#especially sw/sh & scarlet & violet ……..

[straightboyfriend]

don’t get me wrong i liked pokemon X & Y & at the time they were my fave pokemon games but. the stiff, clumsy animations of the characters & the pokemon themselves have always bothered me…. 3D models are hard to get right & pokemon pixel sprites had a lot of life & personality that they’ve failed to capture with any of the 3D models

[whistlingstarlight]

Okay fellow Pokémon fans genuine question are Scarlet/Violet worth getting? I already know at least the basics of the plot/s and the differences between each game, the characters seem fun and I do like a lot of the new Pokémon, but I've heard some criticisms so idk if I wanna commit paying like £40 odd for one of them (not even counting the DLCs).

The main reason I'm hedging is that when I got Shield, I also thought the characters were fun and I liked a lot of the new Pokémon. But I got bored halfway through, even after buying the DLCs (which I regret, honestly). I absolutely adore Legends: Arceus but I know that's a very different kind of game. So, if you've played Scarlet and/or Violet, what are the reasons you'd recommend it?

[cloudninetonine]

(A wild pokefan BB appeared!) The problem with starting Sword and Shield is that they kind of suck, especially in the story and character aspect. If you’re wanting to start with something with some semblance of a beating heart I would go with Scarlet and Violet.

The preferable games are definitely Black and White with great sprite work and a diverse story, but they are on the ds and not the switch like Sw/Sh and S/V

On the other side however, Sword and Shield have great dlc, that are unfortunately locked behind a paywall, but Scarlet and Violet have the best story since Black and White, even if it is realized after the main game (they also have the best Pokémon ever created, Tinkaton, a pink fairy gremlin who carries around a BIG HAMMER)

HDJWJJZJWQ LOVING THE BRUTAL HONESTY BB WJKZMWMZMMW

Also had a look at Tinkaton I'm LOVING THEM

[condylicious]

i will say, despite how much of a unfinished mess scarlet and violet are gameplay/graphics-wise, i’m finding that i’m enjoying the characters a lot more than in most pokemon games. the writing + designs for the gym leaders especially has improved a lot these past two games, i find most of the gym leaders from sc/vi and sw/sh to be super memorable. also i would die for arven. that is all

[xecat]

been watchin a playthrough of scarlet and man. they dont lie. the extremely buggy game with lots of flaws has some really cool parts and looks really fun . ramblin under cut

i honestly like most of the character designs and how the models look w textures n stuff (the dodgy rimlighting isnt great but the rest looks good imo) . the cutscenes w unique animations are really cool especially in the ending areas !! and the story is actually good from wht ive seen.

it feels like the team working on it put passion into it despite the time crunch. obviously theres a lot of bugs and the open world environments/textures feel a bit empty and bland. but just from wht ive seen and heard abt scarlet/violet. i really feel like this couldve been the best or one of the best in the series if they had more time to work on it and were unionised . it feels like they did put care into some parts of the game and i wish tht couldve translated to the rest of the game (like the fuckin eating animation lmao even sw/sh had a better eating sequence than the sandwich one)

also take everythin im sayin with a grain of salt or whtever. this is mostly my opinion as someone who has only properly played one poke game (watched playthrus of some others) and i am known for liking most media like enjoying "bad" games and "bad" movies and "bad" music lol

[buggy-os]

OUGH POKÉMON SCARLET AND VIOLET HAVE A HOLD ON MY HEARTTTT. YOU TELLIN ME GEM POKÉMON? IN MY SILLY LIL OPEN WORLD RPG WITH A SUSPICIOUS AMOUNT OF UNOVAN POKÉMON SHOWN IN THE TRAILER AFTER WHAT RECENTLY HAPPENED? (I think a bunch of unovan, I recognize quiet a few) EKWIJOREUEKWK

[cryptidiopathic]

Apparently no national Dex confirmed in scarlet/violet +--(°^°)--+

Tbh it's not worth my money if I can't play my own way with my own team. I'm probably going to just check it out from the library and play it then return it instead of spending money on it.

I don't get why they aren't prioritizing keeping all pokemon in the game especially when feedback has been pretty clear that that's what fans want, and especially with the introduction of pokemon home. What's the point of having my pokemon in home if I can't play with them? What am I paying for if I can't bring them with me to the next game? Just to keep them in a case to look at?

Until sw/sh it was a standard feature. I know their excuse is that they're prioritizing animations and graphics (which still pale in comparison to other games on the same platform) but even if the graphics were good enough to justify that I'd still rather have the national Dex and fucking gba graphics than full 3D and nice graphics and no national Dex.

