#It is a bigger game I suppose

[undercityrezident]

My Commentary on Pokemon Scarlet

Way back in—wait, when was it… April, May? February even?—whenever it was we saw the first trailer for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, I was gobsmacked because I absolutely did not expect to see a new Pokemon game so soon. I was taken so by surprise by it that I was almost confused. I was thinking to myself, “Man, it feels so soon after just getting done with Pokemon Legends: Arceus that I’m still coming down from it. And there’s already another one coming on the horizon. Is it too soon? Did they even have enough time to make this game?”

Yes, as a Pokemon fan, I was asking myself: am I getting too many Pokemon games too quickly?

It feels like there’s some measure of absurdity in that, but having read and written work about crunch time in the video game industry (not on this blog, but for school), I feel like the cost for Game Freak putting out another game would be too high. And I don’t mean monetarily. I’m sure they’re raking in the green, but I’m talking about other costs: the costs to the sanity of developers and the costs to customers on the quality of game they’re getting for modernly full-priced triple-A games. I could also cite the cost of Game Freak’s reputation but I don’t know if that’s worth mentioning in the same breath as the former two. Plus, I’m starting to worry the franchise and the Pokemon Company no longer have the esteemed reputation they once had for putting out great quality games.

Okay, let me try and turn the tracks on this train before it becomes a full-on rant on my annoyances with video game industry standards and my tendency to wax on at length about where the Pokemon franchise is going. I’m here to review Pokemon Scarlet. Yes, just Scarlet. I’m only paying for one of these games. I’m a student and don’t have money to burn on both versions. Given what I saw, especially toward the end of the game, maybe there are some differences in Violet that make for a different tone in the story, but I won’t be able to account for that in this review.

I should also list out where I am in the game so that folks know exactly where I’m coming from when I write this review so I can get flamed in the manner of: “Oh Rez! You need to do this, this, and this to get the full experience of the game!” I do think I’ve completed most of the actual substance in the game to make what I feel is a legitimate review. But, like my other reviews, this is largely something for me to just get my feelings about the game on some medium so I can properly look back at it later and either cringe or feel some sort of justification for my struggles, frustrations, or feelings of accomplishment. At any rate, listed below are what I’ve done so far for context so that you, my few-and-far-between readers, can see the context from which I’m coming at this assessment of Pokemon Scarlet. Suffice to say, from this point on, there’ll be major spoilers:

·       I’ve completed the main three storylines.

·       I’ve finished the Area Zero arc that comes after the three storylines.

·       I’ve gotten about 320 or so out of 400 pokemon in the pokedex.

·       I’m still working on the four ghosts Professor Raifort tasked me with finding.

·       I still need to find another Sweet Herb Mystica for Professor Saguaro.

·       I did my victory lap with all the gym leaders.

·       I finished my first School Tournament.

·       I’ve peeked into just about every nook and cranny in Paldea’s huge map.

Ok? We good on establishing where I am? Ok, let’s get to the meat and potatoes of this review.

The World of Paldea

Pokemon, especially in more recent generations, has been notoriously slow to start their games and hook me in. Lengthy tutorials and exposition are the names of the game with Game Freak. I can’t entirely blame them, as they have to make introductions that help new fans integrate into the game while also cementing established or new features for veterans. That said, it takes quite a while for us to get to a point where we feel like we’re finally being unleashed on this promised open world.

Pokemon Scarlet has this problem too, unfortunately. Grant you, I’m an obsessive explorer who has to see everything available to me—side content and every little hiding spot on the map—before I push forward in the plot. Still, I think streamlining the introduction up through to when the treasure hunt starts would make the start of the game feel a lot less dull for me. My interest wasn’t truly seized until I finally found myself starting on the game’s three main quests.

That said, this world is expansive and, at least at a distance, pretty to look at. Paldea has some great vistas and I definitely wouldn’t mind settling down to live there if I had the chance. Compared to other open-world games that can feel quite empty, this one feels pretty lively from the differing environment types and the fact that pokemon… are… everywhere. You won’t go more than 20 meters before you see another lone pokemon, or even a swarm, that either draws your interest or force you to change course to avoid them.

On top of that, Paldea has a littering problem that certainly needs addressing. There’s a wealth of items both visible and less so scattered around the region. If you’re one to build up your stock of potions and other battle-item essentials, you’ll barely have to spend money at stores, as the world itself seems to provide it in abundance for the obsessive explorer such as myself. I usually only had to restock on pokeballs at stores, mainly due to my obscenely bad luck with pokemon catch rates.

And exploring has other perks too,  such as how I was able to catch my adorable ghost pupper, Greavard, early due to a Tera Raid Battle in the first area. That was a nice find and a treat to start with.

Beyond the starting area, the game offers a diverse landscape. From grasslands to a scorching desert to a, chilling mountain, Paldea mixes up its environments. Admittedly, it seems mostly green and grassy at the start, but the diversity comes when it’s needed: toward the middle and the end of the game. Sorry, no fiery volcano level for you fire-type lovers, though the fire types themselves aren’t absent in this game, so don’t worry.

Of course, there are barriers to this exploration. Compared to some other open-world games, you can’t just go anywhere immediately, at least not without consequence to you and your feeble starting team. While you can choose how you explore, either east or west from the main city, or both if you want to be like me and inflate your playtime, the pokemon levels in the zones increase from area to area. I had hoped that levels would scale with you and the number of badges, titans, or squads you’d bested, but sadly, that level of dynamic world adaptation was not programmed into this game. I think it would’ve greatly enhanced the fluidity of game completion if you were able to truly go about and do this game in any order you wanted, but maybe there were some logistical issues that I wasn’t aware of that necessitated the existing system.

