so i beat the new pokemon this morning & i have a LOT of thoughts!! unfortunately most of those thoughts are spoilers, so i'm gonna write a little about the not spoilers up top & then duck the rest behind a Read More. okay? okay!
ugly stuff outta the way first: dang, the game really did not cook long enough for a lot of things. i don't think the art direction really lands! the rendering style doesn't convey the 'pokemon' look quite as well as sword & shield did. constructively, i think the map artists did not have proper direction for what distance each LOD would be viewed from. some aspects of the world seem to mesh at a very long distance (see: having scaled the central mountain), but those same LODs are still used far closer than look good. etc etc, lighting, bugs, performance. DONE. okay.
the music is exceptional across the board. out of anything, i feel like the inclusion of toby fox on melodic composition duty really REALLY honed the music team's soundtrack. the use of dynamic tracks for field & battles, the variety in composition, the execution in those recordings... stellar across the board.
i think overall the new pokemon designs are really cute!! there's some real standouts for me: lokix is an incredible take on a sentai grasshopper... good shapes and colors. Farigiraf is hilarious and was a permanent part of my team just cos of its silly hoodie mouth. maushold....... four of them.... pawmi's entire evo line is beautiful. i love it when a small boy continues to stay small and fierce. flamigo is hilarious. mabosstiff..... both of charcadet's evo forms. new wooper & clodsire.... so many round friends. tinkaton is the MVP of all time. i love her.
as for game structure & narrative.... let's get into it, with spoileys:
okay if you've clicked 'read more' i'm assuming you either beat the game or don't care about spoilers. if not, pls click 'read less' ok? ok!
on the surface level, i like the concept of pokemon scar/vi's open world design. here's basically what they've done:
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pokemon world design has always been an 'open world' but with artificial gates that allow you to progress bit by bit as you beat gyms & get HM abilities. they also thread story with the 'rival team' which usually comprises the main "story" apart from "you are on a quest to be champion".
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scar/vi doesn't actually change this much! however, they smartly separate things into 3 separate "tracks": -- getting badges is still required to catch & train pokemon of increasingly higher levels. these can be done in 'any' order, but there's still overall level requirements. -- getting 'HM's is now relegated to expanding your ride pokemon's abilities and letting you reach different parts of the world. -- the story of the 'rival team' is its own set of bases instead of various encounters throughout the gym progression.
the smart thing here is that between all three "tracks", you've basically got a 'badge' for all 18 pokemon types in the game. what isn't covered by the 8 gyms is covered by the 5 team star bases, and what isn't covered there is covered by the 5 herba mystica titans. it's really clever!! instead of making 18 gyms or not having full type coverage, you get a comprehensive set of activities across 3 separate stories.
and when you complete those? the game reveals its true gambit, something i wasn't prepared for & now want more of: a linear, party-based story. an actual story-driven RPG.
funny enough, it isn't until you've exhausted the open world's activities and made 3 close friends that i realised what i want pokemon to be in a world beyond the formula of gyms, rivals, and the elite four. when you head into area zero & suddenly you're being followed by 3 'party members' who now all talk amongst themselves.... i took a step back and was like, is this what i wanted all long? and i think it is! even though it's a linear spiral into a large pit, the moments you spend with your friends, talking, investigating, fighting together, it made me realise that there's so much potential for a full game with a team of friends and their pokemon on an adventure. i even thought, hey there's four of us, just like tera raids....and was somewhat disappointed that the climax didn't involve at least one battle where all 4 'party members' teamed up against a large boss of some sort.
it's all there! and i think ultimately the finale makes me really positive on the game's overall story. but in the grand scheme of things, i think the open world activities are a bit bland and repetitive & are a slow burn to get to the meat of what makes scarlet & violet's story memorable to me. if that were the mid-point in the journey, and more time was spent on an adventure with friends, i think it really could have formed into something special.
will game freak ever get the budget and time to do it justice? who can say. but i enjoyed my time with the game & it makes want....more, somehow.
). Unfortunate, because there's so much promise there!
