#and a third who wants to fight Every Thing in paldea

[tathracyn]

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet makes you hang glide into an apocalyptic murder-crater that's filled to the brim with violent, people-killing abominations, but taking your final exams is entirely optional. Truly the ideal school experience

[askroahmmythril]

Random Musings : Pokémon "Maridia Points"

So recently, I've finally gotten around to going through Ultra Sun while training a new team. I never actually played through that one, Ultra Moon, yes, but not Ultra Sun. So I hit a point in the game where I felt like I remembered it feeling like a bit of a slow point. This is something I've talked about before, what my friend Kit and I have dubbed "The Marida Effect," an area of a game that just feels like a slog to get through. So it got me to thinking, what part of each generation / region was my Maridia in Pokémon. Curious what others might think, or what points hit that for them. So here we go :

Kanto : Silph Co. Now to be fair, if you just make a beeline for the specific things you need to do to just clear Silph Co. and have done with it? It doesn't take THAT long. If, on the other hand, you're like me and want to fight every Rocket Grunt in there for munchy crunchy chocolatey experience points? Yeaaaaah that can take awhile... 10 or 11 floors I think it is full of trainers? Yup. But oh those experience levels can be worth it.

Johto : I don't really remember much of a Maridia point in Johto. I feel like I have a vague memory of Whirl Islands being a little bit of a thing? But it's an optional area overall, and I don't really remember it being THAT bad. Neither of the Rocket takeover areas feel as big or irritating to deal with as Silph Co. from what I remember.

Hoenn : The sea routes. Yeah yeah, get your IGN score jokes out there. Really, it's just how slow surfing is compared to biking, and there are a lot of sea routes toward the end. There's also the southern sea route near Pacifidlog that, if you want to find everything, you have to battle with the currents and thus will likely need to go down the route multiple times.

Sinnoh : A minor one, but the snow route from Mt. Coronet to Snowpoint. It's just the whole thing about certain areas slowing you way down because of the deep snow, and there's no point to it aside from specifically "hey let's add tedium." Thankfully a short area.

Unova : Clearing out Castelia. It's the first time in the series we get such a huge city, and there are so many spots to visit that it can take awhile to make sure you've been everywhere.

Kalos : Clearing out Lumiose. Previous entry, but even bigger. Dear gods Lumiose is huge. HUGE!!!

Alola : Ula'ula Island. There's a lot about the third island that just feels tedious to me. For one thing, the previous islands, Melemele and Akala, were largely just a loop around the island that you followed. Ula'ula is a lot of "go here, now backtrack. Go here, now backtrack." Next, you have the whole desert maze thing. There's also a lot of "plot barrier" stuff here, like going into Malie Garden and Hau basically saying "Let me block the bridge that you can easily see the Professor from, you go that way and look for the professor!"

Galar : Climbing Rose Tower. Thankfully another short bit, but it gets annoying since it's all double battles with Hop as your ally, fighting Macro Cosmos workers who all use Steel types... and Hop decides sending out a Dubwool that just uses Normal type attacks is the best strategy.

Paldea : Going through all the school classes. Not really much to say about it... School classes be tedious, yo.