Evaluating Pokemon Violet - An Ambitious Disaster 

I cannot tell you how dumb I feel after not realizing that Herba Mysyica are just HMs. My brain just flatlined at that point.

When you mention how the main character could have been 18, they explicitly said the school was for all ages and you encounter and battle middle aged and even old students. They could have let you play as a character of any age, but they didn’t.

During my playthrough I laughed extremely hard when Nemona said "Mountains! Forests! Grasslands! *Beautiful* nature stuff, as far as the eye can see" as she proceeds to show me 2D trees and n64 textures.

Remember the days when you could enter any and all houses for a lore nugget, hint, event, or item? The only buildings you enter are stores or league buildings. The laws of the pokemon world have gotten too strict.

I like to believe the whole parent AI just stated the whole "X always loved you" line because it was more human than the actual parent. It wanted to leave the son with something positive instead of just leaving him with the whole idea that everything was terrible and your childhood did actually suck. It was way too clear that the real human really gave no fucks about their child, all the logs they created made that overly clear.

Fun fact: your in game time on your Trainer card is essentially based on frames, rather than time passed. If you compare that time to your played hours on your Switch profile, you can see how many hours you have lost to lag.

Pokemon Violet is absolutely the best alpha build I've ever played

Nemona is like a player who beat the game then went back to build a new team and wanted to help you get stronger. In the postgame she admits she thinks sandbagging you like that was a bad idea and really she only did it because no one would battle with her and she was sad especially if you follow the subtext that since her parents weren't really around she would obsess over something to sort of cope. Then she says she'd go all out from now on

In Scarlet you have Sada - Arvens mom - who's spouse walked out on her right after Arvens birth. Looking at both versions together, we see that both Sada and Turo were Arvens parents and total shit. In one Universe they had the balls to walk out on their kid, in the other, they basically locked up the kid at home and dived into work. No matter how you look at it: Their respective AI had more heart than them. Damnit.

"Larry" is a play on the word "saLARYman." His Japanese title is even "Extraordinary Salaryman." Best Pokemon character ever.

The reason Arven just throws out a squirrel in the beginning is because he's bad at battling; he admits it himself. That's why he needs your help with the herba mystica

43:49 the ingame dialogue actually mentions how Team Star never met their boss in person, they wouldn’t know the blue and red hair girl was their boss. She organized and coordinated them through online chats and video calls only.

You know, I've never really felt that modernisation of a game series requires voice acting, I'm usually content with dialogue boxes in most RPG's, but my God does Scarlet and Violet's cutscenes just feel so lifeless without it. The end of the game actually has the kind of disturbing, climactic vibe that I really admired about some of the older entries, but it just feels squandered by actually interesting moments being dead-silent and devoid of emotion.

I feel like Nemonas arc of finding a worthy rival where she could go all out was a nice mix up from a rival where they’re always giving it their all but still failing

I vote that Larry should appear in every new game from this point forward, always getting forced to take up random new jobs that he takes to with all the enthusiasm of his job as a Gym Leader.

I saw the "your parent actually did love you" part in a bit of a different light. The AI showed in some ways it had more humanity than the original professor, I think the parts of the consciousness that were copied were ironically the more human ones, as if the professor knew they needed someone to rein them in after researchers became lost or died, but they were still so arrogant they could only trust themself. It would explain why the AI seemed to actually care about Arven more than the actual professor, as well as why it would go against its own programming and want to shut the machine down. It's just headcanon really but the events we see do support it.

Damn, Turo did the Pokemon equivalent of going to get cigarettes

Nemona basically sandbagging you the whole time **could’ve** been incredible **IF** at the end she goes all out and her team is absolutely fucking insane and is the hardest battle in the game by a large margin (basically a classic JRPG secret endgame boss that is like 10x harder than the final boss). As it stands right now, the idea is there with Nemona but without showing her being insanely strong it loses a lot of impact it could have had.

I think the reason why everyone likes larry so much is just because how (fittingly) normal he is. like you said, every goddamn character in this game (that's exaggeration, some of them are cool) feels like they were trying to twist some kind of trope. (especially in team star) Characters are like this so much that seeing just an overworked, normal guy is so relatable and (ironically) different.

