Pokemon Scarlet/Violet Video Game Discussion

I just clocked 15 hours after my friend convinced me to give it another chance. Im really enjoying it now, and looking forward to playing online against some of you here!

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This video killed me :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

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I just watched it too. Absolutely hilarious and so relatable.

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My final update after playing 100 hours:

1.) maybe i got an unlucky copy, but i experienced every glitch in the game. from lag, to getting stuck in walls, miraidon just taking a rain check, to npcs floating in the air, - and even this really cool feature where the game has to force close and it erases all your data unless you recently saved/ autosaved. this happened at least once every 2 hours. i had to stop taking screenshots of all the glitches because they were no longer funny.

2.) this game was pretty fun, and i would have loved it had it come out 5 years ago. although progress is progress and iā€™m glad the game is at least going in the right direction. the graphics in this game are what they are. cant compare the map/ difficulty to BotW because of the target audience, but i would appreciate a significantly steeper level curve. i had like 10 lv. 50s before the 1st gym.

3.) in all, these have been my favorite pokemon designs since like gen 4. i have no idea what the kids online have been saying about them, but i will not accept fidough or flamigo slander.

4.) chien-pao is a snow leopard and i will not listen to anything otherwise. he is also my friend, even if he kills people.

5.) young me would have hated that they made competitive so much easier/ accessible, but present me is thankful that i dont have to grind for legitimate competitive pokemon.

6.) i hate using guides. i was able to find and unlock every shrine and side quest, but after 99 hours of talking to every npc and using every item, i finally had to look up how to evolve this motherfucking dolphin. how was i ever suppose to know that. this is some galarian yamask bullshit.

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I really need to play it butā€¦i also need to complete Lost Origin setā€¦ so to me every price of the cartridge is the price that i could spread around random cards i need right NOW.
Soā€¦im just shiny hunting for perfectly Masuda Method bred Pawniard in Sword/Shield (to train him in that game and get him that game ribbons so i can later transfer him to S/V and turn into that moustache samurai sitting on his own metal hair) and collecting cards cards cards. Im sure the game can wait - it will be there for a while!

All i have to say is pokemon car battles!?! Really???

Also all these new pokemon look like they are out of ideas for new designs. The bird looks like flechinder or however I spell it. Whatā€™s up with this weird version of diglet? I watched the game play for 2 hours and Iā€™m appalled to what we have come to. This game looks like garbage fire!

I was pleasantly surprised by the new pokemon designs. I usually only like one or two from each new gen, but there are a lot of neat new ones in this one.

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I will probably come around and play it eventually just for something to keep me busy a few days but Iā€™m really not liking what Iā€™m seeing. We will see

I canā€™t stand Maushold. That looks like a straight up ā€œran out of ideasā€ design.

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Beat the game (Scarlet) last night. Here are my brief thoughts:

  • Iā€™ll start by saying this is, quite easily, one of the most fun Pokemon games Iā€™ve ever played, and anyone calling the game ā€œgarbageā€ based on what theyā€™ve watched on YouTube or heard from other people should probably, you know, actually play the game first before falling victim to groupthink and jumping to conclusions. If you do that and you still donā€™t like it, fine, but criticizing the game without even playing it is just silly.

  • I love a lot of the new Pokemon designs. Some of my favorites are Tinkaton, Mabosstiff, Dachsbun, Garganacl, Armarouge/Ceruledge, Scovillain, Cyclizar, Dondozo, Baxcalibur (especially Arctibax, which is the middle evolution form) and Tatusgiri. Seriously people: expand your minds beyond Gen 1 for once. I am a Gen 1 baby myself, but letā€™s not just lambast every design we see because itā€™s not Charizard, Mewtwo or Pikachu.

  • The story in this game is pretty awesome. While I think the Team Star subplot is a little corny, Arvenā€™s story is simply incredible and I would go as far to say that he is actually the protagonist. I became emotionally invested in saving his Mabosstiff, and the plot twist at the end with his parent (mother or father depending on which version of the game you are playing) was definitely unexpected. I like the effort by Pokemon. Probably an even better story than Sun and Moon (which had a pretty great backdrop), and leagues better than whatever the heck Sword and Shieldā€™s story was about.

