Evaluating Pokemon Violet - An Ambitious Disaster
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 มิ.ย. 2024
- Join me as I take a look at a bewildering mixture of ingenuity and incompetence from one of the biggest game franchises.
If you want to check out my merch: thesaltfactory.store/
Cooking channel is here: / @thesaltkitchen
The audio for this one was done by my talented wife: / cakefan220
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Twitter: / saltiestfactory
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Patreon: / thesaltfactory
Songs:
All of the "Hurry Along" themes from Gen 1-8
A large portion of the Scarlet/Violet OST
Timestamps:
00:00- Intro
05:38- Starting out/General mechanics & issues
14:55- Mesagoza and its academy
20:53- Exploration mechanics
23:04- Gyms
33:41- Titan Pokemon
38:04- Team Star, Teachers and Ancient Pokemon
48:42- Area Zero and Post game objectives
01:03:58- Final thoughts
01:11:21- Outro
Thanks for watching! - เกม
I cannot tell you how dumb I feel after not realizing that Herba Mysyica are just HMs. My brain just flatlined at that point.
If only they were actually HMs though...
I read this before watching the video so I had a similar feeling.
Though I saw it as the herbs were just good in general...
I took it as it was healing/a upgrade for whatever ate it.
Sure it teaches the bikemon fly swim and climb but it made the dudes dog healthy.
Or the ride pokemon from Sun/Moon, or the hidden techniques from Let's Go. I'm fine with that compromise of not having to dedicate move slots or team space to moves that are mostly (Surf and Waterfall are good) bad moves.
I never picked up on that either lol,I felt pretty dumb hearing Salt lay it out
holy shit
When you mention how the main character could have been 18, they explicitly said the school was for all ages and you encounter and battle middle aged and even old students. They could have let you play as a character of any age, but they didn’t.
It would probably be because of all the side characters. Being friends with a bunch of kids would be weird if you were an old man
@@NEdgyman And what about the Mom character? Should that be dynamic for the age setting? Are there adults who do not change out of their school uniform?
More mature player characters would be nice, but would also require some kind of effort from the developer, not only for camera angles and framing to be reworked/dynamic. How would they even start those games? Are living with your young aunt for some reason? You can't pressure development, they still have to design five new mons based on dishes or household items.
Probably because you’re getting you’re first Pokémon at 10 years old, which most trainers do. Playing as an 18 year old person getting there first Pokémon would make you a late bloomer and not really the prodigy the Pokémon games try to make the main character out to be.
@@larsg.2492 I see no problm being 18 or 20 an live with your mom, just ajust the dialogue of your mom a bit.
An you could have key charactrs of your age there.
@@marocat4749 You are completely right, also I was a bit prejudiced by my own age and added a few decades in my head.
The other main storyline NPCs seem a bit older, more on a level with the Gen5 protagonists.
During my playthrough I laughed extremely hard when Nemona said "Mountains! Forests! Grasslands! *Beautiful* nature stuff, as far as the eye can see" as she proceeds to show me 2D trees and n64 textures.
At least she's cute
Gamecube graphics
@@ZacharyJClarkgamecube had much better looking games than this, hell all the launch games for the gamecube all looked better than this
@@rinnnnnnnnnnrin Go back and relook at them.
@@ZacharyJClark pikmin 2 looks better tbh
Remember the days when you could enter any and all houses for a lore nugget, hint, event, or item? The only buildings you enter are stores or league buildings. The laws of the pokemon world have gotten too strict.
No I dont, you could never enter every house
@@beepbeeplettuce5890 have you played gen 1? If the house had a door you could go into it.
Pokémon players after years of conditioning tells them they are able to enter everybody’s houses: let me in, LET ME IIIINN
@@sonya6191 current pokemon fans having zero standards and guzzling down every turd Nintendo plates for them be like.
@@beepbeeplettuce5890 You very much could? When did you start playing, gen 8?
I like to believe the whole parent AI just stated the whole "X always loved you" line because it was more human than the actual parent. It wanted to leave the son with something positive instead of just leaving him with the whole idea that everything was terrible and your childhood did actually suck. It was way too clear that the real human really gave no fucks about their child, all the logs they created made that overly clear.
Thank you for putting that into words! I got the very same feeling from the AI and the how it chose to leave!
Considering the fact they basically died to protect Mirai/Koraidon instead of basic self preservation being they have a CHILD on the surface, I would agree
I don't agree... as a parent myself I know how work can get in the way sometimes... The whole reason I make sure my kids know I love them is because I lost my dad at a young age... I feel the reason the AI said that was because he KNEW being the prof. AI how much the prof loves his/her son... but just never realised he would never be able to show it... Most people don't think about death untill its on their doorstep.. like said in the video.. real life people have flaws.. they aren't just good or bad
@@ilexlio To be fair... I would do anything for my kids... but I also have a dog I would protect... When you sacrifise yourself for someone you carr you don't think... you just act.. doesn't mean you don't have anything else you care more about... all it means is you care about what you try to protect... death and yourbkids might not even something you might have time to think about.. It's like they said in the video.. adults aren't just good or evil.. they are just humans
There's also the fact that the UI displays for the possessed AI changes to "professor Sada/Turo", despite starting as "AI Sada/Turo". So yeah, the AI was 100% just trying to make Arven feel better because the tiny glimpse of the lingering madness of the real professors very clearly showed that they were horrifically crazy and awful people. Especially when considering how they tried to kill their own son and all of his friends mere moments beforehand.
Fun fact: your in game time on your Trainer card is essentially based on frames, rather than time passed. If you compare that time to your played hours on your Switch profile, you can see how many hours you have lost to lag.
Hmmm actually, I think it only counts the time between saves, so in this difference, there is also the time between saving and closing the game, as well as the time you lost after last saving and the game crashing.
I wonder if speedrunners will use this....currently runs lose to lag if i recall...
@@BrunoMeMI saw small ant stream on the game and he had a bit over 1 hour worth of frames lost over his play through. Can’t imagine he was saving like a mad lad mid stream or crashed 100x in that livestream. I only watched the edited video for it but it was an interesting thing he left in there.
Is it like that in legends arceus too
@@conchadeconchos but it dosent count menu time, like bag, pokemon switching etc
Nemona is like a player who beat the game then went back to build a new team and wanted to help you get stronger.
In the postgame she admits she thinks sandbagging you like that was a bad idea and really she only did it because no one would battle with her and she was sad especially if you follow the subtext that since her parents weren't really around she would obsess over something to sort of cope. Then she says she'd go all out from now on
I hate her
Yeah she’s the type of player to box her whole team postgame.
I really liked her for the same reasons ppl like Sw/Sh for its lore building with the stadium culture. You watch Ash catch whole new teams, you may make whole new teams when restarting a pokemon game. Sure her actual character is a little flat, but we have Arwen and his parent, we have bits and pieces of different characters in the Starfall path. A lot of people talk about the silliness of your rival picking the starter that's weak towards yours. But I've found a lot of love into pokemon I normally wouldn't play
Toby Fox had to have had some involvement with the story. The characters this time around seem like actual… characters.
@@jebronlames987he did not, gamefreak has been hiring new talent as of late
Pokemon Violet is absolutely the best alpha build I've ever played
I say that about legends arceus. Lol
lmao
@@near193Scarlet/Violet were actually a beta for Arceus, you see. The obvious point being the framerate, lmao.
@@VCV95don't be ridiculous troll it's the other way around very very clearly Arceus only has open zones for Christ's sake it's not even an open world don't be a basic b****
@@VCV95of course artist doesn't have that kind of frame rate problem when it's not trying to load an entire world at all times you idiot
"Larry" is a play on the word "saLARYman." His Japanese title is even "Extraordinary Salaryman." Best Pokemon character ever.
Just when I thought I couldn't love that man any more than I already did. Awesome.
Meh. I get the creativity behind the name and design, but just because of that and that he is easy to meme doesn't make him as good as how many overrate him as to me.
Not the best, but one of the best character for sure.
Larry is literally the best I could take out of this mess of a videogame.
Imagine a map with cardboard houses, the NPCs doesn't add value, the music is just not there at all since at least the last 2 generations, the story is just taken out of Fast and Furious, the customization of the character gets a step to the side, bad Pokémon designs, the Pokédex halved again and just to finish add the bad graphics and the bad playing performance.
🤔 ... probably that is why Larry is so overworked and burnout, he is tired of carrying Pokémon Scarlet and Violet
@@meetingmyomensAt least he isn't cringy like Iono, having a Vtuber gym leader feels like Game Freak is trying to hard to appeal to degenerates. Larry stands out when compared to the rest of the Gym Leaders imo.
That's a stretch
In Scarlet you have Sada - Arvens mom - who's spouse walked out on her right after Arvens birth.
Looking at both versions together, we see that both Sada and Turo were Arvens parents and total shit. In one Universe they had the balls to walk out on their kid, in the other, they basically locked up the kid at home and dived into work.
No matter how you look at it: Their respective AI had more heart than them. Damnit.
Also more brains. The ai being competent enough yo figure out mixing the future and present is a horrible idea, and leveraging his creator's connections (son and friends) to squash the plan was good. Lil bonus for it figuring out how to shut the machine down while surviving in a place it would fit in.