At least in Sun/Moon, even if the National Dex wasn't there, they could still IMPORT to the game pokmon that weren't in the local dex; many people get attached to certain Pokemon, and not being able to use their favorites is a big gut punch for them.

Did you know that the final cutscene fight is completely impossible to lose? Even if you spam Tera Blast over and over to waste its PP you get given too many boosts AND on the 9th one the game forces you to Tera and use it. Also, your legendary cannot die. It is programmed to always survive on 1 HP because of friendship. So yeah, it's even more scripted than you might think

God, what a confusing entry huh? I don't think any single pokemon game has ever been a better example of just how much potential is sitting dormant in this brand and wow is that frustrating! Oh well, at least we got Larry, Nemona and Arven.

I'm a bit late to the video, but I would like to add that Penny never met Team Star in person. She was too scared too, so she controlled the group remotely instead. I just wanted to add that in case it helps you enjoy the story ever slightly more.

How much better would it have been if Arven were the player character? The whole story could have been about finding your mother/father and needing to collect herbs to make koraidon able to navigate the crater. Also you need to collect badges to get permission to even go down there and you need to beat the team star in order for Penny to come along and actually help you. Ahhh if only.

I DO like that after Turo says "your dad loved you", Arven is like "you can't just say that shit now" and Turo goes "yeah. you're right. sorry." lmao makes me think the AI was full of it somehow and trying to make Arven feel better?

I think the "gym leaders adjust their team based on how many badges you have" comes from that OVA adapting gen 1 since Red challenges Brock and he grabs the pokemon meant for people with no badges.

Nemona's arc was not a learning how to accept loosing like the last games Her whole thing was that she couldn't find someone as strong as her to fight with, even the champion wasn't enough for her (just like how we feel after defeating such a weak champion), she contained herself during the whole game and just wanted a challenge, that being the player

Though the national dex was gone on gen 7, what people are complaining about in gen 8 is that the game doesn't let you transfer in any pokemon that are unobtainable in the game. That's what's different, and what people mean by saying they got rid of the national dex. It wouldn't have been difficult to allow, either, since gens 7 and 8 both copy pasted the pokemon models from gen 6.

Definitely agree that a "Arven's Dad/Mom Actually Loved Him" ending would be pretty terrible, but I came away from that scene, mostly because of everything else we know about his parent, assuming the AI is literally just being nice to make him feel better. There are a couple lines in the fight that push that even further, like when they're about to hit the second fight where the AI says something along the lines of "What? Could keeping the machine operating really be all they cared about?" It really does read, to me, that the AI had an at least an inkling the parent is a piece of shit with some early dialogue, and then basically confirms it, and lies to prevent more trauma. Always possible I'm giving too much credit, but they go REALLY hard on showing you how awful the professor is.

nemona disadvantaging herself at the beginning is intentional. she gasses you up for knowing type matchups because your character is only beginning their journey and she’s essentially trying to train you up to be her equal to have great battles (which you do)

"I don't know any of these losers' names" by far the best synopsis of the Gym Leaders (with the obvious exception of Larry)

Personally the most memorable part of this game for me was Larry’s little arc where the rest of the elite four pushes him to incorporate flying pokemon into his elite four lineup which leads to him recognizing the advantage of adding variety in his team, and when you battle him for the second time in his gym he’s changed his lineup to mirror this. Its an analogy to his salaryman 9-5 life being incredibly dull and him learning to find meaning outside of work by adding some variety to his life, which is incredibly deep for a pokemon game, and made my fall in love with Larry even more

"Most options for character creation. Stand out in a way we haven't seen before." > *STUCK WEARING FUCKING UGLY SCHOOL UNIFORM FOR THE ENTIRE GAME, NOT EVEN LETTING US WEAR A SKIRT OR DRESS VERSION AS A GIRL* I'm PISSED that they effectively completely removed outfit customization. Customization is important to me and outfits were one of my favorite things about the series from XY forward.

