Some Thoughts on Pokemon's Gen. 9

Having put over 55 hours into Pokémon Violet, I have some thoughts on the game.

Overall, ignoring the obvious bugs and glitches that most of the player base have run into, I think this is a good game. I believe it does positive things that will hopefully push the franchise further in future releases.

The Pokémon

This might not be my favorite starter trio, but I still enjoy the first stage of all three. Sadly, I only really like the final evolution for Fuecoco, the other two look interesting, but they are just not for me. One of the best parts about this set of starters is the inclusion of a secondary typing that balances out the primary typing in terms of type advantage.

Pros

There was a decent amount of new Pokémon introduced in this new generation, and I liked all of them. They seemed to focus on cute and pun-themed Pokémon for Gen 9.

Being able to play around with moves is perfect for Pokémon who can learn a lot of moves with different typing. It means that players can use their favorite Pokémon more often by changing out moves for a better match-up against gym leaders. And don’t forget about using the move menu for refilling a move when out exploring.

Cons

The lack of a signal to show shiny Pokémon in the overworld is a huge letdown. With so many shinies being incredibly similar to the original, it can be near impossible to see them before going out of their spawn radius, never to be seen again. Unless a player is shiny hunting and checking everyone, they will likely miss one or two shiny Pokémon during their playthrough, and that’s a real shame.

There have always been one or two Pokémon that have had weird methods for evolving. Some have you flip your handheld over, some have you take an oddly specific amount of damage and have you ride under a rock, and some even have you spin around a few times to physically stir your Pokémon. But I do not think I have come across a more tedious one than having to walk with a Pokémon for 1,000 steps, all while knowing that if I mess up and walk a little too fast, the Pokémon will go back into its ball and I will have to start over. It does not make any sense to me, it has no real connection to any of the THREE Pokémon that have to evolve like this, so I strongly dislike this method.

The Story

I think everyone can agree that this storyline took too long to start. The tutorial lasting more than an hour is ridiculous. I wish one day we will get a Pokémon game that you can choose to skip a tutorial where you learn to catch a Pokémon and explain useless information like type advantage because anyone who has played a Pokémon game already knows this basic stuff.

Once I got out of the tutorial section, I started to enjoy myself a bit more. I liked that I could take on the gyms in any order that I liked, along with the battles for the other two paths, but I hated that nothing scaled to my level, so I ended up just doing it in the suggested order.

The Victory Road path was the most lackluster for me because it was just the normal fight the gyms and then the elite four, but the inclusion of a good rival like Nemona was a good change of pace. Having Nemona start off stronger than you and pushing you to get to her level was an excellent choice because I certainly was getting tired of the childhood friend who wants to grow with you.

Both the Titan Road path and the Starfell path were emotional and probably some of the best storytelling on a Switch-released Pokémon game. Having my character seem to actually make an impact on those around them was better than just battling gyms and sometimes saving the universe from being destroyed by mentally unstable adults.

The Area Zero story was definitely my favorite. I feel like the graphics during the cutscenes were the most polished in the whole game. The one thing that I was let down by was the AI pulling the “Your dad always loved you” at the last second before leaving. I wish they would have left it at the workaholic dad who was neglecting his son for the sake of furthering his research. It would have been a deeper story and a slightly darker one from the perspective of recent Pokémon games that have been lighter in theme.

Gameplay

Having the customization be so in-depth at the beginning of the game, being able to craft a character that will be unique, only to be limited to four uniforms (none of them really being great) was a huge letdown. I wish we would have been able to go into stores and get clothing that shows off where you are in the region. It was a shame to realize that something that had been so common in generations of games before Scarlet and Violet had been cut out completely.

Speaking of shopping in the cities, I would have enjoyed being able to go into the different shops. The sandwich shop seemed well crafted, so finding out that the rest of the shops were pop-up screens was disappointing. One of the good changes was the removal of the Pokécenter and Pokémart to replace them with the Pokéstops scattered throughout the region. Having access to Nurse Joy no matter where you are makes grinding for levels, shinies, and general pokedex entries less time-consuming.

And if you are wanting to be one of those players who grind out a completed Pokédex, or create a Livingdex (I am currently working towards that myself), you might be one of the people who are happy about the limited amount of Pokémon in this game. I personally am not upset about only having 400 Pokémon in Scarlet and Violet. I think that shoving all the Pokémon that exist into one region would be too much. The region would have to be huge, or there would be so many Pokémon cramped into some of these areas.

In the end, I do think there were some good new mechanics introduced in the game. Having friends be able to join you in your adventures, all the Pokémon are seen in the overworld, and being able to take on multiple story paths in whatever order you want. I hope that these can be carried into the next game and improved upon.