelling around it on the back of my winged Pokemon. (I have Scarlet.) Barring the excessively rough launch, I would have to call Scarlet leaps and bounds in the right direction. But there's still a prevailing sense of the developers not being quite there yet. Pokemon is still a few generations off from it's 'masterpiece' game that nails an identity for this franchise down- but if every generation evolves leaps and bounds like this one does- I'm certain that game will come out someday. In that spirit I'm willing to grade the full version of Scarlet and Violet, DLC included, a solid B- Grade, which is much improved from the C- I was looking at for the base game before the more focused DLC snippets brought everything into cohesion. I think we're 80% of the way there to a revolution for this franchise, I can feel it buzzing on the air... maybe next game?

When did Pokemon become a Live Service?

Did I blink?

I suppose it should be something of a public service announcement to say it out loud if you've not read it before, but owners of the latest generation of Pokémon games should immediately put down the controller and leave the game dormant for the foreseeable future whilst Nintendo try to solve a problem that is hard-corrupting saves. Yes, apparently the most recent update to the game in order to add a 'please pre-order the DLC' button to all of the ingame menus, carried with it a 'worst case scenario bug' which is effecting a bunch of people with sporadically different triggers. I've been lucky enough to avoid it by now but I'm not going to risk picking it back for nobody. Then again, the saying does go "Unlucky in love, lucky in cards", so knowing my luck I'd probably be fine going on a straight 24 hour bender until the next update drops. Although I've heard something quite curious from those unlucky souls out there who did land on 'snake eyes' with their save files. They bemoan the loss of countless hours of work they put into getting all the Pokémon and shinies in their deck.

Work is the word they use, not 'playtime', not 'amateur zoologist try-outs'; these people consider the collation of the Pokédex they want, the collection of the tournament-fit fighters that they need or the collection of shinies they desire, as being akin to work. And to their small credit, for most of these people that is actually a totally reasonable equation to make. Some of these people are talking losing Sixty shines with their corrupted saves! SIXTY! Bear in mind that Pokémon Home isn't open to Scarlet and Violet yet, meaning all of those shines had to have been caught in bred in the few months since these games came out. And also bear in mind, that Scarlet and Violet gutted the ability to effectively breed on the hunt for shinies. (I can only assume that such a man has possess no job or hobbies or family or even legs, and thus only play Pokémon all day.) But that verbiage there; of playing a game so often it's pretty much akin to a second job- there's only genre of game that really evokes those sorts of feelings that I can think of.

Live Services have since the very beginning of their existence been an investment as much in your time as your money. They are titles usually put together with less content than you'd hope for out of your typical fully finished video game, but stretched out so painfully thin through level-gating, intentionally grindy level curves and overly big boss bars to make that small pool of content last long enough for the devs to cook up some new content and slip it out the door before the community is done and dusted with the original lot of stories and missions. A philosophy likely borne to mimic the MMO cycle, but to a much easier to replicate degree. These are games that require daily commitments for grinding to get the things that you want, to roll the die for the right weapon drops, grind out enough currency to spend at the premium shop or simply unlock the newest level cap before the next update shoots that cap into the stratosphere. Does any of that sound familiar?

All of the Pokémon games have been time investments in order to reach the feasible 'completion' point of the game and collect all the available monsters listed within the Pokédex. But I have to admit that recently there really has been a trend towards stretching out content to last longer and this most recent generation in particular has even had it's hand at Live Service-style adding of content. I've already mentioned how the egg system has been gutted, but EV training is just as painful with there being no decent way to grind berries. So Tournament building is unnecessarily bloated. (Sword and Shield, with the Isle of Armor, is still the best game for building Tournament ready Pokémon in.) And the main quest of Scarlet and Violet does stretch on for an inordinate amount of time for a Pokémon game; almost in the manner that a Live Service game might with it's storylines. But I think the biggest smoking gun comes from the new raid system.

Itself an evolution on Sword and Shield's Dynamax raids; Scarlet and Violet offers a collaborative dungeon system where players can meet up over the internet to fight giant powerful Pokémon and be rewarded with a chance to catch that Pokémon after the fact. There's less 'collector' reasons to do so now because this generation's gimmick is kind of visually underwhelming compared to last generation's, but the special promoted dens that Gamefreak cycles in and out do provide some fantastically built Pokémon to snatch up. But recently Gamefreak went that one step further, by debuting two version exclusive brand spanking new Legendary Paradox Pokémon that can only be caught in these raids. Essentially a lightning bolt call to action summoning fans back to the game as any Live Service might by debuting a new raid or dungeon. (You know, just with considerably less effort on the developer's side, because this is Gamefreak we're talking about here.)