The past version is similar, as it's less likely to be a horrible mix but considering the Snakehead fish results I can believe it also being a disaster waiting to happen.
I suppose the cthulu entity in the crater influenced their work ethic....heavily..
@Battlecast it's not a cthulu entity it's a pokemon with "several hexagonal shaped discs" and probably the missing third legend
Sada walked out on turo in violet too, you can see that entry at like 54:38 ish
It feels so weird to have it be called UvA academy. That’s an actual school here in the netherlands called Universiteit van Amsterdam. (University of Amsterdam)
43:49 the ingame dialogue actually mentions how Team Star never met their boss in person, they wouldn’t know the blue and red hair girl was their boss. She organized and coordinated them through online chats and video calls only.
/Ourguy/
Pñ
For real, for an attempt at critical analysis it’s ironic how obvious it is that they button mashed past dialogue or just weren’t paying attention.
They can't recognize voices?
@@moppycat2669 If they never met her in person, they wouldn’t recognize her by voice anyway. That said, it’s pretty explicitly implied that Penny uses some sort of voice masking filter because she talk to you in person and as Cassiopeia remotely and your character doesn’t recognize her; maybe we as players saw the twist coming but our character doesn’t.
The reason Arven just throws out a squirrel in the beginning is because he's bad at battling; he admits it himself. That's why he needs your help with the herba mystica
that and given that he really does not like mirai & just dumps the dragon on some stranger i very much got the feeling that he was just throwing too. arvs only really making you battle for it to Seem convincing enough to then just run off and leave you with the dragon he Does Not Care About. it sets up that its Fishy how easily he gave the dragon up with the easy battle (which is also Stated by nem there too that its Weird)
I feel like Nemonas arc of finding a worthy rival where she could go all out was a nice mix up from a rival where they’re always giving it their all but still failing
I think Nemona also chose the Pokémon weak to your type at first because either A: she wanted a challenge and therefore decided to start off at a disadvantage, or B: she already knew that the Pokémon weak to yours at the start would gain an advantageous typing once they all reached their final forms. She was always one of the harder fights when I played at level cap, and out of all 3 of the end storylines before area 0 she put up the strongest fight and was stronger than the “Top Champion” (Clive /Director was second hardest which makes sense since you’d expect someone who owns a battle school to be skilled in the battles). Regardless, her character made sense and she is easily one of the most competent trainers out of all the rivals
That's pretty much what it is. She just wants a good battle, but because she's so strong people treat her differently if not just snub her entirely. Her parent's are even absent from the game's beginning to end pretty much making Geeta her mother figure in addition to her Hero. Even then Nemona blew her out of the water too so I don't blame Nemona being absolutely battle hungry after we beat her when we were using Lv.5 mons.
I Black and White that had 3 rivals ( Cheren, Bianca, N) who each had their own motivations and reasons for continuing on the journey as well as story arcs for their character. Decent rivals is something the series already had and GF just slowly removed it again to bring back later.
@@athenarainesblue solos
And then she never battles us with whatever team she used on the other champion lady
Damn, Turo did the Pokemon equivalent of going to get cigarettes
And this is after Sada dumped Arven in Turo's lap and said "You deal with it" and then left.
I vote that Larry should appear in every new game from this point forward, always getting forced to take up random new jobs that he takes to with all the enthusiasm of his job as a Gym Leader.
I vote fashion model next
I saw the "your parent actually did love you" part in a bit of a different light. The AI showed in some ways it had more humanity than the original professor, I think the parts of the consciousness that were copied were ironically the more human ones, as if the professor knew they needed someone to rein them in after researchers became lost or died, but they were still so arrogant they could only trust themself. It would explain why the AI seemed to actually care about Arven more than the actual professor, as well as why it would go against its own programming and want to shut the machine down. It's just headcanon really but the events we see do support it.
Oh, this is pretty enlightening, thanks for sharing, I didn't mind it at first, but then this guy said it and made me think "Hmm, that doesn't really make any sense".
Then you came along and gave it a whole new interpretation
I DO like that after Turo says "your dad loved you", Arven is like "you can't just say that shit now" and Turo goes "yeah. you're right. sorry." lmao makes me think the AI was full of it somehow and trying to make Arven feel better?
For me, that was brilliant, the way they did it. Robodad knows it's either die and machine dies with him or yeet himself and machine dies because he effectively vanished. Big brain dad time there: oh son, I love you. And I'm manipulative evasive douche, always... (Robodad must have thought: kid really feel for that?! I still got it, nice!)
yeah he was full of shit there, but just leaving without saying anything would probably be a dick move. every little bit we see of the original Turo(the research notes and the ai's security mode) reveals that he did kind of care about his son but not nearly as much as his project.
it's a real interesting twist where the original was a piece of shit and the beserk AI was a good person
Seems like turo tried to give some fake closure to Arven, but he saw right through it
Gamefreak had terrible writing this gen except when it came to Arven and Turo's relationship for some reason.
@@Nichrysalis what? all of it was good except nemona who only gets actual characterization in the endgame for some reaosn
You know, I've never really felt that modernisation of a game series requires voice acting, I'm usually content with dialogue boxes in most RPG's, but my God does Scarlet and Violet's cutscenes just feel so lifeless without it. The end of the game actually has the kind of disturbing, climactic vibe that I really admired about some of the older entries, but it just feels squandered by actually interesting moments being dead-silent and devoid of emotion.
It's almost like the animators were told there would be voice acting this time. It feels like a muted game, not a text-based game
I don't think voice acting is always necessary, but (and if it's mentioned already in the video, forgive me for not getting there yet) when you have the biggest franchise on the planet, and have core entries be so half-baked, it feels like the least they could do is at least add voice acting. Especially since Pokemon tries to lean into cinematic scenes (even if I don't think they usually do a great job at it), which would benefit from voice acting to lend to that cinematic feel. Plus, while I'm not going to pretend this issue wasn't present in the older games (it was just less of an issue at the time, since it was far more common and there were technical limitations to such a degree that it even impacted how much text there could be), a lot of the dialogue is just not that engaging, and voice acting can help carry dry writing. Granted, I'd prefer that they just write better dialogue if I had to choose, but if they're insistent on not improving the writing, then voice acting can help put a band-aid on the problem.
It's because at least most text based games I've seen have some sort of *noise* for speech, even if it's just a noise for the text scrolling, meanwhile this game is just silent as fuck
Voice acting does require quite a bit of coin and can often end up stifling possible choices or the amount of lines you can put in the game. Sadly they don't capitalize on that freedom and they don't put the effort to make text dialog system to not feel cheap or to smooth out its flaws either.
Oh well guess they just wanted to cut corners.
@@michaelj.caboose372 Most of Morrowind's dialogue was just silent text. Though occasionally an npc will speak if you get near them.
I think the reason why everyone likes larry so much is just because how (fittingly) normal he is. like you said, every goddamn character in this game (that's exaggeration, some of them are cool) feels like they were trying to twist some kind of trope. (especially in team star)
Characters are like this so much that seeing just an overworked, normal guy is so relatable and (ironically) different.
At least in Sun/Moon, even if the National Dex wasn't there, they could still IMPORT to the game pokmon that weren't in the local dex; many people get attached to certain Pokemon, and not being able to use their favorites is a big gut punch for them.
You can do that with SV too.
@@xX_MC_OvU_PvP_YT_Xx You can't import Blastoise to Scarlet and Violet. Blastoise is a Pokemon that has been around so long, that if someone has gotten attached to it, their attachment has had over a decade to be cemented as an unshakeable sentiment; longer than many people know each other before marriage, which is supposed to be a life-long commitment.
@@xX_MC_OvU_PvP_YT_Xxbro I haven't been able to use my favorite starter Feraligatr since sun and moon and I've got a shiny one that I hatched I absolutely hate how we're paying for more Mons in the dlc and not even getting ALL THE MONS
@@LunaProtege until nintendo reopens the 3ds e store and allows me to download pokemon bank and lets me transfer my oshawatt to the newer games i will not be buying a switch or anything nintendo.
aka "When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east," "When the seas go dry and the mountains blow in the wind like leaves"
the plague of completion yet with entries that are exclusive to other games is what holds Pokemon down.
Nemona basically sandbagging you the whole time **could’ve** been incredible **IF** at the end she goes all out and her team is absolutely fucking insane and is the hardest battle in the game by a large margin (basically a classic JRPG secret endgame boss that is like 10x harder than the final boss). As it stands right now, the idea is there with Nemona but without showing her being insanely strong it loses a lot of impact it could have had.
Makes me wonder what Nemona's actual team comprises of.
I found her battle to be a lot easier than La Primera.. I bet Nemona with only 1 fainted Pokémon and the champion I had to revive a few times
It's easy because more than likely you're playing on switch instead of set and with items.
@@tomahawkgamesbr6045 her team at lvl 1 was her full force team 💀 Principal forever denied us
That would work only if battling her was optional, like a proper secret boss. If you automatically have to fight her with her beast team right after La Primera, that would just kill the momentum.
I think the "gym leaders adjust their team based on how many badges you have" comes from that OVA adapting gen 1 since Red challenges Brock and he grabs the pokemon meant for people with no badges.
