Pokemon Scarlet & Violet - 18th Nov 2022! **OFFICIAL INFO ONLY**

[Champion Leon]

Seeing the match between Ash vs Leon in the anime, it made me realize a problem that GF is going to have for now on, something which I don't think they thought ahead on.

Leon was introduced to us as the GREATEST Champion of all time. Undefeatable. A hero to all the people in Galar. He's essentially what the player character is but as an NPC. And when Rose is arrested and the player takes the Champion title, Leon becomes the Galar League Chairman. Cool, interesting idea, execution is questionable but Leon is pretty genuine in his role.

And now we've moved onto the next gen and have been introduced to the next Champion: Geeta. Alright... so... is she supposed to be the strongest trainer ever now? Yeah, you see the problem now, when you introduced the GREATEST Champion of all time, any other Champion you now introduce is gonna need to stand out in another way ASIDE from being a good trainer. And Geeta's twist is that... she's the chairman of the Paldea League... so she's really no different from Leon in that regard aside she's at the moment holding both positions (though with how involved Leon was with the League and how close he was to Rose you could say Leon was always just one step away from being the Chairman).

Now, SV has the Treasure Hunt/3 Story thing going on so it may not be that big of an issue this gen (or at the very least something they could sideline), but in future games I'm curious what they're going to do with the Champion. Because they can't just have the Champion he just a relatively normal person who's a strong trainer, they've raised the stakes with Leon and only re-enforced it with Geeta.

Am I thinking too much on something which may not matter or be that big of an issue? Maybe, but as I said it was just a thought I had watching the Ash vs Leon battle. To put it another way, no matter the result of that battle, would you be interested in seeing a Ash vs Geeta battle?

The thing is, was she invited to the World Championships?
No. She wasn’t, Bc they have yet to even start that character in the anime.

Also, ironically enough, Leon admitted he was not ever undefeated, Bc quite frankly, he lost his first EVER Pokémon battle when Charizard was just a Charmander.

Bc Greeta was never in the WC, they couldn’t test their power vs Greeta to ever say they were NOT equal or better.

Leon cannot fight everyone, but he was the most likely to accept any challenge. So the fact he was presented as the best, meant the best against those he had already faced.

So it doesn’t undermine anyone. Maybe Greeta was crowned Champion sometime between the invitations being sent and the end of Leon’s lose to Ash, meaning they became a Champ after the cutoff.

Plus a tournament can only have so many participants…

 

[Pikachu315111]

The thing is, was she invited to the World Championships?
No. She wasn’t, Bc they have yet to even start that character in the anime.

Did you even read my post? I wasn't talking about the anime.

I'm talking about the concept behind what Leon represented. Leon was presented as "strongest Champion ever". Period. True? False? Doesn't matter. Leon was shown to us as essentially a mirror of the player, the never-defeated trainer (the whole Charmander thing is anime exlcusive, not saying it didn't happen but there's quite a difference between losing a battle when you're a kid and never losing a battle when you became a dedicate pro).

Now, let's say they make future Champions all "the strongest Champion ever". Well, that just completely undermines Leon's purpose, possibly his entire identity. It also then creates a power creep problem where, now that each Champion has to trump the previous, why should we care about the current Champion's strength reputation when we know next gen there is going to be a Champion even stronger? And this isn't like DBZ where you have to care about the current villain cause, even though next arcs is gonna be stronger, the current one is still trying to kill everyone. No, this is a Pokemon battling competition, the stakes are a title and that's it.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

In other news, I'm about to pre-order Violet through GAME, and one part of the description jumped out to me because the wording was strange:

Learn new details about Sprigatito, Fuecoco, and Quaxly—the three Pokémon from which you’ll choose your first partner—along with other wonderful new Pokémon, including the Legendary Pokémon Koraidon and Miraidon!

This makes it seem like they won't officially reveal the starter evolutions before release.

 

[Pikachu315111]

This makes it seem like they won't officially reveal the starter evolutions before release.

With only 5 days left, isn't that surprising. Maybe they're even thinking "if people want to see the final evos they can just search for them in the leaks" (or go to a gaming website that doesn't care people are trying not to be spoiled).

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

In other news, I'm about to pre-order Violet through GAME, and one part of the description jumped out to me because the wording was strange:


This makes it seem like they won't officially reveal the starter evolutions before release.

With only 5 days left, isn't that surprising. Maybe they're even thinking "if people want to see the final evos they can just search for them in the leaks" (or go to a gaming website that doesn't care people are trying not to be spoiled).

They didn't officially reveal the starter evos before release in either SwSh or PLA, so it was already a safe assumption for a while that they wouldn't do so for SV as well. After the blowback from SM's marketing of revealing just about everything before release they've been playing their cards closer to their chest for the Switch era mainline games.