The typical cycle of a Live Service game revolves around these calls to action that summons the audience back to their stables, because through this electricity bump the developers and publishers can ensure player retention and increase player's conviction and devotion to the game. The more players become devoted, the more they're likely to spend on some of the microtransactions to keep the game going. Now, Pokémon has yet to introduce any form of microtransactions (Thank god) however we can see a similarity in that basic approach to recurrent customers if we take the scope of the model and expand it out to a franchise-wide view. From here, it's very clear that Pokémon games have actually been on the Live Service train of development for quite a while now, perhaps ever since the very first sequel before even the concept of the Live Service wyrm was a glint in it's mother's postman's eye.

Pokémon games have always boasted about their 'Poke Bank' service which allows monsters to be transferred from game to game, essentially tying the progression of each game into one continuous train regardless of narrative consistency. This alone provides a throughline from which the developers can pull players time and time again to the 'action' of buying the latest Pokémon game in order to interact with their favourite monsters. Adding new Pokémon with each generation simply encourages achievers to work on building their collection, killer archetype players will want to maintain their best Pokémon against the growing competitive meta with ever increasing rooster, explorer players will build attachments to the memories of their longest held Pokémon, and socialisers are being catered to with Gamefreak's relatively recent venture into online community features. (Although that is very much still work-in-progress.)

So to answer the question: When did Pokémon become a Live Service? I guess it kind of always was, only the franchise has leant into it's own unique take on the genre which celebrates it's own mechanics and strengths; which is one of the directions that the Live Service genre is sorely lacking in. Perhaps when Gamefreak have run out of ideas, or pushed their creativity to the limits of Nintendo's current hardware, they'll fall into the lowest common denominator and find some way to throw in 'Loot systems' with rarity tables and all that cookie-cutter heartless feature-systems that all the rest of these games automatically chuck into the cauldron without a single critical thought- but until then this franchise stands a beacon that even in this most whittled down and gutted of genres, there can be some creative individualism. Maybe that is why Pokémon has remained itself a giant of the industry for so very long. (Because it can't be the quality of the games, god knows that.)

Gamefreak pulls a dud?

 Mistakes were made

There is a certain breed of game developer out there that is condemned to make nothing but the exact same game over and over for years on end. This is the same sort of developer that will bleed and grow new employees over the space of the surrounding twenty or so years, only to stagnate as the years go by and their jobs become a repetitive task over and over. Yes, you can change the world, research new cultures to base the art off, smack into your head over and over that this time you're doing something new and interesting, but if it's going into the exact same sort of game that you were making last year, there's no real way that your end product isn't going to progressively grow worse and worse. It's fatigue, wear and tear, and artistic stagnation all rolled up in one, bound by the purse strings of corporate greed. And that is the hell that Game Freak have been in for the longest time.

Under the Pokémon Company, Game Freak have been almost single-handily tasked with ensuring the world has a Pokemon game to play almost every year since the franchise launched; keeping the property fresh in the minds of all comers as the primary source of enjoying the Pokemon world. Card collecting comes and goes in popularity, the TV show has to contend with viewership seasons, the video games are the one constant which can ensure the franchise is never far from people's minds. But as video games become bigger and more involved productions, it seems the workload of Game Freak has only increased upon itself, to the point where in this year alone Game Freak were expected to release and maintain two high quality Pokemon games of significantly different style at the beginning and end of this year.

Now we know that Legends: Arceus has actually been worked on in the background for quite some time before release and Game Freak have proven themselves to be a big enough company to create more than one project at the same time; but that doesn't mean the toil of developing two independent video games simultaneously whilst committing to an asinine bi-yearly schedule isn't going to come with short comings. Unless Game Freak have the money to create an entirely independent studio under them, which they haven't so far so I can only assume they don't have that sort of money, these development cycles are going to start feeding into one another. That's just the cost of ever increasing expectation in a market that is only becoming more complex and expectant.

