A fully open world Pokémon. Something dreamt of since the franchise first started. A world where the exploration possibilities are endless. With Sword and Shield, it seemed the idea was being tested with the Wild Area. The expansions for them pushed that concept further, with Legends: Arceus providing five open landmasses to explore. Then, generation nine was announced.
Scarlet and Violet looked to be answering the dreams of fans, with the seamless open world that would give the freedom of doing what you wanted. Well… they advertised it as that, but it’s more like a linear story where you can play a chapter in any order you want. No level scaling means there’s a definitive route through each of the three stories present here, unless you stick to exploring and levelling on your own so that you can tackle them in any order you want, perhaps even following each of the stories individually. Like what I did.
The start of the journey sees you choose a starter, meet a friend in Nemona, help the legendary on the cover, and all the basic tutorial stuff as you head for your new school. It’s all handled well, with nothing really outstaying its time. And unlike previous games, you’re not watching a catching tutorial, you’re the one performing it, which at least makes it feel like the game isn’t treating experienced players as total novices.
When you reach the school, the real game begins with the Treasure Hunt. After the first day, the game will skip you to the start of this event, where the students are let loose on the world to experience whatever it is they want to to find the thing they’ll treasure the most. For the player, that means following through with the stories you’ve found yourself caught in. Victory Road, Path of Legends, and Starfall Street. Each involves battling and not much else, but the story that unfolds with each of them are enjoyable.
Since there’s a giant crater in the middle of the region, you could be forgiven for thinking this is a linear loop, but no. The region is split into four provinces based on the compass, with those split into a few areas each. The further north you go, the higher the level of Pokémon you’ll encounter. Since there’s story stuff on both east and west provinces, you’ll likely be over-levelled for whichever side you don’t choose first. That should balance out once you’re up north. I, of course, wouldn’t know.
As I say, I didn’t choose to follow any of the stories at first. I took the opportunity to just explore, taking the easy skip around the east roadblock to travel around as much of the region as I could. Turns out, there’s a lot you can explore without having the mobility upgrades for the legendary. So, when I finally decided it was time to follow the stories, my team were edging close to level 60.
The first story I started with was Starfall Street, where you’re tasked with raiding the bases of Team Star to make the bosses retire their power to you. With each of the five bases, you’ll start with the auto battling phase where you need to defeat 30 Pokémon in ten minutes. Easy enough. Then comes the boss, who will challenge you on top of what they call a Starmobile. At first, they’ll send Pokémon out to fight you in regular battle, but then you find the Starmobile is a Pokémon when it is sent into battle.
For Path of Legends, Arven is after the Herba Mystica, so he recruits you to help him battle the titans that are said to protect these mystical herbs. There are five titans around Paldea, tackled in two phases. The first phase will be when you first encounter them. Reduce their health into the red and they’ll run off for the Herba Mystica they protect. Then you’ll battle again, this time with Arven helping you, against the powered-up titan.
Victory Road is as you’d expect. Face off against the Gyms and your rival throughout the journey to become a champion. Each Gym will have a challenge to complete before you can face the leader. These challenges are varied in what it asks you to perform. One of the first you’ll encounter is to find Sunflora around the town, while a later one will ask you to find and solve the clues to know what the secret menu option is.
Each of the stories have a focus on the characters. You’ll find out more about Team Star and what drove them to their bases. Why Arven is after the Herba Mystica and his connection to the legends his story is named for. Victory Road will see Nemona confident in your abilities, pushing you to be the best you can be, with others also taking an interest in you and the possibility of you becoming a champion.
As mentioned, auto battles are a thing. These are possibly the best addition the series has seen in a long time. Pokémon following you is all well and good, but surely it would be good if they also had a function out in the open? These games answer that. Your lead Pokémon can be out of its ball, following you around. But with a press of a button, you can command it to fight the wild Pokémon wandering the land, as well as claim items on the ground.
This mechanic serves to speed up the process of levelling your team by not having you need to enter battle. Taking into account level and typing of the combatants, the battle will be won in one turn, two at most. Your Pokémon cannot be defeated while out of its ball, but it will return to you if it gets too hurt and refuse to fight when its health goes to the red. This makes dealing with mass outbreaks a breeze, as long as you keep an eye on your surroundings and don’t get forced into a battle.
All battles take place within the world instead of transitioning to a separate battle screen. They’ve sped things up a bit with battles, but here are a few gripes. All but important battles allow you to control the camera to get the view of the fight you want. Now, the obvious location to lock the focus point would be the centre of the battlefield so you could keep both Pokémon in view at the same time. Nope. It’s locked to your Pokémon, so the closer you get to the other side of the field, the easier it’ll be to lose sight of the opposing Pokémon.
The second gripe is that when it gets to those important battles, the camera keeps itself locked to the classic viewpoint. You would have thought that important battles would rate a more dynamic camera, but apparently not. Neither of these really affect enjoyment of the battles however, which are just as strategic as ever. Though the battle gimmick of this generation does change those strategies a bit.
By using a method known as terastallizing, your Pokémon will turn to crystal, unlocking its hidden typing. This Tera Type can be one of the types a Pokémon already possesses or a completely different one, so an Eevee can finally have that dragon form even if not a specific evolution to that type. While you can find Pokémon with different Tera Types out in the wild or through Tera Raid battles, you can change them at a specific place to make sure it has one that tactically fits.
Now, I have to mention that this gameplay loop of an open world Pokémon is the best thing to happen to the series for years. Even if, as I mentioned at the start, it’s more like a linear story you can choose what chapter you’re jumping into. That, however, pales in comparison to the technical faults of the games. The thing that brings them down from being the best games of the main series.
There’s been glitches galore that people have been finding in the games, with all sorts of wacky results. Even if you don’t run into any of that, there’s still poor performance issues. At times, there’s lag, slowing the gameplay down, even on the menus. Shadows will pop in and out of existence seemingly randomly depending on the position of the camera. They struggle with transitions, taking a few seconds to realise a battle has been initiated and seemingly freezing aside from the music.
Those and other issues can be found just through normal play. It hurts to have these issues be present when this is exactly the sort of evolution the series has been needing. Rather than being celebrated as breaking new ground with the first truly open world Pokémon experience, these games are mired by the technical issues that are the result of Game Freak stretching themselves too thin for this type of ambition.
Even if ILCA were the ones behind Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, Game Freak were still behind the expansions of Sword and Shield as well as Legends: Arceus. If the franchise is set on having just three years per generation, then perhaps Game Freak should just be the ones to open a new generation. Allow them the three years of development to truly see their ideas shine. Other developers can take on side series, remakes or reimaginings, but Game Freak should always be the ones to start a generation.
Enough of that, though. We’ve no doubt all got our own ideas on how to make the games of this franchise shine. This review is about the present of these games, and that is an easy one. For me, technical shortcomings aside, these are the best games we’ve had since the series went 3D. Great character focused stories, a world that feels lived in (even if there’s a massive lack of interiors), and the auto battling are all positives that had me enjoying this journey through Paldea. It’s an easy recommendation from me, but maybe think how much those technical shortcomings will affect how your journey with Scarlet or Violet will go.
Images Taken From:
Pokémon Scarlet | Original Screenshots