Barriers also exist in the form of what capabilities your ride pokemon, the legendary Koraidon (or Miraidon if you’re playing Violet) is capable of. While I don’t recall anything essential to game completion being put firmly off-limits (except for the final titan requiring surf) by these mechanics, it does open up new, more convenient, and more fun ways to explore the landscape. Once you’ve unlocked the ability to dash, high-jump, surf, glide, and climb, the world really opens up to you and you feel like an absolute badass as you explore even the roughest, most remote regions of Paldea… even though it’s your ride pokemon doing all the work.

That said, for all my praise, there are a few issues I find with this world.

I would be remiss if I didn’t discuss one of the big things that have been on everyone’s mind when it comes to this game: the graphics. I’ll try not to dwell on it too long, as countless people on the internet already have. But, as I said before, the game looks great… at a distance. Get up close though, and that’s a different story.

Like in Pokemon Legends: Arceus, the textures leave something to be desired, and the framerates for characters, pokemon—or any moving object in the distance, such as a windmill—are absurdly choppy until you get close enough for the game to decide to start rendering them at an acceptable rate. While I’d thought Legends would be a tech test for this generation and thus would improve on its performance, I found the graphical quality and framerate issues to be even worse in this game. I would even caution those with any sort of epileptic condition to prepare themselves for flickering lights in places where shadows keep appearing and disappearing without apparent cause. I know I found it a bit of an eye strain at times.

Admittedly, I recognize a lot of these issues stem from the fact Scarlet and Violet are ambitiously large games and their zones aren’t rigidly segmented like in Legends, but we’ve seen other games from earlier in this console cycle perform much, much better—cough, Breath of the Wild, cough. Again, I chalk this up to the obscenely short development time on the game. There are clearly optimization issues and other ways this game could’ve been smoothed out if the proper time and care had been taken. But Game Freak seems quite obsessed with the idea of putting out a Pokemon game every year. And this isn’t the only part of the world that suffers as a result.

While there’s a diversity in landscapes in Paldea, there’s very little creativity in the naming of these regions. The towns and a few specific areas get names: Glaseado Mountain, Asado Desert, and Casseroya Lake just to name the ones I can recall off the top of my head. But the great majority of areas and regions don’t even have a name. Now, if this were an unexplored, unestablished region, that would make sense. But Paldea, as noted in the game’s own history class, is a region that’s been inhabited for thousands of years by a once-powerful empire and is now a modern country. You’d expect some great naming conventions for the areas in-game. Instead, all we get are descriptors along the lines of “South Province: Area One” or “North Province: Area Two.” While I understand the Great Crater of Paldea being named Area Zero for dramatic effect and the idea that it’s generally been a place humanity has not been able to colonize or explore until recently, I don’t think that naming theme did any favours outside of that forbidding place. I think so much character could’ve been added if they’d named these areas properly. And yes, I know we’re talking about a franchise that routinely names areas “Route 17” or “Route 22,” but this is a game that’s supposed to defy standard conventions of the franchise with its open-world concept. The naming of its areas should reflect that initiative as well. Again, this lack of polish in even the naming smells of the limited development time the game was put under.

That all said, I do think Paldea is an amazing place and I’m happy to have been able to explore every little cave and cliffside. Exploration of the massive landscape is even encouraged from an in-game perspective, with flight points gained from finding Paldea’s ten famous landmarks. From Cortondo’s Olive Fields to Glaseado’s Peak, the world is fun to explore, and I actively encourage you to do so, especially if your goal is to fill your bag with potions or to fill your PC with mons.

How We Play in Paldea

The gameplay in Pokemon Legends: Arceus gave us a new way of looking at how a Pokemon game could play—or even should play. It was tailored for a new paradigm and design philosophy that I hoped the franchise would take: give the players the choice in how they approach exploring the world and catch pokemon. You could chuck an endless stream of balls at pokemon after creeping around in the grass and luring them over with bait to ensure a better catch rate. Or you could dive into battle and capture them the conventional way. It was liberating to have the ability to choose.

In that regard, Pokemon Scarlet took a step backwards.

I will wholeheartedly admit, discovering couldn’t catch pokemon in the same way as I did in Legends put me off the game at the start, probably contributing to my dislike of the game’s introduction. Instead, I was forced to get into a battle, weaken the wild pokemon, and throw balls until I get it while my poor team members soak hits for every failed catch attempt—not something enjoyable as someone with shit luck when it comes to catch rates. Now, I won’t say that the system in Legends was perfect, but, thinking Legends was a tech test for this generation, I figured that the system would be improved upon. The fact it wasn’t implemented at all was disappointing, considering how they decided to iterate on the open-world concept that Legends brought to the table. I got over it as I played, but the wish for this more dynamic way of approaching how I filled out my pokedex was something that teased the back of my mind the whole time I played. At least quick balls are still in the game, thank Arceus.

One thing that I’m fine with being left in the misty past of Legends was the new battle system. It was intriguing and a nice departure from the main series’ methods, but I found it rather unpredictable, especially combined with the absurd power and tendency towards revenge KO’s that littered Legends. The traditional way of doing battles still seems more balanced to me, though I’m not opposed to Game Freak trying their hand at the other system again when they inevitably try to do another Legends-type game. Maybe they’ll refine it enough next time that I’ll like it over the current system. But, in the meantime, the main-line battle system works well enough, and I still enjoy it.

