Pokémon Scarlet & Violet - PLEASE TAG SPOILERS/LEAKS

[Kuzu]

I've been playing competitive Pokemon for over ten years now, so I've never quite felt the desire for a more engaging single player campaign, because most of the strategy and depth comes from competing against human opponents.

Not that I don't get it, but I can't really relate to it. I feel like Game Freak's design philosophy is making the single player easy for casuals (since those are majority who will be playing that) while the more in depth stuff is for multi-player. That's a fine idea on paper, but everyone plays Pokemon for a different reason at this point.

 

Which explains why most fangames start actively making more competitive sets from the jump.

[Blue Blood]

Competitive Pokémon and casual single player Pokémon are two extreme ends of an incredibly spectrum. I just don't care one iota about competitive, but single player is still missing so much content/functionality that already exists. The experience of single player Pokémon is basically the same as it was in the 90s, with the biggest innovations being abilities (sometimes, when the abilities actually matter) and the removal of random encounters. And only one of those actually tangibly freshens up the battle system. 

[Kuzu]

That's the biggest issue, Game Freak aren't willing to account for such a large spectrum of people who play Pokemon for different reasons.

[Soniman]

well, I’m glad they at least are addressing it

[Sonicka]

The Official statement from Bintendo here:

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2022/12/pokemon-scarlet-and-violet-version-1-1-0-announced-nintendo-apologises-for-performance-issues-and-bugs

I mean, despite everything - acknowledgement of the issues is a good first step towards redemption. Telling players that they are listening rather than ignoring the problems because “we got the money” is a wise move. 

Being the fastest selling Pokémon games is one thing, but having the highest amount of complaints and issues for a single set of games is another. 

[KHCast]

I’m just concerned the damage has already been done, where yeah, it’s getting a patch, I think most of us expected they’d address it at some point, but the main concern is that because of the overwhelming success the game was, the mentality of “crunch, rush out the game, and just patch it later to garner forgiveness” will become more standardized. It’s similar to the worry people have for CDPR’s future games, post cyberpunk, since many have “forgiven” or moved on from the whole mess that was the lead up to CP’s release. (Where the company actively lied, to the point there were lawsuits) the game was rewarded with record breaking sales and now it’s up in the air if any lessons will be learned from CDPR going forward

[Sonicka]

I dunno, personally I think the fact that the game launched in this way probably means there wasn’t crunch at all if you ask me, just a complete lack of time/management and wish fulfilment on their end to release in time for the holidays.  

Cyberpunk is a completely different scenario because it launched multi-platform and ran fine on some (PC) and abysmal on others (PS4). This game isn’t anywhere near broken on that level either. 

Nintendo and it’s subsidiaries aren’t particularly known for those sort of bad practises, but I agree that it’s not likely many lessons will be learned for the future when patches can solve issues. 

The other sad factor is that it’s the small minority kicking up a fuss. Most people just wont care enough (myself included - because I’m having too good a time). Whilst it’s great to see Nintendo / GF address the issues, it won’t harm the game / brands reputation whatsoever. 

[Blue Blood]

We don't really know how much crunch, if any, was involved. Reasoning that there was little or no crunch because SV is a single-platform game and not as broken as something else doesn't hold water. So many studios and the games that they work on are subject to crunch, and the resulting games came be anywhere on the scale of best to worst of all time. Quality and polish isn't really an indicator of crunch. Crunch just means working in excessive overdrive to meet deadlines.

And purely FWIW, Game Freak and TPC aren't Nintendo subsidiaries. Nintendo has a hand in TPC and so does Game Freak, but Nintendo aren't really the ones calling the shots on release dates. Pokémon is just an annualised franchise now. 

[Sonicka]

I'll hold my hands up, I actually misread most of @KHCastpost as a comparable for crunch and release between CP and Sc/Vi when I don't think that was the entire point they were trying to make. 

In general @Blue Bloodyou're right, there's no reason to think crunch wasn't wasn't involved based on quality or scale of work - I suppose this title just seemed like a bad source of time management, and that's only considering Gamefreak are often beholden to release deadlines and external stratagies due to the nature of the franchise. The anime, movies, mech, spinoffs - it all stems from anything they do next, so I imagine that the pace that needs to be kept up must feel demanding.

