Pokémon Violet (2022)

I played through the Teal Mask DLC, and I gotta say, I'm really quite impressed with it. When Game Freak is given a chance to actually write dramatic stories with characters that can emote, they do a really great job with it. I'm not gonna say it's pushing for all-time best RPG or anything, but it's definitely a high point in the series.

Generally speaking, I find Pokemon as a series really excels when they can dive deeper into mythology and sci-fi stuff, and that makes sense because that stuff has always been there. A core draw of the series is how you have this quaint, perfect little world with mad science, deities, organized crime and mini cataclysms all kinds happening in the background. When you're given a chance to peak behind the curtain - Distortion World, Ultra Space, Area Zero, etc. - it's like you're seeing the unseen. It's really cool stuff.

Framing a Pokemon story around a local legend and having supporting characters with stakes and motivations is really interesting stuff! Carmine and Kieran are some of the best-written characters I've seen in a Nintendo game, and they're allowed to feel anger and sadness and experience conflict without crossing the line from family friendly to grimdark. And that's a hard balancing act - Pokemon, as a series, tends to keep its writing SO safe that it becomes boring. Gen 5 bucked that trend, then we had Gens 6 and 7 take a step back while still retaining a few cool moments, and then Gen 8 was a series low for writing and scenario. Gen 9, on the whole, is some of the best the series has seen.

I dunno man, people love to shit on Gen 9 for its technical issues, and while all that is definitely valid - and I feel the DLC consistently runs better than the base game, interestingly - there's so much here done right that it makes me optimistic for the future of the series, especially now that they are taking longer between games to ensure a level of polish.

I've been replaying this one to try and get to the event Pokemon distribution running from the 20th to 27th, and I'm kinda surprised at how well this game has held up since playing it at launch.

So long story short, in this new era of Pokemon games having DLC instead of an enhanced third version, I tend to get the game at launch, sell it when I'm done, and then buy the opposite version with the DLC on the cart later down the road. So I beat Scarlet, but now I'm trying to play through Violet to unlock the Iron Leaves distro.

I don't think there's been more whining about a Pokemon game than with this one, and honestly, I find a lot of the reasons to be petty and juvenile... The complaints about graphics and performance are 100% valid. A series with this kind of money behind it really deserves better. But even in that regard, it does improve on Sword/Shield in some ways... One thing I really, really like is how Pokemon have texture to their skin/fur now. In SwSh, they all look like plastic, it's so shitty-looking. But here, Arbok has visible scales and Emboar has distinct fur. Really nice touch, and a big improvement. But the moaning about "Dexit" (not having the full roster) and many other commonly cited issues of this game are just... Ridiculous? If you can't find 6 Pokemon out of a roster of 400 that you would like to use, that's a skill issue. Steamrolling the game with your lvl 100 Salamence from when you were 8 is not a good time. Use something different! Yikerinos.

The structure of the game is fantastic though. I can't say enough how much I love the "one event for every type" structure split between 8 gyms, 5 titans and 5 enemy bases. I do agree with the criticism that all of these should have level scaling so you can do them in any order, but I really enjoy the variety and depth of the content here, in addition to all the roaming Pokemon and QoL improvements.

In terms of criticisms? Terrible performance and piss-poor environment graphics aside, I really don't like the forces "gym challenges", as they are neither fun or deep and always feel like a waste of time. The degree to which you're frankly assaulted by far too many annoying characters interrupting your progress to dump tons of dialogue about absolutely nothing... That can go, too. I understand the performance issues to a degree, dev time was limited. But if we're gonna have all these NPC events, can we at least give them a strong story to work with instead of spouting nonsense about nothing??? The story DOES have some really strong points, but the amount of crap in this game... Yikes.

Still. This is legitimately one of the better Pokemon gens, and even rushing through this game is a good time. A massive improvement over the atrocity that is Sword/Shield, and I've been really enjoying the revisit. I'm excited to see what the DLC has in store!

Sometimes, I get this urge to get really into Pokemon: train a balanced, diverse, and powerful set of monsters, and maybe even complete the Pokedex. I think there are really some cool designs out there, and there are interesting combination of abilities and moves that could be made. For some reason, this urge disappears after around ten minutes of playing this game.

A friend and I did the Samurott raid. It was a little challenging, and that made it fun. Big fan of the sunny day and solar beam combo. Reminds me of when I was a child and all I wanted to do was use Venusaur's solar beam.

I rolled off of these games with the same feeling I had with Sun & Moon. I put Moon down 3 trials in and it took me 2 years to go back. With these I at least got to the endgame. I'm wondering if I am just outgrowing the series? Sword and Shield were great games to me, but they coincided with my goal to get a living dex. Now I have little interest in updating it.

All of that being said, how have people felt about the DLC? I really loved both DLCs for Sword and Shield but I was still actively playing when those came out.