Pokémon Games Discussion Thread (Gotta Discuss 'Em All!)

[Tired Tyres]

I'm playing on the original Switch through my TV and yes there are frame rate issues, but they are quite okay for me. It's turn based battling so it doesn't need 60 FPS.

 

[Blitz24]

Which I'm perfectly okay with, since it means you can't just win by over leveling a single team and brute forcing your way through gym battles. The way that progression is gated in this game really does make sense for an open world environment without discouraging from just wandering off to go explore and have fun.

If I understand this correctly, you can still overlevel a team and win as the obeying aspect only refers to those caught above the gated level.

 

[EngieDiesel]

If I understand this correctly, you can still overlevel a team and win as the obeying aspect only refers to those caught above the gated level.

I noticed that was worded differently than before and it had me wondering. Though to be honest I wasn't going to risk making any of my favorite travel buddies unusable to find out, as up until now it's always been "this feral animal will now ignore you and allow itself to be injured, because you don't have enough of the abstract man-made objects that it somehow understands the significance of"*. And frankly there's no real need to be overleveled anyway as you're not really limited in selection anymore, just your ability to actually get them worn down enough to catch before they do a heckin' murder on your crew.

*yes I know why it works like that, but the logic behind it always felt really silly and contrived to me.

 

[Tired Tyres]

If I understand this correctly, you can still overlevel a team and win as the obeying aspect only refers to those caught above the gated level.

Yep. I had no trouble with starter or traded Pokémon but I caught a Dragonair at level 54 early when my team was 30+. I couldn't use it until 7 gym badges.

 

[ImaRobot]

If I understand this correctly, you can still overlevel a team and win as the obeying aspect only refers to those caught above the gated level.

Yeah was wondering about that, because I'm only two Gyms in and my pokemon are level 40. First gym told me pokemon up to level 20(25 maybe?) will now obey me, but I was already right around or above that when I was battling, and havent had any issues. Havent even got to the next stage for that yet and they still obey just fine.

Really loving the new Tentacruel variation, Toadscruel. Kinda was whatever about it at first but the design grew on me.

 

[EngieDiesel]

It does make sense now that I think about it, given that the only real restrictions on exploring are geographical and even most of those can be overcome before you get all of the Very Good Boy's mobility options. I just went in initially with the presumption that it'd be like Fallout or Elder Scrolls games where you can wander far afield from the start if you want to, but you'll get your tail thoroughly stomped if you don't follow the "logical" story progression the designers wanted you to. Obviously I was all wrong about that, which is a good thing really!

Also, word of warning: make sure to look up if you go into a populated cave, because things can be up on the roof and they can jump down on your head unexpectedly. And that thing will usually be a Salandit. Because Salandits are jerks.

 

[Com Fox]

It really is interesting how the game encourages you to use all those Pokemon you catch simply by dramatically slowing down your ability to level them compared to earlier games. Five gym badges later I'm only allowed to get them up to level 45, and actually getting them there without burning a small mountain of XP Candies is quite the commitment. Even sending them off into rampages with auto battling doesn't make it any faster because the XP yield is a lot less than if you take on battles manually. I don't mind though, it makes me feel like I'm actually training them now, rather than just dragging their stats up to a usable state. I really do like that they kept the Legends mechanic of being able to change up a Pokemon's moveset while in the field too, that's been helping quite a bit in ensuring nobody ends up being a boat anchor.

Also, I discovered earlier that in the town with the Water type gym, you can buy Guy-Manuel's Daft Punk helmet for your character to wear. They don't even try to disguise what it is (other than calling it the "Cool Helmet"), which is pretty amusing.

I never had this at all, I did the Grass Gym and then veered Left throughout my entire game so far only now heading north and I'm constantly overleveled. My Team are now on Lv. 59 and nothing else in the game beats that until I get to the final bosses of the story arcs and I might just surpass them by that point too. Very little grinding involved, I wish I can turn the EXP. Share off

I'm starting to wonder if it's a case of heavily used pre-pandemic Switches struggling under the weight of a game that's pushing the hardware more than most first party games do

I highly doubt it's pushing hardware more than other Switch games (even some Third Parties) and is just poor optimisation. Pokémon has never been good at doing a 3D game mechanically and are at the point they have to keep churring them out.

I'm being a very negative but I will say I'm having some fun with this and ever moment Im loving Cycliar and the QoL improvements are top notch, I'm liking this more than the other Switch Pokémon games (though it isnt hard to beat BDSP and Arceus) but I doubt I'll ever go back to this one for a full playthrough. I think the other Pokémon games are still much better.

 

[Tired Tyres]

I'm finding the game still engaging my attention after beating the E4. Just going from place to place adding new Pokémon to the Dex.

I'm glad you can't turn ex. Share off. I've never switched it off since it became a thing. It never gives more than 75% to none battling anyway. I've never ended with an overpowered team. It just a case of only doing trainer battles and only fighting wild Pokémon if they are new.

 

[Com Fox]

I'm finding the game still engaging my attention after beating the E4. Just going from place to place adding new Pokémon to the Dex.

