So running down through the trailer:
Wild Tera Pokemon: So, in addition to Tera Blast (which is likely a Move only trainer Pokemon get), any Wild Pokemon that can Terastallize will have a Move of that Type; not just the Pokemon from the Raid Battles. Though note Jigglypuff has always been able to learn Water Pulse every time its been available as a TM. So maybe "normal" Wild Tera Pokemon will have Tera Types of at least the offense Moves of other Types it can learn (which will probably mean Normal-types, at least the early Gen ones, will have the widest range of Tera Types they can come in without a Raid Battle; all speculation of course). Curious what this would mean for normal Wild Pokemon, like can they only be Tera Types of their own Type (and maybe of the Types of their natural learnset)?
Tera Status: Good to know the Pokemon's Tera Type would just be right there on the Status Screen, nice and simple.
Exp. Share: Well it's there, bets on whether you can turn it off or its always on? At the very least, hopefully with the Let's Go function, training can be made easy? Like it looks like they're taking the Earthbound approach where, if your Pokemon is strong enough, they just OHKO the opponent.
Let's Go... Not Too Far: Though, from this trailer, is just makes it sound like the Let's Go command is a glorified "attack/fetch" order, which after your Pokemon comes back to you (similar to Legends Arcues throwing out your Pokemon to start a battle/fetch materials). On the site and previous trailer they made it sound like you could just let your Pokemon go and do as it wished until you called it back. Is that just a function they're not showing?
Hidden Map Details (3:29): That's interesting. After figuring out the map was rotated upside down (at least compared to the Paldea map art), in the canyon segment there's a single random Flying spot. I think its too close (and looks to be on top of a cliff) to be the Pokemon Center that's there, but it's roughly in the spot one of the ancient towers is. But, the thing about that, is that there's two ancient towers, and they're close enough if you can see one you can see the other. So does that mean the player only visited one of the towers which is how you unlock fly spots among other things? Or, since they're so close to one another, only one tower unlocks the Fly spot? And do you have to do something to unlock the Fly spot or just being there is enough to let you fly to it like a Pokemon Center?
BUT that's not all! The camera than scrolls "down" to a more field-like area with some cliffs which has quite a few buildings (represented as small white squares and larger dark gray squares). Now, because the map is flipped, it's easy to get confused where this is. This field-like area is revealed to be the Team Star Fire Squad base, though on the Paldea Map art it's simply represented as the Red Flags. Now this isn't strange, this has happened with the maps before, hiding/skipping out on exact details for a more general appearance. Though this makes me wonder if that means there's maybe other settlements or random houses/buildings scattered throughout the Paldea wilderness.
Storming The Star Base: So the grunt battling section of Starfall Street does use a special form of Let's Go. When you enter the base you're told you'll be using the first 3 Pokemon in your party. When the challenge starts the grunts send out all of their Pokemon and you send out your three Pokemon via Let's Go to take down the grunts' Pokemon. I think GF thought this would make the whole battling the villain team feel a bit chaotic, but from what I'm seeing it's just you using Let's Go to target one of the Grunt's Pokemon, use Let's Go to target another, and then another, and then wait for your Pokemon to finish OHKOing the grunt's Pokemon (which don't seem TOO concerned with you, hopefully this is just an early build using Wild Pokemon data and the actual thing has the grunts Pokemon actually coming after you...) for you to target another; rinse and repeat until defeating all the grunts (let's see if we'll have to play a game of "where is the last darn enemy"). And being we see Wiglett have half HP at one point but green at the end, you'll be allowed to heal your three Pokemon. Hopefully there's more strategy then what I just said, because otherwise this is just the game playing itself (at best you can call it a RTS). Also it doesn't look like you're restricted to the three Pokemon when it's time to fight the Squad Boss... which makes me wonder why the forced rule of using just the first three Pokemon in your party? Like, if one gets knocked out, can't I send out one of the back three; unless they take them they're just hanging back?
Also looks like that engine Pokemon has another form, the back wheels of the Squad Leader's cars are also these Pokemon. Though unlike the engine part which looks like it could transform and get out of the car, these back wheel engines look more attached to the car. Before I was leaning toward the engine being the Pokemon, but seeing that now makes me think it's another possessor Pokemon who possesses car engines (relative of Rotom?).
Technical Machine Machine: Really, you couldn't think of another word aside from machine? It's not completely a case of "Department of Redundancy Department", but it's pretty close. TM Scripter, TM Writer, heck TM Maker would have been acceptable.