It's almost a wonder that PLA came about at all really, but this does feel like it was at a cost for both these games in certain departments. Whatever they do next I'd hope they pool both A and B teams together for a more cohesive experience as lessons can be learnt from both games. 
 

17 hours ago, Blue Blood said:

And purely FWIW, Game Freak and TPC aren't Nintendo subsidiaries. Nintendo has a hand in TPC and so does Game Freak, but Nintendo aren't really the ones calling the shots on release dates. Pokémon is just an annualised franchise now. 

I actually didn't know this, maybe subsidiary was the wrong term. I know Nintendo don't determine when the games release though - that just isn't their memo and I believe if this was down to them, it wouldn't be out now.

I purely assumed that as GameFreak are (or once were) a second Party developer for Nintendo that they mostly fell under the same umbrella. I suppose as Nintendo were the ones that announced the 1.1.0 patch it just made me think they have a lot of say as the games' publisher. 


Speaking of the patch - it's good! Like... not groundbreaking, but performance has been markedly better with less frequent frame dips in the struggling areas. I didn't expect that to be addressed in this particular release so it's a nice surprise. 

[Salamander]

I finished the game a few days ago...  I've just been collecting my thoughts.  Honestly, right off the bat, it's amazing that such a technically unfinished game still manages to make Sword and Shield look like even more of a rush job than they already were.  The game's been out a few weeks now, so I'm going to take the spoiler blinkers off, but if anyone has any objections I can put them back in.  (I wrote too much and ended up using spoiler blocks anyway.)

Story:

Spoiler

So.  I think it is very much to the game's credit that it ends on such a strong note, with a climax that's so frankly weird and unconventional for the series.  Or is it unconventional?  "Your friend's remote and loveless parent becomes the baddie by dint of caring more for weird alien Pokemon than their own children" is literally the plot of Sun/Moon too; and once again it works a treat.  This also takes advantage of one of the series's recent strengths on the writing front, which is its character writing; everyone in this game is just so much fun to spend time with.  I think the only real sour note for me is Nemona, who is another nominal rival who worships the ground you walk on for the mere fact of knowing what a type advantage is.  She's irritatingly cloying; but even that I think could have been saved with just a simple "lonely at the top" character note - something to the effect that she's never had a rival or anyone close to her in talent, and the idea of actually having somebody to compare herself to is enough to get her to embark on a kind of New Game+ purely for the novelty of having a friend.  ...Other people don't rate Geeta, the top champion; and I get it, but at the same time she strikes me as quite distinctive in her sheer detachedness.  Her completely even and unfazed mood, no matter what she's faced with, gives her a strange aura of aloofness, one in which she can never muster a greater emotional response than polite interest.  I find that intriguing.  (Her other crime is having a weirdly bad team, but I put that down to haphazard game design; possibly even a nerf.)

Gym leaders:

Spoiler

Whilst we're on the subject of character, another thing the game does well is to repeat Unova's act of integrating the gym leaders closely into their community.  Rather than just strong trainers sitting in a gym, it's really interesting to see these individuals in the context of their hometown, their job, their role.  I know some people out there feel that this diminishes them as gym leaders... but if we're being honest, aren't gyms kind of redundant in this set-up?  Sure, every city has a gym building... but they're all nothing more than an identical lobby, and you don't do the gym challenge there and you don't do the gym battle there, so what's the point?  If GameFreak isn't willing or able to put together proper puzzle dungeon gyms again (even Sw/Sh managed a couple!), then they should just ditch gyms altogether and just label the gym leaders "leaders", powerful local trainers given the authority to hand out badges.  Honestly, the gym challenges vary from inane minigames to the sort of hoops you'd have had to jump through in past games to get the leader's attention anyway, and if that's the calibre we're getting, I'd rather just reinvent them as local questlines.

New Pokemon:

Spoiler

I think they're a pretty strong lineup, though I am rarely disappointed by the Pokemon themselves.  A lot of dogs this gen, a lot of birds - I'd say a lot of Pokemon based on real animals, but it's not like there aren't still the weirder ones.  I think it's interesting that this generation's Pikaclone actually goes back to having proper evolutions; indeed, to having a full three-stage evolution line like Pikachu and Marill, rather than being a kind of gimmicky one-off.  I do fear that it's an unusually duff set of starters?  I respect the viewpoint in the fanbase, and in this thread, that starter Pokemon are becoming too humanoid, and too difficult to recognise as animals when they are increasingly based on jobs or other human archetypes.  At the same time, we did get our first quadrupedal Fire-type final starter evolution this generation... but I think the weirdly geometric and angular markings on Crocalor and Skeledirge are faintly unappealing.  They don't feel carefully thought-out; I don't see the point in them.  But I was happy to meet almost all of the new Pokemon in this game - and they were well-distributed; it felt like there were a lot of them, and they never quite dried up or were drowned out, ridiculously padded though the game's dex is.  Also, I feel this game's legendary quartet are especially strong; wonderful designs, and closely tied to their legendary inspiration, too!