17:19 agreed, the fact that you can't go into houses and interact with people, or talk to half of the NPCs kinda bothers me because that's part of the fun for me. I like hearing what the people have to say, discovering random trainers who want to trade or give you items and seeing what's inside buildings and there's almost none of that in Scarlet.

I'm glad you mentioned how the towns actually look, really loses the excitement of finding a new place

Despite X and Y being not as great as hoped, the characters you play have an older and more mature look to them, especially during battles. The games felt like they wanted to be like Black and White in terms of tone, but the vision was never finalized. The main villain has a paranoid view of the future, you have Legendary Pokémon that are the literal embodiment of Life and Death, an organization where the philosophy of the needs of the strong out weight the needs of the weak, etc. However, in the same game, you have supporting cast of characters whose motivations are honestly dumb, the evil organization has mostly dumb rich brats as members, a very light post-game, the life and death motif is overshadowed by the dumb "hording wealth is bad" thing, and the word beauty seemingly like a substitution for something else like the frailty and limitations of life being always present or something. It feels like Pokémon has been stuck in a death spiral since X and Y. Something needs to come along to challenge Pokémon or this death spiral will not stop. They seemed to be taking the right steps with Arceus so I have no idea why Scarlett and Violet were rushed.

We really went from Mega Evolutions to Sticking a disco ball on top of Pokémon's heads

I got a correction for you. Where you were mentioning at 44:00 that the bosses of Team Star should have known that Penny was the boss and that she was back. I can't remember off the top of my head which one's flashback brought it up, but it was mentioned that none of the bosses had ever seen Penny before. They only knew her as the big boss or Cassiopeia. None of them were aware what she looked like or what she did to try and defend the team. That's why they never dispersed the team. They thought she'd come back eventually cuz Penny was their friend and kind of their savior.

Pokémon gen 9: do things in any order you want! Also Pokémon gen 9: Btw there’s a specific order to do this

I know you mentioned skipping Legends: Arceus, but I think it's worth going back to play. Story-wise it's weaker than Scarlet/Violet, but mechanically it nails the whole "living in the world of Pokemon" that the latter games squandered. It really did feel like a the huge step forward the franchise needed.... and then Scarlet/Violet felt like two steps backwards.

Nemona clearly makes reference that she is trying to train you up and is holding back. This game would be at least twice as good if the speed of battle was increased by 3

Wow. You know I never thought about it. The Gym Leader thing... They absolutely described the canon that gym leaders would use Pokémon to match the challenger... I mean when you think about it logically, not every trainer started in Pallet town. The fact they finally made a world where you could do them out of order, and they had not even considered this canon actually makes me a lot more upset than I thought I would be. I literally had to pause the video to write this.

Friendly reminder, none of the other bosses had ever seen Penny. So even if the grunts mentioned a girl with red and blue hair they’d have no idea. They only first meet her at the end of the star fall story Also, it doesn’t seem like they were outright bullying her. Just trying to get her to join team star so she “can shine bright”; they even have a quota apparently.

My high school Spanish teacher used to bribe the kids in order to boost their grades (starbucks gift cards and what not) so this storyline is actually quite relatable for only me and no one else. And I didn't even buy the game.

The dream of “I want these Pokémon to be able to live in harmony with the Pokémon of Today” makes more sense with the Scarlet Professor than the Violet one. You know… since she’s all about the Past, so it’s like a Jurassic Park kind of deal. It’s a terrible idea, but it still makes more sense to want dinosaurs to re-acclimate to modern-day nature than… f*cking robots.

So the takeaway here is: *"Corporate greed can be forgiven as long as the overworked, underpaid developers and artists did a good enough job"*

Every other developer: making open world games for at least 10 years GameFreak: fails to make a decent open world game Fans: oh it's such a step in the right direction, they deserve some slack, here take more of my money and give me more nostalgia pls

44:17 maybe I paused too soon, but Team Star never knew what their leader looked like until player defeats Penny. She organized them over phone as Cassiopeia, same as she did Operation Starfall.