Imported, to some degree, from Legends, is the ride pokemon system. While you had several different pokemon that could help ferry you around Hisui’s landscapes, in Paldea, you have one legendary pokemon you get near the start of the game. As you complete tasks in the titan pokemon storyline, your legendary ride, Koraidon, gains the ability to dash, high jump, surf, glide, and climb. What’s more, it ties almost neatly into the story being told in the titan storyline, making it feel both rewarding and helping to cement your bond with your goofy lizard on whose back you’re on the majority of the game. I have and will continue to advocate for the riding pokemon model, as it’s far superior to the HM system from the days of yore and fits very well into world traversal in Paldea.

That said, crossing Paldea is not without its own set of pitfalls, and not due to the adverse weather conditions you’ll face—and believe me, with the majority of your battles, even gym battles, taking place outside, you’ll be dealing with plenty of that. I’m talking about, yet again, something that’s taken the internet by storm: the glitchy and scuffed way you interact with the world.

Now, I knew going into this game that it wasn’t polished, so I set my expectations low. I also knew that the internet has a way of blowing things way, way out of proportion. I’m pleased to say that I didn’t encounter anything game-breaking, nor any goofy character model glitches, and I had only full-on game crash (though plenty of slowdowns that had me spamming the save feature for fear that I was on the cusp of one). I didn’t even fall through the world once! But I did freak out when I saw a whole squad of Golduck come out of a cliff wall to try and assault me. And there were plenty of times I saw pokemon simply standing partly inside a wall, reminding me of poor Han Solo in his slab of carbonite from The Empire Strikes Back.

I wasn’t always completely fortunate in avoiding glitches and issues though. As battles tend to reposition your character for space, my character was placed on a slope that ended up having me slide ingloriously into the sea after the battle was done, and there were plenty of times I couldn’t even see my pokemon battle since it spawned into a wall as a part of the battle arrangement. And I can’t forget the time I skidded around Levincia City on Koraidon stuck in his downward falling animation until the game decided to black out and reset me. I’ll be honest, all these instances made me laugh out of the sheer absurdity of it. None of these glitches caused me too much delay or caused a loss of progress, but these are all things that could’ve been handled so much better and allowed me to immerse myself in the game that much more deeply if the game had been allowed to bake for another six months to a year.

Another thing that could’ve benefitted from that time is something I find a lot more damning and frustrating though: the user experience. What do I mean by this? Well, to start, menus were laboriously slow to load sprites of pokemon, particularly in the box menu. Considering how often I went into this menu, I feel like I could’ve shaved several hours off my play time for time spent loading the pokemon in the boxes. As well, I found myself rarely changing my look and clothing because my character model took twice, or even thrice as long to load as my pokemon in their boxes. I find myself confused by why menus are so slow, considering that they have nothing to do with the world, which I imagine is what takes up most of the processing power. Again, this might be an optimization issue that isn’t as easy to resolve without more time. Worse yet, sometimes menu elements would overlap in annoying ways, such as experience screens popping up over status bars in double battles, or prompts overlapping pokedex text when I’d caught a new mon. And then, on top of this, about 10% of the time I picked up a new item and it popped up a text box to explain what it was, it would disappear before I pressed anything else, leaving me no chance to read it and have to play a game of “What’s this new item that’s popped up in my inventory!” Not fun when your back is stuffed full of goodies already.

But another thing I should mention that frustrated me was how the world didn’t pause when you did. I found it interesting, and perhaps even charming at first, to bring up my menu to muck around with my team while wild pokemon wandered up to me and made their cute little noises as they looked at me with all their curiosity and wonder. But later in the game, I found it an absolute pain, since most pokemon were aggressive, and would actively camp your spot while you were paused, so that the moment you vacated your menu, you would be thrust into a battle you didn’t want. Heck, even during battles the world continued to move around you, which I have to admit, was kind of cool. I loved the idea of drawing a crowd of pokemon to witness our battles in the wilderness. But even that got tiresome as the fifth Tauros charged me immediately after I finished with its companion’s battle, leaving me in a chain of endless battles that, more likely than not, left my team a wreck as I tried and repeatedly failed to run away from them. In a sense, it almost resembled griefing from MMOs I used to play, and that didn’t leave a great taste in my mouth.

And you know how that problem was solved in Legends?

You could—quite literally—move your character in battle and run away physically. How amazing would that have been? This was another feature inexplicably absent from Pokemon Scarlet that I loved. Moving your character in battles, even to the degree you could have yourself being knocked over by standing in the way of moves, was goofy and fun: feelings I have and want to continue and associate with the Pokemon franchise. It would’ve likely solved most or all of the problems I had with griefing pokemon and the weird battle position issues.

But, all of this aside, the classic core gameplay of pokemon is still present and still works very well. But that’s the thing: it’s just the classic stuff. In terms of gameplay, we had something great on our hands in Legends, even if it was an unpolished gem. I had so desperately hoped it would be refined and made to gleam in this game. But alas, that is not what we received. I’m hoping, as time and the series goes on, that we can revisit these new ideas and implement them into the main games to help the series evolve beyond the standard that’s been repeated for nine generations now.