New takes on old Pokemon:
 

Spoiler

I'm interested in the series's approach to riffs on classic Pokemon now.  I think it's almost worth tracing out a timeline?  Generations II, III, and IV had cross-generation evolutions simply as a matter of course (though Gen III only added, I think, a single pre-evolution).  Then Generation V dropped the idea entirely in order to have a completely fresh dex - a move that's easier to appreciate in retrospect.  Gen VI introduced Mega Evolution, so if you wanted to expand or riff on an old design then you did it through a Mega Evolution.  Ditto regional forms in Generation VII.  Gen VIII expanded on regional forms and used them to bring back cross-generation evolutions...

But now here we are in Gen IX and it feels like GameFreak threw all their rules out of the window and just did everything.  Regional forms, regional evolutions, true cross-gen evolutions, weird regional lookalikes, alien doppelgangers?  Some of these are more successful than others.  Most of the straight cross-gen evolutions are pretty good, though I fear that Kingambit jumps the shark a bit - while conversely, Dudunsparce is very obviously a parody of the idea of a Dunsparce evolution.  Regional forms and regional evolutions sort of fall by the wayside a bit; it's really just Paldean Wooper and Clodsire, which are perfectly respectable, but Paldean Tauros is weirdly boring even when you take into account that there are three of them.  Wiglett and Wugtrio I like a lot; I was hoping for a more radically different evolution, but actually Wugtrio still manages to change just enough to feel quite fresh in my mind.  Toedscool and Toedscruel... not so much?  I like them, but I feel like the novelty of seeing Tentacool/cruel on land (and in a weird new colour scheme) is doing a bit too much heavy lifting, and where Wiglett and Wugtrio are completely new models then Toedscool and Toedscruel run dangerously close to being recolours, as much so as the Forces of Nature from Gen V.  The Paradox Pokemon, on the other hand, are tons of fun in how they reimagine the classics, although for the most part I think Scarlet gets the better deal with its Ancient versions than Violet with its Future ones.

What I don't like, though, is the way some of the cross-generation evolutions have these weird puzzle mechanics for how to obtain them, with little to no in-game cluing.  Kingambit is particularly absurd; how are you supposed to figure this out without looking it up, from people who themselves got it by looking at the game code?

Battle gameplay:

Spoiler

I haven't really talked about the gameplay.  It's... alright?  I mean, the fact is that Pokemon gameplay was basically refined to perfection in Gen IV, which is why GameFreak have been messing about with one flavour of gimmick or another ever since.  Terastalisation - a bizarrely weighty and un-catchy name which nobody can spell - is interesting in how it allows Pokemon to take on other types... but in practice it's often not very interesting.  Boss battles are by and large too weightless for the novelty of a Pokemon being Terastalised to the trainer's type theme to really feel meaningful; but when a Pokemon is Terastalised to its own type for nothing more than a STAB boost, it's boring.  I actually think that maybe Pokemon should not be able to have their regular type as a Tera type?  That would make life a lot less predictable.  But the fact remains that, as a mechanic, it's at its most interesting when you're running up against a wild Tera Pokemon and can't know what you're about to be up against.  Also, Tera Raids are a janky mess and what's happening on-screen doesn't appear to conform to any rules.  Also also, with the exception of catching, the UI is slower and laggier than ever; it needs a refresh and a new engine, very desperately.

Exploration:

Spoiler

I reiterate that Shin Megami Tensei V did everything this game is doing better.  This is a massive game, fair play to it, but... is it massive for any reason?  The game world is enormous, but the vast, vast majority of the time, all you'll get for exploring is another copy of a TM you've owned for ages, or, mostly, nothing.  Sometimes there'll be a Gimmighoul chest or a black stake, but there's not nearly enough of that sort of thing - especially now that overworld puzzles are gone and there's nothing to break up the monotony.  I genuinely think the game would benefit from being as much as 50% smaller.  It doesn't have the content to justify its size.