thank you for mentioning the souless, copy-paste nature of the towns i havent heard anyone talking about how the towns are padded out through copy pasting the same 3 restaurants and 50 different clothing stores for each type when i first arrived in mesagoza, i looked at each shop and i immediately knew they made seperate shops for each article of clothing so they could make the town bigger and yet no one has seemed to notice it except for you, so i appreciate you bringing that matter to light

I think the idea with Nemona is that she’s so strong that she’s always holding back. Like, she loves to battle but she’s so much better than pretty much everyone that she handicaps herself (hence why she chose the starter weak to yours). Clavell even tells her before your first battle not to use her usual team because she’d wipe the floor with you. I think this is a good twist on the “fun” rival; she’s not incompetent (at least at battles), she just wants to have a good time instead of wiping the floor with every opponent she faces, so she holds back for all your battles until you’re a champion trainer too. She gets really excited when you win because this is the first time in a while that she’s thrown everything she had into a fight, so she doesn’t care that she lost. At least that’s how I interpreted her character

It's how the trees and bushes still have a hint of a grid and transparent look, If you turn the camera the right angle. It's the way the NPCs move twitchy, not smoothly whatsoever. Going in and out of doors to buildings. How empty the towns feel. Why are there so many food stores? And then so many empty buildings. Like they rushed through it but didn't want people to notice right away. I like the camping and playing with pokemon. I miss the other online players in the wild area like Sword&Shield.

Area Zero gave me this moment of extremely bittersweet blue balls. Where it was almost like I was playing the really cool mind blowing Pokémon games I dreamed of as a kid. That it was so close. Like I almost had it.

Pretty much all the team star leaders beat you over the head with the fact that they have no idea what their leader looked like

I can't imagine if Turo fought us by punching us or pulling out a gun to be all that threatening when you have monsters that eat lava, move faster than the speed of light, have psychic powers, shoot acid or something. Like I'm imaging them pulling out a gun and Alakaza which has a 200% IQ just crunches it into a cube and the Turo's eyes bug out.

I guess a little thing about the Professor. The Professor didnt want to the world to be overrun by Paradox pokemon. Area 0 was meant to be a walled off garden where no Pokemon could escape while they worked out the kinks with the paradox mons. The AI professor changes its mind after Iron Treads/Great Tusk escapes. Since the professor/AI goals are for the pokemon to live together in harmony and since the professor sacrificed themselves to save Miradon/Koraidon, it isnt a stretch to assume he would have tried to shut off the machine if he was still alive. He just had a plan for everything other than being dead.

I always assumed it was the robot who ended up loving arven and the actual parent lost their mind to whatever weird ass crystal magic permeated the area

Ghetsis actively tries to kill you and he still has less inappropriate relations with your character than the teachers in S/V

I actually really like the "your dad loved you" line, because I interpret it as one of two ways. The first is that the AI was lying to make Arven feel better and help him with the trauma of being fatherless in what way he can with his little amount of time. The other is that his dad did love him, but was just so socially inept or blinded by work that he didn't realise what he was doing to his son. The line about how a time machine is more important than showering your son with attention just sounds 100% like sarcastic coping to me. No other way around that. I refuse to consider that they are actually implying Arven is serious in this and not just jokingly saying it to vent abit without creating a bad vibe or even worse, that he is right in saying that.

This is the first game where I didn't struggle at all for the Elite Four. Normally I have to grind and stock up on items, but it felt like normal trainer battles. I didn't think I grinded that much, but I guess my "catch everything I don't have and battle every trainer" philosophy worked

to me, the more fascinating thing about Pokemon Scarlet/Violet was that it clearly ran very poorly and there was still pokemon fans defending it. I wonder how many corners they could trim before those group of fans would be upset.

To be fair to Arven and his squirrel. It's really weird that you have six pokemon before the first actual town.

