#i should be playing it in violet because of the paradox pokemon but if i spend one more minute trying to pirate that damn game im gonna

[mephiles-the-jester]

replaying pokemon scarlet but as metal sonic,and i cant stop imagining an au or smth where eggman discovers the pokemon universe and sends metal sonic and sage there to explore it for information,,,and suddenly metal sonic has to experience the horrors of creating a friend group,,also shes a girl

[doubleddenden]

Okay so like... anyone else have some insane theories about wtf happened in the Great Crater? I'm sitting here like

and i saw really good theories, but i had my own takes on how certain things went down. Mind you I'm playing from the perspective of someone that beat Violet, so if there's something slightly different in Scarlet (which I doubt its all that different), i might be a tad off.

But if you want to fall down into this rabbit hole with me, read on what I basically copied from my insane ramblings at my friends and slightly expanded on. BUT, be warned, do not read unless you have beaten all the stories of the game. All of them. There's major spoilers if you do, and I strongly recommend you experience the ending for how powerful it is, and read the Violet book contents for yourself in the Entrance Hall.

There's a book called the Violet/Scarlet book depending on the version, and it was written by a man named Heath from the Area Zero expedition team that explored this huge, unmapped and perilous Great Crater at the center of Paldea/PokeSpain. Heath wrote about a lot of crazy things that the public thought was nothing more than fantasy roughly… I think 200 years ago? Until the professor half proves it true about 10 years ago by discovering the "jewels" that the book talked about that would make Pokemon all sparkly- Terrastilizing basically- and made them a pretty common phenomena in the rest of Paldea. This same book also mentions various weird monsters that look like either ancient versions of Pokemon or futuristic robot versions of Pokemon- again, this is HUNDREDS of years ago written down- and these Pokemon do exist.

Further into the Violet book, Heath talks about a particular… Thing he saw- He's unsure of whether its a Pokemon at all and the text is all garbled, and the picture is hardly any help because it kinda looks about as abstract as an Evangeleon angel. BUT, the Pokemon is said to be comprised of a LOT of hexagonal shapes basically, and since it's heavily hinted like this, it's most likely another legendary Pokemon not covered in base Scarlet or Violet at this point. Here's the creepy part about the hexagons: Professor Turo/Sada- although not really them and more like their AI counterpart- basically gets the player to come down to Area Zero/The Great Crater's very bottom to turn off a time machine that is uncontrollable, following a strict program by the ORIGINAL Professor that is long since dead, and is bringing past/future Pokemon to the present in ways that would destroy or endanger our ecosystems. GUESS WHAT FUCKING SHAPES ARE COMPRISED OF THE TIME MACHINE ROOM??? well, triangles, but also HEXAGONS!!!! LOTS OF MULTICOLOR HEXAGONS!!!

it gets even weirder. Heath wrote an entry about how he and his team found these weird carvings and symbols in Area Zero that cannot be deciphered. He also writes about how he woke up someplace random one night, faintly remembering having a conversation with something or someone but not having the foggiest clue what, and he had notes and shit scribbled down after that. Separate from that, the Time Machine Turo/Sada built is able to send pokeballs to distant eras to capture and bring back those creatures to the present- but they didn't invent it until about 10 years prior to the present day- AND YET Heath still saw Paradox Pokemon. It'd be a simple thing to say the Great Crater acts as a nature preserve to super ancient Pokemon if it were just that- but 200 years ago in VIOLET Specifically, a robot Donphan mortally wounded a team member- same as the ancient Donphan does in Scarlet. That should be impossible because Iron Treads/Robot Donphan is from the FUTURE, not the past.

BUT for some fucking reason, for some DANG OL REASON, despite us going through several fail safes to turn it off, more and more fail safes come back online despite the AI wanting us to turn it off- because the AI saw that this was dangerous, but Turo for some reason wanted DESPERATELY to keep the Time Machine running. The desperation is so intense that the fail safes are able to overwrite AI Turo's will in order to protect the time machine.

Basically it seems fated that Turo/Sada obtains the Violet/Scarlet book somehow, because it ends up being their favorite childhood book and eventually brings them to the crater where they set up a lab and eventually succeed in building their time machine and proving Terrastilization is real. Turo, from my end anyway because Violet, seems obsessed with making "Paradise" in which Future Pokemon can coexist with present Pokemon- In fact, he seems to be driven somewhat mad by it, because his fellow scientists- including the woman that would become his son/Arven's mother even abandoned him. Turo would eventually create an AI that is a perfect replica of his personality and memories to a certain extent, made only possible due to the energy that is available down there. Turo would eventually be killed by a second Miraidon that he brings back from the future- I assume Sada is killed by a second Koraidon- either way, the robot is now all that's left of the Professor, and it asks us to come down to turn it off.

I believe Turo had some sort of… connection to some sort of entity- probably the same one that conversed with Heath- and the entity basically laid out seeds that would lead to Turo creating the time machine- including having Turo send future Pokemon back to the exact point the Zero Expedition was happening, ensuring the Violet Book would be written and bring him there. But now the issue is this: Why? Why was he so desperate? Why was it so important to keep the portal open? p2

The hexagons play another role in this: In Area Zero, crystals grow rampantly and even swallows technology whole, even trees aren't spared, but it was able to swallow WHOLE BUILDINGS. The mysterious Hexagon thingy Heath found is most likely the progenitor to Terrastilizing- and this is where it gets weirder and weirder- Terrastilized crowns that EVERY POKEMON WEARS all have tiny faces in the crowns. The orb that allows us to Terrastilize is also conveniently shaped like a Pokeball, imo.

