#and I'm almost at the last gym and team star raid

[torchickentacos]

Reasons I should/should not be allowed to name everyone's pokemon: a list that could be viewed eitehr pro- or anti- me nicknaming things.

-Lasagna the Makuhita

-Blink-182 the hoppip (hoppip. mark hoppus. Blink 182. yeah)

-Pete Wentz the toxicitry. Immensely funny when the game tells me i'm sending out my trusty partner pete wentz. I didn't even plan on keeping him on the team tbh, hence the shitpost name, he was SUPPOSED to immediately go to a box after the water gym, but turns out he stuck around and now I just ended up with the fall out boy guy on my team.

-Enoby the Gothitelle. Enoby Dark'Ness Dementia Way did not fit. My Immortal better last longer than the source material.

-Steve the Skeledirge. Steve Irwin you're a legend

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

So does that mean you enjoyed Pokemon Violet? And do you play those games often or this was a one-off?

Did I Enjoy Pokemon Violet?

If we're going on a yes/no decision here: no. I enjoyed it enough to finish the game, and it's more or less what I'd expect out of a pokemon game, but it was thoroughly alright.

It somehow feels even easier than the last gen (which is impressive) both in how to gain experience as well as the puzzles throughout the game, the storyline was more memorable than some but ultimately lulzy, and while the open world was neat and the scenery was nice I'm not really an open world game person and it was a little buggy (not as much as before all the patches but it was noticeable from time to time).

As it is, the open world thing in Scarlet and Violet sort of worked but also kind of didn't. To make the gyms make sense, you still pretty much had expected places to go where you'd get scared off by either obstacles you can't get past without beating a titan or pokemon that can kill you. So, you almost had 'routes' anyway and certainly an expected order to things. Not being attacked by rattatata all the time was nice, but at the same time, you had pokemon running at you when all you wanted to do was stand there. Having the three storylines simultaneously (the gyms, the big mystery of the game, the Team Rocket thing) sort of worked but also to me made each of them kind of flatter so as to accommodate them not being connected in any way.

Not sure why Nemona wants to battle you all the time, guess she has issues with her parents. Sure, I guess someone should beat up those Team Star nerds so they actually go back to school, but doesn't really feel all that important and shouldn't this be your job Mr. Principal? Sorry about your dog, Arvan.

I also wasn't really a fan of the gimmick of the game: the raid battles or terralyzing (whatever it's called). Now, it's less dumb than some of the other gimmicks we've seen, but I wasn't even a fan of mega evolution so in general I don't love the trend of having a new gimmick every game and going "it's different! You love it!" when I don't.

That said, the pokemon games aren't made for me, they're made for eight-year-olds where this is one of their first serious games (where they're expected to be able to read/problem solve/etc.) and they enjoy a nice story about uh friendship. While I enjoy the harder earlier gen games more (which also had slightly more edge in their stories) this clearly is the direction they want the game to go where it's much more accessible.

It was better than some of the other recent releases (I didn't finish Sword/Shield because I got bored, and Sun/Moon I didn't even get as far as that) but to me it's still far below the quality of Gen 1-3 (where for me it's all been downhill since then).

I do find the story though in this one (from your task of beating up bullied children to Arvan's dead robot dad being the worst) hilarious. But I'm not sure if that makes a good game, it just made me laugh.

Am I a Regular

Yup, started Pokemon Yellow, somehow been here ever since. That said, each time a new one comes out I ask myself if I'm really going to get it since my enjoyment has gone progressively downhill each game, but so far I've kept doing it.

[shiny-jr]

Been playing the recent Pokemon game (i got violet because Ceruledge grabbed me by the throat), how is ur experience with the new game? Whaddya think of it??

- big hat anon, actively trying to avoid Nemona

Oh god, here we go. Very long reply of my personal thoughts. Remember, these are just my personal opinions and I tend to be a heavy critic. Also, spoilers ahead if you haven't finished the game.

Where do I even begin? First off, this gen's starters were kinda trash. Not as bad as last gen, this gen was actually cute in the beginning but the designs for their last stage evolutions are kinda horrid. I picked the duck, purely so I could name him Quatrina and teach him Hurricane. I originally wanted to go with Sprigatito, but then he stood up on two legs and I was out.

Secondly, my team changed a lot but three remained on there the entire time. Quatrina, a Charcadet I named Charla, and a Fidough I named Conchas. Charla and Conchas? Carried.