The fact that the OVA brings that idea up but NEVER works that in game is... shameful to say the least
Wasn't it implied also in ORAS? Like Norman wants you to fight all the other gym leaders before returning to him because he wants to be able to fight you using his strongest team or something because otherwise he would have to adjust his team based on the number of badges you have. I could be totally wrong tho
@@jetstar157 No, he did that because he wanted to see your personal growth as his kid. To show you earned the right to challenge your old man.
Thing is this game post game still alludes to that. You are tasked to fight the gym again and many of them say how they been order to hold back base on their locations and some even hate being forced to use low level ones and were glad to finally use their stronger members.
“Open world”
I'm a bit late to the video, but I would like to add that Penny never met Team Star in person. She was too scared too, so she controlled the group remotely instead. I just wanted to add that in case it helps you enjoy the story ever slightly more.
It's worth it to tell people they're wrong after they spend so much time overanalyzing it.
Though the national dex was gone on gen 7, what people are complaining about in gen 8 is that the game doesn't let you transfer in any pokemon that are unobtainable in the game. That's what's different, and what people mean by saying they got rid of the national dex. It wouldn't have been difficult to allow, either, since gens 7 and 8 both copy pasted the pokemon models from gen 6.
Did you know that the final cutscene fight is completely impossible to lose? Even if you spam Tera Blast over and over to waste its PP you get given too many boosts AND on the 9th one the game forces you to Tera and use it. Also, your legendary cannot die. It is programmed to always survive on 1 HP because of friendship. So yeah, it's even more scripted than you might think
fuck dude the next pokemon game after this will have the prompts for the final battle pick themselves if you don't press them in time lmao
I actually like these they are interactive cutscenes better than Just siting looking at a movie is playing that movie sure there are no stakes but neither do actual cutscenes
Failing that battle would be so annoying due to the progress setback, and silly considering the stakes of that moment, so it being impossible to lose is honestly a good thing.
@@speedslider3913 Well, there was Ultra Necrozma. I think that fight was difficult enough to be interesting and I didn't care about any progress setback when losing.
@@speedslider3913 no lol.
Definitely agree that a "Arven's Dad/Mom Actually Loved Him" ending would be pretty terrible, but I came away from that scene, mostly because of everything else we know about his parent, assuming the AI is literally just being nice to make him feel better. There are a couple lines in the fight that push that even further, like when they're about to hit the second fight where the AI says something along the lines of "What? Could keeping the machine operating really be all they cared about?"
It really does read, to me, that the AI had an at least an inkling the parent is a piece of shit with some early dialogue, and then basically confirms it, and lies to prevent more trauma.
Always possible I'm giving too much credit, but they go REALLY hard on showing you how awful the professor is.
I read that scene similar to you but in my opinion it feels like the AI actually loved Arven more than the real Turo. The AI is aware how dangerous that machine is while the real Turo just straight up didn't care and I think because the AI has all of Turo's memories he ended up caring/loving Arven more than the real Turo ever did but he said "your Father truly loved you" because he either sort of feels like a father to him or because he didn't want Arven to have a completely horrible picture of his dead dad in his mind
@@beausweater Definitely agree
In a split second when the “AI Turo/Sada initiates a battle!” glitches to “Paradise Protection Protocol initiates a battle!”, you can see the text say “AI Turo/Sada has no intention of fighting anymore!” It goes to show the humanity of the AI.
How much better would it have been if Arven were the player character? The whole story could have been about finding your mother/father and needing to collect herbs to make koraidon able to navigate the crater. Also you need to collect badges to get permission to even go down there and you need to beat the team star in order for Penny to come along and actually help you. Ahhh if only.
I like this idea 👌😄 it would have been a great mystery.
Only if we could change his god awful haircut
How come a simple youtube comment is able to make a more cohesive and interesting plotline compared to gamefreak shitty ass storytelling?
@@cashnelson2306Best comment I’ve seen all day 🤣
@@cashnelson2306Ay now let's not spread slander. His haircut is banger.
"I don't know any of these losers' names" by far the best synopsis of the Gym Leaders (with the obvious exception of Larry)
nemona disadvantaging herself at the beginning is intentional. she gasses you up for knowing type matchups because your character is only beginning their journey and she’s essentially trying to train you up to be her equal to have great battles (which you do)
Strong copium
@@sugondesenuts69but her drive is literally to fight strong people
Cope
@@sanguine2552 not my fault that I can understand the basic aspects of her character lol
I got a correction for you. Where you were mentioning at 44:00 that the bosses of Team Star should have known that Penny was the boss and that she was back. I can't remember off the top of my head which one's flashback brought it up, but it was mentioned that none of the bosses had ever seen Penny before. They only knew her as the big boss or Cassiopeia. None of them were aware what she looked like or what she did to try and defend the team. That's why they never dispersed the team. They thought she'd come back eventually cuz Penny was their friend and kind of their savior.
I came to this comment section to say pretty much exactly this!
I took some time to go over every bit of dialogue relating to Team Star in my footage just to see if I could find a moment I missed (because I could totally see myself missing that lol) and I couldn't find a single line where someone directly said "we haven't even seen the big boss". If someone could point out where that is exactly, that'd be awesome haha. I guess I'll clarify a couple of things here (assuming that line isn't there)-
The bosses not dispersing the team because they didn't know what she looked like doesn't matter as much just because Penny was assigned to 18 months of overseas studies when she took full responsibility for the creation of Team Star. So she wasn't around until right when your character shows up. Which actually lends even more strength to the idea that they knew what she looked like.
At the end when the rest of the team comes out to greet Penny, Giacomo says "long time no see". Mela adds on to it with "more like long time no meet", but then clarifies it with "we didn't even know your name until now". Maybe this is just a weird writing thing, but you'd think the more imperative thing would be "we didn't even know what you looked like until now". Likewise, Ortega says "so your name is Penny huh?", implying that she just never gave up her name.
Obviously a lot of this isn't a super serious point of contention from me, but I figured I'd go see if I goofed up again, and couldn't find anything from anyone stating explicitly that they hadn't seen Penny before. And again, I know it's very possible that I keep missing it lol. I feel like a lot of this would have been cleared up with voice acting, just because Penny would have had to have used a voice changer when talking as Cassiopeia to the player. And if she also used it when talking to her team, then there's a way higher chance of them not knowing what she looks like. But without that context, the writing is a lot of "fill in the blanks". And the blanks I filled in related to how CLOSE these kids all seemed to be, implying that they had probably met before.
@@TheSaltFactory Did you review the flashback ending conversation after defeating Penny? Cassiopeia is talking to all 5 of them over the phone and says "Even though we never met in person, you all were so kind to me..." That's pretty explicit to me. I guess you could try to assume she showed them a picture? But without any lines referring to that, I kind of doubt it.
@@gc6240 Ah, yeah that would be the scene I didn't think to check lmfao. Well thanks, you're absolutely right then. I'll admit I was speed reading everything to do with Team Star after... the third boss? So that's my bad. I forgot there was a post scene that came right after the battle that wasn't them physically meeting her on the field. Good catch!
@@TheSaltFactory I do need to add, almost every single boss directly says "we've never met them in person."
They don't even clarify gender.
I'm not sure what exactly you're missing cause all of them say it after being asked who the big boss is.
Nemona's arc was not a learning how to accept loosing like the last games
Her whole thing was that she couldn't find someone as strong as her to fight with, even the champion wasn't enough for her (just like how we feel after defeating such a weak champion), she contained herself during the whole game and just wanted a challenge, that being the player
I believe that her arc was also her yearning to find her own treasure in a friend. Obviously, Nemona wanted a rival that can challenge her, but she was also a shunned girl, whether from her busy parents, envious classmates, or irritated trainers. It was shown several times that people resent Nemona for her status as a rich girl, the student council president, and her hyperactive personality, likely meaning that she did not have very many friends. Then, you come along, not only being a talented trainer who can rival her, but you are also the one person willing to spend time with her.
Personally the most memorable part of this game for me was Larry’s little arc where the rest of the elite four pushes him to incorporate flying pokemon into his elite four lineup which leads to him recognizing the advantage of adding variety in his team, and when you battle him for the second time in his gym he’s changed his lineup to mirror this. Its an analogy to his salaryman 9-5 life being incredibly dull and him learning to find meaning outside of work by adding some variety to his life, which is incredibly deep for a pokemon game, and made my fall in love with Larry even more
We really went from Mega Evolutions to Sticking a disco ball on top of Pokémon's heads
Its easier to make 18 accessories that can be copy pasted on to each monster with a texture wrap than to make 50+ unique mega pokemon models with their own animations.
We all know how much Gamefreak HATES making new pokemon models 💀
@@sasaki999pro Didn't help that they threw darts at a spinning wheel when deciding how to balance them.
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 disco 🪩 ball
@@sasaki999pro and then we end up with gigantamax forms and now tera forms.
like wtf.
"Most options for character creation. Stand out in a way we haven't seen before."
> *STUCK WEARING FUCKING UGLY SCHOOL UNIFORM FOR THE ENTIRE GAME, NOT EVEN LETTING US WEAR A SKIRT OR DRESS VERSION AS A GIRL*
I'm PISSED that they effectively completely removed outfit customization. Customization is important to me and outfits were one of my favorite things about the series from XY forward.
