Pokemon Scarlet and Violet - Team Star Grunt Battle / Penny | Reacting To Video Game Music! 

This video apparently mentions spoilers ~~~

Here's a fun fact for you: Penny herself is actually from the Galar region (aka: Pokemon Sword/Shield), the region where gym battles take place in huge stadiums before massive audiences, generally as huge events, complete with absolutely bombastic music. This is, fittingly enough, one of the reasons why her theme is so high energy and just generally loud. It literally sounds like something that would play during a gym battle in the Galar region. A nice, subtle, music reference to where she's originally from.

Would you believe the first theme is for the regular, low-level fights with the rank and file of Team Star? It's in the name: Team Star _Grunt._ In Gen 1, the rank and file of Team Rocket were also called grunts, so yes, this really energetic and more-complex-than-usual track is for battles against grunts that probably only last for, like, a minute. Which means that in order to listen to this in its entirety each time, I have to just pause the fight and take everything in. This is one of those cases where the composer didn't have to go so hard on the theme, but they did anyway (and then some). This is my favorite grunt theme in the series, and it, along with the other Team Star themes, really contributed to making Team Star my favorite villain team. They aren't even much of a villainous force anyway, they're school delinquents (with a more involved story than it seems), but their aesthetic is cool, their boss' battles are tougher than the Pokemon standard, and each and every one of their themes go oh-so-very hard. Yeeeaah... even though the cat's basically out of the bag on Penny, I won't bother saying much on that other than that she is indeed related to Team Star. But her theme, like you said, is that crazy mix of happy and serious, and it fits her character pretty well. I don't think I've ever heard an electronic theme that aggressive in Pokemon before, and its uniqueness and catchiness and charm just make it the capper on one of the most memorable moments in the game for me.

In-universe, one of the Team Star bosses, Giacomo, is canonically the one who composed the battle themes for the team. He dresses like a punk rocker. I don't remember if he said this, or if it's the fan interpretation, but since he never met Cassiopeia, he must have composed Penny's theme on the fly. The duality in Penny's theme comes from the combination of 1) her shy personality and her choice of using cute Eeveelutions as her team, and 2) her incredible skill at hacking technology and, supposedly, her battle prowess. It's a fan favorite from this game. Honestly I love all of the Team Star themes, there's a couple more that are used for cutscenes and they're also really good. Teruo Taniguchi did such a great job composing all of these themes. SV players, if you haven't done the bonus tutoring session with Team Star that was added in the DLC, make sure you get back to the academy!

Cassiopeia is also the name of a real life constellation, a group of Stars. Each Sub Boss under her are leaders of groups that are also named after Stars that are found within that constellation.

The Team Star theme makes me feel sure that Team Star grunts really see themselves as the heroes even in their exile and while their conduct and code worsens. Penny's theme is intimidating, but then still has that tragic hero motif. Team Star are fallen heroes, vilified after retaliating against their oppressors and the school that allowed their mistreatment to go unnoticed.

Pokemon is still turn based, just like the old days! Now, they have done some engine tweaks to make the turns go faster, and the attack animations are more flashy and active, so even the much higher speed tracks dont feel out of place, at least to me.

I hear that colony 9 in the intro 👀 glad you're having fun with XB jesse!

Team Star is made up of five different squads throughout the region that the game takes place in. Their names and locations are named for the stars and positions of those stars that make up the "Cassiopeia" constellation, which is why she went with the name as their leader.

The Penny is Cassiopeia reveal is so obvious they pretty much make a joke of it in the game itself, so it is a spoiler but not one even the game takes seriously. The funny thing is Cassiopeia will contact you anonymously thru hacking your phone and then IMMEDIATELY AFTER Penny will pop up and be like "so yeah Cassiopeia said to give you these as a reward" even tho its her the whole time. So yeah its a bit silly but its also a lot of fun, I really enjoy the story of Team Star and Penny. And the Penny theme music might be my favorite in the series, though there is a surprising amount of great music in Pokemon. The basic story is Penny/Cassiopeia put together Team Star to "take down" some bullies but then Team Star got a reputation as bullies themselves. After some big event Penny was forced to study abroad as "punishment" and Team Star vowed to not go back to school until their "Big Boss" comes back. But they never knew who Penny was they just knew Cassiopeia the anonymous leader. The player's story starts pretty much the same day Penny comes back from her studies abroad and you save her basically from being bullied by Team Star grunts. Then you get contacted by Cassiopeia to join "Operation Starfall" to take down Team Star... which Penny is also a part of.