The frustrating thing is they really can afford to just not give a fuck, bc even if it sucks, it's pokemon so ppl will buy it.

[marcussour]

In preparation for the release of Scarlet/Violet, went back to play Pokémon Sword. I had completed the main story and the post game content, but actually never completed the dex, or got everything, and never even got around to buy the expansion pack. Here are some random musings (TLDR in advance: it was okay):

- My memory of the game was that I liked it more than I remembered. Now, of course, it’s different going back to the game after the main things were completed, instead of playing the story as it went along. But as I was playing I started noticing the shortcomings even more, and basically what kept me from dedicating hundreds of hours to this game like I’ve been doing with pretty much all of them since gen 1.

- I mean, I think it’s a serviceable 6 or 7/10 game. There’s a lot of stuff to like but that’s like, barebones or showing some promise that eventually would’ve been capitalized in future games (nothing new for pokémon in that regard, but I think it’s far more noticeable in Sword/Shield). I think the main example it’s the Wild Area, it’s by far the best and more memorable bit from the game, and it shows the promise of roaming in an open space and what wonders that can do for pokémon, so it’s no wonder that it was expanded to full areas by way of Monster Hunter, in Legends: Arceus, and from there it was a natural progression to a full open world game in Scarlet/Violet (and if anything, it’s kinda remarcable that a studio so slow to adapt and evolve like The Pokémon Company went in just 3 years from Sw/Sh’s Wild Area, to Scarlet/Violet open world).

- It’s amazing in retrospective how this was probably the best pokémon game in term of trainers designs since the first two gens IMO. Specially when it comes to the gym leaders and main characters, almost all of them are really good, and there’s no wonder characters like Leon, Nessa or Marnie became so popular in so little time.

- I think the pokémon designs were really hit or miss (I know that people often said this about every generation, especially when they put their nostalgia glasses on to compare older generations to the newer ones). People often remember the more memorable designs (and this was the gen that gave us Scorbunny, Sobble, Corviknight, Wooloo, Galarian Weezing, Yamper, Sirfetch’d and many more), but I don’t think that there’s been any other gen where I literally forgot about many of it’s pokemon like with this one. Although I would be the first to admit that this might be due to the fact that, since the overall game experience was just fine and I didn’t find enough replayability value compared with other pokémon games, that might be the factor why I forgot about many pokémon.

- Not gonna go into story details, since this was about coming back to a file that already all that stuff done.

- I do think that the game’s main problem comes down to that it just feels like a new pokémon game, like, it ticks the requireable boxes and it’s certainly a pokémon game ™ in structure. And while it did try to innovate in some things (like the aforementiond Wild Area, or by tying the main story directly to the league championship), it didn’t went far enough and it shows. I know some people don’t like it for graphics reason or what not, but TBH, if anything, I think it looks better than I remembered (and also, I think in many ways Legends: Arceus felt like a visual downgrade, and yet, that game nailed it many beats to a tee -and it helps that it tried many new things, or new for pokémon at least-; it’s pretty telling that I almost never came back to Sword, but I dedicated many hours to Legends: Arceus until I reached 100% completion).

- Also, I kinda wished the game had leaned even more into the whole “pokémon battles are to Galar what football is to England” parallel. I mean, it’s ever present, and I love how the aesthetic of the game overall is kinda a look between football and punk (with even the gym specific uniforms resembling football jerseys). But I wished that they had included even more things, stuff like rivalrys (not only the one represented by Marnie and her hooligans) but maybe even more between the gym leaders or the different cities, like, Wyndon it’s one of the best cities design in all of Pokémon, and besides the League, there’s so little to do there (and what else there is, you can do it other cities). Also, if there was a chance to make a Pokémon World League or Championship, it definitively was this game (maybe they thought it would be too repetitive, since they had a similar bit in Sun/Moon with the Battle Tree). In that way, it’s great that the anime capitalized something that I wished the game had done.

- The soundtrack is really good and has some absolute bangers. We all know about the gym leaders battle theme, or Marnie’s theme (and Team Yell’s while we are on the subject); but I had no recollection that Circhester’s theme was such a great tune. And that’s just to name a few.

- Overall, like I said before, I think it was a fine experience. But coming back to the game it’s impossible not to feel a bit underwhelmed that it was basically a transitional game towards the experiences of Legends: Arceus and Scarlet/Violet, or that many of it’s best concepts and ideas were better used and capitalized by the anime.