Thoughts: Pokémon Gen 9

After the release of the second trailer for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, more and more excitement surrounds the new upcoming mainline games. After playing through Pokémon Sword, Brilliant Diamond, and Legends Arceus, getting even more new Pokémon content is a welcome sight even if it seems like a lot in a short amount of time. So far, we have seen the starting Pokémon, some glimpses of the cities we can explore, and a few gen. 9 Pokémon that have already won over the hearts of many.

The Starters

I think a lot of fans can already agree that Gen 9's starter Pokémon are all adorable. The cute grass cat seems to be the immediate fan favorite since the first trailer dropped. Even though many fans (myself included) fear the final evolution moving to two legs, I think the majority of the fans beg to see this cute kitty stay on all fours and break the horrible tradition. One guy who seemed to gain love after the immediate fanfare of Sprigaito had calmed down was Fuecoco. This little dino-looking guy seems to have their own following and is already well-loved. I know that I might continue my newly found trend of picking the fire starter because there is no way they can possibly screw this guy up.... right? And finally is our overlooked duck friend, Quaxly. Quaxly sadly seems to be the least liked of the three starters. Even though he is an adorable little duck who seems to have a spunky attitude, most people seem to be focusing on the other two.

Personally, I think I will be picking either the grass or the fire starter. It will come down to what the final evolution looks like on who I will go with if I'm honest.

The World

The graphics seemed pretty nice from the glimpses we have seen. They seem to be on the level of Pokémon Legends Arceus, so we can hopefully avoid complaints of poorly rendered trees like we heard in Pokémon Sword and Shield. The Pokémon all look great and the characters all look amazing.

One thing that grabbed a lot of people's attention was the Pokéstop setups shown out in the wild. With the three colors shown on the building, a lot of people are speculating that this will act as a Pokécenter as well as a Pokémart. I love that everything might be together in one place as well as being able to find these along routes instead of having to go into a city to pick up Pokéballs or heal a wounded
Pokémon. This will make training up Pokémon and trying to complete the Pokédex a less annoying task if I can walk two feet to this Pokéstop rather than fly back to a city to heal and then trek all the way back to my training area.

The New Pokémon

The three new gen Pokémon that we get a glimpse of in the second trailer are Pawmi, our little Pikachu clone for this gen, Lechonk, the adorable pig that I will have a full team of, and Smoliv, the cute olive Pokémon that reminds me of a Sobble. All three of these Pokémon are perfect and I will make it my mission to catch them immediately, these designs make me hope that Gen. 9 will have good new Pokémon.

Let's not forget that the ending of the second trailer showed off the box art legendary Pokémon! With each legendary giving a glimpse and what their game offers, we can see that Scarlet will focus more on the past with the more prehistoric design while Violet legendary has a sleek jet-like design. I will admit that I wasn't very impressed by their designs at first, but they have quickly started to grow on me.

Last Thoughts

I love that the second trailer teases that depending on the version you pick, you will belong to a different school and be more focused on either the past or the future. I am looking forward to seeing the differences between the two versions.

The fact that you will be guided by a different professor depending on whether you play Scarlet or Violet makes it feel like these two versions will have real differences. Past games would only boast about having a few version exclusives Pokémon which meant you had to either have both games or have a friend who had the other version just so you could complete the Pokédex, but at the end of the day, they were that same games. I will be genuinely impressed if Scarlet and Violet are two games with substantial differences.

I will say the number one thing that I am looking forward to is the possibility of multiplayer. The idea that I can join my friends and we can go explore the world around us together is something that can single-handedly drag me to the game store to pick up my copy.

Before the second trailer dropped, my boyfriend had asked me which version I was going to get so he could buy the other one. At the time, I had no idea which one I was going to pick, but now that the second trailer has shown us a bit more about each game, I think I am safe to say that I will be going with Violet.