The Distinct Stories of Paldea

Much as the introduction of the game is mired by a slow start in terms of gameplay (i.e. the delay of the true appearance of the game’s open-world nature), I found the opening of the game’s story to be equally underwhelming. I won’t say that I ever expect much in terms of story from the Pokemon games. The series has never been too well known for that sort of thing, barring a few exceptions like Gen 5’s attempts to cast a shadow over the concept of pokemon battling and ownership with N and Team Plasma. That said, even from the first trailer explaining the concept of the school academy angle the story was taking, I was not a fan of the idea. Having finished the game, I’m still not fond of the school angle.

While it’s certainly possible that a school setting can make for exciting narrative works, it fell flat for me here, and frankly, I don’t think it’s a great fit for pokemon games in general. It worked to a minor degree in Pokemon Sun and Moon’s anime, but I still would’ve liked Ash to have just travelled around Alola more as opposed to resetting to the school all the time. But this isn’t about what Ash did in the anime. This is about what school means for these games. And I think it really was wholly unnecessary since we ended up leaving school for an independent study/journey anyway.

To me, the initial school arc of the story was fodder, and all it did was set the stage for us to travel around the region on our treasure hunt and introduce us to the characters. Setting the stage for our adventure and introducing characters are admirable goals, but we didn’t need all the lengthy pageantry that came with our enrolment in school to meet these characters. Hell, we met Nemona, our rival and precious battling-obsessed cinnamon roll, at her house minutes after we set foot out of our own house and we didn’t need much more than that to realize what her character was about. I would’ve been just as fine with meeting Arven through a sandwich shop that could’ve doubled as a good way to tutorial us through the picnic system and learn about the titan/herb mystica quest from there. As for Penny, it’s harder to integrate her storyline without the school setting. Maybe the school could be a resource used on the side rather than being forced through it and the Starfall Street quest line could’ve been what introduced us to the school as an option for additional tips and interactions. I do love that the school seems to function on post-secondary rules in terms of when and how you enroll and how you take classes. As such, emphasizing that quality by making interacting with the school an option rather than something forced and contrived would’ve felt a lot better and more interesting to me.

That said, I do love all the teachers at the academy. They’re all rich with personality and zest, and it was perhaps the sole redeeming quality of the whole school concept. Feel free to let me know which professor you liked the best, and why it was Professor Raifort.

But, once you’re past that nonsense and finally get the chance to travel Paldea, the school angle tends to fall a bit into the background. Yes, you’re still on your treasure hunt, but the school angle is played down on two of the three questlines. The school setting constricted us, but thankfully, the freedom of travelling for our independent study feels a lot more liberating. I just wish we’d gotten to it a bit faster.

But, as I mentioned, and as most of you have no doubt heard from trailers and the like, the game is split into three quests. Now, in the way I played the game, I chose to complete the challenges levied by each questline in batches based on their area and level range. I’m not sure if you could zip through a single quest line without rapidly falling behind on your required levels, but it seemed to me that completing these quests a little at a time and swapping to another seemed to be the best way of going about the game while levelling at a steady pace. Swapping also helped to pace out each story, since there wasn’t a whole lot to each one: there are eight gyms, five titans/herbs, and five gangs affiliated with Team Star. Not quite enough to make each one feel like a deep, rich narrative if you chose to hyperfixate on one to the exclusion of all others.

But that’s fine! I feel like the intended method was to space out these encounters so that you could take in Paldea one province at a time and dip into these storylines little by little. I think it’s very much to the benefit of the game’s story to have separated these ideas into three distinct narratives because it gives some much-needed focus on certain story elements. The previous iterations of the Pokemon series lost out on this opportunity due to these elements being subjected to a homogenized blend of badge collecting versus intermittent interference by the games’ villainous teams. It made each of these smaller stories a little richer for it.

“Victory Road,” the game’s quest for collecting badges, pits you versus the gyms as you have in most previous Pokemon games. It’s simple, tried and tested, and true to form. And you get to see the lovable Nemona time and time again. There were times I wondered if she was stalking me, and there’s even a one-off comment she makes that plays on that worry, which did make it feel pretty funny in the moment. But that doesn’t stop Nemona from being endearing and adorable and one of my favourite rivals for her sheer exuberance and energy. You also get to talk with her a lot more than most of your rivals historically, so that in itself helps make her a more relatable and enjoyable character to see grow with you. Or rather, she tends to watch you grow and keeps testing you along the way, given she’s already at the top of her game. It’s an interesting angle to take on a rival, and an actively supportive one compared to most friendly rivals in previous games, and one I enjoyed very much. Also helps she’s cute as heck.

As to the gym leaders themselves, I’m happy to say that Game Freak has continued with the tradition of making interesting personalities and main/side-gigs central to their characters. There are some big hits and small misses in my opinion though. Iono is a standout for me, with her gym challenge showing off her personality and her very transparent need to get more views and subs as a streamer. In her case, I’m not sure if she was written like that to be a reflection of what the developers think of people in that profession or as a parody, but she’s easily one of the most memorable gym leaders.

Though… Grusha… I love that man. He’s so cool… But no really, the fact his background has him lecturing you about being reckless as a trainer as a way to emphasize the lesson he learned after an injury led to the end of his snowboarding career—and subsequently being so cold about it… haha—really speaks to great characterization in my books. It’s especially apparent when you beat him a second time that it was a hard lesson for him to learn and something hard for him to overcome.

And if we’re talking about personality in a gym leader, we definitely need to mention Ryme, the MC of RIP! She’s fantastic but suffers from what Piers did in Sword and Shield, that is to say… she, and a lot of people in this game, really need some voice acting. Especially when it comes to these musical gym leaders and characters, there’s so much awkwardness in seeing character swing and lip-sync to a beat but with no actual sound or song to back it up.