Theory time: Terrastilizing is a sort of soft fusion between a regular Pokemon and this hexagonal entity that can alter its types- Which probably means it can be any type like Arceus. And again, the entire room the time machine is in is COVERED in hexagons- rainbow prism hexagons that constantly change and refract colors. Crazy time: The original Turo/Sada was lured into the Crater by some being- maybe from the ancient past or from the far future- so that it could make some sort of bridge to our time from when its most powerful, because as of now, its power barely escapes the crater in the form of Terra crowns. They were sort of driven mad by the same thing that visited Heath until they died. THIS THING IS AN ELDRITCH BEING OF SOME SORT. Maybe it has access to ancient records if its from the future after assimilating with technology, maybe it has clairvoyance about the far future due to being in its prime back in the ancient past- either way, there's something it wants in the present, and it NEEDED the time machine to be open.

And I don't wanna point fingers, but I think Glimmora has something to do with this. Glimmora is relatively... weak? Maybe not quite as imposing Pokemon as something like Garchomp or something to be the ace of a "Top" Champion. BUT, in Violet, this is its dex entry:

Violet: Glimmora's petals are made of crystallized poison energy. It has recently become evident that these petals resemble Tera Jewels. 

Its face also resembles the face in the crowns of each terra crown as well.

Now I'm not saying Glimmora is exactly evil- no no no, I'm merely putting it in the same boat as Cyclizard and Carbink specifically. Cyclizard, as we know, is either the descendant or ancestor to Koraidon and Miraidon, and Diancie is said to have evolved from a Carbink and then created Mega Stones. GUESS WHAT POKEMON IS SUPER FUCKING COMMON DOWN IN THE DEEPEST PITS OF AREA ZERO??? Glimmora! Where all of those crystals grow! What if this super ancient or super future hexoganal Pokemon is some sort of relative to it? Glimmora in the present just being a regular Pokemon or perhaps innocent seeming eyes for it- either way, like Cyclizard, it would become a future evolved from a past variant.

Let's go deeper. Glimmora and Glimmet have 6 flower petals- the Terra jewels are hexagonal. The petals for both are a toxic mineral- Whenever a Trainer Terrastilizes, it seems like it might be slightly painful for them or hard to control- most wince. Geeta... doesn't. She reacts to it, but not like others do, merely glancing at the Terra Orb. The player has no issues with this and seems to do it with zero discomfort.

When Geeta Terrastilizes, she says "Be the light of all trainers, Glimmora." Which... Could just be flavor text, but I feel like there could be more as well.

So now my theory is that this Hexagon Pokemon is likely some sort of eldritch being that can communicate with people via their minds- And mind you, another Rock/Poison type also could poison the minds of someone it possesses, that Pokemon being Nihilego. It could be that this Pokemon is brainwashing or sort of making people do its bidding- all to get the time machine built.

So now we're left with "Why?" and "How."

And I think we have a perhaps even bigger question

What the actual hell made that fucking crater?

and two scarier ones:

What does it want?

Could something turn the machine back on? Because we know things other than Pokeballs can travel through time thanks to AI Turo.

I think future DLC is going to be fucking WILD because holy shit, the story in this game is already freaking fantastic, and now we might havve some major eldritch conspiracy shit going on.

Or I'm probably wrong, reading way too deep into this, and GF is just gonna be like "lol who knows" like they usually do. They tend to do that a lot and just... never elaborate on things. This time just feels way too detailed and interwoven to just be left alone, though.

end Pepe Silvia time

[spam-monster]

Pokemon Scarvi thoughts/theories with the Professors, Arven and Area Zero

Spoilers for the endgame; also featuring original Sun/Moon (not Ultra)* because ~*mommy/daddy issues*~

*Sun/Moon is the only other pokemon game I’ve personally played in full (as opposed to watching Let’s Plays), I tried playing Ultra** but it was too much the same and I prefer the original version of Lusamine so that’s what we’re going with.

**Ultra Recon and Rainbow Rocket would have worked so much better as DLC for the original game instead of being locked behind a remake that came out literally right after the original and I’m very salty that we didn’t get that option until switch games.

My basic theory for the Professor’s backstory is this: Sada and Turo are Arven’s parents in both versions, and they both have the obsessive personality shown. Scarlet!Turo and Violet!Sada both left their partners when Arven was young, and I’m going to say it was because of the other’s obsession. There’s a few variations on this; either:

- They were also obsessed with Area Zero, but they ventured too deep and got trapped somewhere or thrown into another dimension - this is my main theory and it ties into the Lusamine parallels because it means the game’s main professor might have been trying to reach them (we’ll get into that later)

- They also wanted to build a time machine, but were heavily in disagreement over whether it should reach into the past or the future, so much so that they left to do their own research elsewhere and never came back.

- They were not as obsessed as the game’s main professor with Area Zero, completely disagreed with the other’s idea to build a time machine and/or even use the tera energy at all, and left out of frustration. (Why this version wouldn’t have taken Arven, especially since it would make more sense for them to want to keep their son out of Area Zero, is a mystery. Maybe they lost a custody battle idk.)