Yep, as you mentioned, Teruo Taniguchi was really only a sound designer on the Pokémon series prior to this. Scarlet and Violet wasn't his first time composing full themes for a game, but his most recent credits for music were 2019 arranging for Tetris-99 and composing for another game by the creators of Pokémon called Giga Wrecker in 2017. He ended up doing the 2 in this video, and most other themes relating to Team Star.

I couldnt believe they added hardstyle in to Pokémon, i was floored for a good 4 minutes at the start of the battle. Spoilers for SV: The juxtaposition of Penny's theme being terrifying and uplifting is basically a reflection how she decided to present herself as this mysterious boss of Team Star to even her teammates but by the end shows herself, and is accepted by the other members. It's pretty basic but I like when a character's theme can tell you what the jist of their arc is.

Man, I was not ready for Penny's theme when I first heard it, easily my favourite track in Scarlet/Violet. Been waiting for you to hear these since the first Team Star Boss theme, glad you did!

"Cassiopeia's" theme is arguably my favourite piece of music in the entire Pokémon franchise and in the in-game story behind it makes it kind of hilarious. It's revealed that one of the Team Star's bosses actually made and mixed the team's theme songs so it stands to reason he also wrote Cassiopeia's theme, but none of the bosses had every actually met her and just referred to them the "The Big Boss". So this group of outcasts turned delinquents make some banging theme music to seem more imposing with the main boss getting this hardcore, high energy, relentlessly aggressive theme only for the actual boss to be a shy, dorky, social anxious shut-in geek who couldn't be imposing even if she tried so when you finally face off against one of the meekest characters Pokémon has ever had she has both the least and most appropriate music imaginable.

Heeey! I was wondering when this would show up! xD Vee Casual here! Thank you for taking the time to listen to what is definitively my favorite Grunt theme in the entire Pokemon franchise. For clarification on the music itself, I really do feel there is a lot of storytelling in the theme itself. For instance, the beginning, more sinister feel of the theme at the start is only played once. When the song loops, it never returns to the sinister side. Any loop then replays starting at the more hopeful, and absolute bopping beat about thirty seconds in. Almost as if stating that the sinister beginnings are only skin-deep, or not real. Perhaps Team Star is not as bad on the inside as people think. =3 (Kinda avoiding spoilers in case you wanna play it.)

haha you started to put Xenoblade OST in the background. ONE OF US! ONE OF US! ONE OF US!

The Team Star Grunt theme is really good. The intro is like "a basic evil team theme" and then the music change completely and became some sort of an heroic song. It signify that Team Star is maybe not the "evil theme" that we thought they were. It's very intelligent. It's probably my favorite Team Grunt theme of the series.

Pokemon (at least the mainline games) are still very much turn-based games. One of the things that Scarlet/Violet got right was the removal of the battle transition screen. (Even Sword/Shield still had one, except for battles that take place in the gym stadiums.) Any time you started a battle against a trainer or Wild Pokemon, you just send out your Pokemon and battle right then and there. You can even use the right stick to adjust the camera in battles, except against important trainers which uses a Dynamic Camera. Pokemon has always had good music to listen to, even back in Gen 1. Have you played Pokemon Stadium on the N64? The music in that game and its sequel, Pokemon Stadium 2, is fantastic and holds up well even to this very day.

Penny’s theme is such a banger. Never thought I’d ever hear hardstyle in a pokemon game.

My favorite thing about Jesse's channel is that by the time a request gets a video, enough time has passed since I played the game that it can now activate nostalgic memories seeing someone react to songs that absolutely enamored me when I played! Penny's battle theme is one of my absolute favorites in the whole series, which is saying a lot! A neat compositional detail about Penny's theme is that it actually subtly hints at where her family's from, in universe, due to it sonically resembling a song you've previously listened to! I'm being vague in case some would consider that tiny detail a spoiler, but I think it adds another level to what are already great songs!