Anyway, goodbye multiuse TMs, it was nice having you. Then again, with the introduction of TRs, it did feel like GF weren't quite sure which moves to make TMs and TRs without making TMs feel lacking cause of course the TRs were going to have the majority of the strong moves you actually want. Being you now instead find "recipes" for the TMs I guess this is a combination of both concepts: technically you still have all the TMs you find, but you have to create them via Pokemon
body parts "Resources" and "League Points".
"League Points" are particularly noteworthy. You get League Points either by trading in Resources or "advancing the story" (as the site puts it), which I guess means through specific Trainer Battles, specifically ones for the Pokemon League? That surely can't be it; that would give the players focusing on the Victory Road story a huge advantage (unless Team Star also gives out League Points for some reason, and for Road of Legends I guess you'll just be collecting a lot of Resources naturally (probably given quite a few from Titans) so can just trade those in for LP).
So, yeah, THIS is GF's idea of a crafting system for a mainline game. Actually, I'm criticizing, but that's only because they took away multiuse TMs. Had they made it so you could use this to make TRs and other stuff this could have been a neat side thing to have. But by making it so you need to do it for all TMs and it only looks like you use Resources and League Points for making TMs, its a real let down and even feels forced. GF, if you couldn't think of a good crafting system, you aren't required to put one in; I know, hard to believe but when it impacts QoL it's better just not have it.
A few oddities I noticed with them scrolling through the moves:
- Even though you found the recipe (thus why its listed), if you did not find the Pokemon that gives you the the Resource it lists it has "???". How does that make any sense? Also REAL helpful if I want to make that TM but have no clue what Pokemon I should be looking for to make it.
- "Well, you at least know what Type is needed". Do we? Cause if you look at Charm, a Fairy-type Move, one of the required Resources is a Teddiursa Claw. And we've seen Teddiursa already, this isn't a Paldean regional form (would be weird to give it one just after giving Ursaring a new evo in Legends Arceus). Now for flavor & context it makes sense, Teddiursa uses its cute charm to get what it wants, but this means that there's probably a few oddball TM recipes which requires a Pokemon not of their Type. Now hopefully this isn't an issue, but at the same time I shouldn't be feeling this might be an issue if they just told us what Pokemon was needed. If you're trying to keep certain Pokemon a surprise, then only use that Pokemon's Resource for a TM that the player will discover after having encountered that Pokemon (or at least had a few opportunities to).
Titan Of A Different Cutscene: Huh, so this is different. Last time we were with Arven when we encountered the Titan Klawf and he had some other things to say. But here he's just calling us up that the Titan Klawf is nearby and the cutscene of it jumping down plays but there's no Arven to make a comment. So this suggests that maybe partnering with Arven & encountering the Titan with him only happens for the first one you encounter and for the rest (likely excluding the last one) he instead calls you up on the Rotom Phone to tell you you're near one. So GF, did you actually give Arven a unique quote for each Titan? Or is Arven going to say "
No (POKEMON) has any right being that size!" no matter which one you encounter first?
Also, after getting below a certain amount of HP, the Titan runs away. Not sure exactly what this implies. "
Maybe its so that you can get multiple of its Herba Mystica, just got to wait until it "refreshes""? Possibly, but it doesn't really need to run away at low HP to do that. You can just knock it out like any other Pokemon and then have it reappear later saying it healed from your previoua battle and ready to go again (maybe a bit tougher as well).
Evolving On The Field: Hey, this is neat! Instead of going into the "Evolution Zone" to see your Pokemon evolve, now they just evolve on the overworld! I'll talk about Farigarif a bit later.
10FPS Sunflora (7:43): SWEET ARCEUS WHAT'S WRONG WITH THOSE SUNFLORA?!
I see EVERY SINGLE FRAME of their animation! GF, there's only 9 Sunflora and the player on screen, PLEASE don't tell me the game is not able to handle that many models so you have to lower the FPS of Sunflora to a ridiculous amount!
New Trailer, Old Faces: I'm disappointed we weren't shown a new Team Star Squad, Titan, and Gym Leader. And I know what some of you are going to say, you like how they're not revealing that much info, which I can agree with to a certain extent. However, had they shown them, it would only be the 2nd Team Star Squad, 2nd Titan, and 3rd Gym Leader; we'd still have at least 3 other Squads, 5 Gym Leaders, and who knows how many other Titans. And being this game is pushing the idea that you can challenge the Stories' bosses in any order you want, I feel at least knowing like at least 3 from each group from various places around Paldea would give that feeling of challenging the bosses in any order. But right now it kind of feels like the Fire Squad, Klawk Titan, and Brassius are the first bosses of their respective stories. This is especially odd when there looks to be two directions you can start your journey out on, yet the bosses they're pushing are all from the right path out of Mesagoza. At the very least tell us the first Gym Leader, Titan, and Team Star Squad we'd encounter if we went left.