Anyway the point is that one of them leaves, and the other is left a single parent, and this probably hecks them up, and this is where the Lusamine parallels come in so we’ll address those now: 

- Basically the other parent leaving suddenly sparks an obsession for the remaining parent to fill that gap with something so that their family will be whole again: for Lusamine this caused her to keep messing with the Ultra Wormholes that took Mohn away in a desperate attempt to find him which lead to her getting infected by Nihilego and going crazy, while Sada/Turo try to fill that gap with Paradox Pokemon and their idea of a “paradise” which leads to them becoming so obsessed with keeping the time machine running that they create a bunch of insane security measures to preserve it.

- Lusamine’s infection cases her to become manic and lose any inhibitions or sense of right or wrong or empathy, leading to her completely abandoning the search for her husband and to start treating her children and pokemon as objects that she wants to be perfected. (It’s a really good metaphor for kids having to deal with a parent that develops a mental illness but that’s another discussion)

- Sada/Turo’s obsession causes them to neglect their son, because they’re so enamored with the idea of a past/future “paradise” that will make their family feel whole again that they don’t realize that what Arven actually needs is for his remaining parent to be there with him. I would like to add that I believe that the pokemon behind the whole tera/paradox phenomenon may have been mentally affecting the Professor just as the Ultra Beasts’ toxins affected Lusamine, even further convincing them that keeping the time machine running was the only was to fix everything, causing them to become so paranoid that they create the   Paradise Protection Protocol without even considering that maybe they should have included an override in case their son got caught in it.

- (I have a lot of thoughts on this relating to troubled parents from other media as well, with like Hawkmoth/Gabriel’s obsession with bringing his wife back and Endeavor’s obsession with becoming number one hero and raising a superhero child that didn’t have his weaknesses; basically “if I can achieve this one grand goal it will fix my family/make everything I’ve done worth it in the end”, when it’s the smaller things like consistently being present in your child’s life and supportive of them that would have ultimately meant much more to them than any grand goal and you’re really just doing it for yourself...but this is a POKEMON post and I still haven’t gotten all my theories out yet.)

Actually this is even more interesting of a parallel when you consider what Lusamine tries to do in the endgame - she preserves a bunch of her pokemon in their present forms so that they will stay the same forever, not caring about the past she had with them and stopping them from changing in the future; while Sada and Turo would have destroyed the present ecosystem by bringing back primal pokemon from the past or advanced pokemon from the future because they cared more about those unseen eras than their actual present.

ANYWAY FINALLY GETTING TO MY FIRST THEORY ON WHAT HAPPENED TO ARVEN’S OTHER PARENT

this is where the common “the time machine isn’t actually a time machine it’s just the being responsible for the tera crystals creating “pokemon” based on the Professor’s desires to see past/future pokemon (or pulling them from other dimensions or changing actual pokemon into these paradox forms which is why they’re all so aggressive they’re really just disoriented as hell from dimensional travel/being mutated without consent)” comes into play.

So the “Tera Pokemon”, as I’ll call it, wants to draw humans in and get them obsessed with using it’s power for some unknown reason. It first gets into Scarlet!Turo/Violet!Sada’s head and gets them to leave their newly created family in order to chase their idea for a time machine so they can travel to the future/past, but they end up getting sucked into a wormhole or something before they can get very far with it - possibly ending up in a pocket dimension, or somewhere else in the world but with memory loss? (It is also possible that they actually time travel, but presumably the Tera Pokemon can’t actually do that so maybe another Legendary causes it in that case idk.)

So then game version Sada/Turo comes in also researching Area Zero but maybe also trying to figure out what actually happened to their partner after they left, and the Tera Pokemon gets to them and convinces them that if they succeed in creating the time machine they’ll be able to find their partner and restore their family. In other theories where the partner just left, the Tera Pokemon may have instead tried to convince them that creating their “paradise” would cause S!Turo/V!Sada to see that Sada/Turo was right all along and convince them to come back.

I know that the line about “three of us” living together in paradise is taken to mean the game Professor, Arven, and either the ‘Ridon or Mabosstiff; but what if it was meant to be Arven and both his parents? The past, present and future family and pokemon all living together in harmony?

But then if we go with the theory that the Tera Pokemon can’t actually mess with time travel like some of the other legendaries can, the question arises: where did the AI professor end up after going through that portal at the end of the story?

My theory is that they actually end up in a wormhole/pocket dimension inhabited by the Tera Legendary, and maybe even meet up with S!Turo/V!Sada on the other side. And that’s one of the places we’ll go in the endgame (and we’ll bring them back with us somehow because let this poor boy have parents even if one of them’s a corrupted AI and the other one’s got amnesia or whatever).

And also this Pokemon/phenomena is tied to other legendary Pokemon/phenomena like Mega Evolution and Z-Moves and Dynamaxing and giant boss Pokemon because there’s a lot of similar themes like form changes and type changes and special moves and crystals and willpower and maybe it’s just a bunch of legendary “Pokemon”/creatures tapping into human’s collective unconscious to see what they think is cool and affecting pokemon based on that idk.