I'm glad you can't turn ex. Share off. I've never switched it off since it became a thing. It never gives more than 75% to none battling anyway. I've never ended with an overpowered team. It just a case of only doing trainer battles and only fighting wild Pokémon if they are new.

It's an option, I don't see how removing an option is a good thing... I don't mind EXP Share being a thing in general but in the 3DS games you could have the option to not have it. If you want EXP Share, go ahead, if you don't want it, turn it off. It's not even a case of kids won't know how to turn it on because when you get it in the 3DS games it turns on by default and you have to go out of your way to turn it off.

The issue isn't EXP Share is a thing, it's the fact GF are insistent on removing options

Interesting claim because I never had a time with EXP Share where I'm not overpowered, however another thing I don't like with EXP. Share is its not as rewarding to level up Pokémon or getting them to evolve because you don't spend as much time with them. I enjoy using and working hard on my team and the EXP Share removes it by having it automated, I totally understand why people don't like all that grinding but that's why having as an option is really good

 

[EngieDiesel]

It's an option, I don't see how removing an option is a good thing... I don't mind EXP Share being a thing in general but in the 3DS games you could have the option to not have it. If you want EXP Share, go ahead, if you don't want it,

Considering you have immediate and unrestricted access to your boxes now, if you don't want a Pokemon getting shared experience you can just pull them out of your party until the moment you want to use them. I could understand it being an issue when you had to schlep all the way back to town to change out your crew but unless you're for some reason highly adverse to doing some menu shuffling, it's really the minorest of inconveniences now.

And to be honest, the way these games shower you with EV boosting items when you complete Tera raids and let you just buy nature-changing mints, you can pretty much just build a Pokemon from the ground up if you want to.

 

[Com Fox]

Considering you have immediate and unrestricted access to your boxes now, if you don't want a Pokemon getting shared experience you can just pull them out of your party until the moment you want to use them. I could understand it being an issue when you had to schlep all the way back to town to change out your crew but unless you're for some reason highly adverse to doing some menu shuffling, it's really the minorest of inconveniences now.

That has always been a very poor justification when you have trainers with multiple Pokémon you want to Switch into. Especially with the boss battles in the game, unless you were soloing every trainer battle which is a ridiculous hassle and goes against the point of having a Team in the first place even when you arent going into it blind, you have to deal with this EXP Share mechanic. It's more conventional to just have the option to turn it off

And to be honest, the way these games shower you with EV boosting items when you complete Tera raids and let you just buy nature-changing mints, you can pretty much just build a Pokemon from the ground up if you want to.

That doesn't have much to do with the point

 

[Com Fox]

After playing through a lot of the game, I have my final thoughts of Scarlet and Violet.

Overall this had potential to be a really good game, there is a lot of amazing ideas put in and if you look at the ideas alone, it looks like a very promising game, hell, I had really low expectations going in and enjoyed it more than I thought it would.

However this game suffers from really horrible execution of said ideas, more than just the performance issues everyone mentions.

• Quality of Life improvements are amazing, every Pokémon I got on Scarlet are competitive ready in no time flat (apart from EV Removing Berry grinding for my in game team, that takes awhile). However, you can only use it in PvP, there is no Battle Facility to speak of. Honestly if we had a Battle Frontier with these Quality of Life additions, this game would have a tone of replayability but as of now, I find it really hard to keep going apart from Shiny Hunting
• All 3 stories conceptually are great but the characters themselves and dialogue for interactions as well as their gameplay hamper it, you start to notice this when you aren't playing it blind so you pay attention to the execution and apart from the Titan storyline which stays well done and wholesome, they just fall apart. Victory Road storyline of your Rival already being a Champion and wants you to get to her level is great but She just plays like another Hop and Hau rival battle which goes completely against what the story is trying to tell you, she doesn't even change her team for the final battle which is a missed opportunity to get us to feel like she's actually going all out. Team Star storyline also falls victim, an evil team that isn't actually evil and are nothing more but rumours to put a message about bullying is a great idea, however, when you are introduced to them you see a bunch of grunts actually bullying somebody so it comes across less like a rumour and more of a bait and switch and having the leader be a mystery until the end feels like we couldn't have enough interaction between them and the Team Star bosses.
• There really isn't anything to the Open World apart from finding Pokémon or Items, I think exploring the smaller but highly dense areas of the older Pokémon games was a lot more fun than the Open World in Scarlet. Also since Pokémon spawn in a lot of places you can't do things like Bagon in Meteor Falls of the Hoenn Games, there is actually a place in the game that exclusively spawns Larvitar/Bagon (depending on version) but it isn't special when you can find them literally anywhere else so they can't stand out. This is especially true with Towns getting a massive downgrade to be nothing more than Shops and Gyms, the Towns are far less interesting than in other Pokémon games, there's one Town between the Electric Gym and the Poison Star Base that I'm very confused what even is its purpose as all their is, is an unused Battle Court, a Pokémon Center, and 1 Shop...

Overall, I did enjoy this a lot more than any of the other Pokémon Switch games but compared to the older games, even X and Y. It feels very lacking due to bad executions of really good ideas.