Pokémon Scarlet & Violet - PLEASE TAG SPOILERS/LEAKS

[Sonictrainer]

In today's Pokémon Presents, these 2 games were revealed for this year.

While we do get a glimpse of the Region and the Starters, we don't know anything else about this game just yet.

It appears the Region this time is based on Spain.

 

Quote

Welcome to the open world of Pokémon.

Embark on an open-world adventure in Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet, arriving on Nintendo Switch in late 2022.

 

EDIT: We have official English Names for the Starters

This is Sprigatito

This is Fuecoco

and this is Quaxly

Edited February 18 by Sonictrainer

[Blue Blood]

I don't really love any of these starters, but they're much better than the Galar bunch. At least there's some variation in the body shapes. They're interesting. I'm thinking that the grass cat will be my pick, and failing that then itll be the water duck. Definitely not going to be that fire monstrosity though. 

Did anyone expect Gen 9 just yet? Cause wow... That was shot from the left field. Scarlet and Violet look like they're going to lean into the foundations that PLA set up right down to the appalling trailer framerate, with the unforgivable caveat that we're back to two versions of the same game. 

I'm glad that these games look like PLA in terms of gameplay. But there's a lot yet to be seen. 

[Marcello]

The duck is fucking great. The gator is really cool, too. The cat looks kinda lame.

I think it's too soon for Gen 9, though. We're getting three mainline games within twelve months. They should take some more time.

Graphics look rough, but that's expected with Pokémon unfortunately.

Spain as a region is cool.

I wish they'd go further away from the Red and Blue coloring scheme. BW was the last time we were completely away from it.

[Tornado]

I feel like they could have chosen camera angles for their trailer that didn't make it obvious that anything not close to the player ran its animations at 1/3rd the framerate.

 

 

 

I will say congratulations for showing off a game that looks as good as Super Mario Sunshine though!

[Diogenes]

9 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

I don't really love any of these starters, but they're much better than the Galar bunch. At least there's some variation in the body shapes. They're interesting. I'm thinking that the grass cat will be my pick, and failing that then itll be the water duck. Definitely not going to be that fire monstrosity though. 

See I feel the exact opposite; applesaurus is far and away the most interesting of the 3, great goofy-cute vibes and makes me wonder how they'll meld apples and fire into a coherent concept (or if it even is an apple; bit weird for the fire starter to be based on a fruit. Or maybe it's a pepper? Makes more sense but that'd still be a fire-type plant. Apparently the name is basically just "fire crocodile" so maybe it's just fat and red idk). The duck is alright, the hair/hat(?) hints at something but it's hard to guess where it might go. The cat is just cat, but green, generic cute thing with arbitrary element, no real appeal.

That said I'm not really excited about this since I'm still pretty skeptical about getting back into pokemon. I'm still on the fence about picking up PLA despite it being the most interesting pokemon has looked in ages, and considering this overlapped that in development I'm not sure if they'll have applied anything they learned from PLA or if it'll just be a straight "traditional" entry. For now I just get to appreciate new monsters and wait and see if the game itself looks any good.

[Sonicka]

2022? Really? Jeez Pokémon Company - give Gamefreak a few years why don’tcha? 

To be perfectly honest I actually thought they’d abandon the mainline series after Arceus (by which I mean, creating yet more Pokémon and the scammy duel releases format). 

But… at least they are taking notes from the Legends experiment - so if this is finally a fully open world Pokémon game in the same sort of vein as Legends… then great… sort of! I say sort of because the direction is the right one - but it still looks like it’s gunna run like ass with multiple graphical shortcuts taken at every turn. 

I suppose at least the colour has returned. The washed out look was something I liked the least about Legends Arceus, so that is something. But man, talk about a Gamecube HD Era looking game Gamefreak. 

The Grass cat I’m defo going to opt for, usually go for Fire but that dopey looking dinosaur apple thing doesn’t bode well for evolutions.

Also, Did they say if this is Italy or Spain region focused? I’m defo getting those vibes…

[Wraith]

The new character designs really rub me the wrong way but I guess they could grow on me. The models in-game look awful though and it's not just Gamefreak's usual technical incompetence showing.

 

and I think it's weird this is coming out so soon. I was gonna get Arceus for a discount now but as someone who doesn't like to play too many similar games back to back it feels like I might as well just wait? Maybe? Since this one is open world it seems like Arceus was just beta testing for this now.

[Salamander]

Interesting that they're going back to basics with the naming scheme of Pokemon Red-Red and Blue-Red.  Or am I off the mark, and it's actually Pokemon Scar and Pokemon Violence?  (Or Let's Go 2, because each title includes one "let"?)

The starters to me have this weird vibe of looking like "good Fakemon", if that makes sense; like, there is something fan-designish about them, but at the top end.  I always pick the Fire-type starter (and, appropriately enough, keep on getting burned), but it may be a moot point which I'd pick, honestly: I simply don't trust GameFreak to be able to bring out a finished game, not after the state Sword/Shield was in.  They're boasting that this game is open-world, but what does that really mean in context?  Is the map design going to be worth anything, or will it be wide-open plains with little variety or complexity?  Are there going to be gyms and dungeons with meaningful, intricate design that demands a bit of thought, or just more minigames and straight lines and poky closets of rooms?