Of course, this is just me explaining the raw facts of the situation. I'm not here making excuses for why it is that Game Freak are incapable of making a brilliant genre-defining Pokémon game once again.  That's for their main marketing team to brush off with a smile whilst assuring everyone that Game Freak are doing just as fine as they always were. Nor is this me trying to make excuses for the increadibly pitiful way in which Scarlett and Violet launched; to the point where many feel like they're playing the early access to a title at least six months away from a 1.0 launch. There really is no excuse for charging so much for a product like that and you lose the sympathy of me when you do regardless of the very real complications that are going to come in the way of delivering.

Oh and the game crashes. It breaks down more than a Vauxhall. Or a Tesla when you aren't in the country of the companies origin. Pokemon Scarlett and Violett sees more crashes to the home screen then any other first party game allowed on the Switch ecosystem, and if Gamefreak were literally any other company (other than Nintendo themselves, obviously) this game would never have been greenlit to be sold on their storefront. (Oh wait... unless it was an overly ambitious port of a game far too big to fit on the console. Nintendo seem to have total QA blindness in that department.) But the current state of gaming means that most just write that off as 'launch pains' destined to be ironed out within a matter of weeks. That's just the price of paying full price for an early adoption! As long as that is the extent of the issues of course...

But it isn't. How could it be? There's also just general visual bugs and oddities within the context of the world itself. Not least of all the ugly character models that seem strangely mismatched for their roles. Yes, I understand that the Academy central to the narrative of Scarlett and Violet is open to all ages, so it makes sense for there to be adult students, but horrible string monsters? Are they allowed to join the Pokemon academy too? The past few days have been filled with example after example of just ill-fitting characters in odd places. And more than that, some of the actually designed character's look overdesigned and messy; as though the character artists were still on their drafts when the concepts were finalised and modelled. 

Things are so bad that Digital Foundry issued a veritable diss-article on the game. I typically see Digital Foundry as a very mild mannered outlet, more occupied with nit-picking the finer details of graphical settings only relevant to people entire tax brackets above myself; but for Scarlett and Violett they amassed their darkest energies. They slammed the bugs, the lack of shadows, the low quality environment assets and even the 'crude' artwork. And when you see some of the side-by-sides between this game and what the spin-off 'Legends Arceus' did, the comparisons are stark. And supremely ugly, incidentally. To quote their wrap-up: "Embarrassing artwork, terrible draw distance, poor performance, mediocre image quality, and a litany of bugs plague this pair of very troubled games. Pokémon fans deserve better.”

Which leaves us at the question; is the Pokemon franchise too much for Gamefreak to handle, practically by themselves at this point? In this age of ultimatums, the calls are already going out for Gamefreak to be sacked from Pokemon entirely, but I think that's a little bit overly-vitriolic at this stage. I think there's still a charm to modern Pokemon, but it's lacking the scale to really evolve in any significant way thanks to the very tight grip of the franchise holders. Arceus made an interesting step, and SV at least attempted to do something different, but without the time and personnel to realise these dreams, the Pokemon franchise is only going to end up seeming more and more dated with every release. Which will incidentally make every game seem more and more overrpiced. There is value lost with every underwhelming entry; and the second you fool yourself into thinking your brand is too ubiquitous to sag, is the moment the wolves come to tear your pride apart.

Pokémon Scarlet and Violet

 There are no strings on me

Spain. It was Spain, I'm a dumbo. Let that be a lesson to everyone not to trust me when it comes to identifying the visual culture of a new video game world. I think Spanish is Italian; I'm a failure in the eyes of visual art design. And picking 'Spain' makes so much more sense too. In Game Freak's journey to map out the entirety of the human world within the Pokémon universe the team have already done England and France, it's only natural they hit on Spain and maybe even Germany next time. (What's the DLC going to be, I wonder? Catalonia?) But, of course, we musn't forget that when the time comes for the inevitable mainline Pokémon (MMO?) in Russia, the frozen northern wastes must be known as Siberia. They cannot change it. They can't 'Pokémon' it up. They've backed themselves into a corner. We will never forget Game Freak's explicit screw-up in naming Siberia; there's no taking it back now; buddy!