I'm glad you mentioned how the towns actually look, really loses the excitement of finding a new place
Despite X and Y being not as great as hoped, the characters you play have an older and more mature look to them, especially during battles. The games felt like they wanted to be like Black and White in terms of tone, but the vision was never finalized. The main villain has a paranoid view of the future, you have Legendary Pokémon that are the literal embodiment of Life and Death, an organization where the philosophy of the needs of the strong out weight the needs of the weak, etc. However, in the same game, you have supporting cast of characters whose motivations are honestly dumb, the evil organization has mostly dumb rich brats as members, a very light post-game, the life and death motif is overshadowed by the dumb "hording wealth is bad" thing, and the word beauty seemingly like a substitution for something else like the frailty and limitations of life being always present or something.
It feels like Pokémon has been stuck in a death spiral since X and Y. Something needs to come along to challenge Pokémon or this death spiral will not stop. They seemed to be taking the right steps with Arceus so I have no idea why Scarlett and Violet were rushed.
If they just doubled their time frame
Just finished all the bugs in one game and then took the time to fully, entirely finish the design and story of a 10th generation, they could make a classic
They're already breaking sales records. If their next game can be played on the switch and actually has the character of an older pokemon game with the convenience and polish of the newer ones
I think they could do a lot with some alternative art styles. Like with BOTW and cell shading, they could make a game have more and look great by leaving behind the realistic stuff
6th gen was the last time it felt like they were really trying to make the games better, now they're cursed by generational gimmicks making each new game incompatible with the last... Mega evolution had so much potential for them to just drop it for..... Z moves? Gigatimax? Wtf ever the new crystal forms are.... who at gamefreak seriously thought these were better an more appealing than Mega Evolution? If only they had finished X&Y and actually made Z who knows where the franchise might be. I'm a first gener, was disabled as a child so I spent a lot of time in waiting rooms and the games hold such a special place for me, I loved them so much growing up that I can't bring myself to buy anything past gen 6. Everything since then just feels like a downgrade, each game is missing something that once was a staple.
Rushed because pokemon company needs more merch to sale
God, what a confusing entry huh? I don't think any single pokemon game has ever been a better example of just how much potential is sitting dormant in this brand and wow is that frustrating! Oh well, at least we got Larry, Nemona and Arven.
Trash
I cannot agree more. SV have a great base, but a horrible crust which ruins the game for me
Gotta love those artist. Keeping pokémon alive since 1996. 😏
And Arven. I think they did the neglected child trope pretty well and it sucks that I'm hanging out for a DLC to expand on his story. 😮💨
@@4minutesleftx Your totally right, Arven should definitely be included. I'd love to be saying the same thing about Geeta and yet... Guess Cynthia remains on her throne for yet another generation. 🫡
17:19 agreed, the fact that you can't go into houses and interact with people, or talk to half of the NPCs kinda bothers me because that's part of the fun for me. I like hearing what the people have to say, discovering random trainers who want to trade or give you items and seeing what's inside buildings and there's almost none of that in Scarlet.
Personally I always hated it with a passion. I mean being able to go into the houses in itself IS good. But the fact that you actually HAD to go into every single house in the game and make sure that it's not a move re-learner or someone that teaches you TM's was extremely tedious and bothersome
The NPC dialog also felt more hollow to me; yes, the majority of NPCs rarely talked about anything besides liking Pokémon or giving a summary of their area, but there were always a few who had some character to them or had a line that impacted you in the moment. I felt virtually none of that in SV.
Es spotted
I know I always fall back on it because it was my first pokemon game but
Black and white, Nacrene city, a former railway warehouse complex that got converted into a little town
That is AMAZING world building. There weren't that many houses to go into but it would be incredible to see what they could do with modern hardware and that idea of towns with a story, instead of just "Yeah this basic European styled city has the (type) gym in it and that's it"
That was once a core component of the games progression, you had to find the NPC's that gave you the HM needed or randomly gives you one of the best TMs in the game. Use to be if you got stuck just talk to every ncp till you found what you needed
Pokémon gen 9:
do things in any order you want!
Also Pokémon gen 9:
Btw there’s a specific order to do this
It's almost like non-linearity takes aditional effort or something...
@@JuanLeon-oe6xe 🤨…
My high school Spanish teacher used to bribe the kids in order to boost their grades (starbucks gift cards and what not) so this storyline is actually quite relatable for only me and no one else. And I didn't even buy the game.
Wow. You know I never thought about it. The Gym Leader thing... They absolutely described the canon that gym leaders would use Pokémon to match the challenger... I mean when you think about it logically, not every trainer started in Pallet town. The fact they finally made a world where you could do them out of order, and they had not even considered this canon actually makes me a lot more upset than I thought I would be. I literally had to pause the video to write this.
It's especially egregious when rom hacks (pokemon crystal clear) have successfully executed the concept before
Even Katy comments on it saying that most people come to her gym first so the game basically tells you that potential was there in the first place
I don't know why it wasn't implemented better considering how quickly you can over level in the game.
It's also really dumb how wack the map is made regarding the intended order of things, which makes said intended order almost impossible to play without a guide since it involves looping around and back several times in a spiral pattern that makes no sense whatsoever.
But isn't there a canon reason. When the series first started out the badges would make it too where your pokemon would listen to you up to certain levels until you collected them all. Did they take that out after a certain game?
@@tonymarshall6848 the pokemon obey mechanic only disobeyed for traded mons, caught by you could obey no matter what, that changed this very gen
Nemona clearly makes reference that she is trying to train you up and is holding back.
This game would be at least twice as good if the speed of battle was increased by 3
They removed the option to disable battle effects, didn't they? That alone would have made battles faster.
I played FireRed on an emulator recently and used 2x speed. I would actually forget it was sped up because it felt like the way it should have been. This has always been a problem with this series
@@skeetsmcgrew3282 is it one of those John emulators?
@@hopelessamaturerougeofhope4399 uh mine is called MyBoy!, but there are many
@@skeetsmcgrew3282 Johnemulators are the best imo its awesome and simple
Friendly reminder, none of the other bosses had ever seen Penny. So even if the grunts mentioned a girl with red and blue hair they’d have no idea. They only first meet her at the end of the star fall story
Also, it doesn’t seem like they were outright bullying her. Just trying to get her to join team star so she “can shine bright”; they even have a quota apparently.
I know you mentioned skipping Legends: Arceus, but I think it's worth going back to play. Story-wise it's weaker than Scarlet/Violet, but mechanically it nails the whole "living in the world of Pokemon" that the latter games squandered. It really did feel like a the huge step forward the franchise needed.... and then Scarlet/Violet felt like two steps backwards.
Disagree. Arceus is nothing but a giant tech demo with bare bones content that tried to hide behind its catching mechanics.
@@shagohad3 I respect your unpopular opinion. I think Legends Arceus is overrated, but this is not to say it doesn't have some good qualities. I just don't think it's as good as some people make it out to be.
Its literally just pokemon snap with a different mechanic
Pla sucks
The dream of “I want these Pokémon to be able to live in harmony with the Pokémon of Today” makes more sense with the Scarlet Professor than the Violet one.
You know… since she’s all about the Past, so it’s like a Jurassic Park kind of deal.
It’s a terrible idea, but it still makes more sense to want dinosaurs to re-acclimate to modern-day nature than… f*cking robots.
After watching cutscenes, I kinda came to the conclusion that Scarlet was conceived first and Violet's future stuff feels like it was slapped in as an afterthought.
-The Paradox Pokemon in Scarlet, even if some of them are simple, all bring at least something new to the table. I can't say that for the Violet ones, where most of them are literally just robotic versions of the Pokemon with little to no creative alteration.
-The story just makes more sense with Scarlet, like you said it's a Jurassic Park deal.
-The biggest piece I have here is that if you watch cutscenes? They are almost definitely meant for Koraidon and not Miraidon. The entire cave sequence feels like the worst of it but overall they just didn't think through the differences they'd have to make for a robotic version of Koraidon and just kinda skimmed it over. This could've been a decision made for time but it really shows.
I’d say the professors went crazy, if you read a bunch of books scattered around the labs you’ll get that feeling about them. So you can explain Turo’s actions like that being due to his deteriorating mental condition. At first he probably didn’t want anything as grand as coexisting in the wild 🤷♂️
@@krysaltepsyr8134
Yeah seriously.
The dichotomy between Miraidon and Koraidon were especially Effed up, thanks to GF’s incompetence.
A) Miraidon represents the future, right? Machinery and electricity.
This is reflected in it’s design and sub-typing: Dragon/Electric
It’s ability, Hadron Engine, sets up Electric terrain… which further boosts the power of Electric Type moves on TOP of Miraidon’s STAB *and* the *inherent boost* its signature move, Electro Drift, gets from being used while on Electric Terrain.
B) Koraidon represents the past, so you’d think it would be about fossil fuels and perhaps even Solar Energy (given that it’s designed like a lizard with sails to soak up the Sun’s rays)…
BUT
It’s Ability, Orichalcum Pulse, sets up Sunny Day… which boosts Fire Type moves.
…and it’s Signature move, Collision Course, gets boosted when Sunny Day is active.
Hell, that move even sets Koraidon ablaze with flames when used.