I would highly recommend Lusamine's theme from Pokemon Sun and Moon. Such a awesome theme for a female villain that goes hard because of how crazy she is.

The thing I love about Penny's battle theme is that it perfectly reflects her character. Penny, along with the rest of tem star really, are victims of severe bullying. This lead to the formation of team Star (once meant as a support group for all victims of bullying) and its corruption. Turning team Star into the new bullies. As a result of said extreme bullying, Penny became extremely reserved and had developed a bit of a spiky personality. Her theme's intro reflects that. And as her intro continues to build, it eventually reveals all this hype and energy. Much like the way an introvert may beguin to warm up to someone after some time. Another fun fact: Penny is an eeveelution trainer! She opens with an Umbreon (an edgy dark type) as another reflection of her reserved nature. Her ace, however, is a Sylveon (the fairy type eeveelution seen in Pokeli's video) which acts in complete juxtaposition with the opening Umbreon, further emphasizing how Penny opens up throughout the course of the battle

I love Penny's theme because I'm pretty sure it's the electronic music genre "Mákina" which is Spanish (and is decently big in Japan) genre that's kinda like Happy Hardcore but punchier and the genre originating from Spain fits with the whole Spain inspirations/themes that Scarlet/Violet has.

can i say a really fun fact, that in star battle grunts the final part of the song coincidentally sounds like a part of xenoblade chronicles 2 regular battle theme

I’m surprised that the Grunt battle theme sounds happy and jubilant to you. Like, that’s in there, too, but to me it sounds more like that happiness comes with aggressively dancing in spite of the pain. There’s a lot of complex emotion at work here. Haven’t seen your reaction to Penny yet, but the complexity at work there is also great. She’s a shy girl who likes cute things for comfort, but that doesn’t mean that the pain she suffered hasn’t fostered some powerful anger, too.

Penny's battle theme has been on my radar to suggest to you but alas another person suggested it. I liked the Grunt theme when I first heard it but it didn't blow me away at the time. Listened to it again recently and loved the song. Spoilers by the way. Spoilers but the reason I love the Grunt theme is because of how heroic it sounds, it's foreshadowing to finding out they are just a bunch of bullied kids trying to get back at the bullies. Most Pokemon battle themes are from the players perspective, so if it sounds more laid back and happy then that's how the player is supposed to feel in regards to the battle. The same thing works for intense themes. I feel like this theme starts from the players perspective but shifts to the Grunts. The beginning sounds somewhat intense and that you are going to stop this gang that's causing trouble. Then it shifts to the more heroic and motivating feel which imo is from the Grunt's perspective, they think their the under dogs and are doing a good thing. The song feels completely different when you think about the perspective of a bunch of kids fighting back against being bullied. Love the guitars, the lead synth reminds me of Sonic Forces and the melodies are perfect in this song. You can hear a bit of sadness coming from the guitar when it takes the lead. Penny's theme is crazy lol, it doesn't really fit her as a person and it fits more of what Team Star imagines their boss like. Great energy and the hard style hits just right, I love the melodies. It really gets your head bopin and there sounds like there are stakes to this battle when it's not that serious haha. I think this is really unique as a battle theme in the series and it's a very bold choice imo.

Penny may not be the strongest team leader, but just because she left such an impact on her team with really strong motivations, she has founded basically the best team to date.

THIS SONG IS SO FIRE

Penny's theme is just straight up Hardstyle and it makes me so happy.

Team Star is like the 'Team Rocket' of the series, but instead of 'Pokemon Mafia' that do bad thing and will resort to violence, Team Start is a group of School Outcast that were misunderstood and thought to be a Group of Bully. That's why we fought them at first, but after the entire truth come to light, they're became friends to our character.

I have been subscribed for more than a year for pokemon content hahahaha Finally we are going through that phase

For context. Penny is a tech geek hacker kinda girl

The Grunt theme is criminally good considering you only fight the Grunts like... maybe 3 times total? and the fights are so short they barely last 30 seconds. You just never hear most of the track and it's one of the best on the OST.