That’s my thought’s for now. I might post some bits separately and I’ll also probably make more theories when new DLC stuff comes out, but for now I’m done and I’m gonna go find some sweet herb for my teacher and do job evaluations and whatever.

(Wait one more thing the History Teacher is gonna have some kinda evil plot in the DLC maybe even trying to use the Time Machine again, and also let us overthrow La Primera and put Larry in charge plz)

ok bye. Thanks for reading my insane rants.

[toesucker416]

Chairman Geetu... kinda sucks

We were saying this a year ago, and with one year of hindsight, we can say it even louder. Her team is mediocre, she sends them out in a weird order, and in general, she fails to live up to the hype of the "Top Champion". So, let's build her a better team, with one goal in mind: we don't just make this fight harder. We make it completely alien.

First, give Geetu an AI rework that lets her switch out of disadvantageous matchups. That way, players have to play around these switches.

Now, the team itself

We'll be doing the obvious and making Glimmora her lead. Not only that, but we'll be borrowing some notes from Arven and giving her Stealth Rocks.

Glimmora level 65

Ability: Toxic Debris

Item: Black Sludge

Stealth Rocks

Earth Power

Mortal Spin

Power Gem

Did I forget to mention all her pokemon have items? Whoopsies.

Opening on a pokemon you've never seen before would immediately give the fight a unique feeling, especially when you see that item. Not only that, but hazards will add a unique element of challenge, while also effectively teaching new players about a mechanic that's never utilized to its fullest in the base games, but will be especially useful in this fight.

Next up, Gholdengo. Gholdengo requires you to correct 1000 gimmighoul coins to evolve it. To players who have gotten it, it will speak to the fact that Geetu used to do things. To players who haven't, it keeps the alien feeling going.

Gholdengo level 65

Ability: i forgor the name

Item: Choice Specs

Make it Rain

Shadow Ball

Gholdengo continues the lesson on hazards by blocking your own, as well as your attempts to remove hazards.

Next up, let's get some pokemon you actually can't get in here. Her third pokemon is the Charcadet evolution from the other version, either an Armarouge with a Weakness Policy, or a Ceruledge with a Focus Sash. Both have Weak Armor.

Her fourth pokemon is a pseudo-legend, also being one you can't get (Salamence in Scarlet, Hydreigon in Violet). This pokemon has a Life Orb.

Fifth will be Volcarona, because it's one of two pokemon that will have a paradox form regardless of version, and also because it's my favorite. You could swap this out for Anihilape or something if it feels right.

Volcarona level 67

Item: Heavy Duty Boots

Ability: Swarm

Bug Buzz

Quiver Dance

Energy Ball

Fire Blast

Finally, her Ace, although not really because I'll get to that in a second, Kinggambit. Keep it mostly the same but give it leftovers.

Now, the problem with this is, her AI could switch in Kinggambit at any time. How do we stop this? Answer: we don't. Every one of her pokemon comes loaded with a unique Terra type, and she'll terrastalize on the last one left.

I feel like this team has the potential to deliver on the promise of the Top Champion, although admittedly, the items are a little bit like something out of a mod. Idk I just don't think any quest line's climax should involve gogoat

[undercityrezident]

I just watched the Pokemon Direct, and I can confidently say that I'm not crazy excited about anything I saw there today.

I don't really play Masters Ex, Cafe Remix, Unite, Detective Pikachu, or the TCG, so none of that grabbed me. I hope people who do enjoy those things have fun with what's coming for them. At the very least, I'm looking forward to some cute gifs of Nemona on my dash when she debuts in Masters.

I don't play Pokemon Go anymore, so Gen 9 coming to that game doesn't really affect me either, but I'm sure people will be thrilled with that.

But I'm sure as hell not interested in Pokemon Sleep. I don't want companies monitoring my sleep patterns, thank you very much.

The one thing that did raise an eyebrow for me is the new Paldean Winds webseries. I might check that out. I've kind of fallen off the new pokemon anime lately, so this might give me my fix for animated pokemon I've been missing. Pokemon mini-series aired in the past have sometimes been really cool, so I'm intrigued by how they'll portray Paldea and Scarlet and Violet's stories.

That said, the line about "depicting the youthful drama of academy students" gives me some pause because my least favourite aspect of Scarlet and Violet was the academy-centric portions of the game. I hope it'll focus more on their journeys beyond it.

Of course, most of the Direct was spent talking about the new expansions for Scarlet and Violet, and what I've seen so far has not really helped me get excited for it. As before, I wonder why the majority of these expansions are focusing on areas beyond Paldea and if they'll tie into anything related to Area Zero (which supposedly has content later in the expansion).

Kitakami seems like it's been developed to tell a completely different story from anything that I've become invested in within Paldea. It just sticks out like a sore thumb to me. The one way it does tie back to the region is that we're going there for a "field trip," which already plays on the part of the main game I didn't care for, namely the school angle.

But hey, I love Perrin's design, though I'm... not a fan of the ridiculous central bangs of the two other main characters: Carmine and Kieran. After the amazing character design of the major characters in the base game, these two feel like a step backwards. Similarly, I'm not blown away by the designs of the new pokemon introduced in part one of this expansion either. Dipplin seems fun though; I suppose there's usually a diamond in the rough.