So, why?
*Why the actual Hell…*
…is Koraidon and Collision Course…
*…FIGHTING Type?!?!?*
Jesus Christ.
We were *this close,* to having a perfect parallel between electric energy and fossil fuels… and GF EFFED it up!
There would’ve been a neat Gen 5 parallel too:
- Zekrom is a Physical attacking Electric Dragon, and Miraidon is Special.
- Reshiram is a Special attacking Fire Dragon type, and Koraidon is Physical.
The absolute… *incompetence.*
Just as bad as not giving Zamazenta access to Body Press.
not really turo could have the reason that we could see how the pokemon evolved to prevent negative changes or speed up the process
still messed up but theres certain more reasosada could also have had the reason of pulling them to the future to save them from disaster
@@krysaltepsyr8134. To me though it almost feels like violet is the version that came up first. The story of the ai being a robot, which just doesn’t work with the theme of the past, the you know, actual Time Machine and the theme of the deadbeat dad meshing more with Pokémon as a franchise. Sorta like how white&2 version, x version and sun/ultra version was written first
thank you for mentioning the souless, copy-paste nature of the towns
i havent heard anyone talking about how the towns are padded out through copy pasting the same 3 restaurants and 50 different clothing stores for each type
when i first arrived in mesagoza, i looked at each shop and i immediately knew they made seperate shops for each article of clothing so they could make the town bigger
and yet no one has seemed to notice it except for you, so i appreciate you bringing that matter to light
Can't see how much people are saying this is a upgrade I'm like this is a downgrade they left them there you can check inside the houses.
Bags and shoes being separate makes sense. There are stores irl that do it. When you only sell socks though, it's 100% padding at that point.
Internet Pitstop did an interesting video talking about the designs of Pokémon regions and how towns need to provide lore/be unique/have something to do. He mentioned how in Scarlet/Violet you basically can’t go in any of the buildings; there’s barely lore, or anything interesting anywhere. They’re like empty games.
There's three of the same type back to back in Mesagoza. Small indie company
I've seen a few other people mention it, usually alongside the fact that nothing in the cities can be entered except for the shops. Someone pointed out that it is probably why no one seems to remember any of the towns in Paldea - there's nothing to characterise them in our minds. They're nothing but a place to stop for a gym fight.
44:17 maybe I paused too soon, but Team Star never knew what their leader looked like until player defeats Penny. She organized them over phone as Cassiopeia, same as she did Operation Starfall.
They didn’t. And they stated this multiple times. This error is a result of him speeding through the dialogue and it shows.
Rest of the review is fine.
Area Zero gave me this moment of extremely bittersweet blue balls. Where it was almost like I was playing the really cool mind blowing Pokémon games I dreamed of as a kid. That it was so close. Like I almost had it.
Pretty much all the team star leaders beat you over the head with the fact that they have no idea what their leader looked like
I can't imagine if Turo fought us by punching us or pulling out a gun to be all that threatening when you have monsters
that eat lava, move faster than the speed of light, have psychic powers, shoot acid or something.
Like I'm imaging them pulling out a gun and Alakaza which has a 200% IQ just crunches it into a cube and the Turo's eyes
bug out.
Tbf it would depend on the Pokemon, their reaction time, specially the training they have and them understanding what a glock is.
I'd be up for a game where there's a conflict with people getting injuries from pokemons, doesn't need to go into a war story, but something where you can feel a bit more of threat from these creatures and the people who wield them.
@@xxvaltielxx1789 Most pokemon have a faster reaction time by this point, I mean he builds you up to be powerful and have fully evolved mons before going into the crater.
To be fair, releasing a Pokémon would take too long for them to defend you from AI Sada filling you with lead/shooting you with a gun. Thankfully, Game Freak has avoided this problem by simply not having guns exist in this world.
@@speedslider3913 so true , no time to grab and throw out a pokeball if someone is about to shoot another hole into your ass
It's how the trees and bushes still have a hint of a grid and transparent look, If you turn the camera the right angle.
It's the way the NPCs move twitchy, not smoothly whatsoever.
Going in and out of doors to buildings.
How empty the towns feel. Why are there so many food stores? And then so many empty buildings. Like they rushed through it but didn't want people to notice right away.
I like the camping and playing with pokemon.
I miss the other online players in the wild area like Sword&Shield.
And most of the new pokemon lack any creativity and imagination. I mean, there's a literal flamingo named Flamingo.
@@Snaxolotly Flamigo* like Amigo
So the takeaway here is:
*"Corporate greed can be forgiven as long as the overworked, underpaid developers and artists did a good enough job"*
Poor Gamefreak devs man, why can’t they just give them time 😕 I know they’re not the most competent devs ever but damn
Stop excusing gamefreak! The MADE this shit! And released it!
@@eirschu8973 they don’t make the release dates, TPCI does. Sure Gamefreak devs aren’t the best, but the main reason this game is like this is because they were rushed to do it
See No Mans Sky, see CyberPunk, people do not care if a release blows.Theyll act like testing and troubleshooting would be impossible without releasing said games in said state. They are not intelligent people.
@@eirschu8973 Listen, do you even have a job? Because if you think the developers can just turn to their boss and say "no thanks, I don't have the time" and then not get immediately fired and replaced, you need to graduate grade school. Gamefreak devs don't WANT to release messed up crap like SV, but they're not the ones who get to make these decisions, even if they do the work and know better.
To be fair to Arven and his squirrel. It's really weird that you have six pokemon before the first actual town.
I always assumed it was the robot who ended up loving arven and the actual parent lost their mind to whatever weird ass crystal magic permeated the area
Every other developer: making open world games for at least 10 years
GameFreak: fails to make a decent open world game
Fans: oh it's such a step in the right direction, they deserve some slack, here take more of my money and give me more nostalgia pls
I’m a new fan starting in around gen 7 and then I played gen 3 and 1 on my computer and they were nowhere near as good as scarlet and violet YOU are the one blinded by nostalgia (or u aren’t don’t want to cause a scene)
@Hypnotichypno they world's and stories were simpler than what violet sets out to be but they executed that simplicity much better. Whether you prefer simple and polished or ambitious and messy is up to you. Things have been refined mechanically and quality of life improvements have been made since the first entries but overall the games up until recently haven't changed all that much.
Every other developer: making barren wasteland "games" preocupied more with game-breaking bugs and microtransactions for at least 10 years
GameFreak: makes generic open world game no. Graham's number
Fans: Simping for the one-eyed edgelord with issues and the forced inclusion of the salary man.
Literally cream themselves over the shoehorned and down-throath shoved CANCER triger "reference" because now "crono" garbage is the Countdown (to Final Crisis) of videogames, literally everything wrong in the medium and connected to everything that sucks in said medium (because we "needed" said wrongs to be rubbed in our faces).
I think the idea with Nemona is that she’s so strong that she’s always holding back. Like, she loves to battle but she’s so much better than pretty much everyone that she handicaps herself (hence why she chose the starter weak to yours). Clavell even tells her before your first battle not to use her usual team because she’d wipe the floor with you. I think this is a good twist on the “fun” rival; she’s not incompetent (at least at battles), she just wants to have a good time instead of wiping the floor with every opponent she faces, so she holds back for all your battles until you’re a champion trainer too. She gets really excited when you win because this is the first time in a while that she’s thrown everything she had into a fight, so she doesn’t care that she lost. At least that’s how I interpreted her character
There's something deeply ironic about Nuzlocke players who make fun of her for not fielding a stronger team.
I’d like her a lot more if her actual team was good. If the premise of her character is that she’s constantly holding back because she’s just so good of a trainer, then why is her real no holds barred battle so easy? It just comes across as lazy. Nintendo just gave us hardest elite 4 in history with the Diamond and Pearl remakes. So they definitely know how to make hard pokemon teams. So why didn’t they take the opportunity to have Nemona become the new Cynthia in terms of difficulty?
(Edit)
Just to be clear, I do like her. I was just giving my biggest pet peeve about how Nintendo handled her from a battle design perspective. Nemona is actually my favourite character in the whole game.
@@AesirUnlimited Because the series is focused on children, and children are stupid, lack any ability to tell right from wrong, and need someone else to chew their food for them. Except that's not the case, culture just assumes that.
She kinda says as much during the end of her storyline when you unlock her room.
i've heard people claim that she admits to sandbagging and stating she regrets it some time during the post-game, but idk about the validity of that statement
Ghetsis actively tries to kill you and he still has less inappropriate relations with your character than the teachers in S/V
Black and white 1 & 2 had the most inpactful story and villains in the entire series. Nothing quite compares to peak gamefreak anymore.
@@falconlord7811 Unfortunately true. And we'll never ever see something remotely close or greater.
@@falconlord7811 Yeah, I really wanted a third installment in the Black & White series just to finish off the whole 'pokeballs are oppression and here are alternatives' thinking.
Hugh's and Bianca's storylines were also done well, at least in my opinion, and I liked the more active role of the gym leaders in their communities.
And the music! The gym variations in B&W2 were such a great little detail, as was the dynamic music in the towns where you could switch elements on and off. Like the piano and drum tracks in Accumula Town. Such a cool flourish.
