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my-forgotten-notepad · 2 years ago

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Pokemon ScarVio plot line is overall dissapointing; the following will contain spoilers for Pokemon Scarlet & Violet

As mentioned above; I think the overal plotlines of ScarVio are dissapointing, I think Operation Starfall has a rushed an awkward start that feels disconnected from the engrossing and empassioned middle before hitting us with a fake twist reveal before crashing and burning miserably at the end. Victory road is the gold winner here; but it's also not trying to reinvent the wheel, it's just the most consistent from beginning, middle to the ending. Path of Legends I liked and was kinda hooked on as the mystic of massive pokemon with unique powers and terrifying strength that may or may not be fairytales was cool, Arven's growth was cool; but like Operation Starfall, PoL crashed at the end for me.

I will break down my thoughts more thoroughly below.

The way we're introduced to Team Star is by them picking on students to try and brute force them into signing onto the team to fill quotas; this is never addressed nor brought up again. It's literally there for us to go "No, stop; Don't bully people" and then battle them. This is incredibly ironic especially when you start beating the base guards, the grunts and the Star Squad Captains and find out that they were bullied relentlessly in the academy.

Through the captains we are introduced to the Big Boss (a faceless character) who helped them and they instigated the ethos of Team Star, their dress sense, theme songs and prepared to take on every last bully in the academy because they were just so done by the academy letting it happen. They were planning to take justice in their own hands; but in their own words, the bullies never materialised and more importantly they all dropped out quickly and quietly and dissapeared. Perception of Team Star soured and worrying the faces of the Team (the Star Squad Captains) would lose their place; Penny talks to the corrupt former director (Clavell's predeccesor) and willfully goes to Galar for a year to let them stay at the academy.

We also hear from Clavell as Clive the hip rocker student; that it seems the academy buried so much of this and actively deleted or destroyed records to maintain the academy's reputation and image. This was where I was utterly hooked and I was excited to see who B.B was and how Operation Starfall would end.

So after struggling several times to best Eri and her insanely powerful revaroom; I return the academy, where I meet the fake-out twist of Operation Starfall. Director Clavell. Who admits to being Casseopeia via pre-programmable recordings; claiming he started Operation Starfall when an attempt to try and stop the bullies in the Academy went sideways not due to TS members; but the academy itself. Noting how he had been a visiting teacher when he encouraged students to stand up for themselves and was appauled when as director, he found several records were incomplete or just missing. Through his time as director and as Clive and B.B; Clavell was able to pull the truth together and admits the code is the code and you battle.

his team hits hard and fast; it's varied with types and physical/special attackers and he has the starter strong against yours, its an amazing conclusion about the damage failing your students or allowing the legacy and image of history to dominant the truth. A unique talking point running parallel to the opening text about how the academy operates by pulling from the legacies and history of the past to inform the now.

It's only after the battle that Clavell softly and quietly admits he is in fact not Team Star's Big Boss, nor was he Casseopeia and he will strive to make sure such a great blot and shame that led to the situation with Team Star will ever happen again. No faculty member should be able to wipe their sleight clean at the expense of their students.

Then he gets squaked at by the Maths teacher and is told he has to write out apologies to everyone and is carted off. Which leads us to fighting the actual Big Boss of Team Star; Penny.

Penny can best be described as the colour beige hardcut with anxiety; that's it. Unlike Arven and Nemona; she doesn't grow in the slightest from the time we save her from the Team Star grunts who never appear again on the stairs to the academy to our time descending into the Paldean crator. Nothing changes.

So, we meet her at the trainer fields and you can more or less one-shot OHKO her entire Eveelution team (Umbreon, Flareon, Vaporean, Leafeon, Jolteon and Sylveon). There's no grand speech, other than "I was bullied and it sucked and I can't talk to people, so I made Team Star and I guess you know the rest." That's the end of Penny more or less. Outside of kinda being a foil to Arven during the conversations in the crator; Penny just dissapears from the game.

Victory road is okay; the central thing is growing and competing with Nemona. Who is fairly static, but grows to have some restraint but never a lot; both in battling and in conversation. She's fun and spunky and kind of is a strong reminder and motivator for the player to push themselves too. Nemona can be a little forgiving in some battles; but also incredibly punishing if an when you present an opening to her. This leads the player to level up and try to get a fully evolved team ASAP, as well as when to and when not to use the Terra Orb. As you might actually benefit more from your pokemon's dual-typing rather than the attack buff from the Orb. All in all is the generic, tried and true beat 8 gyms narrative; kinda cool you can do them in any order. meaning if you're crazy enough you can try and battle against gym leaders whose entire team sits beyond your trainer level cap just for funsies. That could be a ScarVio hard mode challenge, trying to build teams that can survive against such massive level divides.

Leaving finally; the Path of Legends storyline.

I like this one the most originally and through the middle; it's the ending that ruins it for me more than anything.