And then there's part two of the expansion with Blueberry Academy. Again... I'm not interested in doing more school activities, so this premise and locale is already making me shy away from it. I will admit the multi-faceted biodome is impressive and intriguing, but I wonder how limited it is in scope and if it'll be enough to overcome my dislike of the school environment.

As well, none of the new characters' designs grabbed me (and that paradox Raikou looked weird as hell...), and while I love turtle mons, the new legendary might not be enough to convince me to want to attend this new academy. While the tease of being able to achieve full flight with your ride mon is something that had me leaning forward in my seat for a moment, I had to admit I was immediately wondering if that flight freedom would only be available in that biosphere and not in Paldea at large. Call me skeptical, but I suspect that'll be the case.

The only air of intrigue for me in these expansions is the "Mystery of Area Zero" section supposedly after the other two parts. Ideally, there should be something connecting the other two regions to this last part, but I have my doubts, given how disconnected from Paldea they seem, at least based on an assessment of the content in this and previous Directs. As much as I'd like to know what else Area Zero has in store for us, I don't know if I'd be able to muster enough interest to plow through the other two areas before getting to this one bit of the expansion I'd actually be excited for.

For me, an ideal expansion/DLC to Scarlet and Violet would've been something added to Paldea itself, whether it was an addition to some part of the existing landscape or some islands off the coast you could travel to via surfing or gliding. An artificial island like the kind seen with Blueberry Academy could've been a great place to fly to and discover, especially if it more of a research facility or pokemon preservation habitat rather than a school.

And while introducing new characters is great, I would be far more excited to be able to see and explore these new areas with the squad we formed in the base game. I absolutely treasure the bonds the main character forged with Penny, Arven, and Nemona, and I would be delighted to see more interactions between them like I saw when we were all journeying down through Area Zero.

All in all, I think an expansion to this game would benefit the most from connecting it to the strongest parts of the base game rather than flimsily tying it to its weakest. From what I see at this moment, I don't think I'll be investing in these DLCs. I might have to settle for watching someone else play them, if only to see what this mystery in Area Zero is leading up to.

[bloodyshadow1]

I’m not going to say which verision is better since I only played Scarlet, but I think a storyline about the past is better than pokemon from the future.  You could already see the interest in Legends of Arceus with the older versions of current pokemon and what the land was before Sinnoh.  not to mention that there is so much untouched lore in the pokemon world that is only hinted at in the games, pokedex entries, and anime and a game that focuses on the past of the pokemon world would be great to see.  Not to mention that in every game until scarlet and violet there have been fossil pokemon, the fact that we don’t get to see them or their original forms, especially the gen 8 fossil types, where we don’t get to see any of the original 4 pokemon, just the fusions of them

I think the time travel aspect of S+V was a let down overall, only really hinted at in the titan pokemon and post the main story.  It was fine, but underused for something that should have been a bigger draw being the this vs that reason for there being 2 games.  I disliked most of the designs and choices for the paradox pokemon with only 7 per game it was a let down.  I prefer the scarlet past pokemon, but that’s because all the future ones looked just like the pokemon if they got robotacized, vs the more feral ancestor look of the past pokemon.  Not saying they’re much better, but I think they’re better nontheless. I think there are a lot of different pokemon that could have been chosen for either game’s paradox pokemon and what they chose was a let down.

Even the region is set up for a lost world type of setting with the area zero crater.  The fact that the paradox pokemon was due to the pokemon professor creating a time machine was pretty dumb.  When it could just be that it is such a dangerous untouched place that certain pokemon never evolved to their current versions and for some reason now they’re starting to leave the crater for reasons no one knows until the player goes there. 

I think if you focused on the past or time travel aspect of the game, it would have made for a better story.  and in doing so you could make it have pokemon from the past, including Hisui letting you use those pokemon despite not being in their region, not just prehistoric.  I personally am not super interested in the ‘future’ side of Scarlet and Violet because we don’t know how far into the future the paradox pokemon come from, we don’t know anything about that or why all the pokemon from that timeline look like they’ve been dipped in chrome. If you don’t do a chrono trigger and give some dates for when the world ended and how they could be stopped, then it’s kind of pointless as a concept. 

The concept of the violet book doesn’t really work either compared to the scarlet book which we know were written by Heath 200 years before scarlet and violet because of our history classes.  One is about prehistoric pokemon, the other is somehow about pokemon that are from the future.  if it was a lost world thing it would make sense for the prehistoric pokemon to still be around even if the explanation is that there are currently paradox pokemon because of Sada/Turo’s time machine going crazy.  So how could Heath write about the future pokemon who shouldn’t be in the Crater if the time machine is a recent creation.

I’m not saying that a game either set in the future of the pokemon world or even a sequel to a game where you get glimpse of a future after the end and you have to stop it in the game wouldn’t be cool.  But it doesn’t work to me as the x and y, red and blue, split the game tried to do.  And if you did a game about time travel focused on the past, you could then do one on the future.  This is a mess but I’m posting it anyway because that’s how I get my thoughts out.  if any of this is interesting to you please let me know, I’d like to talk about what other people have thought.

[oakhold-cheerios]

Long review of my time with Pokemon Violet

Scarlet/Violet spoilers down below

I love the game. These sets of games are on the same wavelength as Pokemon BW/BW2 in terms of the characters and their motives.