On the other end of the gym leader theming spectrum, I found Tulip to be an odd choice for the psychic type. The link between her personality, motivations, and the psychic type didn’t stand out for me as much as that with other gym leaders. Also, I think Tulip might’ve been abusing her friendship with Professor Dendra to get her to run the psychic gym challenge, but I might’ve been reading into it a bit much.

Also, on a minor note, I felt some of the gym challenges lacked the depth they had in Sword and Shield. I know that isn’t saying much, but a few of them felt… almost tacked on compared to others. Again, I bet this was a problem due to the limited development time.

Of course, at the end of this storyline, we had to take on the Elite Four and the Top Champion: Chairwoman Geeta. This was an interesting challenge in itself because it started with an interview where you had to pick a gym leader you had the hardest time with. For me, it had been Larry, the normal-type gym leader. And guess who was the third member of the Elite Four: LARRY! I thought, for certain, this meant that your choice in those questions actively influenced whom you’d meet in the Elite Four as your third challenger. Suffice to say, I was crushed when I found out it was a mere coincidence. I thought it was an absolute stroke of genius that these questions might influence how your elite four fight went since it was so odd to have an interview before the battles. The idea of disguising that one choice with all these other questions seemed so clever to me, especially for a Pokemon game. But nope… it was just Larry all this time. Which is fine, I love the guy, but how brilliant would it be if they brought in the gym leader you had the hardest time with? Ah, well, for a little while, I was awed at the idea of Game Freak doing that.

As an aside, I do want to compliment Pokemon Scarlet on the idea of making champions a level of trainer, rather than a distinct, singular trainer in this region. I think it makes a lot more sense and I hope it’s an idea they carry forward into future games.

But this game doesn’t just have the gym challenge; next, we have “The Path of Legends” questline featuring Arven, a young man who I was decidedly not a fan of to start until we learned his secret. That secret: he’s a softie for his dog for whom he’s going on a whole mythical quest to save. There’s a lesson here in narrative: if you ever want to make a character more sympathetic and relatable, have them pet a dog. No, but seriously, the moment we learned about Mabosstiff and Arven’s dedication to that big, good doggo was perhaps one of the most tender and heartfelt moments in the game. And then we got more of that as our dark-type dog friend got more and more of its vitality back with each new herb mystica we found. On top of that, each time we found one, it felt well-earned because each of the titans’ fights felt pretty epic, or at least fun and well-earned. It definitely felt reminiscent, perhaps even a bit old-hat, as it felt like we were fighting a mix of an alpha pokemon and a totem pokemon. But the encounters added more variety to the world and the story itself. And learning about Mabosstiff merited enough motivation on my end to look past the gimmick central to this storyline.

Finally, we come to “Starfall Street,” the third storyline featuring Penny, our adorable friend with their eevee backpack. Now, never let it be said that pokemon did anything with any sort of subtlety. This storyline’s twist is easy to see from a mile away. After encountering Penny when she’s accosted by Team Star thugs trying to be a bit pushy about getting her to join, we get a mysterious call from someone named Cassiopeia who puts us on a quest to dismantle the various squads making up Team Star: five in all. We take on the extremely entertaining and goofy personalities of the leaders of these gangs (Mela, Giacomo, Atticus, Ortega, and Eri) to have them surrender their positions as leaders and essentially dissolve the squads one by one. As we go on, we learn an intriguing and, at times, touching story about a group of students who were victims of bullying who come together to fight their oppressors. As someone who was bullied, I absolutely loved this idea and could only dream of something like this happening. It turns out they succeeded, but at a cost that had their big boss—no not the one from Metal Gear—disappear on them and leave the squads to grow out of control and become something of a menace. We learn more and more about these five leaders’ precious friendships and, in the end, I almost felt guilty for having to continue along our path and end Team Star.

Now, remember that plot twist I mentioned earlier? As it turns out, Cassiopeia was their big boss. And in another big, though easily foreseen twist, Cassiopeia was revealed to be Penny herself. As a shy, computer-savvy type, we got to see her little by little over the course of the story as someone who gave you supplies during your quest to end Team Star. Given this character development, it was easy to see that she would’ve been Cassiopeia, but it didn’t make the story any less impactful for me. Her bond with her allies made the final battle with her all the more enjoyable and climactic. Also, an all-eeveelution team? Ballsy, but I like it! Goes nice with your backpack, Penny!

I have to say though, one of the standout moments of that questline was the incredibly transparent attempts of Director Clavell, the school’s headmaster, to disguise himself as an outrageously pompadoured student. The fact the game lets you poke at the disguise through dialogue options was a great touch.

Now, despite having these individual questlines, if you want to reach the end of this game and Area Zero, you need to complete all three. I like this because all these stories diverged near the start of the game, and I love the idea of them converging again to help finish it off. Moreover, the new friend group formed by your character, Nemona, Arven, and Penny, has some quirky clashes in personality and dialogue that makes me want to see all four of them go on more adventures together. It makes me want to go out and find fic for all four of them just being goofy on their off-time.

However, despite this high note of companionship, the story’s ending left me feeling a bit off. The revelation of Sada’s work in the crater bringing back pokemon from the distant past (the incarnations of those pokemon very are cool and I love them) using a time machine felt a bit jarring after everything leading up to it. It felt like a bit of tone and genre whiplash to me, especially when the game revealed that Sada we’d been interacting with was an artificial intelligence of all things, even going as far as to say in dialogue that we don’t possess that technology yet, but the resources in the crater made it possible for all these things to happen.