Doling out new Pokeride abilities per Titan battle is the one really good idea it has, but even that feels... off.  Three, maybe four of five Titans feel themed around the new abilities you unlock... but none of them actually correspond?  The flying Titan doesn't unlock flight, the swimming Titan doesn't unlock swimming, the climbing Titan doesn't let you climb.  It's only really swimming where there's a potential problem with just reaching the Titan, if you don't already have the ability to swim; for all the rest, I can only conclude that GameFreak realised that there were some abilities which just allowed you too much flexibility if you could get them early on.

Level curve:

Spoiler

The single-player balance in this game is an absolute mess.  You're free to go almost anywhere from the start, yes... but the challenge level for each encounter is pre-set.  Higher-level challenges will all be beyond you; and the lower-level challenges are so numerous that you will inevitably be overlevelled for many of them.  Your exploration is meaningless because you have to follow some vestige of linearity, or else grind; and on the other hand, you will still be doing a lot of overlevelled, unexciting steamrolling.  Allowing freedom to explore, but without making any effort to scale challenges to you, just does not work.

I'm not saying that levels should be auto-scaled to your strongest Pokemon or anything, that's obviously not a runner.  But I think each stage in each questline should be adjusted to match the order you encounter them in.  So the first Titan you encounter should always be set to the lowest level of the Titan track; and then the second-lowest level is given to the one you encounter next, and so on.  This would obviously require more design work for the more elaborate teams in the gym and Team Star challenges... but too bad, it's necessary work.  And scaling within each path, rather than overall, means that you can still be overpowered or underpowered if you really want to be, simply by following one whole questline at a time before beginning on the next.

Graphics:

Spoiler

Pretty abominable, even discounting the sheer bugginess of it.  I will grant that the game can look quite good when the sun is on the grass; the same was true of SwSh.  Conversely, the lighting in shadow is really quite bad and ugly, and that was also true of SwSh; which makes you wonder why just so much of the game is in shadow, even discounting the ones springing in and out of life at the drop of a hat.  Even to one who plays relatively few 3D, HD games, the flaws are obvious; others will notice many more such flaws.

I also think that the attempt at realistic texturing - on the Pokemon, and on humans - is an unappealing failure.  A lot of the random trainer designs in this game are genuinely unpleasant to look at in a way I don't think would be true of a more cartoony style; and I don't think the Pokemon benefit from random fur textures or over-shiny metallic textures, either.  The game's graphics aren't playing to their strengths; and given how badly the thing runs, they really need to consider very carefully what those strengths are.

In conclusion, this very good game is very bad... or possibly vice-versa.

[Sonictrainer]

I found my first Shiny yesterday, which was a Female Shiny Litleo

I nicknamed her "Royal Flame".

[Salamander]

The presence of high numbers of overworld Pokemon spawning means that this is probably going to be most people's best game for shinies without even trying.  I caught a shiny Psyduck and Skiddo (both great shinies), and also encountered a shiny Lokix... which fainted itself with a missed Axe Kick, sigh.

I never really understood the point of the various shinies that don't actually look meaningfully different from their regular colour scheme, and that's even more the case now that Pokemon spawn on the overworld and you could look right at a shiny and not know it.  Another thing to add to the heap of things which they should really go back and redo.

[Sonicka]

Taking my time with this one. About 40 or so hours in, 6 Gyms down, 3 bases beaten, and all traversal abilities unlocked (bar fighting form). 

I am actually enjoying all the stories in all of these surprisingly so far:

- Victory Road

Nemona is fast becoming my favourite rival in a pokemon game - the fact that she's essentially a pest and has some bizarre addiction to battling you I just find frankly hilarious and endearing all at once, but she always scales down her Pokemon choice to battle you at your level since she is a champion already - but this is a nice twist on the common rivalry - as she routes for you to catch up to her. 

The thing that weirded me out the most at first was the teachers continually scouting my apparent talents - especially when there are so many other (overaged) students out there doing the same thing. But then it hit me... I am actually the best of the students doing the Gym Circuit round the island. In other games it's usually just you and your rival and you don't really come across other pokemon trainers (or at least others that set off the same time as you FROM the same place). But now? it's the whole school that's out there finding their "treasure" or trying to beat all the gyms - so when you're scouted by the pro's actually it does feel like it means something, because the other students aren't matching up to the same standard. And that's quite a progressive and rewarding feeling overall. 