What do you mean? There's only another student around
@@falconlord7811 I’m sorry but no, S/V story is in my opinion much better
I guess a little thing about the Professor. The Professor didnt want to the world to be overrun by Paradox pokemon. Area 0 was meant to be a walled off garden where no Pokemon could escape while they worked out the kinks with the paradox mons. The AI professor changes its mind after Iron Treads/Great Tusk escapes.
Since the professor/AI goals are for the pokemon to live together in harmony and since the professor sacrificed themselves to save Miradon/Koraidon, it isnt a stretch to assume he would have tried to shut off the machine if he was still alive. He just had a plan for everything other than being dead.
That's my understanding too. I never thought they were trying to bring the paradox mons over and just unleash them, they were gonna try to domesticate them (for lack of better wording) first. I actually think that was an issue with the more aggressive raidon, it was feral unlike the one we get, which the professor got when it was young and was able to domesticate it.
A shame. I was considering getting back into Pokemon with this, simply because I'm a sucker for open-world and character-creation/customization. But at the same time, I'm a casual that will never touch on the deeper aspects like PvP. So being informed of all the glaring issues, and the snideness of Nintendo almost never putting their games on sale... not happenin.
I actually really like the "your dad loved you" line, because I interpret it as one of two ways. The first is that the AI was lying to make Arven feel better and help him with the trauma of being fatherless in what way he can with his little amount of time. The other is that his dad did love him, but was just so socially inept or blinded by work that he didn't realise what he was doing to his son.
The line about how a time machine is more important than showering your son with attention just sounds 100% like sarcastic coping to me. No other way around that. I refuse to consider that they are actually implying Arven is serious in this and not just jokingly saying it to vent abit without creating a bad vibe or even worse, that he is right in saying that.
I like that interpretation but I think without voice acting to convey those emotions in the performance it's a real dropped ball if that's the intention. I can definitely see Arven's line being a sarcastic little quip but the writing doesnt make it clear at all.
Of course he is right. If we could make scientific marvels like time maschines by simply neglecting some children we would have much more neglected children. Thank god Arven understands that simple fact or we would be doomed if all children just whine that mommy or daddy did not spent enough time on them ... urgh get your prioritys straight. Thats why i hate children.
@@asimovvomisa4040 Nice bait.
@@DemonBlanka Yeah, the story would have been better with some voice acting. I don't even need random trainers to have voices, but atleast the more prominent characters like school staff, Nemona, Arven, Team Star, the Pokemon League and such.
@@percher4824 Bait ? I might have come of as sarcastic but i stand by my opinion. I hate children.
The Herba Mystica = HM realization then made me realize that the legendaries feel very much like drag bikes.
Dragon Bike = Drag Bike 🏍️
The saddest thing with Pokemon community is that it's identical with Star Wars, World of Wacraft's communities, the fans will eat anything game Freak throws at them, even if it's straight up dogshit or bricks they keep coming back and chewing, so all these bad games keep on going. Thank god we have rom hacks.
Nemona's speech about the beautiful nature is always really funny with the play-doh mountain on display, but mesagoza's intro cutscene is way funnier to me. It's always bustling with people... all three of them
I don't think the thing at the end did ruin it since Avren was like. "You can't just say that now [and expect me to believe it". And the professor is like "I guess you're right, I'm sorry". So yeah they did end still not liking each other
I like to think that the real turo was really that ass but that AI turo developed own thoughts and kinda feelings after spending so long around the christals (and after what happend to the real turo). So at the time we meet AI turo he is conflicted with Avren. He knows that what the professor did was fucked uped and he feels responsable to it but on the same hand he isn't the real turo and is stuck with this moral dilemma. Maybe him telling Avren that his Dad loved him is more like a projection of his own conflicted feelings as the copy of said dad and he wanted to give Avren closure before leaving avrens life just as the real turo did before. To be fair AI Turos reason to leave is way more reasonable than Real Turo so from his perspective it's the only small thing he can do for this Child that he loves just like his own.
This makes me also really feel for AI Turo here because looking at this he is also kinda a victim of the situation just as Avren and the only person still to blame is the real Turo.
I think a great plot point would've been Roboturo saying that, unlike the real Turo, it has come to love Arven as its son, but it's unsure whether the reason is dormant, suppressed affection from the real Turo or something it developed on its own. Making it open ended like this could be seen as lazy I guess but with how low the standards for Pokémon stories are and how it emphasizes playing your way I think going with your own head canon would make a lot of sense.
@@OmnimonX12345 having the robot explain that would make it have less punch tho...I like this semi-ambigious way they did it. If you look in this comment section, there are a handful of different theories on what that scene means, which personally is better then telling the player exactly what the character feels.
This is the first game where I didn't struggle at all for the Elite Four. Normally I have to grind and stock up on items, but it felt like normal trainer battles. I didn't think I grinded that much, but I guess my "catch everything I don't have and battle every trainer" philosophy worked
Why do people keep defending? Is it to avoid the shame of their purchase, to evade confronting the idea of a blemish in what they loved? To not squash their own hopes? Nothing about acknowledging current blunders removes the value of past triumphs, and failure to do so enables more of what we fear
44:04 I recall that Penny only ever interacted with the rest of Team Star online or over the phone like she does with us, hence why none of the Leaders can actually tell us who the Boss is.
Yeah, I was thinking that too. But the whole "film this for evidence" thing makes less sense if they haven't seen her lol. Unless they send it with the message of "oh btw, this is your boss losing this fight".
@@TheSaltFactoryshe did announce that shes the leader of team star right before fighting you
@@TheSaltFactory If it’s Cassiopeia sending it to them and saying “hey that’s me,” it adds quite a lot of credibility to her claim.
to me, the more fascinating thing about Pokemon Scarlet/Violet was that it clearly ran very poorly and there was still pokemon fans defending it. I wonder how many corners they could trim before those group of fans would be upset.
They could re-release Red and Blue for sixty dollars and the fans would still defend it.
@@hatefulgaming1800 Red and Blue and the rest of the mainline Game Boy Pokemon games were already the most expensive game boy virtual console games actually
I don’t think anyone is defending the performance issues, but rather trying to make sure Gamefreak knows that the direction they went in terms of open-world/story etc. is the correct path forwards.
I want more games like S/V I just also want them to actually work.
@@ghani666 Then you have the lowest of standards for this franchise going forward. Bugs or not, this whole thing is a first draft _at best_.
Good God, this is already worse than RWBY....
Nemona is basically that player who's playing on New Game +.
For anyone wondering, the credits song was sung by Ed Sheeran. Celestial
Would it be so bad to have our rival wipe the floor with us at the start? I mean if Nemona is as OP OP as everyone says she is, I think it'd be an effective introduction to the progression you're expected to achieve if she just rolls over you initially. Move the initial rival battle to further out in the game, maybe after the first gym or so. Give the player time to build confidence in themselves, just to have a reality check bring them back down to earth and realize "you aren't the chosen one...yet".
It just baffles me that the player is basically never allowed to lose a fight to progress the story forward (outside of the first rival battles lvl 5 v lvl 5 in many of the earlier games). Especially since you're still a kid in these games. What child never loses something at some point competitively? I mean, they're a kid. You aren't supposed to start out as some uber impressive person. That's part of the point of progression and getting that sweet sweet dopamine kick when you overcome someone who had been kicking your ass 30 hours earlier in the game. Its ok to have a scripted loss. As long as you aren't taking ALL the control away from the player and it's early enough to still make sense. Think about how much more effective Giovanni, or any team villain, could've been if in one of your initial encounters with them they absolutely destroy you. It just makes you finally overcoming them much more satsifying.
Bah, I just can't stand how little these games have seemingly changed over the years. Especially, as someone who was there for Red/Blue's initial US release as a 6 year old kid. We should've had a more open world based game concept since Gen 5, voice acting since Gen 6, actual decent performance just...Ever (if you're a genwunner, go back and play R/B. I promise you they are not what you remember), and an actual conherent story with a more living world since the move to the Switch.
I strongly dislike how much money this game has made. We should be telling Gamefreak, Nintendo, the Pokemon Company, etc that this isn't nearly a good enough effort when we can make so many negative comparisons to games that are approaching, if not already, 20 years old. All this money they make now is just telling them it's ok to make a subpar experience because people will buy it anyway. You may be missing out on what "fun" there is to be had here, which does exist, I'm not going to claim there isn't (tbf, I have not bought either Scarlet or Violet due to it's reception, my viewing of various let's plays/reviews) but try to think about just how much MORE fun you could have with something that fully realizes the potential the series has. Which, frankly, we haven't seen since Gen 5. Arguably, even earlier, depending on just how much of a pokemon boomer you are. And no, stating that they can patch out the issues is not an excuse. Patches should be for fixing unforseen issues and consequences that weren't initially caught in QA. You can't look at 5 minutes of these games without seeing some kind of graphical stuttering, pop ins, pop outs, etc. These are things that should've been ironed out prior to the game's release. Patches should be for things like Missingno not lag. Not that I fully disagree with anything that has been said here. Advancements have been made. I just think it's giving the game a little too much credit. Many of it's "advancements" are things we should've seen earlier, or have existed in previous well-established gaming series (that make significantly less money and have far less tenure than pokemon) for decades.