Again, I know not to expect too much from a Pokemon narrative… but really? This felt so… forced and contrived. I don’t know… like… someone was forced to write this under really tight time constraints? Oh right, just so many other things in this game. I should’ve expected even Pokemon’s writing would suffer under those conditions. Now, for those who played Violet, and got to see futuristic pokemon and Professor TRON MAN, I imagine that this seems more on theme for a story involving the future and advanced technology (assuming it had the same story beats, I have no idea if it did or not). But for Sada and the theme of prehistoric pokemon… this seemed way off base for me. At the very least, the clash between your Koraidon and the opposing Koraidon that ousted it from the crater had a heartwarming ending, especially with it getting strength from your companions’ encouragement. But overall, the final moments of the main story felt unfulfilling to me after so much hard work put in to recover from the terrible start the game had in its story.

Overall, the story had many ups and downs. Still, for the most part, especially concerning the titan/herb questline and Team Star, there was more to sink my teeth into than in a lot of previous Pokemon games. I’m glad I was able to endure the start of it to get those parts, but it’s just a bit sad that the ending flopped for me. But it’s not just the story we’re here for when we play these games, is it? It’s the pokemon!

The Pokemon of Paldea

So having 400 pokemon in this game’s pokedex seems like a pretty good haul to me, honestly. I haven’t been privy to any debates, so I don’t know if there’s a fuss being made online about how not all the mons are in it again like they did for Sword and Shield. Whatever the case I’m pretty happy with the lineup we got… except for no Heliolisk and Helioptile. I got lucky with them in Gen 8, so I guess I’ll be thankful for that and their presence in New Snap.

That said, I love a lot of the new variants and mons that we got in general. I won’t dive too deep into all of them because this review is already getting long enough as it is, but I’ll say that when I played, I went for all new pokemon that were added in this game for a variety in my final teams.

They were:

·       Skeledirge

·       Pawmot

·       Arboliva

·       Squawkabilly

·       Garganacl

·       Mabosstiff

·       Rabsca

·       Tinkaton

·       Veluza

·       Annihilape

·       Clodsire

·       Cetitan

·       Baxcalibur

Not only did I have fun using all of these, but I thought most of their aesthetics and designs were top-notch. But I used plenty of others throughout my journey and loved all of them too. I won’t mention them all here, but shout-outs to my new favourite pun pokenames: Capsakid and Scovillain. My favourite new designs and concepts (aside from the above) were found in Naclstack, Lokix, and Brambleghast. Overall, I loved all the new additions and variants. Except for the new Dudunsparse… I mean, I’ve seen so many fan-evolutions of it that looked so much better and more creative than making it bigger and adding more sections to its body.

The prehistoric variants were killer though, especially Great Tusk, Scream Tail, and Sandy Shocks (I always had wondered what the magneton line would look like before modern times, if they even existed). Also, have you ever heard of a more metal name than Roaring Moon? Probably not. And I’ll admit, I still think Koraidon and Miraidon look goofy to me, but given that I’ve formed a bond with Koraidon over the game, I’ve been able to overlook it.

The Music of Paldea

I always have to talk about music in new Pokemon games. It’s practically a genre unto itself for me and one of my favourites to boot. I do like how they tackled overworld music in this game. They made a theme for each of the four provinces and then had different remixes and reorchestrations of it in different regions of each province, including towns and named areas like the Asado Desert. Some might think this could be lazy or uncreative, but I think it was well-executed, such that I enjoyed most iterations of each province’s tune. Heck, even the wild pokemon’s theme in that area was adapted from those themes too, which made musical transitions so smooth. I loved it!

Except for the south province’s tune. I got tired of that one very quickly. And I could see how people could easily get tired of any of the ones I liked if they spent too much time there or had negative experiences associated with the zone.

That said, you cannot hate the West Province’s theme. It’s objectively amazing in all its forms and you cannot convince me otherwise.

Of all the gym themes from previous generations, this one took me the longest to warm up to. But I did, and I’m glad they kept the final crowd-chanting version when the gym leader’s down to one pokemon as they did in Sword and Shield. However, while there generally is a crowd around your gym battles, I feel like the crowd chanting suited the big stadium settings of Galar more than it did here, so it didn’t feel like it belonged as much. That said, it didn’t detract from the experience.

Meanwhile, the Tera Raid theme was a banger (and one of the ones that Toby Fox contributed, from what I understand), as were most of the battle themes throughout the game.

Overall, the array of music in this game was very solid and well-composed. While many musical pieces were derived from each other, they helped link the world together and made for a fantastic experience for the ear that synced up to what you saw and did.

My Final Thoughts on Paldea

So, we’ve been through it all. The gyms. The titans. The squads. The sandwiches. Admittedly, I didn’t do much picnicking, but that’s something I might do more of later, but the few times I did it were charming.

Actually, that’s what this game has in abundance: charm. And I don’t mean the fairy-type move.

This game has a lot of faults, I won’t even try to deny that, nor should I. The fact that Nintendo has been offering refunds for this game is a damning spotlight on the poor condition of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet on its release. I didn’t go into this game with much hype at all because, funnily, we have too many Pokemon games. Almost one a year it seems like. It’s way too much. There’s something to be said about building up anticipation. Hell, I don’t even remember seeing this game very heavily promoted, which might speak to how crunched they were to get this done. I imagine they barely had time to do anything to advertise it, let alone finish it properly.