Nemona's speech about the beautiful nature is always really funny with the play-doh mountain on display, but mesagoza's intro cutscene is way funnier to me. It's always bustling with people... all three of them

, I remember growing up in the 90s. Full games released. No updates, no dlc. What you got what was what you got. Games won or failed on their own without any extra anything. Man I miss those days

I like to think that the real turo was really that ass but that AI turo developed own thoughts and kinda feelings after spending so long around the christals (and after what happend to the real turo). So at the time we meet AI turo he is conflicted with Avren. He knows that what the professor did was fucked uped and he feels responsable to it but on the same hand he isn't the real turo and is stuck with this moral dilemma. Maybe him telling Avren that his Dad loved him is more like a projection of his own conflicted feelings as the copy of said dad and he wanted to give Avren closure before leaving avrens life just as the real turo did before. To be fair AI Turos reason to leave is way more reasonable than Real Turo so from his perspective it's the only small thing he can do for this Child that he loves just like his own. This makes me also really feel for AI Turo here because looking at this he is also kinda a victim of the situation just as Avren and the only person still to blame is the real Turo.

Would it be so bad to have our rival wipe the floor with us at the start? I mean if Nemona is as OP OP as everyone says she is, I think it'd be an effective introduction to the progression you're expected to achieve if she just rolls over you initially. Move the initial rival battle to further out in the game, maybe after the first gym or so. Give the player time to build confidence in themselves, just to have a reality check bring them back down to earth and realize "you aren't the chosen one...yet". It just baffles me that the player is basically never allowed to lose a fight to progress the story forward (outside of the first rival battles lvl 5 v lvl 5 in many of the earlier games). Especially since you're still a kid in these games. What child never loses something at some point competitively? I mean, they're a kid. You aren't supposed to start out as some uber impressive person. That's part of the point of progression and getting that sweet sweet dopamine kick when you overcome someone who had been kicking your ass 30 hours earlier in the game. Its ok to have a scripted loss. As long as you aren't taking ALL the control away from the player and it's early enough to still make sense. Think about how much more effective Giovanni, or any team villain, could've been if in one of your initial encounters with them they absolutely destroy you. It just makes you finally overcoming them much more satsifying. Bah, I just can't stand how little these games have seemingly changed over the years. Especially, as someone who was there for Red/Blue's initial US release as a 6 year old kid. We should've had a more open world based game concept since Gen 5, voice acting since Gen 6, actual decent performance just...Ever (if you're a genwunner, go back and play R/B. I promise you they are not what you remember), and an actual conherent story with a more living world since the move to the Switch. I strongly dislike how much money this game has made. We should be telling Gamefreak, Nintendo, the Pokemon Company, etc that this isn't nearly a good enough effort when we can make so many negative comparisons to games that are approaching, if not already, 20 years old. All this money they make now is just telling them it's ok to make a subpar experience because people will buy it anyway. You may be missing out on what "fun" there is to be had here, which does exist, I'm not going to claim there isn't (tbf, I have not bought either Scarlet or Violet due to it's reception, my viewing of various let's plays/reviews) but try to think about just how much MORE fun you could have with something that fully realizes the potential the series has. Which, frankly, we haven't seen since Gen 5. Arguably, even earlier, depending on just how much of a pokemon boomer you are. And no, stating that they can patch out the issues is not an excuse. Patches should be for fixing unforseen issues and consequences that weren't initially caught in QA. You can't look at 5 minutes of these games without seeing some kind of graphical stuttering, pop ins, pop outs, etc. These are things that should've been ironed out prior to the game's release. Patches should be for things like Missingno not lag. Not that I fully disagree with anything that has been said here. Advancements have been made. I just think it's giving the game a little too much credit. Many of it's "advancements" are things we should've seen earlier, or have existed in previous well-established gaming series (that make significantly less money and have far less tenure than pokemon) for decades.

A shame. I was considering getting back into Pokemon with this, simply because I'm a sucker for open-world and character-creation/customization. But at the same time, I'm a casual that will never touch on the deeper aspects like PvP. So being informed of all the glaring issues, and the snideness of Nintendo almost never putting their games on sale... not happenin.

The saddest thing with Pokemon community is that it's identical with Star Wars, World of Wacraft's communities, the fans will eat anything game Freak throws at them, even if it's straight up dogshit or bricks they keep coming back and chewing, so all these bad games keep on going. Thank god we have rom hacks.

