So yeah, it's been a while since I updated you guys on Pokemon Scarlet & Violet, and that's mostly... there's really not a whole ton to say about my Scarlet playthrough, which itself has been a bit on-and-off thanks to me playing Persona 5. In order, I beat Ryme, Grusha, Ortega, Eri and Tulip. My Arctibax became a Baxcalibur. I bought a whole ton of Quick Balls. While watching Kamen Rider Geats, which I've been really enjoying, I did a bunch of the classes and unlocked some of the quick travel locations.
My party for this playthrough (Meowscarada, Toedscruel, Tinkaton, Houndstone, Baxcalibur and Espathra) isn't the most well-balanced, either, which admittedly makes it a bit more challenging. Not by much, I think the Eri fight is the only one I had to repeat because I forgot the Starmobiles don't have the Steel-type of the regular Revavroom and are just a singular type.
It's not until this point that I decided to teach my Pokemon some moves with the TM's, because the coverage of most of my party (other than Meowscarada, Tinkaton and Baxcalibur) is pretty terrible. Greavard gets the elemental fangs, Toedscruel gets Sludge Bomb and Earth Power, and Espathra... well, she's a team mascot I guess. Her movepool kind of sucks.
And... there's really not too much to say, y'know? These battles are neat but it's also basically the same thing we've seen in my Violet playthrough, which is probably why it took some time for me to go through a lot of them. Replaying a game back to back, especially when I'm also playing another interesting game? Yeah.
Anyway, with the lesser challenges done, I go off to do the final battles, going from Penny to Arven to the final Elite Four/Champion sequence and... it's... it's a bit harder, because my party is a bit more underlevelled this time around. Less grinding and all that. Though... again, I really don't have too much to say here. Hassel's a lot easier with Tinkaton and Baxcalibur, and it's Poppy that gave me a bit more of a trouble this time around since the only anti-Steel Pokemon I have is Toedscruel's Earth Power. Geeta's still underwhelming, though admittedly I already know exactly the party she's going to bring.
Then it's Area Zero time.
And finally we're here for Area Zero in Scarlet! Love the music here, and, of course, we've got a bunch of new Paradox Pokemon. The big bad reason why the two versions this time around feels different enough! Replacing the Iron Bundle is the prehistoric version of Jigglypuff, Scream Tail... and... no offense to Delibird fans, but I do think Penny's reaction to Jigglypuff and Scream Tail makes more sense as 'it's so cute' than Delibird. I do like prehistoric Jigglypuff, it's got a funny Mega-Mewtwo-Y ponytail. Not my favourite prehistoric Paradox, but I do understand that there's a couple that's meant to be more comedic than threatening. It's Fairy/Psychic for some reason. Or I guess the Mega Mewtwo Y callback is that very reason? I thought she looked a bit more of a Fairy/Fighting or even Fairy/Dragon with those fangs and whatnot?
Another one that appears in the overworld (so taking the place of... Iron Jugulis?) is the Flutter Mane, the prehistoric Misdreavus. At this point in time I already know what all the prehistoric Paradoxes look, but I do find it fun to meet them in the overworld. In particular, Flutter Mane doesn't really feel like a 'prehistoric' variant to me, but rather more of what a Misdreavus evolution would look like if it didn't gain the 'witch' theme of Mismagius but just remained... well, a ghost-lady with flowing hair or something.
I also found a shiny Garganacl while walking around the cave segments of Area Zero! I already used this giant salt golem in Violet so I'm not going to use one in this playthrough. I called mine Pyramid, because the colouration looks very sandy instead of salty. Pretty surprising, and I honestly thought it's just the weird lighting in Area Zero's subterranean caverns!
Taking the place of Iron Hands as the multiple Paradox Pokemon that appeared from the laboratory is Brute Bonnet, the prehistoric Amoonguss, with a monstrous chompy mouth, some rather ugly-looking hanging moss thing, and a quadrupedal feet? Okay, that one wasn't super-clear from the online images. I really don't care much for this. It's more interesting than the regular Amoonguss, anyway. It's Grass/Dark, which isn't the most exciting type combination either.
A.I. Sada is as odd as I thought she would be, since none of the dialogue about futuristic A.I. robots or whatnot are changed. It's a bit less cohesive compared to when it's Professor Turo. The boss fight, on the other hand, is much more different than Geeta or anything that came before, since she has a full party of past Paradox Pokemon.
