#i hate pokemon scarlet i should have gotten violet

[doodlboy]

T^T I wish ceruledge wasn't version exclusive

[warrior-cats-rewritten]

‘Not trying to be rude’ *quickly descends to a personal attack for the crime of hating and giving a fittingly upsetting end to an abusive character that its own creators are apologists for* Bramble stans are so normal you guys

The reason I don't tag him is because every single time I have, I've gotten shit for it. Even the change to make him go from "generic guy who becomes a nothing background character for a laugh" to "actually messy and interesting" got hate for it. Myself and others have noticed that a lot of HIS tactics are used as well in their arguments.

I've redone Spiderleg! You want a shitty dad/husband getting "redeemed" (putting that word on a high shelf) I'll give you one! Man turns his WHOLE life around and is there for his family. Fuck, even WCR!Crowfeather manages to redirect the boat by going the opposite direction and stepping out of the lives of the people he hurt, because sometimes, sorry doesn't fix it.

But, yeah... God, I WISH I was half as dedicated to something. You're allowed to love something and criticize it. I'm a Pokemon fan and an avid Stardew Valley player for god's sake.

(Context: Pokemon's newest entries, Scarlet and Violet, are SO poorly optimized that it is quite literally impossible to experience a bug-free or lag-free playthrough. The games have massive memory leaks. For Stardew, there is ableism present as well as the character Shane's arc dealing with alcoholism getting a bit derailed should he marry the player. Stardew's issues can be fixed with fan-made mods, Pokemon's can be fixed by not buying the games until they start fixing the issues.)

My favorite are Hollyleaf and Mapleshade, and I can tell you, those girls did awful stuff, and you are allowed to hate them. Go ahead! Make them worse in your rewrites! If you don't like it, don't read it.

[anonprotagging]

i trust your opinion on pokemon games more than basically anyone else on the internet. should i buy scarlet/violet. i really hate being so out of loop with the new gen, suddenly not recognising pokemon feels so bad :( but i also don’t really wanna buy the games? but i wanna play them. augh.

okay, so it's kind of hard to judge the story based on my run so far since I haven't even gotten to the first gym, but I think I've gotten a good enough grasp of the mechanics and stylization to offer some pros and cons! (under a cut to save people's dashes)

cons:

-This game is BUGGY. holy shit. I thought, okay, maybe people are just getting mad like they do with every game, but nope!

it's worse than swsh, and honestly it's nearly worse than gen 1 because at least gen 1's bugs were caused by, y'know, developers trying to optimize the hardware and assets, instead of using all the switch's power trying to render 12 billion things at once.

I got stuck in my own living room within 3 minutes, and within 2 minutes of reaching the first big city I got stuck inside a building corner and had to fly out of there.

npcs jitter around constantly, there are T-posing issues (nemona was t-posed until I got close to her, it was weird), if you catch any pokemon the camera clips through the floor so you can see the out-of-bounds of the game?? overall disconcerting but also a little funny.

-I miss the PLA controls so bad you have no idea lol. the button for dodging is now the button for sneaking??

you Can still bean pokemon over the head with a ball, even if it is just to start a battle, but the aiming controls are SUPER finnicky and won't work half the time if it's anything in the air or water. not a fan of that.

-you can change your clothes or look (except hair) at any time in the game! but the controls to find it are unintuitive unless you look it up or someone tells you (it's the left joycon's arrow buttons.) I'm sure there are more control issues like that that I haven't noticed yet too.

-no shiny sparkle sound in the overworld. also the textures are kind of... not conducive to seeing if pokemon are shiny? I killed a shiny igglybuff bc I didn't look at the screen when I started the battle to see the sparkle animation. :(

pro Or con depending on your preferences:

-I honestly don't think it's that much more handhold-y than swsh or gen 7 so far, tbh? after the opening starter bit and rival battle and a little bit of railroady plot (akin to the lillie spearow opening in gen 7), I was able to explore the whole first massive open-world section of the game with no hassle.

it might get worse later? I'm not sure. I don't think anything could be more railroady than the start of gen 7, which I love dearly despite all that, so it's not a big factor for me.

just make sure you go outside ASAP and get down the road to the place where you can start running BEFORE you explore the area around your house. it will save you so much frustration.