- Starfall Street

- Learning more as I go with the Team Star delinquents has also been an interesting side story, and I like that they've very quickly gone from... 

Spoiler

...being portrayed as the school bullies/dropouts, to the actual revelation that the situation is quite the reverse and it's the reason they are skipping school. 

Clive's involvement and introduction is equally funny and excellent, not because of the obviousness of his character - but because the game doesn't try to hide it either. 

- Herba Mystica 

- And then there's the stuff with Arvin (who I found to be pretty unlikable and didn't see a lot of investment in this character initially)... until you find out why he wants your help and the reason he's hunting for the herbs. Real nice play on the heartstrings there Gamefreak. And (unsurprisingly) he turns out to be related to some other characters in the game too, so I'm going to see where this storyline heads soon. 


But it's not just these light multiple story threads that keep me playing - the world created feels incredibly rich and layered, the towns are genuinely varied and interesting locations to explore (yes, it IS a shame you can't go in all the houses), the geometry of the map is scaled and interesting enough that I care to want to explore every nook and cranny compared to PLA, and the vista's or sights in the game that give you total view of the island is something else (not perfect - but still beautiful, I'm just a sucker for landscapes).

I also keep coming across flocks of different 'mon that are in areas that make sense and it's a nice valued feature that they don't just spawn or appear randomly out of nowhere like in the past games. I just wanna walk up to every 'mon and say "hi" if they don't attach me, or catch them if they do, or chill with my own team having a picnic at sunset, or walk around with the team leader. It's magic, this world feels lived in. 

There's a lot more I could gush on about, but this is basically the breath of the wild of Pokemon worlds that I really hoped it would be. And whilst I do hate myself for feeling like this might be the best pokemon game ever made... I do genuinely feel like this might be the best (worst) Pokemon game ever made.

Full disclosure: They still really need to fix up the performance in their post patches - I can look past these as I genuinely find the game to be beautiful anyway and they don't really detract from the experience, nor are any game breaking. If they could do even more work, it would be nice to see additions from some of the more progressive mechanics from PLA in a future patch, post game DLC or even their next open world attempt. I might not be as fond of that action title as others seem to be, but I can't ignore what it does actually excel at. 

[Red Hot Jack]

Man, it's tiring I want to try this game so bad, but I am scared of the experience being very lacking and unpolished... I want to wait for the big patch but I also want to play it. I even bought Shining Pearl to help wait.

[Sonicka]

5 hours ago, Red Hot Jack said:

Man, it's tiring I want to try this game so bad, but I am scared of the experience being very lacking and unpolished... I want to wait for the big patch but I also want to play it. I even bought Shining Pearl to help wait.

Personally speaking, my experience has been amazing so far. Is it a bit buggy and unpolished? Yes. Is it broken or unplayable that this distracts from said experience? No. 

Milage as ever will vary from player to player however, so it might be worth waiting for the update/patch before purchasing if you want, but it didn't hinder my time.

It is interesting that you bought Shining Pearl though, as this game is/was quite broken and buggy upon release. I never got very far into the switch remaster myself though and returned to Platinum quite quickly. Whatever they decide to do for the Gen 5 Remaster - I hope they take a different approach or go back to what they were doing before (which is simply aping the present gen style), but I appreciate it wasn't Game Freak that remastered Gen 4.

That being said, I wouldn't be against Open World remakes of previous generations going forward... if they were to take their time. 

[PC the Hedgehog]

That's the thing that's so divisive about the game. Experiences with performance issues have been so incredibly varied. Some, like myself, have had no problems aside from low frame rates and the occasional frame drop. Others have experienced Sonic 06 levels of glitchiness. I think everyone should at least give the game a shot and see how it performs for them, because there's an amazing game here that some sadly have been unable to experience.

[Salamander]

The worst bugginess is generally reported as coming from playing co-op, so take that into consideration.  I've never experienced any crashes in the game or any of the really wild graphical bugs, just general shoddiness - an unacceptable level of shoddiness in a franchise of this reputation, but shoddiness only.

I have a lot of problems with the game, but at the same time I don't regret playing it.  I also have severe doubts as to whether the performance issues will ever be meaningfully patched, so that's a point to bear in mind, too.