Thirdly, I did the order of the story routes kinda weird.

First I did the Team Star route just because I wanted to see the "villains." And let me say, I'm glad they're actually kinda good. Like, maybe they're not as great as Team Skull, but they aren't horrible like Team Yell. The leaders of Team Star are actually interesting, and I wish we saw more of them. In my opinion, I thought they were actually more difficult than the gym leaders. Anyways, they're fun. Penny is a decent character too. I predicted she was the main boss literally before I even raided the first base. Also Clive? He's such a caring headmaster? Love that?? And how he went out of his way to try and understand the troubled students.

Second I did the Victory Road route. I wanted to do that last but it got to the point where became overpowered while playing the Star route and I had no gym badges yet, so new high level pokemon I had would not listen. Which got annoying because my main three: Quatrina, Charla, and Conchas were all higher leveled but they still listened. Anyways, I wanted to like Nemona, and I tried, I really did, but she got on my nerves so bad. She is one of the worst rivals by far. All she cared about was battles. Battles this battles that. That's literally all she ever talks about, its her whole personality, and it got so annoying. Especially because after the Star route, since I was so overleveled and the gyms don't change their levels no matter where you are, I breezed through all eight gyms within a few hours. The Elite Four was too easy, and so was the Champion, and so was Nemona. Actually, the only one that gave me trouble was Mr. Hassel, the fourth Elite Four. He was stronger than the Champion and Nemona. But I still breezed through that too. Anyways, not a fan of Nemona.

And last, I did the titan route. Arven? He is the GOAT. I love him so much, and he had such an interesting story. At first I didn't like him, I kinda thought he was a jerk, but then you learn his backstory and I fell hard. A guy with fluffy hair, Mommy/Daddy issues, cooks for you, and will fight off titans to heal his childhood pet? Sign me the fuck up. He is borderline himbo and I am so here for it. He is my favorite rival in this game by far, and probably one of my favorites of the whole Pokemon series. 10/10. Anyways, the titans were easy too. I usually one shot them most of the time, lol.

Finally, the end story, which I completed literally less than an hour ago. My theory is the crater was made by the same blast thousands of years ago mentioned in X and Y. If you know, you know. Kalos DLC, maybe??? Please?? Okay, so I have Violet meaning I got Professor Turo. When he only showed up during the last route with Arven, I knew it was super suspicious. Like he was absent almost the entire game, and now he wants us to travel to the crater? Red flag. Literally once I entered the cater and heard that beautiful but sorta eerie music, I thought to myself, "watch him be the bad guy." And guess what? I was right, he ended up being the bad guy. Although the whole AI thing and him actually being dead was not what I expected, but it was super interesting when his AI decided to destroy the time machine by going to the future that Turo obsessed over. Still, Turo really was a shit dad for spending his days on a time machine he knew could cause more harm than good and kinda just pushing his son off to the side. Arven deserved so much better. Also, Penny and Arven had a lot of good banter during this but I feel like they tried to make Nemona the peace between the two but she was just more annoying, at least to me. The way I got mad when I would say no to something and she would insist, pretty much giving you no actual choice.

That's all I can think of right now.

[pequenosol]

Alright!! It's been a while since I last posted, and, regrettably, I haven't accomplished as much as I hoped I had ^^' But here goes!

While training up for the Paradox Donphan, I caught numerous Pokèmon through raid battles, including a Bergmite and Shellos with Ghost Tera types, a Goomy, and a Dratini, and Blueberry evolved into Artibax!

The Titan battle was very easy for me, as per usual; Cinnamon took down that big boi without a problem <3

After that, I did a smidge more training, put Yarrow on the team in place of Lemon, and then off to the Psychic gym I went!

(Oh also Cardamom almost died on the way there lmao This is the second time this has happened X"D)

The Gym Test....went well. Tbh I thought it was a little weird in concept, but it was fun to watch Yarrow make all sorts of different expressions c:

I defeated the two trainers without any problems, and then I took on Tulip herself! Tbh, after seeing her approach me in battle, I became a fan- I like her speech pattern, elegant demeanor, and it's so cool how the butterfly bow thingies on her outfit can move....

As for the actual battle, Yarrow took care of her Farigarif without any problems! However, her Gardevoir wasn't as nice...