I want to say hats off to Dir. Clavell. Director Clavell is a great ‘how you do fellow kids?’ old character in the game, actually, because he is one who just wants to see their pupils flourish and be great at studying in the academy. And when he heard about the whole Team Star and what went awry with them, instead of blatantly expelling them for their mishaps, he took what he heard about Team Star, what’s up with Penny and her friends, and, in in the best and most constructive way, gave them the opportunity to actually make the Academy a much more awesome place by turning their bases into training grounds for any student who wants to be the very best like no one ever was. He wants to keep up with the younger generation by having a chat about what their passions are. The whole Treasure Hunt thing was amazing. You’re doing great, Director. 10/10 such a chill old man (plus that disguise he had was so kickass lemme tell ya). We need to see more IRL people be like Director Clavell someday.

For the Pokemon League side of the games. The Gyms leaders are, as usual, mostly not interesting, BUT!!! Larry is interesting. He’s such a normal guy, but not in the usual kind of normal guy way. He has a PhD in Accounting. He has a thing for Normal-types. He has a thing for birds (me too Larry, me too). He knows how many Normal/Flying types Pokemon are out hence the reason Larry’s a Normal-Type Gym Leader AND a Flying-Type ELITE FOUR MEMBER. He’s got an office job that must’ve got some really good salary. He pays his taxes like the good civilian he is. He yeets his pokeball in a baseball-like manner; has he played baseball before? He truly is The Exceptional Everyman, and I understand why some parts of Tumblr is appointing him as a Tumblr Sexyman candidate. Also I think Ryme being a Ghost-Type Gym Leader, Grandma Rapper, and a Teacher at The Academy is really great too.

What about Nemona? Pretty much like Hugh, she wants to see us grow strong and powerful with her bc she knew how much potential we’ve got. But at the same time she needs to learn where to set her boundaries. She’s a little too fun. There’s Penny. She’s an introvert computer hacker who has a thing for Eeveelutions. She has an assortment of anime that she wants to binge-watch. She got promoted to fixing the LP security system bc she hacked into them in the first place. Wow what a great person actually. :)

All I can about Arven is that he should be besties with N :)

But what the hell was going on about Arven’s Mom/Dad?

Oh my god. The idea of an AI being really aware that they’re insanely programmed by the original Sada/Turo to protect the Time Machine from going haywire, the fact that the AI Sada/Turo has little control over whatever insane program it’s been prompted with, it’s all so.... auuuughghuhghghghhh... gives me ‘Do Computers Dream of Electric Sheep?’ vibes honestly. That AI has passed the Turing Test in so many ways... but why?

The AI Sada/Turo knew how much damage that the Time Machine may cause to Paldea’s ecosystem, and that they needed someone powerful enough to shut the machine down, but at the same time the AI knew that they're aware that they are programmed to protect instead, and that if they ceased to operate, the Time Machine would cause damage to the ecosystem beyond Area Zero. So pretty like how N farewelled us before leaving for distant travels and leaving us emotionally broken, the AI has chosen to go to the Time of The Dinosaurs/The Time of Future via the Time Machine, leaving us sad and Arven too. Arven was devastated when he realized all of this, and I feel so bad for him, but not just him. I feel bad for the AI that has been programmed to protect the thing that causing a paradox, knowing that they’ve got no control over it. I feel bad for the Professors because they had to sacrifice their quality family time to build an AI clone of themselves as some form of way to keep Arven company and to give a program that the AI has accepted, everything about the program basically, even knowing the risks that the program carries. The real Sada/Turo recklessly sacrificed themselves to the territorial Paradox Legendaries secretly in order to protect what they’ve love the most from the worst kind of dangers, that being their own Kuraidon/Miraidon, their Arven, and his goodest boi Mashiff. The AI knew the truth, and had to accept  everything about it.

Oh....

[anderswelten]

Scarlet and Violet introduced a new feature: Tera-Raids. They are classified with different amount of stars to symbolize the difficulty to clear the Raid. Some are easy to clear them solo and some require to be cleared with a team. Additionally, if you‘d like to unlock 6-Star and 7-Star Tera-Raids, which are those with the highest difficulty level, you need to play through the complete storyline (all 3 paths have to be finished plus the exploration to Area Zero), you have to have seen the credits, fighting all Gyms once again, participate and win the Academy tournament and clear a bunch of 5-Star Tera-Raids. In short: A ton of work. In general, it is better to have some high IV, EV trained battle ready Pokemon to clear them.

But before we go any further, let us discuss if we should consider them as Events. To be honest, opinions differ here a lot. There are several voices calling 7-Star and some 5-Star Tera-Raids Events, because those Tera Pokemon are catchable just once per save, some are also version exclusives. And additionally, they are only available for a limited time period* and the 7-Star Tera-Pokemon have an additional special mark, the Mighty Mark. That can be counted as Events. But on the other hand they do not create a Wondercard which is why, enough people don‘t count them as Events. R/pokemontrades, my subreddit of trust for trading legit uncloned Events, considers them as non-Events, but some traders over there catch several of each kind, because they believe in an increase of their value.