In the cases of both SwSh and PLA the starter evos were officially revealed a few days after the game officially released, I assume a similar situation will happen with this game.

 

[Bombkirby]

Now's as good a time as any to point out that Lucario has received a stance change! A bit hard to see in this gif, but its left arm is pointed towards the opponent, ready for a scrap. This is especially interesting seeing as at the reveal they showed it using its old stand.

Between this and the newly grounded guys like Charizard and Tropius it seems they really got serious about going back and cleaning up some of the iffier idles. Cool and good.

Gen 6's short lived sky battles were the culprit there. Most flying type Pokemon were doomed with a goofy flying animation so they'd be usable to those sky battles.

The dragon crown not being the dragon statue from the early gens plopped on top the Pokémon’s head is a missed opportunity.

Wasn't that a Rhydon?

 

[Pikachu315111]

Wasn't that a Rhydon?

In Gen I the "Pokemon statues" used the menu sprite for the more "monster/kaiju"-like Pokemon. It didn't really resemble any Pokemon that closely though I would say it did lean more toward the body shape of the Nidoqueen/king, Rhydon & Kangaskhan.

HOWEVER, it should be noted the Dratini Family didn't use the "monster" menu sprite, it used the "serpent" menu sprite even for Dragonite (other Pokemon that used the serpent sprite was Ekans family, Gyarados, and Onix):

• Monster:
  
• Serpent:
  

In Gen II, while the monster menu sprite is still used for most statues, they did add in some more menu sprites. Notably, Charizard and Dragonite both now use a Dragon menu sprite which more resembles Charizard though can be construed to also look like Dragonite. Infact, this sprite also has a side view, used when Lance sends out his Dragonite to attack the Rocket Grunt to enter the Rocket HQ below the Lake of Rage.

• Dragon:
  

But the Dragon Statue that Wishy is maybe thinking of are the ones in Lance's Pokemon League Room in Crystal Version. While GS just had the Poke Ball statues, Crystal gave Lance's room a unique sprite... of a serpent that resembled Dratini/Dragonair:

(If you're wondering, in HGSS the statues are golden Dratini statues)

... Yeah, overall I think our nostalgia might have confused us. We might have remembered Lance's room having unique Dratini/Dragonair statues and combined it with the original monster statue and/or the side dragon used when Lance attacks the Rocket Grunt (and possibly the new dragon menu icon itself used for Dragonite (and Charizard)).

Honestly, looking at the Dragon sprite, I think they made the right call making the Dragon Tera Crown a more fancy looking dragon. Not everything needs to be a past game reference.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

Now I want to see the Rock crown be the kaiju statue. (Also, they really got a lot of mileage out of that kaiju menu sprite in Gen 1, didn't they?)

 

[KalosianPorygon]

The dragon crown not being the dragon statue from the early gens plopped on top the Pokémon’s head is a missed opportunity.

Pikachu315111 This is probably a reference to this statue:

Gen 6's short lived sky battles were the culprit there. Most flying type Pokemon were doomed with a goofy flying animation so they'd be usable to those sky battles.

Good. Fucking. Riddance.

 

[Pikachu315111]

This is probably a reference to this statue:

Didn't realize Origins redesigned the statues to have wings. Still doesn't look like a dragon, more like a winged feline.

The only old dragon thing I can think could have been referenced would be something like the Rising Badge, there's really no other strong dragon imagery I can think of otherwise (unless they want to dip into the anime and make it the silhouette of the Dynamax giant Dragonite from "Mystery of the Lighthouse").

Good. Fucking. Riddance.

Sky Battles were an interesting idea but I think the main problem with it was requiring you to use your own Pokemon (which could result in you not having any Pokemon that can participate, only one or two leaving you at a team disadvantage, and let's not forget their were some moves not allowed). Sky Battles should have worked off a Rental System, and with you not using your own Pokemon but ones made for the mechanic, they could have further customized the battles to make Sky Battles its own thing (maybe later on they could have something which allowed you to use your own Pokemon). Sky Battles were just normal Battles with limited options, it really needed some more ideas to it relating to battling in the sky (which opens up a whole batch of new strategy options since your Pokemon in theory can move in all directions, not to mention weather conditions would be both more frequent and stronger up there; strong wings giving one side Tailwind for a turn, a cloud passes by decreasing accuracy, it starts to rain and non-Water-types lose Speed, etc.). Oh, and also letting you rechallenge them after beating them, like maybe have a few "Sky Camps" around the region where different kinds of weather effects occur/more likely to occur and do a series of battles like a mini-Battle Facility instead of just the one & done battle it came out to being.