I know that you primarily want to react to new things, but I honestly wouldn't mind you going over some things you may have already heard. Like hearing your take on the gameboy pokemon OST, and how they manage to pull that off with the Game Boy's limited sound channels and inability to create chords.

oh lets go my favorite song in this game, i immediately had to stop playing and listen to the song the first time i fought a grunt

Since, in-game, Cassiopeia's theme was composed by Giacomo - sight unseen, as at the time, none of the members knew the true identity behind their leader - I like the idea that such a team would ordinarily have some really kinda... ordinary battle music; after all, it's a team of pampered pets, not like Guzma's team or something meant for a rousing fight. Regardless, Giacomo composed this song for someone he really, really looked up to, and embodies what he envisions about his leader, and just how much of a beatdown he expects that leader to deliver, in style. It's amusing, in that the power behind the theme doesn't fit the team it's for, or the character behind that team, yet it also has this feel of, "even though I'm not the battler my friends expect me to be, and I have crazy expectations to live up to, we're still going to give it our all, even if we really are the underdogs going down in flames." In its own way, that adds a great deal of rousing character to it. It reminds me of those memes about Isabelle, when Animal Crossing released on the same day as Doom Eternal; yeah, The Only Thing They Fear is You doesn't fit her character at all, but it makes for some great memes, if nothing else.

It's crazy when playing Violet i only heard like 1 min of this song when the game was first out because grunts in Pokemon games are just easy to beat and you barely here the full version of this song lol, Had to go on YT to even hear the full version after beating the game

Pennie's theme brings that slav hard bass in mind.

A reaction to Rainbow Rocket grunt battle would be fun considering you know that theme probably

All 3 Team Star themes are really good but Penny's theme in particular is a fan favourite and I can definitely see why it's very different for Pokémon. Even though it's not music I'd listen to I can definitely see the appeal and feel the energy. Yeah Penny/Cassiopeia this is kinda a spoiler but tbh even the game makes fun of how obvious it is so imma just say it. Penny's cover name is Cassiopeia she speaks to you anonymously through a phone and it's later revealed that Penny is Cassiopeia and the leader of Team Star. Not an evil group more like bullies (game's main hub is a school) and their plot is basically figuring out why they're acting out.

it's such a shame that on a normal playthrough you would NEVER hear the awesome Grunt theme to the fullest since they just are so weak and the fights are done so quickly. the theme later on reminds me of the battle music of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 with it's style.

when i heard they used gabber/old hard dance for penny i was so surprised (gabber eventually became hardstyle if you're into that genre)

Pennyyyyy!! Yesss, cool, thank you for the reaction! ^^ More Pokémon is always awesome, and Penny's theme especially is super cool, in my opinion! X3 And, God, 10 months ago, the Team Star boss theme?? I remember listening to and watching your reaction while I was doing the dishes! ;w; 10 months, heck, my god

2:20 at this part i always picture a Dbz style beam struggle moment, going back and forth but being ever so slightly in the favor of the good guy. Kinda like Gohan vs Cell

Topical, since you are playing Xenoblade; I always got Xenoblade unique monster battle vibes from Team Star Grunt theme.

I just love how extra hard they went for a battle theme that you literally only hear for like 1 or 2 minutes max because the grunts are so weak😂

Been waiting for this one. 🥳

I'm not a fan of the later pokemon Gen's and I had never looked up much of the music other than the meme ones, but funnily enough I heard the Penny theme in a meme compilation and looked it up, and while not usually a fan of that style of music, for some reason that just hits me right in the sweet spot and I like it a lot. Mostly that intro, it just goes so *hard*