So Pokémon is flying back at us with a full new era of legendaries, professors, rivals and a thinly veiled marketing ploy to sell twice as many games that we all just seem to accept now because it's the way that Pokémon have always done it and I guess always will. Seriously, it's become more than a little weird that the whole 'dual game' thing still holds any water, and now we've getting to the point where certain characters are becoming version specific. Sword and Shield had two Gym trainers that switched up completely depending on your copy of the game and Scarlet and Violet is going to shove two impressive young professors in our face that are thematically dressed around what I can only assume is the alchemically-linked theme of this era; past and present. Sada is the female professor with her rural barbaric garb under her lab coat and Turo is the male professor with his futuristic torn-style shirt. Apparently Sada is derided for 'Pasada' which is Spanish for Past whilst 'Turo' is from 'Futuro' which is self explanatory.

This theme of 'past and future' bleeds into the designs of the legendary Pokémon themselves which appear to be these different breeds of gecko lizards. Koraidon, the fire dragon from Scarlet, boasts big plumes and large flowing eyebrows, somewhat indicative of old mythical Chinese Wyverns, whereas Violet's Miraidon, the water dragon, doesn't even have legs, but rather two jet engines that compliment the lighting wisps of hair and neon chest highlights. (I suspect this may be a mythical tri-type legendary, Electric, Water, Dragon; which would make it absolutely busted for competitive play what with all those resistances!) We can't say whether or not this is going to tie in which some sort of time influencing story, perhaps wherein we even travel to the distant past, but we'll certainly get to explore the concepts of looking behind and ahead in our story. Similar to the depiction of the roman god Janus, to look back and forth to inform the present, I'm sure there's some sort of alchemical context mixed in there somewhere.

And perhaps in a meta sense that reflects on the spirit of the game itself, keeping the traditionalist Pokémon set-up of young kid going on an adventure around their home country, and mixing it with the future that the series is heading for; open world and multiple players! Leading off from Legends, we're going to be able to explore this new map with little to no overarching restrictions on how we traverse the land and how we position our camera; which sounds a little embarrassing to get all giddy about in 2022, but us Pokémon fans take whatever wins we can score. There's also apparently going to be proper 4 person co-op which seems to allow players to explore the game world independently from one another and meet up in order to, presumably, battle their finds against each other. There's no word yet on what actual functionality this will provide. Is the game built to accommodate four people and will the narrative actually recognise them or is this just a lazy feature to slap on to the box? Do the four players join another game or just sync their game world up with three others? So many variables and you can take none of them for granted when dealing with the traditionally backwards developers at Nintendo. (I think you really have to strain yourself to call Nintendo the 'best game company' in the world, what with how they hold themselves and their partners back so often.)

These are all great steps for a Pokémon game but there are still considerable more considerations I need for a truly next generational experience that needs to be met. For one, I hope that Game Freak have learnt from their experiences with the Isle of Armor and know that they need to create recurrent content that validates all the play space. Give players a reason to travel up and down the open world throughout all their playtime, rather than just funnel themselves where all the newer levels are as has been typical for their Pokémon games in the past. They could have different breeds of Pokémon move across the map with time of day or year, or throw in collectable nodes that respawn periodically and are placed all across the map. Those are basic requirements and there really should be more reasons to visit this whole map with the same enthusiasm at level 1 that I do when all my team are level 100.

The frame of the narrative should reflect this open world design philosophy too. The old school set-up of 'child travels from gym to gym to beat them all' works fine with the old design, but it needs to be cut short here. I propose there needs to be a central institution which calls the player back to it regularly such as a school or academy, and major boss events are either held there or get dynamically introduced across the world. The mystery of discovering the secret of some powerful new creature is far more alluring than 'kid wants to become the champion' anime plotline we've seen recycled from the past two and a half decades; so Legends Arceus really needs to rub itself off here on the new game. I'd love to have a cast of characters I get to know beyond their one character trait and the static element they've decided to base their entire life philosophy around.

That's about the high and low of what we need from Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, although if I were to throw in my own two cents I think a cameo wouldn't hurt that much. We saw Sonia become a travelling professor at the end of Sword and Shield, it would be cool to have her show up in this land to study these new powerful legendaries, give these games some narrative consistency to them without turning them into some sort of Marvel property wherein you have to watch years worth of back content to know what's going on. World building works better when it's culminative in my experience. Scarlet and Violet doesn't necessarily have it's work cut out for it, and there's still some evidence that this game might fall flat on it's face and has been destined to from the start, but it's hardly the Pokémon spirit to be a pessimist, now is it? Welcome to the fold, Gen 9; here's hoping you're everything you need to be. 

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.