  • One criticism I do have about the endgame was the complete lack of a Mabosstiff appearance. The reason Arvenā€™s Mabosstiff was in poor condition was because it was severely wounded in Area Zero, presumably from defending Arven from another Pokemonā€™s attack (whether it was the other Koraidon/Miraidon or another unknown Pokemon [some have speculated it was actually the Paradox Form of Suicune/Virizion and that weā€™ll find out in the DLC]). Once Mabosstiff is healed from the herbs, Arven begins using him in battle and he obviously gets stronger. I was hoping for a more climactic ending where Mabosstiff steps in and finishes off Koraidon/Miraidon, either by itself or alongside of your own Koraidon/Miraidon. I just think that would have been a more fitting end to the story rather than a rather boring Koraidon vs. Koraidon (or Miraidon vs. Miraidon) showdown.

  • On that topic of Area Zero, I thought Gamefreak did an incredible job of making it legitimately creepy, from the music to the fact that the above ground area was so bright that you couldnā€™t even really see the shiny gold item indicators on the ground. The AI Sada/Turo was also rather chilling. The entire area was pretty unsettling.

  • There was actually some form of difficulty in this game, namely in the early Team Star boss battles. Revaroom was pretty tough, which I appreciated. However, I was very annoyed by the fact that your Pokemon didnā€™t gain any EXP points in those boss battles, which were certainly some of the toughest fights Scarlet and Violet had to offer. Not sure if that was by design (if so, why?) or just something the programmers forgot to include.

  • Yes, the optimization of this game was pretty awful. Seeing the weird NPC walk cycles was definitely jarring, especially considering that Gamefreak has been doing this for two-and-a-half decades and should know how to make sure characters donā€™t glitch. However, I thought the graphics themselves were solid, particularly the textures on the Pokemon. This was certainly the most effort Gamefreak put into bringing the actual Pokemon to life, so that was a step in the right direction.

  • The open-world concept was definitely an improvement. The only thing is it makes it rather impossible to Nuzlocke the game, as there is a complete absence of random encounters. I do like only having overworld encounters from a standard perspective and I completely understand that Gamefreak is not taking Nuzlockers into consideration when making the game, but it is a bit disappointing in that regard.

  • Get rid of the Gym Tests/Challenges/whatever you call them. They are corny and just waste time. If you are going to go with standard Gym Leaders, just have Gym Trainers like you do in all of the other games (save Sun and Moon which was a bit different).

  • Terastallization proved to be a much more tame/less broken gimmick than we saw in previous mainline titles, especially Dynamaxing/Gigantamaxing in Sword and Shield. This definitely spells good news for the competitive scene.

  • One thing I found odd: why is the school in Scarlet called ā€œNaranja Academy?ā€ Naranja is Spanish for orange, and Scarlet is red. Shouldnā€™t it have been something like Manzana (Apple) Academy? You also see orange scattered throughout the Paldea region, too (such as the Scarlet Book actually being orange instead of red). Does someone at Gamefreak not understand what color Scarlet actually is?

  • Finally, can we PLEASE stop with the gimmicky evolutions? Gamefreak finally gives us a dolphin Pokemon, but then they make it so we canā€™t evolve it unless we play online in multiplayer. Also, the way some of the other Pokemon evolve is maddening. If itā€™s not trade evolutions, itā€™s this.

Overall, I think these are really good games. There is a whole lot of content, so itā€™s not just a straight ā€œletā€™s finish these eight gyms and fight the Elite Fourā€ like we see in pretty much every other mainline Pokemon game. If not for the poor optimization, I think Scarlet and Violet would be absolutely fantastic. Gamefreak is headed in the right direction. Hopefully, they take all of the good things about Scarlet and Violet and expand them while cleaning up all of the obvious issues.

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Lol this is exactly what I was just said in my synopsis of the games. People crapping on the games without even actually playing them. Such a ridiculous thing to do.

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After playing 100+ hours of these games, I can confidently say this generation has been my favorite 3D PokƩmon entries.

The direction that the story and atmosphere took in the final act in Area Zero genuinely surprised me. I was not expecting mature subject matter in a PokƩmon game. I also really think they nailed the Paradox PokƩmon, their designs are interesting and I love how their presence is naturally tied in with the story.