I taught Cinnamon Hex and Will-O-Wisp prior to the battle, because I've always wanted to do a sick combo move like that. The Will-o hit, but then....the next turn I accidentally misclicked and used it again TuT Cinnamon almost died and was on read health. I needed a turn to heal them up, and a free-switch in....knowing what that meant, I sent out Yarrow again and sacked him off. Rest in peace, buddy ;-;

Cinnamon took out the Gardevoir easily after that, and Cardemom OHKO'D the Espartha. Next up was Tulip's ace, Psychic Florges, and I sent out Cinnamon again.

A couple Hexes and a Torch Song (and almost dying again) later, the Florges went down. I won! :D Tulip took a selfie with me, gave me my badge, and went on her way.

After that, as recommended by a friend, I headed back to Uva Academy and took some classes! Much to my pleasure, I was not disappointed in the least! They actually were very fun and enjoyable ^^ I think every time I take down a gym or Titan or a Star base, I'm going to just take a round of lessons at the academy, as a way to relax and unwind after the boss battles, you know?

While I didn't make too much progression in the game, I did finish a lot of refs! So, let me just-- *BLARG*

[z-cerulean]

Pokemon Violet

For the main series, the last Pokemon I played was Ultra Moon. Various aspects of gen 8's launch turned me away from it back then, and BDSP didn't help matters either. I came back for PLA, which I overall liked, and decided to return to the main series with Violet after playing Blue and Crystal earlier this year.

Here's my brief non-spoiler thoughts on the game after finishing the main story, again, just what I think

Story and Setting

The story is, yep, it's a Pokemon game. Though this one takes a slight turn compared to prior games, where you have three separate plot threads to follow: doing the usual gym crawl and the Pokemon League for Nemona, taking on Titans for herbs with Arven, or defeating Team Star with Cassiopeia.

Personally speaking, the Team Star thread was fine if predictable, I cared the least for Nemona's story but it's ok enough and Arven is one of the better characters the series has managed to put out, I'd argue he's easily the strongest character in the game for writing.

The Paldea region as a whole sort of ties into my opinion on the gameplay, speaking of:

Gameplay

The game is open world and lets you go most of anywhere you want in any order, which is theoretically cool. The problem, however, is nothing scales to your current progression and everything is fixed, so you may as well go in order anyway. Which, isn't exactly communicated, I fought the ice gym 7 levels under and the water gym 7 levels higher. Overall to me, it undermines the open world progression.

Additionally, more of a personal nitpick, the progression being open world like that really made most of the towns bleed together in my mind, I barely remember any of them besides Levincia because it's the only place to buy tofu at.

That said, running around the open world is genuinely pretty fun. If you're a fan of exploration and collectathons for the dex then it's a decent recommend for that alone.

Battle system wise, it's... Pokemon, in short it works but i can't deny as I get older I'm finding the main series underutilises its own systems a lot, and I'd not mind a return to something like Colosseum where there's a lot more experimentation and varied strategy. Though Terastalisation is an option now, which does make for some fun pokemon builds. Though I will say how Tera types are handled isn't perfect, all wild pokemon just have one of their normal types as a tera type and it's a pain in the ass to grind up shards to change it, unless you get lucky with a tera raid spawn. It's fun enough, either way.

Also, removing the shiny sparkle noise is also sort of annoying, especially if you're unfamiliar with the newer pokemon and don't have side by side comparisons with the spawns.

The Pokemon being open world instead of tall grass is also cool, but there could have been some invincibility on exiting encounters so after finishing one you aren't forced to fight the Tauros that crawled up your ass during the previous battle.

The biggest issue with the game though is its performance. It's well known by now and admittedly, I'm surprised the game managed to be as enjoyable as it is in spite of it. The game is not foreign to random lag spikes or slowdown, even crashing in some cases. It's not a huge obstacle, personally, but for a game from the second biggest media franchise globally... yeah, why is it like this.

Also 20 minutes for online battles wasn't enough in gen 8 by all accounts I've heard, why is it still 20 minutes here. I'm probably just going to use Showdown for it if I decide to stray into that realm.

Overall

For all it's problems, Violet still managed to be a fun time, I enjoy most new additions and there's a decent basis for working out the problems with the ones that didn't work as well as intended. Numerical score, it's probably like an 8/10, 7.5/10 if i feel like being particularly harsh for its flaws.

There's almost inevitably DLC for the game next year, so I'll probably get back to the game for that once I'm done with the dex and postgame.