When we start at the lighthouse; we're introduced to Arven, a spiteful and harsh boy with the motorbike lizard. He's intense and awkward and full of a lot of emotions he doesn't quite know how to express or handle. Arven is strongly characterised, like Nemona but in different ways. We beat him in a battle, get motorbike lizard then receive a message from Sada/Turo about caring for it. Arven expresses strong emotions about hearing his parent's voice, more specifically how they don't really address him.

Once we're out of the academy; we venture round fighting the titan pokemon and the Herba Mystica, both of which are things Arven is fascinated in. The original reason given is the Scarlet Book informs that the Titan Pokemon gravitate to certain areas and the Herba Mystica has supposed healing and culinary properties. Arven expresses an interest in the taste and quality of the food; connecting to the picnicking gimmick of ScarVio.

It's only after the second Titan that Arven introduces us to the actual reason; his bestest boi Mobasstif is incredibly ill and needs aid. But Arven's tried everything and nothing works; the Herba Mystica is his last chance to save his first pokemon, his greatest companion. The game hammers this home by adding in the cutscenes of Mobasstif eating the Herba Mystica and slowly regaining his strength and control of his body. Arven often exclaiming how he hasn't seen his dog's eyes or barks in literal years; showing how long Mobasstif has been ill and unwell.

Throughout all of this Sada/Turo has been messaging us to take care of the motorbike lizard.

This all culminates in the final titan and Sada/Turo tells us to take motobike lizard to the Paldean crator; also take Arven I guess. This incenses Arven who demands answers and Sada/Turo admit they cannot leave the crator and to go the lab. That doesn't soothe Arven but we go to the lab, where we're told now that Motorbike lizard is healthy again to come to the crator for all the answers; again Arven demands something substantial and is told no.

As we exit, Arven expresses his anger and his sadness and his confusion by informing us of the thing we kind of already knew; that he's the professor's kid. What we didn't know is that he lived in the research centers in the crator most of his childhood before (at least from his perspective) being sent away. The reason Mobasstif was so unwell and injured was Arven attempted to breach the crator some years ago and was almost done in by smaller versions of the titan pokemon. To prove he's strong enough now we battle (he has all the mon he found on the PoL Titan Pokemon battles + Mobasstif) they are all level 60-62 and they can hit like trucks. It's a strong battle and Arven feels confident in almost beating the player but they still need some muscle (this is where you finish Victory Road and Operation Starfall to get Nemona and Penny open to finish Path of Legends).

Your team gets to the crator and there will be future/savage forms of pokemon from top to bottom more or less. The coolest part of this are the research notes from Sada/Turo, the conversation cutscenes with Sada/Turo AI and the automated dialogue exchanges between research stations. We start with Arven having all his burning emotions boiling to the fore-front; making him come off as a giant dick and Nemona and Penny scold and make jabs at him until we get about halfway down and a savage/future pokemon comes at Penny and the reality sets in and both Nemona and Penny realise that Sada/Turo cared more about their research than Arven.

This is actually backed up by the research notes; which kind of slowly descend into aggressive intensity about acheiving paradise in the now. Noting about how they need more researchers in one lab, to pondering the idea of having two of themselves (leading to the creation of their AI counterparts) but the one that stood out to me was when they referenced the new researcher who was as smart as them; abandoning the project entirely and 'taking the boy too'.

And when we finally came to the Zero Lab; Arven doesn't get more than 3 lines of dialogue with Sada/Turo. It feels rushed, clunky and more importantly there's no closure, no admittance of fault or oversight.

Sada/Turo is a terrifyingly neglectful parent who left a robot who has no actual closure with Arven and then fucks off to the past/future and all Arven has is some bland passed over "Mommy/daddy love you; i'm fucking off now BYEEE!" Like that is literally the biggest exchange Arven and the ghost of his dead parent trapped in a machine have. "oh, they actually did love you." Followed by the AI malfunctioning as the Paradise Protection Protocol triggers and the AI just says at the end of the motorbike lizard vs motorbike lizard (which was the most anti-climatic fight ever, even besting Penny's battle). "The time machine will keep pulling future/savage pokemon through it and cannot be turned off. Only when I enter into the past/future, will it turn off." then just goes.

Arven then just spouts off about how his parent must have actually loved him or something; which just rings hollow considering they didn't actually talk, the AI just blurted two lines out at him and then bails forever.

I had thought what we would face at the Zero lab was that the professors had found a way to travel to and from the past/future, but their technology failed and needed us + motorbike lizard to save them. Because they missed Arven and the whole conclusion was gonna tie off all of the issues of Sada/Turo letting work consume their every waking moment to the point they referred to their child as 'The Boy' in their research notes rather than Arven.

... This Installment did a lot; and I think in the end, that scattered focus did more name to the game narratively more than anything else.

Tell me your thoughts on all of this, anyone who has played and finished ScarVio. Am I making a mountain out of a molehill about the storylines?

#pokemon #pokemon scarlet & violet #story lines #path of legends #victory road #operation starfall #let down #criticism #rant #long post #spoilers #read more

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