But below all that scuffed, unfinished woodwork that makes up this game, seemingly teetering on the edge of collapse as you see it creaking and bending sometimes, there’s a lot of heart put into it. Every time I play a Pokemon game, I can see that the developers behind it love what they’re doing it shows in the soul of the game. From the goofy pics you take after every major game accomplishment—Kofu’s stands out to me in particular in my mind—to some of the more ridiculous dialogue that either had me facepalming or laughing hysterically, there’s a charm in this game that I can’t ignore.

That’s what keeps me coming back. That’s what makes me love these games and put up with the other nonsense I’ve ranted about throughout this review. It speaks to that child in me and makes me smile as I sit on a couch in these cold winter months looking for entertainment.

Is this the best example of a top-tier Pokemon game? No. Is this the best example of what a Pokemon game could be? No. Pokemon Legends: Arceus still holds that prize for me. But it’s part of what I hope are just growing pains for this franchise as it struggles to transform into something new and incredible. I wonder how much more fun I would’ve had if I could’ve played this game like I’d played Legends.

But I still did have fun while playing this game. I did my fair share of shouting at the game for bullshit too, and some eye-roll moments at some technical nonsense, but that’s nothing new for this franchise. Hell, it’s nothing new for me with video games as a whole. But in the end, I did have fun.

What I want is to have more fun. I want to see this franchise take what it’s learned from SV and Legends and make a truly stellar game out of it next time.

And. I. Want. Them. To. Take. Their. Time. Doing. It.

That’s how we’ll get the incredible, technologically impressive, open-world Pokemon game that so many people have been pining for. And I’m willing to wait for it.

[grimalkinscribbles]

Lil snippet of my current wip

[mercyluvsyouuu]

Reblog for bigger sample size btw :3 /nf

[front-facing-pokemon]

[tinyrobotic]

You ever have something ur so wildly and urgently obsessed with that watching a video or reading about it simply not enough

I need to like physically merge with this media product or have it injected into my veins or something

[jrueships]

i genuinely cannot stand being around ppl who have to take their anger out on others . i'm so sick of always having to act like the bigger person to my Older brother while he can just tornado around my entire life & belongings & relationships without warrant all over smthing that had absolutely nothing to do with you or anyone, rlly.

[gamebunny-advance]

Last Thing

While I was trying to figure out if Zam actually was a little too big, I noticed that there's this little "tail" hanging off the left cup of his headphones to make it look like a speech balloon.

I've literally never noticed it before, but it's apparently been there since the very beginning.

I dunno how, but I've just never internalized this detail until now, but it's super cute, isn't it?

[the-clay-quarters]

if you're still taking these--🎲 for theodore and grace (or anyone of your choice >:3)

29. A kiss to the back of the hand. Tfw one of the people in Twitch's circle is? surprisingly polite? and put together? They hang out in pubs with zailor lunatics Where did they find this guy (The sentiment is mutual)

[Ask game]

[cuntyyellowpikmin]

(Related to an upcoming long post)

Yall think Erma Shepherd would try a weave and get one as the same color as her hair but then get it removed after 4 days cuz it was too itchy to wear? I actually need to draw a comic of homegirl with a weave and then realizing it’s high maintenance

[spontaneousglitterbees]

wonder who they're talking to... 🤔

[AU Masterpost]

[mostofthingsmostofthetime]

Hey THG fans thanks to somone else on here (I'm so sorry but I can't remember the name of your blog) I've kind of become obsessed with making book accurate (or as close as I can get) picrews of Hunger Games characters & now that I'm done with Katniss & Peeta I wanted to show you all some other characters I've been working on. This is my interpretation of Delly Cartwright.

At school

In regular clothes

On Reaping Day

In District 13

[triangle-strategy-notes]

Lyla, Booker, Tenebris, Sorsley, and Exharme Concept Art

Concept/reference art for Lyla, Booker, Tenebris, Sorsley, and Exharme. Translation notes and text id beneath the cut.

Translation notes:

Gonna be real haha, I kinda gave up on the note that's pointing to the sash. The handwriting style is a little disjointed/vague, and I wasn't able to tell what exactly the characters were. But there seemed to be some reference to "inner" there, so I made reference to that.

The comment about Booker being an assassin might have been something more like "Booker plays the role of an assassin" or "Booker acts the part of an assassin" (with the implication that he's not literally an assassin).

Tenebris's name in Japanese is phonetically "Enigma." His name is probably the one that changed the most in the Japanese -> English localization.

