Just weeks away from launch, we've got pressing questions
A new Pokémon Generation comes about as frequently as Summer Olympics or major elections, and for us living the Nintendo life, it’s way more important. With Generation IX comes new games, new Pokémon, new mechanics, and a whole lot of speculation surrounding one of the world’s biggest gaming franchises.
Yet now that we’re a solid month and change away from the release of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, we found we had many questions that haven’t been answered in one of The Pokémon Company’s many YouTube video drops or Pokémon Presents showcases.
While leaks and Pokémon go together like Plusle and Minun, throughout Twitter and other Internet communities, some of these questions have been both answered...and promptly contradicted, so until we’ve gotten official word from Game Freak and The Pokémon Company themselves, we’re going to posit these questions until we get irrefutable proof.
Read on to find our most pressing questions for Scarlet and Violet, or 'ScarVi' as we've taken to calling it around these parts.
The amount of Pokémon added each Generation has varied over the years, from Pokémon Black and White’s record-setting 156 to Pokémon X and Y’s meagre 72 (not including Mega evolutions).
As of this article’s publishing, we’ve seen a total of 18 new ‘mons with at least six more confirmed, with the yet unseen Starter evolutions and more spotted on the minimap in the latest trailer. Pokémon from past Generations and new Paldean forms bring this number north of 200. Pokémon Sword and Shield rocked 400 total before DLC expansions, meaning that the 81 additions to the base game brought the percentage of new critters to 20.25%. X and Y, by comparison, came in at 48% but only had 150 new Pokémon.
If we had to guess, with the sheer number of returning Pokémon already revealed, we think Scarlet and Violet will lean toward Sword and Shield’s model, meaning we can expect a few more reveals drip-fed to us up until launch and then a couple of dozen surprises to discover when the game launches.
Many speculated last week’s trailer would reveal at least the middle evolutions of Sprigatito, Fuecoco, and Quaxly. Instead, we got a long awaited evolution for Girafarig. Whether or not we’ll even get a reveal before release remains as up in the air as a Lechonk hurled off Mount Coronet by a Machoke.
Sword and Shield did not get an official reveal for the final evolutions of Grookey, Scorbunny, and Sobble, yet both Sun and Moon and X and Y’s Starters did — or rather, they were leaked. Personally, we’d prefer the reveal to take place during either a Pokémon Presents or a specific YouTube presentation because blurry images of the new trio will inevitably find their way onto the internet — with only a month to go, it’s only a matter of time.
There is also a very good chance Game Freak saw our absolutely superb designs for Sprigatito, Fuecoco, and Quaxly’s evolutions and quickly scrapped their inferior efforts to copy ours. After all, how could Quaxly’s evolution not resemble Elvis Presley/Johnny Bravo with hair like that?
For the first time in Pokémon history, all Pokémon weren’t transferrable to Sword and Shield. This meant that if you had a shiny Beedrill you just loved and brought into every Pokémon game throughout the years, you no longer could do so – Beedrill wasn’t part of Galar’s Regional Pokedex.
This happened because importing, animating, and balancing all 900+ Pokémon became too much work for Game Freak. Upset fans coined the term 'Dexit' – after the exit of Great Britain and Northern Island from the European Union – as shorthand for this exclusion, and while the outrage was a bit overblown, we have to wonder whether or not this will continue in Scarlet and Violet. After all, the Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra DLC for Sword and Shield added many more Pokémon. Surely by now the developers have caught up and most of the hard work is done?
Well, that may not be the case. If Dexit ['Palida', surely? - Ed] continues, what Pokémon will make the cut? We would assume all those in Sword and Shield and Pokémon Legends: Arceus will eventually be made transferable. However, there would still be over 100 Pokémon excluded.
Solid gameplay aside, Sword and Shield’s story sucked as much as knocking out a shiny Wooloo with an ill-timed Critical Hit. In fact, on our Every Pokémon Game Narrative, Ranked From Best To Worst article, Galar’s rushed, anti-climatic tale ranked worst – by a lot.
Thus far, we’ve seen little of what’s at stake in the Paldea region. Yes, we know there are three different paths to experience in Scarlet and Violet: the standard ‘Victory Road’ challenge to collect eight gym badges and become a Champion Ranked trainer; the new ‘Path of Legends’ quest for a rare health-restoring herb called Herba Mystica; and ‘Starfall Street,’ which will have you rooting out delinquent students from strongholds spread throughout Paldea.
This Team Star seems the most likely candidate for one of Pokémon’s classic evil-team-foolishly-almost-destroys-the-world-due-to-arrogance / greed / environmentalism / nihilism / idiocy / etc. plots, yet all we’ve seen so far is Mela, the boss of the fire-crew. This, of course, implies there are more crews and likely a boss-of-bosses. However, no sign of a potential Giovanni or Ghetsis analogue has been seen – unless one of the revealed NPCs doubles as an evildoer.
Perhaps Scarlet and Violet will forgo such a plot altogether? We doubt it, and given the symbolism of time between the two Professors and the Legendaries Koraidon and Miraidon – with Korai meaning ancient in Japanese and Mirai meaning future – we expect some time travel shenanigans to occur.
Each new Generation brings with it much-needed changes that streamline some of the more annoying aspects of the core experience. These changes, however, are doled out slower than a Torkoal out of Trick Room.
Generation VII introduced Bottle Caps, which can max out a Pokémon’s Individual Values – otherwise quite tedious to breed for perfectly – and Generation VIII gave us Ability Patches if you happened to catch a Growlithe with Flash Fire instead of Intimidate. Improvements aren't restricted to the nuances of Pokémon training. Being able to access your PC box from anywhere, replacing HMs with overworld abilities, making TMs reusable – the list goes on. Still, these changes were trickled out after a decade or two and didn’t happen all at once.