And if you look around in other communities like X (former Twitter) you‘ll get the idea that it is totally normal to farm these „once per save“ Pokemon. Some weeks ago, my friend Red published this screen record of his Pokemon HOME showing several Titans:

Honestly, it was veeery unattractive for me to collect Mighty Marks at first. The preparations were just too much time consuming for me. I ususally do not complete games several times, I tried it not just once, but failed always. I just can bring myself to play far enough for being able to redeem an Event code. Speaking in time: I need approx half an hour to prepare a save compared to 10+ hours to complete a playthrough.

However, several things happened so that I changed my mind:

The Pokemon, you‘ll use to beat the Raid, won‘t disobey your commands, regardless if you have 0 Gym badges

A friendly soul carried me through some 7-Star Tera-Raids so that I‘ve gotten many L and XL candies, which helped me to prepare a second complete playthrough

I bought a second Nintendo Switch, I can locally host a Raid now

Two Paradox Legends were available again for a limited period, Walking Wake (Paradox form of Suicune) and Iron Leaf (Paradox form of Virizion)

So, I decided to start farming once-per-save Tera-Raid Events and I‘d like to share with you here how I‘m doing this. You‘ll start nearly exactly like I already described here - with only one exception: while running to the first PokeCenter, you need to catch this little guy, Paldean Wooper. He is a static encounter when you pass the little pond.

After your talk with Nemona at the first PokeCenter, you just run towards Mesagoza.

Right before the gate of Mesagoza, you will encounter Nemona and battle her again. Choose Paldean Wooper as soon as she sends out Pawmi. Pawmi will only use Thunder Shock, Wooper is immune against electrice moves - it will be a free win for you.

Go to Mesagoza together with Nemona and head straight to the school.

On your way, you will encounter Penny and two Grunts of Team Star. Battle them. This is the only point in my opinion, where it is an advantage to choose Quaxly over the other two starters**.

After you‘ve beaten both Grunts, head over to the school. Now, everything is simply straight. As soon as you are able to walk free again, head over to the Cafeteria, start the Path of Legends by talking with Arven and take the call from Penny Cassiopeia.

Afterwards, head to the Staff Room and start the Victory Road. You‘ll be called to the Directors office immediately afterwards.

Head to the Directors office and mash yourself through the talk with him and Professor Turo/Sada. Leave the office afterwards by heading to your own Room. Go to sleep.

As soon as you wake up, an announcement will be played for all to meet at the schools yard. Follow Nemona after the cutscene.

Start the Starfall Street and mash yourself through the fight conversation of Nemona, Arven and Cassiopeia.

As soon as you are by your own again, your save is ready. If you have purchased the DLC, Jaqc will call you, telling you about Kitakami as well.

And that‘s it! Now, you are able to participate on Tera-Raids. I‘m sending over some Battle Ready Pokemon to this save, host the Tera-Raid and fight the Tera-Pokemon with two Switches.

My fastest run from the very beginning until Tera-Raids took 53 minutes in total, but I‘m working on improvements.

The next 7-Star Tera-Raid is already announced and I have prepared several saves now. I‘m planning to farm candies as well, send me over some high IV lvl 1 Pokemon from breeding and completing a few more playthroughs as well. At least, I‘ll have the chance to „save“ some Tera-Raids as long as I‘m not redeeming/going online with a save. Or at least catch more (version exclusive) legendaries like Miraidon, Koraidon, Okidogi, Munkidori, Fezandipiti, Ogerpon, Iron Boulder, Iron Crown, Gouging Fire, Raging Bolt and Terapagos. And let‘s see what comes next!

*The Event Tera-Raid can be kept alive if you do not go online after its official end.

**You can‘t use Sprigatitos STAB move in the first fight, because Shroodle has the poison type. It is very likely that Fuecoco will be out-speeded. Both results in a little time loss. Obviously, this only matters to you if you‘d like to prepare a save as fast as possible.

[harvey-danger-stan]

pokemon nerd thots on gen 9 (87923789239 years late) under cut

i am SO glad i waited post-patch to play this gen. there is absolutely still lag & some minor annoyances, but looking at complaints made before the patch i haven’t encountered nearly as many issues. also i am nowhere near as picky as some other fans (genuinely don’t mean that in a rude way, we should absolutely expect better quality at launch). 

i thought PLA was gorgeous and i think paldea overall is too. expecting the graphics to look like breath of the wild is silly; that’s not the style. i think the pokemon, characters, and cities look AMAZING, and i personally like the grassy areas. however, i agree that the rocky/desert/snowy areas leave a lot to be desired.

but the actual gameplay & story is DELIGHTFUL. coming right off of PLA, it was definitely a bit of a re-adaptation, but once i got the hang of everything i was obsessed (still am- i’m following the “recommended” path & just finished the normal gym). i had i think 12 hours logged in-game before even setting foot in the school!! i’ll think that i explored an entire area but then run into an unbattled trainer somewhere or something. it feels expansive and wild and i love it so much 

im actually not crazy about terastallization but i don’t hate it or anything- i wish the animation was a bit shorter lol. 

the new pokemon i actually overall like; i think there’s a very different feel to the new designs of this gen & last but there are only a few that i’m super not into. i’m far from a genwunner, in fact i think that gen has some of the worst designs in the whole franchise, so you’ll rarely find me clutching my pearls over new pokemon designs. my only gripe is that i don’t like 2/3 of the final starter evos- the skeledirge line is GREAT, like so good to the point that quaquaval and meowscarada seem kind of like jokes?? bipedal is one thing (charizard and blastoise are bipedal!), but bipedal and SO WEIRDLY HUMANOID is another. i hate hate hate hate this trend and don’t know why they won’t stop??

literally just encountered iron treads so can’t speak much on the paradox pokes outside of design, but i feel the same as everyone else i think- future ones are pretty lame, the past ones are way cooler. alas i let my love of purple persuade me into getting violet because i’m 5 years old LMAO

there is A LOT of focus on sandwiches in the story. it is odd

anyway so far like 8.5/10??