Wide Open Customization: Now this is something I have to give GF credit for! It doesn't look like they're locking customization options (at least for the face) behind gender! Boys can have long hair (and I'm assuming girls can have short hair)! Not only that, WE CAN FINALLY HAVE ANIME HAIR! That's right, took them FOUR gens to realize "hey, we don't have to stick to realistic hair colors"! Now they of course have the normal hair colors first, but on the bottom they had "green" and "white" and had they scrolled down I'm sure we'd have seen the rest of the rainbow!
And while eye color has always been expansive, you can now choose the shape of your eyes (well, at least 9)! Though I gotta say "Eye Shape V" looks WAY more naturally than the wide-eyes default (which I'm guessing is "Eye Shape I".
Oh, and though they stopped at Eye Color, the top bar reveals several more customization options: 2 for Eyelashes (guessing one is for color and the other is for style), 2 for Eyebrows (color and shape), 2 for Lips/Mouth (going to guess mouth shape and maybe lipstick color?), then we have another Eye with a dot in the corner (beauty marks, freckles and other face markings?), and finally the Head itself (curious how many head shapes they have, or is this maybe an option to just switch between the boy's head and the girl's head?).
Now I'm imagine most of the clothing will still be gender-based due to how the models work, but that just makes me wonder if they won't let us just have the option to switch between genders (and maybe even skin color)? Because, well, why not?
School ID: I don't know why I didn't think that your Trainer Card was going to be your School ID, that's such an obvious idea. Though nice to see the Academy is very lenient on what you can have as an ID picture.
Picnics... And Baths: Because I know when I plan for a picnic I bring a loofah, soap, and a shower hose for any last minute cleaning... seriously what?
Well, baths aside, here's our Camping replacement (have we gotten a name for these Pokemon-Amie side features yet?). And instead of making curry, we're now making sandwiches like we're working in a Subways (Subways is a sandwich restaurant chain, I don't know if Subways exist outside of the US). Actually its a stacking game and if you don't stack right the ingredients fall off... GF have you ever made a sandwich? The ingredients don't tend to fall off unless you put too much on, otherwise most ingredients lie flat, cause they're on a flat piece of bread. Anyway, much like Curry, you get effects depending on the kind of sandwich you make and they're much more than just additional experience and Friendship. Apparently you're making sandwiches out of O-Power as you increase your Pokemon's Power, Encounter Rate, Catching Chance, and others of a certain Type! BUT the most important detail: you get to pick the pick you place in your sandwich!
10 / 10 BEST GAME EVUR!
Nitpicking/Joking aside I'm liking the improvements from Camp. Instead of having looking at your Pokemon from a POV, you're moving around the picnic to interact with your Pokemon and play with them (and give them baths). You can customize what tablecloth, cups, & water bottle you use (though you seem to always use the same lantern and chairs... BTW where did the table come from? Was that in our backpack? How did it fit? Or are we confirming for once and for all the backpack/bag is just a portable database we have our stuff digitized in?). It's also nice they let Koraidon and Miraidon join in the picnic even though at the moment they're just your Ride Pokemon, it's a small thing but does make them feel like they're part of your team. Also neat they let you take pictures and add camera filters to them, going all the way with the Rotom Phone just being a Smart Phone.
Though kind of odd you can just find a Pokemon Egg in your basket, like how did it get there? And is there a way to know what Pokemon is in it? Because it would feel kind of awkward turning down a Pokemon Egg, at least not having someone like a Daycare Person to take it (yes, I know it's not real; but still doesn't feel right). It was sad enough when you turn down a new Pokemon friend in the Poke Pelago, but at the very least I knew what Pokemon it was.
Can't believe the topic I most talked about was the picnic feature. Well, I don't know about you, but I can't wait till I can serve my Lechonk a ham sandwich!
Tera Raid Battle: I still don't know how they work. Like, I do see now there is a timer, but it looks like after selecting a Move you don't select again and your Pokemon keeps using the Move until it faints(?). Also it still looks like your Pokemon is taking turns, its just that it seems like they tried to automate the process as much as they could. But it just makes it look awkward when the Pokemon are just standing there waiting to take their turn, I get maybe doing this for the first turn as everyone selects their move but once they do I think would look better if they were attacking all at once or, as one is in the middle of their animation, another one starts, and so on so that it looks like they're coordinating.