Text id:

[id: The first image is of the full first page. It has portraits of Lyla, Booker, and Tenebris. There is another caption with an English translation of the caption on the first page. The first part reads, "I feel like Tenebris is the correct way to dress the Saints (lol). Everybody else dresses up too much. (Tatsuaki Urushihara)". The second part reads, "I was in charge of finishing Lyla. She is a wonderful character with many subtle gold elements. I like the fact that she's holding the blade of the dagger, which seems to show her mad-scientist-esque personality. (Rina Yoshiura)". The next image is of the full version of the second page, with several WIP drawings of Lyla, Exharme, Sorsley, and Booker. The next two images are English translations. The page is titled "C5House_Mad_Scientist." There is an image of Lyla walking toward the viewer, with some bowing men behind her. These men are labeled "Homunculi". Next to an image of Exharme and Sorsley, there is a diagram of their hooded capes and the purple sash they both wear. The same drawing is repeated below it, but with slightly different designs; Sorsley has a turban and Exharme has shorter, lighter brown hair. There are also beta designs of Lyla and Booker next to them. Lyla is labeled "Shaman", Booker is labeled "C1 House Subordinate", Sorsley is labeled "C1 House Head", and Exharme is labeled "C2 House Head." At the end of the page there is are some illustrator's notes. The first reads, "Since Booker turns out to be an assassin, we had him wear black gloves to give the impression of a professional killer. (Tatsuaki Urushihara)" The second reads, "Is this the rough draft for Lyla and the Hyzante characters? I thought Lyla was very nice from the first draft, and I think she ended up being a good character in terms of the story. (Yasuaki Arai)". /end id]

[fisherrprince]

So how was stormblood? I know it's very hit or miss for people, so what're your thoughts?

I understand why it’s hit or miss! It — to get to the point i would be straight up lying if I said I was an unbiased consumer because I’m not, I’m a coastal American mid 20s rando with a Lot of very current cultural baggage around concepts like patriotism and freedom. And Hamilton references. It all has a sweet and strong and very anti-occupation message (along with themes I very much enjoy dissecting like the constant assertion that it Doesn’t Have To Be This Way, or the expansion into You may not understand this person but you must be able to accept them,) but when combined with Stormblood’s shakier coherence in writing and dialogue and pacing, it comes off as A Bit Off. to me. And I think it missed ever so slightly just due to how it was all structured and set up with the characters we have and motivations we have because the stuff OUTSIDE or Adjacent to the main story, despite how out of place it could feel, was structured great!! Like the Kojin and the Ananta trial and the Kugane mishaps and trying to murder Zenos twice and the ghost ship. Could the main structure have come across very well yes absolutely! It does it on and off it succeeds in there often! But sometimes it doesn’t. I can see a lot of where concepts were promised and not fully delivered, pacing was a bit off, things just happened without really belonging there (despite how much I loved Susano, he could have been better structured. same with many instances and also I feel like the unethical science should have been MORE IMPORTANT THAN IT — maybe it comes back. Who is that scientist.), sometimes dialogue felt somewhat canned. I feel like in a consequences-heavy expansion, many things just didn’t have important consequences, which was very strange

HOWEVER! I cannot give the new gameplay features abd dungeons any crap they are all SO GOOD. And so PRETTYYYYY. And there were so many solo duties that ruled! Every dungeon in this expansion was like whoa this is a PLACE im in you know what I mean??? I’m in a place that’s big and there’s people and there’s NEW MECHANICS and active time maneuvers (??!!!!!!!) and unique fights! I can jump on the roofs in Kugane! And, mind you, when the dialogue was good, it was good. Lyse has a fantastic voice actor. Alisaie is my favorite girl elf creature in thw world. Estinien is like the best p- the guy ever. also m’naago is my new friend. The tower was a great part of sb to me despite my singular gripe. I think Zenos’— I know it’s controversial to some people because he does assume your wol to be a bit more murderous than some people would prefer their characters be and doesn’t take no for an answer, but his um speech did something to my brain a little bit

ON that note the ending was very fast?????? Or like — not FAST, but I wasn’t expecting Zenos or Shinryu to go down in one fight. Two co-op fights, right next to each other. I kind of wanted to beat him up myself. And when Zenos was so impossible to beat before. I was expecting both of them to be WAY harder. Though Shinryu is a COOL fight I’d do the royal menagerie again in a second. I was kind of expecting a three stage trial? Like Nidhogg? I love going into space hiiii big dragon where were you this whole time… u were shafted… but u could not be suffered to live so. Maybe if we’d gotten an instance of fighting the dragon alone after beating the trial?? Could have been Themes. I don’t know

anyways no I can’t quite pin it down, but I’ve said it before I think they had the outline for the story and then built it and went oh this is too much and not enough at the same time and got stuck writing the whole thing after getting stuck in the story they already had. A COMMENDABLE job for getting turned around like that, way better than a lot of video games stories out there, good gameplay and areas that didn’t feel too empty. glances at coerthas falcons nest area. I think the ways they did the exploration thing was good, having us venture further into occupied territory etc, but so much exploration stuff felt oneoff and not there to do much for someone who has been skipping almost all of the side content except stuff I’ve been told is good. It almost felt like they were Trying New Stuff a lot, and some of it succeeded some of it failed. Such is trying stuff!! Such is trying to imitate what you had while making something new and exciting! And I can’t fault them for that

so like — putting aside the fact that I haven’t done post-sb which is like missing 40% of the Thing according to past expansions and my thoughts very well might change, i would 100% do the fights again, maybe watch some cutscenes, but I don’t think I’d NG+ this one. where is that lady selling buuz it is a CRIME i did not get to have any buuz let me buy one yoshi p

[beevean]

The real crime of NFCV was making Dracula 2 meters instead of 3 meters :P

unironically this

the virgin

vs the chad

Dracula being literally twice as big as everyone else is a key component of his character <3

(but yeah, more seriously, it shows even more that he's not just a vampire, he's the Dark Lord, he's a monster, and he can make himself as big as he wants. Look at NFCV Dracula, zero charisma, he's just a man in a cape)

[puhpandas]

procreate on my new ipad is so pixelated it's so annoying

[theodoravery]

litg mcs — s4 to s8: olive, rina, margo, bina & gabi