I agree with you 100% and to me it's sad reading some of the comments here trying to excuse this blatant disregard of the game's quality for the sake of more money. I appreciate people trying to find silver linings, but gamefreak and nintendo at large, don't deserve it. Not until they step up and treat their customers with the respect we deserve
You actually can lose the Nemona fights and the game will continue on.
@@coco101martin Ok, cool. But again, we've seen that in past gens too. And I didn't think they went far enough, even at the time. Don't get me wrong, I thought Blue was as effective of a rival as the next person but for all his "always being 1 step ahead of you", you're still expected to beat him in every encounter after the initial lvl 5 mirror match at the start of the game.
This is more of a criticism of the series as a whole, rather than Nemona specifically. I'd like to see the people we are told (or at least suggested by game events) to be extremely talented trainers actually beat us when we try to challenge them as some nobody.
I think the open world concept has such potential for a game with Pokemon's mechanics too. While specifics parts of the world of Scarlet and Violet are leveled higher than you may be when you arrive (depending on the order you do things), at the end of the day it's still fairly static; everything in an area is around the same level. There's an "expected order" you're meant to go in.
If trainers of various talent were more interspersed throughout the world (i.e., you're traveling through the first gym's town but there is a trainer there with a high leveled team you could end up challenging). The game would obviously fully let you know "hey, this guy is kinda a big deal. You sure you wanna do this?"
I think the best comparison I can make is from Xenoblade. Frankly, that entire series has built it's legacy off "random level 80 thing wandering around starter area beats the crap out of you, spurring you forward". Another example would be the Fel Reaver wandering around Hellfire Peninsula in the Burning Crusade expansion of WoW.
Showing the player where they can end up through their effort is a fantastic means of keeping them engaged while also providing a more realistic world. The first time I played through FF7 and was going through the flashback where Cloud and Sephiroth climb to the Mako Reactor and are attacked by a Dragon, we get a wonderful reality check as our own attacks (as Cloud) are completely ineffective. Just to see Sephiroth one shot the idiot with a basic attack. I was simulatenously impressed and intimidated by the display. And this was just random blocky pixalated nonsense back in the late 90s. It drives home just how much further you need to go, while also providing a goal post by which you eventually get that dopamine drip I mention in my original comment when you finally get to beat them.
Pokemon would benefit greatly from this concept. I don't want them to make EVERYTHING randomly overleveled. But properly distributed in logical ways where overconfidence is what gets you killed. Not randomly challenging a trainer you had no idea would be 30 levels higher than you. Its definitely a tightrope to balance. But a studio with the degree of money and talent (and don't get me wrong, they DO have talent. It's just not being used properly) such as Gamefreak should be able to pull this off. Especially, since we've seen them come so close in the past with the more effective rivals of earlier gens (even if they aren't perfect themselves).
@@dr.calamity2079 Idunno why you're blaming this on Nintendo, they didn't make the game, all they do is publish it.
@@Cute___E not blaming nintendo for this specifically. Ik gamefreak is to blame here, but remember the switch sports games?? Mario strikers, the wannabe wii sports, mario tennis, etc. All nintendo. Not to mention nintendo's terrible business practices like shutting down the wii u and 3ds stores with absolutely NO WAY to LEGALLY play said games at their original prices. If you wanted to go back and play fire emblem awakening you'd have to pay $100+ to some scalper rather than pay like $20 from the 3ds store and that's if you even have the console which for the wii u lots of people traded it in for a switch so that'd be about $100 for xenoblade chron. x plus like $500 for a half functioning wii u just to play 1 game. If you don't see this as a problem then cool, you're probably made of money and don't mind getting scammed, but I'm not made of money and I like to hold companies accountable for their actions or lack there of
21:36 the most infuriating part of the Tera Raid battles to me was when I came upon a 6 star Dragon Tera Type pokemon and, knowing I couldn’t do it with the AI, connected to the internet to take it on with other real people. The moment I did that the Tera cave disappeared completely. I checked the map and it turns out the game changes what battles are available based on if you’re connected to the internet. It bugged me because I didn’t remember ever being told that
It's not that it changes based on internet or not but updated when you connect to that days Tera rotation. Internet basically always updates to the most up to day rotations, you can mess with the clock and force a reset too
It's honestly just sad that Scarlet and Violet turned out to be the games that they are. They are honestly fun games, and it feels like the developers made an honest attempt to make a fun game with a decent amount of new and fresh mechanics... but it also highlights how either inept the developers are at making a stable game, or, and this is more likely, the people in charge need to change their mind about the release schedule of games (with them releasing 1 game a year), which doesn't give the developers enough time to work on any 1 game. This is sad, because, while this needs to change, I doubt the people in charge will ever change it. We will keep getting games like this. Maybe sometimes honestly good games, improvements from the last game, but will always have glaring flaws like Scarlet and Violet have.
As someone who fell off the franchise after Pokemon X/Y, the biggest issue I have with Pokemon nowadays is the increasing casualization of the games. Sure they werent really that difficult back then either but I remember times, especially throughout Pokemon Blue, where I struggled to win. And I had leveled my main pokemon Squirtle to max, winning every general fight normally. Beat the Top4 with no moves but a constant self hitting attack.
Then over time Pokemon got easier and easier, I started to get less interested only for Black and White to shove that difficulty right back into the games. Loved them. Then the game took a turn again. And around X and Y, which I still loved, I started to lose interest again. Only for the next game in the franchise to just not do it for me. I think I got up to the first big challenge, beat it and just stopped playing after. And there were multiple reasons for it.
It didnt feel like I was actually playing through a story, it was like I was playing through a sandbox game. There was a hurdle? Here have the solution to get past it. In BnW2 was the complete oposite for me. I struggled to even get back to my home town at the start which I needed to for some reason I dont remember. But I didnt have a bird pokemon despite being able to teach one to fly. So what am I gonna do now? Well, cant tell you, been too long since I played. Point is, there was a lot of problem solving and the player not handed the immediate solution back in the games. Sure, lots of running around and lots of easy puzzles just as much but they werent so... blatantly in your face as it feels like it is now.
And dont get me started on the "rivals" or rather as I call them "Buddies". I loved X and Ys dynamic. They werent really rivals yes, but they were friends trying to get each other to the top. It felt like a more friendship dynamic of friends supporting each other over just "I believe in you, you are great!".
My problem is there is basically no real content in this game because everything has been dumbed down. There are no longer cave s you have to find you way though to get to towns or a victory road. And team star is just spamming auto battles then facing a single battle instead of dozens of them like in the older games in the team bases and theres no puzzles or security systems in the base other teams had ways to keep you out aside from grunts. And the titans are just pretty much just raid battles. Theres no reason to explore or even battle trainers because you can just grind raids which will give you more exp and climb and fly over every thing with your legendary by just doing the titans first. If you compare it to the older games it feels like a completely diffrent game one feels like its actually a challenge to get to places and the other one you can just go there by flying and climbing over everything.
One of the only channels that no matter what I'm watching I change it to whatever new Salt video is out. Love this guy.
Symp
Bruh same. I love his humor. The first vid i ever saw of his waw the evaluating every pokemon storyline.
@@Brian_fooking_Ferry I simp for salt, no homo bro
To bad he's such a downer most of the time. I want to like his stuff more, as he's funny, but he rarely does anything but complain.
@@Trevor_NewJerusalem how strange, the TH-camr with the name Salt Factory has a propensity toward complaints. Wish there was some sort of, idk, indicator that they were a salty individual, so salty that it’s like his salt is being mass-produced…like a factory almost?
Oh wait
I was super impressed with the custom scripts mid pokémon battles until Nemona said I got a lucky crit after using Flower Trick, a move that *always* crits lmfao
It’s even funnier if she’s the one using Flower Trick: “I clinched that crit with just my determination to win!” Uh, no. That’s not how it works.
Pokémon, Nintendo, and Gamefreak will continue to push out shitty products until consumers decide they don’t want to buy it
"Wouldn't it be nice to have a difficulty setting."
Gamefreat, removes set mode option.
Very good video, I just have two points where I think I differ in understanding with Salt here:
1. I think it’s totally fine for Arven’s dad to be a neglectful workaholic and to also love his son. Sad as it is, neglectful and abusive parents can still believe they love their children. (Also Arven’s coping reaction after that meet is really depressing… like man buddy you need some therapy)
2. The running theory with the Paradox Pokemon is that they are in fact paradoxical to an extent. Like logically it doesn’t make sense for Pokémon to have evolved from or into these forms and their entries very clearly point to them being the imagined creations of tabloid magazines. What’s more likely to be happening is that the “time machine” is actually creating Pokémon based on the imaginations of the Professor and others who interact with the giant Tera Orb.
I think it makes sense that the "time machine" is more of a fabricator. It must have been all the science fiction novels I read as a kid (including one where a McGuffin was duplicated repeatedly by repeating time traveling backwards) but I can't imagine being able to throw a Pokeball through time and it expect it to land on something; even if it is a Master Ball. Also implying that it is possible the AI used a mascot Pokemon identical to your own just without your experiences.
Like, unless each time trip was in an alternate universe (i.e. Marvel's interpretation) every incursion into the past would invariably damage the present (See Millennium (1989 film)) and every incursion into the future, while possible to bring something back, might be erased if a major change happens and the loop isn't closed (Star Trek: Voyager, multiple episodes and possibly First Contact). Though I suppose with serious matters I would nitpick if it wasn't plausible?