All I really get out of this news is "we're releasing Gen 9 a year earlier than we could have."

Edit: I did think of more to say: The protagonist design is curiously conservative.  You look like the equivalent of a previous game's Youngster, almost.  I like the idea of them having different costume colours between games; I feel that the two different versions should have more little differences here and there just to do a little bit more to separate them.  I couldn't really care less how many versions they do, the number of people who actually buy both is clearly negligible, but if they're going to keep on doing it they should really commit in a way only Gen V has really done.

[Kuzu]

Those are some pretty gender-neutral looking protagonists. That's good for the NB crowd at least.

[Red Hot Jack]

The protagonists design look really boring and generic. That said...

I did say I wanted Legends Arceus approach on a mainline Pokemon game. I got what I wanted. I am really happy.

I was tempted to get another "Pokemon formula and experience" game when playing Arceus since my interest gauged, but BD/SP look really hideous so thank God this now exists. And it is releasing really soon.

I hope it is not rushed...

Oh and the starters look really cool! The cat is arguably the worst out of them but it is cute enough. But will this have the full pokedex since there is a Home connection?

[KoDaiko]

It's Gen 9 already!? How time flies...

Every time new Pokemon designs comes out, they look so weird to me Wonder how long it'd take for me to get used to these guys...Fire one looks like the apple Pokemon, Water reminds me of the duck, grass is a mixture of all the cute feline/canine type. 

Surprised at how bland the protagonist designs are. I know they're uniforms and maybe related to the region, but still. They may have realized people are gonna customize it anyway. That or they're pushing people to use the customization tool more.

(unrelated but there's a screenshot of Hisuan Zoroark being used via Pokemon Home, wonder what's the in-universe explanation gonna be)

[Indigo Rush]

Arceus didn't intrigue me much, but this does. Apparently this one's going to be "true" seamless open world whereas Arceus was more like Monster Hunter with a base camp, so I might skip Arceus altogether in lieu of this. Picking the applegator.

[mayday2592]

  Meh really burnt out on Pokémon at this point. This looks to be more of the same at first glance. Just wish gamefreak would give the series a break for three or four years to make something really unique and to build up demand for a comeback.

[NegaMix]

Figures that they'd be releasing Gen 9 at the end of the year. Gotta have that new game out to please the higher-ups. (And I guess this certifies that Legends was more of an extension to last year's Sinnoh celebration last year alongside BD/SP...)

From a graphical standpoint, things look like an improvement over Sw/Sh and Legends, though not by much. The framerate's still suffering, for one thing. But I am liking how each Pokémon now has more notable textures (e.g. the more snake-like hide on Seviper).

Starters never really do much for me until I see them and their evolutions in-game, so not much to say on them. I kiiinda want to go with the grass cat, mainly just 'cause I like cats and it's been a while since I've wanted the Grass-type starter. But again, that might change if the evolutions don't excite me when the game's out.

All in all, I need to see more from this before I can say whether I'd like to try it. But if it builds on the foundations that Legends set up, then this could be the game to bring me back onto Pokémon for a bit. (It would also likely mean I'd skip Legends Arceus entirely, though.)

[SenEDDtor Missile]

4 hours ago, Blue Blood said:

I don't really love any of these starters, but they're much better than the Galar bunch. At least there's some variation in the body shapes. They're interesting. I'm thinking that the grass cat will be my pick, and failing that then itll be the water duck. Definitely not going to be that fire monstrosity though. 

Did anyone expect Gen 9 just yet? Cause wow... That was shot from the left field. Scarlet and Violet look like they're going to lean into the foundations that PLA set up right down to the appalling trailer framerate, with the unforgivable caveat that we're back to two versions of the same game. 

I'm glad that these games look like PLA in terms of gameplay. But there's a lot yet to be seen. 

Fuecoco is either an apple croc or a chili pepper croc.

[Blue Blood]

11 minutes ago, SenEDDtor Missile said:

Fuecoco is either an apple croc or a chili pepper croc.

It's a fire type. Something tells me that a chilli pepper is far more likely than an apple. 

[Your Vest Friend]

It's face resembles the inside of a bell pepper, plus there's an existing spice called alligator pepper. I think that's more likely too.

[Salamander]

That does make more sense.  Once people pointed out the apple thing I couldn't unsee it, but I just couldn't imagine what fire, crocodiles, and apples had to do with one another.  At least with the others you can reasonably picture them evolving into a hyper-camouflaged green tiger and one of those ducks with ornate and oversized crests.

[Sonictrainer]

In case anyone was worried Hisuian Forms couldn't exist in Modern Day.

[KHCast]

Really fucking sucks to see them immediately go back to the “let’s greedily sell the same game twice” model for the sake of “tradition” after Legends was literally praised massively for avoiding doing that. When people said they wants Legends gameplay implemented in a traditional format, I don’t think that’s what people meant.