-there's sections inside the school with optional classes and whatnot, which I personally like? it's not quite like the hassle with gen 7's trainer school so much as it is like the school sections of Super Mystery Dungeon.

-Lots of items to collect for Lots of things to unlock. I personally like this kind of thing (helps me explore every part of the map!)

-the pokemon designs. I thought most of them were ugly and weird when I looked them up, but in-game I think they're actually quite charming!!

-big!! this is my first Real open-world game and it's very big!! a little intimidating for me as a completionist but I'm also having fun with it!

-character customization. cute for the face, limited for the clothes (and hair imo). depends on how much that matters to you -- I would look up the accessories ahead of time to see if you can make do with them if you usually play with a specific look!

-team star. I know a lot of people love them, but for me they're just some weird little combo of team flare and team skull. I've only run into them once so it's hard to judge overall, but they're going to have to work Quite hard to earn my respect.

-I personally like the music! but it depends on your taste :o

-no voice acting

pros:

-the creatures can walk with you!! they're not very smart at battling without direction though. or following quickly. BUT still better than swsh and bdsp!!

-fast travel is unlocked from the START. (obv. only for places you've already been) and can be accessed from anywhere, at any time. getting clipped into a building wasn't too bad because I could just fly to the nearest pokecenter immediately.

-the landscape is very like PLA in terms of traversing it! there are some differences -- the MC can't climb up ledges as easily, and won't take damage when they jump off a cliff, but the best parts of the PLA maps are still here!

-hehe running away from the plot every time they say "Go here!" go brr

-boxes accessible at any time! for the first time ever! very cool!!

-if you're not so much into the story, there's an option to skip all cutscenes in the menu!

-uhhh... I guess this one's subjective too, but honestly?? I've been having fun with it!! more than with the start of SWSH, less than the start of ORAS or XY or SUMO, about on par with the start of USUM or HGSS?

overall thoughts from 6 hours of gameplay without reaching the first gym? (your results will vary lmao, I don't think most people take the time to grind up and explore Every Available Corner so much FKHSDJF)

I don't know if it's worth a full $60 in this economy, but I would pay a solid $54.99 (max) for it. I got the game as a christmas gift, but it's online right now for around $42-47 pre-owned!

I would say: if you can spare 40 bucks right now, go for it! that's a pretty good deal for a Switch game!

OR if you have any friends with the cartridge, borrow it from them for free to see if you like it!

[thisurlwasnttakenbutnowitis]

God it really is sad how the long-awaited Sinnoh remakes were just... sent out to die. Rushed out the door in order to meet the obligatory Pokemon holiday release in the year between Sword and Shield's DLC and Scarlet and Violet. Every remake before BDSP added so much that they each became arguably the definitive way to experience their respective regions. But BDSP was so barebones that basically everyone is in agreement that Platinum is still the definitive way to play Sinnoh.

As much hate as Sword and Shield got in the buildup to release, that game still did not feel rushed to me. Rough around the edges, sure. But I still felt like it had some level of polish. BDSP is the first time I've played a main series Pokemon game where I truly felt "this was absolutely rushed, this should have gotten another year of development". Which doesn't bode well for the fact that this was the first time Game Freak entrusted developing main series games to an outside developer.

Admittedly, outsourcing BDSP did allow Game Freak to develop Legends Arceus, and I personally will take the universe where Legends Arceus exists over the universe with fully realized DP remakes, although I'm certain that some people will disagree. Sadly, even though I think Legends Arceus is a fantastic game, it got even less time in the limelight than BDSP did thanks to Game Freak's marketing shifting to Scarlet and Violet literally just one month after PLA's release.

The worst part is that I think Game Freak learned all the wrong lessons from this experience. While BDSP is a failure in the eyes of hardcore fans, it was still a commercial success, currently sitting at #8 on the Switch's best-sellers list. I think Game Freak will look at this and say "Well it seems like it's okay to hand development of remakes over to outside studios. No matter how rushed it is, people will still eat it up". Which I'm torn about, because on one hand, it will free them up to do more stuff like Legends Arceus. But on the other hand, it's sad that the once-great Pokemon remakes are now delegated to being an afterthought.