Problem with Paradox Pokemon is that they existed before the Time Machine. They are described in the Scarlet/Violet Books way before its creation.
@@Ikouy I wasn't exactly responding to your comment but I'll stand by my comment. Also the Scarlet/Violet book was written 200 years before the events of Scarlet/Violet before the Professors were even born so how can a non-existent machine manufacture Pokemon from people who do not exist yet.
@@ionryful I rarely use TH-cam all that much, so I probably should of done a better job with that, so I deleted that comment.
In answer to that question, there are plenty of real life books passed along through the ages that document things that supposedly have existed.
If the time machine is just fabricating pokemon, then where did the professor go at the end?
The game feels very like Sonic 06 for me in the sense that there’s so much potential, but the fact it was rushed ended up hurting the final product. I’m worried that sooner or later Pokemon is going to release a game as infamous as Sonic 06 and severely hurt them moving forward.
It’s tragic that its probably going to take that to get some actual change.
i hope they Sonic 06 already, they've been failing upwards for too long and their army of simps isn't helping.
I would argue that it isn't the switch hardware that is to blame for the issues, but rushed development and poor optimization. My example of this is Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal, both of which were properly adjusted and optimized to run on the switch hardware. Both games run just as well as on my PS4/Xbox1, so the system definitely can handle the faster paced game play. The real crux of the problem is that Scarlet and Violet needed more time in the proverbial oven to be ready, but corporate interference forced them out the door half-baked.
, I remember growing up in the 90s.
Full games released. No updates, no dlc. What you got what was what you got. Games won or failed on their own without any extra anything.
Man I miss those days
Same here! DLC ruined video games for me. We shouldn't have to pay more than once for a game!
There were way less people playing games though
Guess bitching about linearity being "evil" did't pay off well huh...
"Best" we get is CANCER triger getting shoved down our troaths...
@@takemebacktothen Unless it's about the influx of dbztards who came from nowhere and demanded CANCER triger being paraded over the entire videogame industry's corpse, I literally don't see what you're trying to say.
Personally, I like the more serious teams with evil motives more than the ones we've been getting the last few generations.
These new villains aren't even villains.
Just school bullies because you can't have actual rivals or enemies anymore in the pansy era. I'll stick to the original games back when the developers actually had a spine and a passion for the games they were making.
I agree. Pokemon really was more "mature" in past generations, it has become very sugarcoated now for seemingly no reason at all. It's not just the villains, it's the whole story and setup.
@@LunaticKD1991 their not school bullies, they started team star because THEY were being bullied themselves.
Yeah, they're good in their own way, but nothing beats a seriously intimidating evil team like Galactic or Plasma.
Right? Team Skull was really cool because it was the first time we got a goofy group of villains, but then it fell off hard with Team Yell, and even though Team Star is an improvement, having yet another non-evil villain for the 3rd time is starting to feel a bit dragged out.
"it isn't about the world ending... Or ancient legendary pokemon being unleashed"
Game's ending: Literally involves TIME TRAVEL about unleashing extremely powerful pokemon that would ruin their world.
In all fairness he did say that he writes his scripts as he plays the games so he didn’t know yet.
Ending was still undermining and anticlimactic. Pretty cutscenes without proper character development and plot does not define a great story.
The only cool things about it was an A.I. Professor and that’s it. The Time Traveling itself wasn’t even incorporated, just used as a background trope to “explain” what is happening without being immersed, the latter of which I wanted.
@@Redster3 Hopefully we get to explore past and future Paldea in the DLC. I would love to see the story be way more ambitious
I find it a little ambiguous how much the AI was echoing the professor and how much it was just a better person than the professor. Also it feels realistic to me that maybe the professor did care about Arven, just not as much as they cared about work. Which firstly puts them in the completely terrible parent category, just also human too.
And as for Arven's reaction, it also feels realistic to me. He's rationalizing stuff, and his parent's dead and he just found out and usually people focus on the good stuff right after someone they know dies. Granted they could've done a better job portraying that. Maybe some postgame stuff where he goes back on that conclusion a bit because he's still hurt. But idk. I kinda like to interpret it as messy complicated emotions
The Elite Four in this gen basically wanted to have the " cuck section " and that is funny enough for me to forgive the laziness of a single Elite Four arena
They never saw Penny irl (she was a shut-in from her bullying) and didn’t know what she looked like until she revealed herself to you
Actually thinking on it, if they made nemona challenge you at the start at each gym alongside scaling gyms, you could have nemona be the hint about how strong the gym will be this time.
Honestly, I think scarlet and violet arent actually something gamefreak made after arceus released, I think actually what happened is that someone at the pokemon company decided to split development to sell more games in a pretty late cycle, and so they had to scramble what to include and what to leave out.
Arven's story for sure is the most interesting plot points in the game. I hope that Game Freak continues to include more stories like this. I just wished that the game would have run smoother, but I guess we have to wait for the next-gen Switch whenever that may be.
Such a hard game to properly put into words on why it's enjoyable in spite of so many glaring issues. My favorite game since Platinum and I feel conflicted to recommend it to others because it just fails in so many ways a $60 game should never struggle with
It’s fucking dreadful
there’s this thing gamers fail to grasp where technical competency is not the be-all-end-all of artistic success. it’s why bands who sloppily banged out 3-chord songs changed music while bands like dream theater with virtuoso talent have maybe 4 listenable songs
@@familyguyfreemoviedownload8314
There’s this thing self-respecting consumers understand where higher pricing begets higher standards. If your product is lacking in quality, polish, and/or content, you shouldn’t ask for a premium 60 dollars 🙃
@@Sakaki98 I mean you can write demeaning sarcastic comments all you want, but at the end of the day, people LOVE this game, and I don't just mean a small minority.
I think you and that other guy are both right, but the way you wrote it makes you sound like you're coping SUPER hard right now.
Platinum is outstanding. I can name 3 other top tier entries. But S/V second best?? No fuggin way
Scarlet/Violet get even worse when you compare it to Legends Arceus. A game that came out in the same year.
There's so many features/improvements missing from that game, it's far more stable, etc.
A lot of things that also receive a compliment in SV are things brought from Legends Arceus.
While Legends sold well as an individual game, because it was the only mainline game to not have a dual release so you could've fully completed it without online trading, it actually has what people perceive as the lowest sale release of the Pokemon games on Switch. The lower the reception, the higher the sales with this series.
Knowing that Miraidon is just a future form of Cyclizar made me feel like it really wasn’t a legendary..
i miss the 3d style that X and Y had. The newer ones just look too weird.
I love the horror in your voice as you state the fact that even tho the games got shat on they still sold better than anything in the franchise xD
Yeah I'm part of that problem. I'm almost over 100 hours in and genuinely had a great time. Can't defend the performance jank, but it didn't affect me as much. I assume that makes me a casual/normie
@@matttran7161 not at all my dude, it’s important to have a personal opinion. I never played it so maybe I’ll give it a shot!
@Its Not Bloodborne maybe wait for more patches and the game hits $45ish if you're apprehensive. Otherwise give it a shot. I'm actively looking forward to the DLC
@@matttran7161 That’s most fans thoughts on Scarlet & Violet in a nutshell. A great game with a great story unfortunately wrapped in a thick veil of glitches.
I bought mine used. I still think of myself as part of the problem.
“Long overdue micro-improvement” literally describes every positive aspect of these games I think. Meanwhile “horribly developed bug-fest full of poor design decisions from both artistic and gameplay standpoints” describes everything else about these games, BDSP, and SWSH
My main problem with Scarlet and Violet (in relation to Legends Arceus) is that they had been released n the wrong order: Leyends introduced a lot of gameplay innovations that changed and sped up the turn based combat, like the impulses or de direct capture, but Scarlet and Violet don't have them, so they feel outdated and slow in comparison. If they had released Leyends after SV they would have more time to develop it and it would have made SV seem fresher
To the ageists saying "kid's game." Don't children deserve to feel accomplishment when beating a Cynthia level difficulty boss?
Weird I see no children playing the VCG tournaments nor I see children playing at pokemon tcg tournaments. Weird,it's almost like their every action points to a game made for adults and people invent the children narrative because the game looks cute? I guess according to them Doki Doki Literature Club is also for children.
I actually enjoyed that Turo bot said that his dad loved his son. For me it serves to show that he is an even worse person than somone who simply didn't care. Rather than not acknowledging his son and his son's needs, he instead CHOSE to prioritize his work, trading Arven's well being. It is not simply sociopathy, he decided that his son mattered less than his work, despite his love for his son. It also forced Arven to say goodbye to his father three times, the first being when his father chose his work over his son, the second being when he found out his father was dead, and the third being with Turo bot leaving. Him being okay after that shows his character's resolve in the face of something so terrible. And the three of us being there for him and his doggo becomes all the more meaningful to Arven after losing his dad so many times. I didn't like Arven as much as the other two, but I think his story was great and Turo bot leaving was the cherry on top.
Edit: I took what Arven said about his father at the end as partially sarcastic and partially him justifying his father's actions so that he could move on with his life.