 

Anyway, it looks alright. The starters are just ok, but they’re not terrible, the location is…a location, will need to see more on that front, and visually, it looks shiny. Doing the open world format was pretty expected at this point, so nothing surprising there, we’ll see if they retain a lot of the streamlined elements that were much appreciated from Legends, cause going back to traditional Pokémon shit surely is gonna be hard for many. (I don’t need to pick up a berry and always be stopped and reminded I picked up a berry for example)

 

They’re really burning this franchise out tho, and taking their consumer base for a ride. We had brilliant Diamond and shining Pearl at the end of last year, legends arceus, and now two gen 9 games all within the span of less than 1 year? Like…surely they have to know this is overwhelming to so many people right?

[Zaysho]

Honestly seeing this this morning was just the most confusing thing I'd ever seen. The trailer opening made me think it was Detective Pikachu, and the the overly bright colors when we got into the game made me wonder if it was related to Snap, and by the end I did a double take at the logos. It's really jarring coming a month off the heels of Arceus at that and intended for the end of this year.

But that's kind of my only issue right now. It just feels too soon, but I'm not mad at it either I guess? More than anything I'm just curious how they're implementing the "open world" aspect to it, and since this was likely being developed with Arceus, what is getting carried over. I also have to wonder if they're getting help in making this (first thought was maybe Bamco because of the character models and coloring being somewhat like New Snap). I just want to see a mainline Pokémon game on Switch that doesn't feel like there's a bunch of dumb caveats or questionable messaging (like with SwSh) that straight up puts me off again. I'm planning to check out Arceus still, but right now I'm sort of interested in what they do here too.

New starters are... fine, I guess? Not really any clear favorites (Fuecoco just barely edges out the other two for me), but I remember SwSh's starters looked amazing in their base forms and then their evolutions were a mess (to me) so maybe the opposite will happen here.

[Salamander]

I'm thinking about the names again, very simple and traditional and harking back to the earliest days of the franchise.  I'm thinking about the rather unostentatious protagonist design.  I wonder if we're seeing a sort of "back to basics" approach in this game, that what they're signalling is a kind of "new beginning".  Open worlds might be thought of as a fairly modern form of game design, but remember what the most non-linear games in the entire series were: Red and Blue, where from the midgame you actually had considerable latitude in your route and gym order.  Think of how Breath Of The Wild took Zelda 1 as its template.  I wonder if that's what they're going for here?

Well, even if it is, depth of content will be the determining factor.  If I explore, will I find anything?  I just want to play a game with the kind of quantity and involved space that the 2D games had.

[Blue Blood]

@Teoskaven I think you might be looking a little bit too far into it. The protagonist outfits look like school uniforms too me. Even if this does significantly reinvent Pokémon by going back to the basics, that's been brewing SwSh and PLA already for a few years.

So just thinking about these games, I'm sold most certain that they're going to introduce a new gimmick for battles, seeing as that's been standard since Gen 6. First it was Megas, then Z moves, then Dyna/Gigantamaxing... Wonder what they're going to do this time? I kind of how that they don't do anything. Personally speaking, I'm not really a fan of any of the systems that they've introduced, but I know that's not a popular opinion. People generally really seem to love Mega Evolutions especially.

I'm hoping that the battle system in this game is built off the PLA format with the agile/strong style moves, new status conditions etc etc. Hold items and abilities should be reintroduced too however. The PLA battles were fast are really good fun. They were familiar, but fresh. I don't want to go right back to the old style that is barely any different to RBY. 

[Salamander]

If they wanted to just say that the gimmick was open-world Pokemon, they could probably get away with that.  Still, they do like each 3D generation to have its own USP gimmick with the battle system (Agile/Strong was arguably that for Legends: Arceus), so there may well be something.  What I think is important is that, since Mega Evolution, they've always made sure that the gimmick is democratised; only a chosen few Pokemon could enjoy the benefits of Mega Evolution, but Z-Moves and Dynamaxing were available to everyone; just a few Pokemon had their own unique versions, that was all.  So I would expect that to be the model here. 

Personally, I feel that the core of Pokemon's battle system is solid, but a lot of the time it doesn't really feel like it joins the dots.  With battles being 1v1 and movesets largely tailored to each Pokemon, it often feels like there's very little overarching strategy they can establish other than that determined by the type chart.  Multibattle functionality is pretty obviously just tacked on and few moves interact with it.  Stuff like Terrain feels like it wants to be a big deal but is barely relevant.  I wouldn't mind if they had a rethink not so much of battle structure but of what moves are and what they do.  As with items, it's an area where the games have accumulated a huge amount of cruft of which probably a lot should just be thrown out.

[Blue Blood]

Fully agreed. It always looks like most of the thought and design of Pokémon battles goes into the multiplayer and competitive formats. Different moves and abilities have great effect there but in standard single player (as in, during the story), battles boil down to a game of elemental rock-paper-scissors and whoever can hit the hardest. PLA's battle system offered a bit more to do.