 

[Hugin]

Yeah, the issue with Sky Battles was more that they were a part of the main story. As a side thing a la Trick House/Inverse House or a special mode at a Battle Facility, they'd have been interesting. Going in with just Talonflame against an enemy team with an Aerodactyl or a Rotom is gonna be a bad experience, but if you were more able to prepare, a battle mode that's basically Mono-Flying mirror matches is an interesting concept that they could have done a lot with.

 

[Rarycaris]

Not helped by the fact one of them had you fight an Archen or Archeops (I don't recall which) at a point in the game where it was totally infeasible to have a flying type that could deal with rock types with high stats.

 

[R_N]

iirc losing in a sky battle just plopped you back i nfront of them. All of them were optional side things and some were actually pretty out of the way

Not helped by the fact one of them had you fight an Archen or Archeops (I don't recall which) at a point in the game where it was totally infeasible to have a flying type that could deal with rock types with high stats.

It was neither of those. The final Sky Battle in the game is on Route 19 against someone with a Noctowl & an Aerodactyl, however

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Sky_Battle#Locations_of_Sky_Battles

 

[doipy hooves]

We got an English version of the Japanese overview trailer from a while ago.

One notable difference is that they show a Grass Magneton instead of Scyther for the raid segment and have Flareon and Gardevoir allies instead, without any ally moves shown.

 

[Worldie]

That screen makes me wonder, did we get the ""official"" names for the protagonists yet?
Is Juliana the female avatar "official" name?

 

[doipy hooves]

That screen makes me wonder, did we get the ""official"" names for the protagonists yet?
Is Juliana the female avatar "official" name?

The prerelease names so far have been Florian and Juliana. Based on the most recent example of SWSH keeping Victor and Gloria these may end up being the final names, especially if the other character doesn't show up to be named like XY with Xavier and Yvonne. Incidentally we have seen their Japanese names show up in some raid footage occasionally.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1561386254201241601

 

[Worldie]

The prerelease names so far have been Florian and Juliana. Based on the most recent example of SWSH keeping Victor and Gloria these may end up being the final names, especially if the other character doesn't show up to be named like XY with Xavier and Yvonne. Incidentally we have seen their Japanese names show up in some raid footage occasionally.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1561386254201241601

Interesting, Juliana definitely sounds spanish-y, Florian is however not something i'd associate with any of the spanish or even mexican countries, maybe there's some reference I am missing (in english, rather than japanese), or they just thought it sounds cool

 

[Pikachu315111]

Heads up, apparently there are performance issues with the game, even with the Day 1 Patch.

 

[R_N]

Seems likea number of reviews are akin to "This is probably the best Pokemon's ever been

too bad it performs terribly"

 

[MrHands]

The Kotaku review is funny, it blames the Nintendo Switch for SV's poor performance.

Honestly I don't think I've seen anything visually in this game that would suggest the Switch can't handle it. I think it just comes down to Gamefreak 1) being inexperienced at making 3d worlds and 2) the tight once per year game schedule. I really hope something eventually changes because otherwise we're just going to get more and more cut content until something breaks completely.

Seems like character clothing customization has been mostly cut. So that's one more feature gone. Hope y'all like dressing like a 9 year old in a school uniform for the whole game.

 

[Worldie]

Seems likea number of reviews are akin to "This is probably the best Pokemon's ever been

too bad it performs terribly"

To be fair, having kinda played it...

not really spoilers but i'm tagging it anyway

it's pretty much appropriate. There are A LOT of graphic artifact and loads are super long. At least, there's no arbitrary FPS drops this time.

At this time, as much as I like ""defending"" GF, while SV is miles ahead of SwSh, there's still no excuse for the game to run like a PS2 game.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

Someone added a spoiler-tagged example to the TV Tropes Scarlet and Violet page even though it's not even the 18th in most of the world. That's an academy record!

 

[KalosianPorygon]

Someone added a spoiler-tagged example to the TV Tropes Scarlet and Violet page even though it's not even the 18th in most of the world. That's an academy record!

They are watching Japanese let's plays.
EDIT: WAIT NEVERMIND THIS WAS AN ENDGAME SPOILER WHAT THE HECK!

 

[Worldie]

Someone added a spoiler-tagged example to the TV Tropes Scarlet and Violet page even though it's not even the 18th in most of the world. That's an academy record!

I'm actually curious, which page ? I want to see what they did lol

 

[Nitro Indigo]

I was talking about the Hoist by His Own Petard example, but people have added a few more since then. I brought up how quickly it was added on TV Tropes forums as well, and someone joked they knew ahead of time from leaks.

Anyway, my copy of Violet will arrive tomorrow. I saw the boxes in GAME earlier, and I noticed that the obligatory "these two versions can connect" disclaimer had a red background on Violet, and a purple background on Scarlet. I honestly thought it was a printing error at first.