If I could make a request that you react to the other Boss Battle theme of the Team Star Squad Bosses, the 5 sub bosses that you challenge throughout the game. They're connection and reason fir being in Team Star is very interesting and they are actually the first Pokémon boss fights who use Pokémon that are completely unobtainable Pokémon since the PokéStar Studios in Black 2 and White two who used different battle props. But unlike those Battle Prop opponents, the five Starmobiles actually each have their own signiture moves. And they are BUSTED yet still nothing crazy within this generation's Competitive Meta. The Team Star Squad Boss theme is actually my favorite out of the Team Star themes. Also fun fact, if you look at the locations of all five Team Star bases on the map of the Paldea Region they actually line up with the Cassiopeia Constellation. Hence theur name Team Star and the moniquer of their Big Boss. And finally, Legends Arceus is arguably the first and so far only Pokémon game that has moved on from the regular turn based traditional fornat by having you and your opponents be able to take dynamic turns with raising the speed of your turn bracket at the sacrifice of the moves power, or powering up the move at the cost of your turn bracket. I believe the maximum amount this extends to is either the player or the AI getting as many as three turns in a row depending on which side uses Strong Style or Agile Style in certain combinations against each other. It is highly suspected that this will be a strictly Legends Game series exclusive game mechanic as it would be too unbalanced for competitive play in regular main series games. This battle mechanic already gets VERY out of hand real quick when you've suddenly stumbled across a level 50 Wild Alakazam and your Pokémon are all only around maybe level 20 at most and yoyr opponent gets to use Calm Mind to boost offensive stats and then use Psychic and then immediately use Recover all three turns in a row while you team is already weakened from previous wild encounters and suddenly you've just lost any progress at dealing what little damage you could to chip down the opponent and have saud opponent set up to sweep and it knocked out one Pokémon and will always go first because it's level 50 and your team is at least 30 levels lower and not even item spamming and stalling for time will work. And once said battle wnds and you are wiped out, you do NOT black out and instantly get sent to a Pokémon Center because they don't exist yet and suddenly you've got the 12 foot tall fully evolved Psychic Type Pokémon that actually teleports around you firing homing bomb Shadow Balls and raining Psyshocks from the sky all over the surrounding are of your player and all attacks have a range of like 20 feet at least and the second it lays eyes on you it chases you sometimes even across water or over cliffs or in the air trying to bump you off your ride Pokémon just by roaring at you then disabling your ability to summon ride Pokémon to escape quickly enough for a set amount of time. It is a real time action RPG combined with the classic Pokémon format at it's finest.

it's still turn based. they will NEVER change that. it's still exactly the same as in gen 1

The amount of us being shocked at the epicness of Penny's theme is comparable to the amount of stars in the sky (whether you wanna compare that to team star, up to you) On the topic of Pokemon Scarlet/Violet, I suggest listening to the Treasures of Ruin Quartet battle. It'll make you have a double take, trust me

While I was bored/apathetic during most of SV, but the music. THE MUSIC! While not all tracks are that awesome, I feel this pokémon game has some of THE best music in the series.

I don't know if anyone else has mentioned this here yet so I will. In the game, Penny is the only character who isn't native to that region (Paldea, which is based on Spain). She's a foreign exchange student from Galar (the UK) which was the setting of Sword and Shield. Those games had very electronic soundtracks, Jesse reacted to their Gym Leader theme a while back and its effectively an EDM rave track, so Penny's theme being more electronic is a reference to her native region.

you can say a lot about the Scarlet and Violet games, but the composers went HARD on the games.

To me the grunt theme sounds exactly like something that could come out of Puzzle & Dragons

Oh hell yeah

The shy nerd girl having this theme is so fittingly unfitting It honestly makes me imagine her as the one kid who absolutely kills it on the DDR game at the arcade

We need more pokemon themes

BB Elite 4 reaction maybe in the future? :3

You should definitely try a Pokémon game when u get a chance. Maybe when Gen 10 or Legends ZA comes out.

One theme I would love for you to react to is Pokémon ultra sun and ultra moons ultra necrozma

WOOOOOOO MORE POKEMON SV

penny's music

the team star battle sounds like something from sonic forces

gotta listen to the ai professor next

Still has nothing on Team Plasma from Black/White, or Team Neo Plasma from BW2, I slightly prefer the former though.

team star grunt battle theme is so cool but literally only 5 trainers in the entire game have it and all of them only have one pokemon so what's even the point

If your looking for another great leader theme, the Aqua/Magma leader theme from Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire is great. I thought you had listened to it before, but I couldn't find it using the search function on your channel

Tbh no main game has any songs that's like ughh this is bad, throughout any game u will enjoy every jingle.

Man it hurts when you say "sounds terrifying" the nintendo does penny dirty by giving her a horid AI

I hate Penny as character but her theme had no business being this good

my least fav themes