The Herba Mystica = HM realization then made me realize that the legendaries feel very much like drag bikes. Dragon Bike = Drag Bike 🏍️

I don't think the thing at the end did ruin it since Avren was like. "You can't just say that now [and expect me to believe it". And the professor is like "I guess you're right, I'm sorry". So yeah they did end still not liking each other

Nemona is basically that player who's playing on New Game +.

For anyone wondering, the credits song was sung by Ed Sheeran. Celestial

Personally, I like the more serious teams with evil motives more than the ones we've been getting the last few generations.

I was super impressed with the custom scripts mid pokémon battles until Nemona said I got a lucky crit after using Flower Trick, a move that *always* crits lmfao

As someone who fell off the franchise after Pokemon X/Y, the biggest issue I have with Pokemon nowadays is the increasing casualization of the games. Sure they werent really that difficult back then either but I remember times, especially throughout Pokemon Blue, where I struggled to win. And I had leveled my main pokemon Squirtle to max, winning every general fight normally. Beat the Top4 with no moves but a constant self hitting attack. Then over time Pokemon got easier and easier, I started to get less interested only for Black and White to shove that difficulty right back into the games. Loved them. Then the game took a turn again. And around X and Y, which I still loved, I started to lose interest again. Only for the next game in the franchise to just not do it for me. I think I got up to the first big challenge, beat it and just stopped playing after. And there were multiple reasons for it. It didnt feel like I was actually playing through a story, it was like I was playing through a sandbox game. There was a hurdle? Here have the solution to get past it. In BnW2 was the complete oposite for me. I struggled to even get back to my home town at the start which I needed to for some reason I dont remember. But I didnt have a bird pokemon despite being able to teach one to fly. So what am I gonna do now? Well, cant tell you, been too long since I played. Point is, there was a lot of problem solving and the player not handed the immediate solution back in the games. Sure, lots of running around and lots of easy puzzles just as much but they werent so... blatantly in your face as it feels like it is now. And dont get me started on the "rivals" or rather as I call them "Buddies". I loved X and Ys dynamic. They werent really rivals yes, but they were friends trying to get each other to the top. It felt like a more friendship dynamic of friends supporting each other over just "I believe in you, you are great!".

It's honestly just sad that Scarlet and Violet turned out to be the games that they are. They are honestly fun games, and it feels like the developers made an honest attempt to make a fun game with a decent amount of new and fresh mechanics... but it also highlights how either inept the developers are at making a stable game, or, and this is more likely, the people in charge need to change their mind about the release schedule of games (with them releasing 1 game a year), which doesn't give the developers enough time to work on any 1 game. This is sad, because, while this needs to change, I doubt the people in charge will ever change it. We will keep getting games like this. Maybe sometimes honestly good games, improvements from the last game, but will always have glaring flaws like Scarlet and Violet have.

44:04 I recall that Penny only ever interacted with the rest of Team Star online or over the phone like she does with us, hence why none of the Leaders can actually tell us who the Boss is.

One of the only channels that no matter what I'm watching I change it to whatever new Salt video is out. Love this guy.

I would argue that it isn't the switch hardware that is to blame for the issues, but rushed development and poor optimization. My example of this is Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal, both of which were properly adjusted and optimized to run on the switch hardware. Both games run just as well as on my PS4/Xbox1, so the system definitely can handle the faster paced game play. The real crux of the problem is that Scarlet and Violet needed more time in the proverbial oven to be ready, but corporate interference forced them out the door half-baked.

Why do people keep defending? Is it to avoid the shame of their purchase, to evade confronting the idea of a blemish in what they loved? To not squash their own hopes? Nothing about acknowledging current blunders removes the value of past triumphs, and failure to do so enables more of what we fear

Scarlet/Violet get even worse when you compare it to Legends Arceus. A game that came out in the same year. There's so many features/improvements missing from that game, it's far more stable, etc.

Very good video, I just have two points where I think I differ in understanding with Salt here: 1. I think it’s totally fine for Arven’s dad to be a neglectful workaholic and to also love his son. Sad as it is, neglectful and abusive parents can still believe they love their children. (Also Arven’s coping reaction after that meet is really depressing… like man buddy you need some therapy) 2. The running theory with the Paradox Pokemon is that they are in fact paradoxical to an extent. Like logically it doesn’t make sense for Pokémon to have evolved from or into these forms and their entries very clearly point to them being the imagined creations of tabloid magazines. What’s more likely to be happening is that the “time machine” is actually creating Pokémon based on the imaginations of the Professor and others who interact with the giant Tera Orb.

