All right. Time for some more in-depth unstructured thoughts about the new info for the games.
There was one thing I wanted to say earlier. Allow me to be a true Pokémon fan for a moment and whine about every little thing. I don’t like how they recently have been showcasing all new info about the games through livestreamed Presents instead of just dropping a regular trailer out of nowhere, like they did in the past. I think it was more fun that way.
Now, to what was shown in the Presents. Or rather, what was shown regarding ScaVio. I like how the games seem to be based around the school, with professors, a teacher, a director, and other students. The backstory/lore of the school seems pretty cool too. No voice acting, but I guess I shouldn’t have expected anything else. The point studying at the school seems to be… a treasure hunt? I wonder what kind of treasure we will find? I’m going to try my best to find the treasure named Friendship.
As for the new characters, I wonder if Arven and Penny will be friendly rivals, or if they will just be supporting characters? Guess we’ll see. The info on the site seems to hint that they will battle you, so I guess friendly rivals. I’m still super happy about Nemona as the first female main rival in the series, I hope she will be just as great as I’m expecting her to be. Gravell is described as strict yet kind, the perfect sort of teacher if you ask me. Jacq seem fine. I thought Grusha was cute at first… but she’s male? And Penny is apparently a girl, I thought she was a boy at first. Though I guess the skirt should have made it obvious… and Penny is a female name.
The region name, finally. Paldea. Going by the map, it looks great. It seems large and there are many different environments… just like with every region from Sinnoh and on, which is excellent. I like the big tower, it reminds me of the towers from BOTW and that’s cool.
Graphically, the games look fine to me. Not as great as many other Switch games, but I hadn’t expected that. They seem to be a step up from L:A at least, and that’s great. I don’t care if the grass looks bad or whatever, I won’t have time to study the grass as I’m going to actually play the game!
The three stories are interesting. One of them is obviously going to be the standard story with the Gyms and League, but what about the other two? Will the school and the treasure hunt be one of the other stories? I guess I’ll need to play to find out.
Next, some thoughts on the new Pokémon:
- Fidough is super adorable! A cute dog, following Lillipup, Yamper and Hisuian Growlithe. If real-life dogs could be this cute, I could even consider getting one. It is a Fairy-type too! Maybe I’ll use one on my in-game team. If I use it alongside Sprigatito, I’ll have both cat and dog!
- Cetitan is a typical weird new Pokémon. I’ll get used to it eventually. An Ice-type whale with legs and arms? The more I think about it, the more creative it feels.
- Paldean Wooper isn’t too different from regular Wooper outside of the colors… but that’s okay, Wooper is great and so is this regional variant. I’m very happy about regional variants continuing. And they will hopefully never be Kanto-only again.
I’m also happy to see more old Pokémon returning. The trailer showcased Sawsbuck, and in different forms too! I guess seasons won’t be in the games, I assume there will just be different forms of Sawsbuck in different areas, and maybe you’ll be able to change the form of it if you let it battle in a different area. I also like how Gogoat is back, and Cufant too! Copperajah is going to be there, awesome!
The legendaries are going to be ride Pokémon after all. I assume we will obtain them as rides early on, but we won’t be able to catch/use them in battle until the endgame. There’s yet another Rotom Pokédex, so that’s cool. As long as it doesn’t babble endlessly like in US/UM, I don’t have any problems with it. Pokémon Centers being completely outside is nice. As someone noted, it saves time since we won’t have to go through the door every time we want to do something at them.
Now, for the open world. Assuming it is a real open world (since that it what it has been presented as) and not a linear open world like in L:A, I wonder how it is going to work. Will it have level scaling? Levels are confirmed to be in the game, after all. If so, how will the levels be scaled? Will it be according you your progress in the game (this feels like it might be difficult if there are three different stories, though not all of them might be related to levels) or according to the levels of your party? Will levels scale for everything, or just for trainers battles, or just for “important” opponents like Gym Leaders? One screenshot shows a level 36 Pikachu fighting a (presumably wild) Donphan at level 25, but it does not really confirm anything.
If there is level scaling, will there be any way to “reset” the levels, allowing you to face wild Pokémon at low levels even after beating the game? Or will there not be any level scaling at all, to the point that you can potentially run into a wild Pokémon at level 60 immediately? If so, then I hope there will be a limit for at which levels you can catch Pokémon like there was in S/S. Or maybe levels won’t matter at all in the game? But if so, why are they in the games to start with?
I think this has the potential to become great, but there’s also just as much of a risk that they’ll screw it up really hard. Some things I saw were mentioned were that it seems like you can do the League whenever you want, even before doing any Gyms? Really weird. Someone also noted that there was a screenshot where the Pokémon used by the Gym Leaders did not have its level displayed, but since other screenshots confirmed that all info about the Pokémon is not always displayed, it does not really confirm anything.
Terastal, the new super mechanic. Not what I had expecting, still wondering when we will get Mega Abilities. Maybe in Gen 10? Anyway, as for Terastal… visually, I think it looks much cooler than Dynamax and Gigantamax. Crystallized Pokémon is great, it reminds me of the crystal ponies from MLP. That’s not a bad thing to be associated to if you ask me. Though I don’t really understand how it will work, and I don’t feel like reading up on what we know about it so far, I’ll just wait until the games are out and discover it for myself. It seems like it can be used anywhere like Megas/Z-moves, it does not appear to be restricted to just certain areas like Dynamax. I don’t care much for the raids, I wasn’t a huge fan of them in S/S and I don’t think I’ll do them much here either unless I have to, or they turn out to be more fun than in S/S.
So those are my thoughts on all the new stuff. Now to something else. I have finally decided which version to get. It will be Violet, Miraidon won me over in the end. Violet also has the Bagon line which I like better than the Larvitar line (both are great though). But it doesn’t really matter since I won’t be using Salamence, at least not during the main game.
I’m looking forward to the games, what I have seen so far looks fun. I’m definitely not expecting a flawless masterpiece, but as long as the open world isn’t a complete disaster like in Johto, I think it will be fun. I enjoyed both Sword and L:A despite their flaws, and I have a feeling Violet will be fun as well. Now I just need to find the time to play through the main story of XC3 before ScaVio are released… feels like it will be hard. But first of all, I guess I should actually get XC3!
This will be the last pre-release info I’m going to look at. I have seen what I want to see, I have no desire to be spoiled for anything more. Going into the game 90% blind was great when I did it for Sword and I’m definitely doing it again for Violet. In order to avoid more spoilers, I’m planning to go on a semi-hiatus from the forums and most other Pokémon/gaming sites soon. It is a shame how the fandom is still terrible when it comes to handling spoilers for upcoming games, keeping spoilers where they belong is apparently not possible. I’ll wait a few more days though, I have a few other posts I want to make. I also want to read more posts from other people in this thread to see if there are any other things I have missed from the new reveals.