Most interesting is Slither Wing, which is like the past version of Volcarona, making both Volcarona and Donphan the only Pokemon to hat both a past and a future Paradox version. And where most online sprites and the official artwork showed the Slither Wing on all fours, it's actually standing on two legs like a weird yeti! Or, with the tail on the back, like a kaiju monster? That makes the Bug/Fighting typing so much more sense. I do wonder if the Slither Wing is more of a prehistoric version of Larvesta instead? It looks a bit like if Volcarona retained a bit more of Larvesta's qualities.
The victor of the "what the fuck" prize is still Sandy Shocks, or prehistoric Magneton. This is apparently what the tripartite magnet Pokemon looked like in the past? With two of the magnets pointed downwards like some kind of psychotic legs, and the central Magnemite having like eye makeup, an angry mouth and a shogun-style topknot made up of iron shavings? And it's got a tail and spinosaur-esque spikes and shit? You know, Magneton is one of the last Pokemon I thought would be shortlisted for a past paradox form, least of all one that looked like this! It's so fucking weird, and out of all the Pokemon in Paldea this is one that I really don't know how I'm going to review when I get to him.
A.I. Sada's ace, the equivalent to Iron valiant, is Roaring Moon. I love that prehistoric Salamence is basically Mega Salamence, but with a cooler dragon body and a more feathered wings, and I also like that it's got Bagon's hard-headed armour on its forehead. I actually do like this. A lot of the complaints I think people have about Salamence is how stiff and toylike his proportions and legs look, and that's I think a valid complaint for a lot of the Generation III-IV-era dragons.
It's also Dragon/Dark, which I thought is kinda weird, but I guess it does kind of sorta lead to the modern-day Salamencce being an 'achievement' of its dream of flying?
I don't have a whole ton to say about the Koraidon fight. I tried my best to not Terastralize because of my disdain for this gimmicky phenomenon, but apparently Koraidon will always stick with 1 HP. And at around the time the enemy Koraidon goes to the red, the game just automatically takes the turn for me and forces Koraidon to Terastralize and use Tera Blast to take out the enemy Koraidon. Anyway, the story basically is more or less the same as the Violet climax, just with 'mom' substituted for 'dad' in all the dialogue. Still a pretty good story all around, and unlike Starfall Street it has just the right amount of dialogue to not drag.
Anyway, that's the finale of Scarlet, and... there's not really much to say. I still like the story a lot, although I do also concede to the fact that this game does have a lot of dialogue sequestered into super-long cutscene sequences. Still pretty fun to explore Paldea again.
Random Notes:
- One thing that I'm not a big fan of? The fact that practically every single trainer is just a 'Student'. I really do feel like it saps a lot of the variety among the trainers that we fight, because now all trainers just draw their pool from a grab-bag of random Pokemon, whereas in the past we've got, like, Bug Catchers that catch bugs, or PokeManiacs with kaiju-aesthetic Pokemon, or Breeders with a full party of non-evolved Pokemon, or Ruin Maniacs with Baltoys and Sigilyphs... I know some of the trainer classes are a bit crusty, but I feel like there's a way to make them more varied instead of sapping any kind of differences between different trainers.
- One of the new patches restores some of the old functionality they were able to do in the Game Boy Advance, like moving items in the box and generally makes box management a lot less miserable.
- Okay, the Alfornada Gym's challenge is dreadfully annoying to play through.
- I did do the classes, and... I like that they give the teachers a lot more personality, but doing literally all of them in one shot is pretty tiring, too. I watched Ninja Turtle episodes while button-mashing, and I did get to see some of the responses I purposefully got wrong.
- I know there's like, relatively recent Pokemon news about the DLC. My quick response... the random Momotaro festival just feels rather out of place and none of the new Pokemon they're introducing is appealing. The Area Zero related DLC is obviously the more interesting one, and while I'm not the biggest fan of Terapagos's design, it's a whole lot better than the first DLC.
- I know we've got two Paradox event Pokemon, but I still have to figure out how to get them and whether I need to pay for the damned subscription to access the raids. If I do get those two, I'll probably cover them with the Team Star rematches that I have yet to do on my Violet save file.
- Purchasing the DLC or pre-ordering it or whatever allows for like some extra outfits, but I really don't care to do that right now.
- Oh, and also, Koraidon is probably one of the few Pokemon to pull off the 'giant Terastralize totem on your head' and look good because it already has an elaborate set of head feathers that the dragon totem sits in nicely.
- Also did a bunch of the gym leader rematches and classes. Not much to say about those that I haven't said the first time around.
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