I could gush about the music in this game for hours, there were so many memorable tracks. Iā€™ve been listening to the South Province Battle Theme on repeat since release. My lord itā€™s a bop.

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Also the Koraidon/Miraidon battle theme at the end. Even the Pokemon Center theme was great.

And how about THIS masterpiece?

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I absolutely love this song, I make a point to idle in Cascarrafa when Iā€™m raiding online to hear this track. There is such a diversity of instruments used in it.

I still canā€™t believe this is in a Pokemon game, it sounds like itā€™s from the Nier series:

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I canā€™t really relate to all the praise. Itā€™s probably one of the best 3d pokemon but that is an extremely low bar and I still feel Arceus is a league ahead of SV in terms of gameplay.

I think the game is ā€œfunā€ but I think thatā€™s more of a statement about how even a bad pokemon game can be fun, rather than any praise about this game in particular. It just feels like every part of this game attempts to reach the bare minimum amount of effort and instead falls one notch below that. The landscapes are virtually barren (outside of a handful of places) with no meaningful points of interest, the battle system feels ancient, the school mechanic is entirely useless. The sandwich system isnā€™t bad but no matter what I do, I only get 3 stars, I donā€™t know how to get any new recipes, the buffs seem not particularly useful in a standard playthrough of the game and it just ends up being faster to heal pokemon with the ā€œautoā€ button.

I like the titan pokemon storyline but the actual gameplay is mediocre. Each titan is either impossible or really easy depending on when you run into them. The Team Star thing had potential but maybe it was the order I did things but I found they offered zero challenge and ended up being just cumbersome. The gym minigames were pretty brutal, but I did appreciate the one where you had to find the codeword took a tiny amount of exploring and using some braincells. The character design is actually amazing but most are virtually irrelevant to any meaningful part of a story or only contribute in a minor way. Towns and cities are similar, they look interesting but exploring them is entirely unrewarding.

Yet I get the FUN element. Itā€™s weird because I find the moment-to-moment of the game not particularly fun but chained together itā€™s not terrible, especially when you find a new area or new pokemon. But I think itā€™s fun despite being an unfinished/barebones game. Contrast that to Arceus, which I found to be a fleshed out and somewhat innovative game in addition to being fun. Currently I have beaten the main three stories in SV. Iā€™ve not been motivated enough to pick it up again to do the Area Zero thing and elite four. Iā€™d like to at least finish it but havenā€™t gotten around to it yet

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See Iā€™m actually not a huge fan of Arceus because I donā€™t feel it offers a ton of actual content. Itā€™s a pretty big deviation from the mainline games, though, so Iā€™m not even sure itā€™s comparable to Scarlet and Violet or any of the main titles.

But I completely understand that the types of quests involved in Arceus can be fun for some. Itā€™s just not my thing.

I was very disappointed that stealth catching wasnā€™t retained in SV. Nothing better than sneaking up on a very high level pokemon, lobbing a Pokeball at their back, and then them breaking out and chasing you down haha. I do also agree about the landscapes in Arceus being more thoughtfully detailed and laid out. Arceus gave you more of a feeling of adventure, while in SV, it feels like youā€™re just riding along a mostly flat area with a ton of Pokemon in it. Itā€™s sort of difficult to explain the difference, but itā€™s there, absolutely.

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i did miss the overall catching mechanic from Legends Arceus because it made catching pokemon fun. i actually tried to complete the pokedex for like the 1st time, but itā€™s too tedious otherwise imo.

So you need to watch Morbius to know it is an awful movie?

No, you donā€™t.

It is ok that you loved the game but those are all subjective points.

All those points seem like gamefreak AT LEAST trying to make something different which we all can agree they are trying but at the end failing in the execution on almost every aspect of the game, ending with a bare bone semi cooked experience.

If you say ā€œthis game is badā€ and you havenā€™t played it, you are basing your opinion off of someone elseā€™s experience. So yes; you do need to play it to actually have a concrete opinion.

Saying ā€œthey failed on the execution of almost every aspect of the gameā€ without actually playing the game is pure foolishness. (And most people who played the game would disagree with your statement, by the way.)

I also find it really funny how you call my points ā€œsubjective pointsā€ (which they are) while you seem to be passing off your points as fact without even playing the game. Lol.

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