"Wouldn't it be nice to have a difficulty setting." Gamefreat, removes set mode option.

Arven's story for sure is the most interesting plot points in the game. I hope that Game Freak continues to include more stories like this. I just wished that the game would have run smoother, but I guess we have to wait for the next-gen Switch whenever that may be.

21:36 the most infuriating part of the Tera Raid battles to me was when I came upon a 6 star Dragon Tera Type pokemon and, knowing I couldn’t do it with the AI, connected to the internet to take it on with other real people. The moment I did that the Tera cave disappeared completely. I checked the map and it turns out the game changes what battles are available based on if you’re connected to the internet. It bugged me because I didn’t remember ever being told that

The game feels very like Sonic 06 for me in the sense that there’s so much potential, but the fact it was rushed ended up hurting the final product. I’m worried that sooner or later Pokemon is going to release a game as infamous as Sonic 06 and severely hurt them moving forward. It’s tragic that its probably going to take that to get some actual change.

i miss the 3d style that X and Y had. The newer ones just look too weird.

I find it a little ambiguous how much the AI was echoing the professor and how much it was just a better person than the professor. Also it feels realistic to me that maybe the professor did care about Arven, just not as much as they cared about work. Which firstly puts them in the completely terrible parent category, just also human too. And as for Arven's reaction, it also feels realistic to me. He's rationalizing stuff, and his parent's dead and he just found out and usually people focus on the good stuff right after someone they know dies. Granted they could've done a better job portraying that. Maybe some postgame stuff where he goes back on that conclusion a bit because he's still hurt. But idk. I kinda like to interpret it as messy complicated emotions

"it isn't about the world ending... Or ancient legendary pokemon being unleashed" Game's ending: Literally involves TIME TRAVEL about unleashing extremely powerful pokemon that would ruin their world.

Such a hard game to properly put into words on why it's enjoyable in spite of so many glaring issues. My favorite game since Platinum and I feel conflicted to recommend it to others because it just fails in so many ways a $60 game should never struggle with

Pokémon, Nintendo, and Gamefreak will continue to push out shitty products until consumers decide they don’t want to buy it

You can beat six star raids by yourself it just takes some strategy. I love how challenging it can be and how the NPC’s actually help in raids a good bit in this game unlike in sword and shield. Also the music in this game is next level amazing! I can’t believe you didn’t like it

Actually thinking on it, if they made nemona challenge you at the start at each gym alongside scaling gyms, you could have nemona be the hint about how strong the gym will be this time.

“Long overdue micro-improvement” literally describes every positive aspect of these games I think. Meanwhile “horribly developed bug-fest full of poor design decisions from both artistic and gameplay standpoints” describes everything else about these games, BDSP, and SWSH

perfect description of the pain and suffering a self aware pokemon fan.

My main problem with Scarlet and Violet (in relation to Legends Arceus) is that they had been released n the wrong order: Leyends introduced a lot of gameplay innovations that changed and sped up the turn based combat, like the impulses or de direct capture, but Scarlet and Violet don't have them, so they feel outdated and slow in comparison. If they had released Leyends after SV they would have more time to develop it and it would have made SV seem fresher

They never saw Penny irl (she was a shut-in from her bullying) and didn’t know what she looked like until she revealed herself to you

I love the horror in your voice as you state the fact that even tho the games got shat on they still sold better than anything in the franchise xD

I've really had enough of the "bad father" archetype in my media recently

Knowing that Miraidon is just a future form of Cyclizar made me feel like it really wasn’t a legendary..

You make a good point about the future of the series. If game freak is just listening to sales, they’ll just keep doing what they’re doing, but if sales suffered, they’d walk things back to play it safe. “Play it safe” seems to be the company motto, given their history. It’s a shame they’re so resistant to innovation.