[umbrahighpriestofgiratina]

Umbra Plays Pokemon Violet Bonus 1:

as promised. a lot of thoughts about Pokemon Violet and it being my first Nuzlocke:

OK I have a lot of thoughts about how this all turned out that I wanted to scream about. And I am going to split it in two parts: the game itself and the nuzlocke aspect

The Game: -Let's get this out of the way: I enjoyed this a heck of a lot. It's probably not one of my absolute favorite Pokkemon games but it's definitely up there and when it does something I like I REALLY like it

-The Iron Treads in the room is the graphics and performance. I had relatively little issues playing on cartridge, and moving update data to my system memory + a recent patch meant I had even less issues. I understand that wasn't the case for everybody, I'm sorry that took people out of the game because to quote a friend of mine neither they nor the game deserve that, but it still frustrates me when people overemphasize those aspects because there is genuinely a great game under that jank. Should this have been pushed back with Arceus as our 2022 game? Absolutely. These games deserve more dev time. But what we got is still better than some people are giving it credit for. 

-This probably has one of my favorite stories in a Pokemon Thing. I doubt anything will top BW because that was a coming of age game for me and N's character had a very pronounced effect on me but it quite possibly edges out Sun and Moon. And I REALLY liked Sun and Moon's story. The character writing in particular has been on point as it has been for a while now. 

-As for how it compares to Legends Arceus... I think qualitatively Legends Arceus is still better. And they did bring over a decent number of QOL features from Arceus but there were some missing I REALLY felt the absence of. But paradoxically this is closer to the kind of Pokemon experience I WANT. Just in terms of the actual game and features and gameplay structure besides the QOL stuff it's more of what I would want. I do think combining more elements of this and Arceus is good. Bring over more of the Arceus QOL features, remove the jank, bring things like actual sidequests back and this could be my perfect Pokemon game. Also Violet doesn't lock important things behind meticulous Pokedex quests or last second Dark Souls bosses so that's a point it has over Arceus. (The Arceus postgame scarred me OK?)

-I once again maintain that splitting gym bullshit, evil team bullshit, and legendary bullshit into separate plotlines was a good idea. It gives them so much more room to breathe. My one disappointment was they didn't do more with the Victory Road path - storywise it feels like a cheap fast food hamburger served next to some fine steaks and is only saved by the great stak sauce that is the great character writing I've mentioned earlier. It IS the most of a fun challenge due to the Terastalization mechanic gameplay-wise so I can't complain too much, especially when the other routes compensate for story

-Speaking of Victory Road I know I kept making fun of Geeta's design but it's grown on me and now I think she's kinda hot. I appreciate she's not evil or anything she just has a Weird and Intimidating aura. -The new Pokemon designs and names are really good. I wish I got to meet and do stuff with more of them myself. (more on that later)

-The open world is big and fun to explore and screw around, even if this run didn't give me much incentive to do that. (more about that later, again)

-Doing multiplayer has been a blast with my IRL bestie. And pretty smooth too. It helped me get in the "screwing around" quota I was missing doing the kind of run I was.

-Once again, overall, I had a blast, there is a great game here under the jank. 

The Nuzlocke: 

-So this was my first ever nuzlocke, and a wonderlocke/suprise trade nuzlocke at that. I mostly had a good time! Even if I had to cheat a little. Would I do this again? I'd be very open to. Would I do this as a first playthrough again? More debatable. (Ignore I tend to not have time or energy for multiple playthroughs anymore -looks awkwardly at his Brilliant Diamond egg run he still needs to finish-)

-See doing this as a first playthrough meant missing out on a lot of the exploration and discovery this game has to offer. I had no reason to screw around and find new Pokemon and catch them all because I could only catch the first Pokemon on each route. Going in blind was a great idea and I want to keep doing it going forward but some of the magic of it was ruined by finding a cool new pokemon and going "man I wish I could catch this but i'd need it to be my first encounter or gotten in a surprise trade"

-Also the difficulty curve of the Nuzlocke was... weird. At first it was about what I expected but then I slowly got... better at keeping my team alive? I was hoping for more of the deaths to be freak accidents like Denny and not the game being unfair to the point I had to bullshit clause it but as time went on I got less of either and no one really died much at alland it basically wasn't even a Nuzlocke anymore even before the point it was SUPPOSED to not be a Nuzlocke anymore? And I felt like that was boring to read? I don't know. This is my first Nuzlocke so tell me if this kind of thing is like... normal. 

-Overall though it was a really fun experiment with some fun moments and I'm open to doing it again! Just maybe I need to tweak some things... maybe as a second playthrough yeah... and maybe make Bullshit Clause less merciful, like, one Pokemon from those incidents still needs to be Suprise Traded even if not all of them do... that sort of thing. I definitely have increased respect and appreciation for Nuzlockes for sure.