Incidentally, analogy to Sword and Shield suggests that it might be only a few weeks until they announce DLC.

[DarkRula]

Whatever DLC there's going to be will be announced at the Presents near the anniversary at the end of February. Along with updates to a few mobile titles. I do hope Switch gets a new spin-off this year. Maybe it's finally time to see Detective Pikachu appear? Combined with a second story? Or perhaps Game Boy / GBA games for Switch Online are announced here with the full Pokémon catalogue being available at the launch of it (very much a long shot since they're likely to space even those out across a year).

[Salamander]

The first Detective Pikachu game came out seven years ago, so really, it's high time GameFreak presented their own conclusion.  I can only assume there were some bumps in the road.

The Sword/Shield DLC was actually announced as early as January 9th; but I won't be panicking if they put it back a little this year.  It would be tactful to announce some sort of performance-related patch while they were at it, though I'm not seriously holding my breath.

[DarkRula]

Ah, right. I only remember when it was first shown off, so assumed that had been the first announcement. But yeah. They need a patch delivered to the game before they start talking of expansions.

[Sonictrainer]

There's a cool montage of the current National Dex

English

Quote

 

Twenty-six years after the release of the original Pokémon games—Pokémon Red Version and Pokémon Green Version in Japan—the number of Pokémon discovered has finally surpassed one thousand!

Let’s celebrate the occasion with a look back at some of your favorite Pokémon!

Start your adventure in Paldea today!

 

Japanese

 

[Sonictrainer]

Quote

 

The next #PokemonPresents is on the way, Trainers!

Tune in to our official YouTube channel at 6:00 a.m. PST on February 27 for about 20 minutes of exciting Pokémon news in celebration of #PokemonDay 2023!

 

 

[Sonicka]

So the Pokemon Gen 9 DLC pass seems like an inevitable announcement next week - quite excited about that one. I doubt they'll promote the patches or mention the issues the game has seen during a big event (not to mention the patch notes have already been released in advance), but I do hope it drops on that day and they continue to work on post release fixes as I don't expect February's patch will cover every problem.

What will be interesting is the current speculation about Gen 1 and 2 potentially seeing a release on the GB NSO to co-exist and link with Pokemon Stadium (apparently this is possible according to recent reports - it's just weather Nintendo will bother with this feature ultimately). What will probably happen (because they like curveballs) is that FireRed and LeafGreen will instead see a release on the GBA NSO:EP - which would make more sense from the companies online scheme perspective for growth.

I suppose this will also be the last chance to see if a Pokemon Platinum remake is toyed with after BD/SP, or whether they will bother announcing whatever the Gen 5 remake will look like yet. 

What I hope isn't announced is a Legends sequel. And by this is mean I'd much rather both of Gamefreak's A and B teams combine their efforts into creating one solid mainline Pokemon game moving forwards. By all means, they should absolutely take all the best and creative ideas from Legends when moving into Gen 10 (some of which did make the cut in Gen 9). But both Legends and Gen 9 suffered from their own personal "incompleteness" issues, and IMHO Legends often only gets a passing grade from the community simply because it introduces a lot of new gameplay ideas (despite being a spinoff).  

On the flipside, it could be that a new Legends game is the way to move forward and any development on Gen 10 is to be put to sleep (unlikely). I don't really care either way they go about it, I would just prefer their games to have keener focus and higher quality. Gen 10 needs to have little to no performance issues and a better scaling system, or the Legends Sequel needs to not feel so beta and have more interesting maps for me to enjoy exploring.
 

[DarkRula]

Yeah, I've been an advocate for that for some time, now. Game Freak focus on the game that opens the generation, putting all their Poké power into it so that it is the best it can be. Another studio then handles remakes while yet another studio handles the side series game of that generation. Add in a few spin-offs throughout made by other studios, and you have a great generation of nothing but great games.

I'm confident we're at least getting gen one on Switch Online after this Presents. Whether all the rest follows at the same time I'm less sure of. But hey, it's time to see what the expansion for Scarlet-Violet looks like, and I'm much more interested in that.

[Salamander]

That was a surprisingly slim Presents.  Technically there were a lot of different items in it, but very little that felt particularly special.  At least a couple of things in there had already been announced in the past day or two.

Honestly, I'm not surprised Pokemon Sleep took so long to manifest if it involves being blasted with blue light from your smartphone screen whilst you're going to bed.