Scarlet and Violet have already introduced a few. The ‘Let’s Go!’ auto-battle feature looks to streamline grinding overworld ‘mons, for example, and last week’s trailer showed us that TMs are now craftable from materials found throughout your adventure.
The question remains, however, if there will be more. For our Pokédollars, we’d bet that one or two more key features will see an upgrade. We hope one of them introduces a Reverse Bottle Cap to set a Pokémon’s IVs to 0 and another a convenient way to change a Pokémon’s Tera type.
Pokémon Legends: Arceus made some drastic changes to the battle mechanics. It’s clear we’re not getting a redux of the Agile and Strong styles, but the recent trailer hinted that Scarlet and Violet may adopt the status conditions from Legends: Arceus.
At around 12:20 in the time-stamped video below, Braivary-eyed viewers will notice in the top left corner it appears the Firafarig attacks despite having the Sleep icon next to its name:
In Legends: Arceus, the Drowsy condition replaced Sleep, which added a chance for the affected Pokémon not to attack rather than outright stopping them from acting for one to three. It seems all but confirmed.
Will Frostbite, the other status condition introduced in Hisui, make its way into Scarlet and Violet as well? We hope so, as a Special Attack affecting version of Burn, we think it’d make a great addition to a more traditional Pokémon game.
Competitive Pokémon isn’t known for being balanced. Certain ‘mons will always have more tools than others. The Incineroars, the Whimsicotts, the Landoruses (Landorusi?) will dominate every meta they’re introduced to, pushing out comparable Pokémon because they simply do everything better. The Regielekis and Zacians will make a case for being put onto every team. Over the generations, Pokémon that have had broken abilities or moves have been nerfed. Talonflame, for instance, had its ability Gale Wings changed to only work when Talonflame has full health, and trainers quickly cast aside the formerly dominant bird Pokémon.
This holds true for moves, too. Thunder Wave, a staple on most teams, saw its accuracy cut by 10%, making it much more unreliable. Toxic has seen several nerfs over the years, too. And many powerful attacks such as Draco Meteor have had damage reductions while others have had increases.
Sword and Shield introduced quite a lot of broken Pokémon and abilities, so we expect a handful of nerfs and buffs, but it's hard to guess without knowing which Pokémon made the cut.
Every battle gimmick in Pokémon history has had dramatic effect on official formats. We previously ranked Dynamax, Z-Moves, and Mega Evolution, and with the help of professional player Wolfe Glick we came to the conclusion that Dynamax's defensive utility made it the most balanced of the three.
At the moment, there's no telling which way Terastallizing will go. Changing a Pokémon's type and receiving a damage bonus has both offensive and defensive usages, but will it be overpowered and tilting like Z-Moves? Or relatively balanced but boring like Dynamax? Alternatively, maybe it'll cool but ultimately limited to a select pool of viable Pokémon like Mega Evolution? Many online competitive Pokémon communities are hard at work trying to deduce from YouTube trailers just how strong the moves of a Pokémon that Terastallizes becomes.
Then there's Tera Blast, a move which changes to match a Pokémon's Tera type. This brings back memories of the dark days of Hidden Power which was recently removed from the games entirely. And what about Pokémon like Shedninja and overpowered 'mons like Landorous that can change away from their weaknesses? For competitive-minded Pokémon players, whether or not Terastallizing will be balanced makes or breaks the entire game.
That's it for our eight pressing questions, posers we're itching to know the answers to with only a month-and-a-bit to go until release. Some of these, we know, will be answered officially in the coming days. Others will be addressed unofficialy through leaks, no doubt — there are plenty out there already. Knowing The Pokémon Company, many will be kept secret until release, too. Whichever happens, we're can't wait to adventure through the Paldea region ourselves on 18th November. It'll be here quicker thank you think.
What about you? What are you still impatient to know about Pokémon Scarlet and Violet? Be sure to let us know in the comments.
Most if not all of this we probably won't know until release, they don't tip their entire hand like this because they want to actually leave something for you to discover as you play. What we know now about the games is about as much as we typically learn before release (maybe with slightly more Pokemon, but that's pretty much it).
Are we going to get a cohesive story? , It's Pokémon the story's remained basically the same with minor variations since the first game lol
Where is the time travel, past & future theme from Pokemon Scarlet / Violet ?
@Anti-Matter There doesn't appear to be any. The past/future theme just seems to be an aesthetic/storyline difference between the two versions. Time travel is not confirmed and at this point probably does not exist.
Honestly just want La Chonks evolution to be La Chungus
9. Why does Game Freak hate the Battle Frontier, and by extension, NintendoLife commenter Bret?
I'm one of the scrooges who can't bring myself to play any more pokemon after Dexit; a huge part of the experience, the key part, is just gone for me.
I think it wouldn't be very hard to put in all the pokemon at this point. There is very few left they'd have to create after the DLC and BDSP, but what is more important for them is to never set any expectation of a complete pokedex ever again so this controvery doesn't start up fresh with Gen 10 on Switch 2. So they will hold back ready-made assets to preserve fan expectation of the new normal of about 400-500 pokemon per game.
@Bret I just want co-op battle tower to return man
@Vortexeo They took out Multi battles?! I didn't even notice!
@Bret They don't have the Battle Frontier because they claim not enough people used it to bother. Not as many people used it because making competitive Pokémon is one of the most tedious things ever. GameFreak barely improves the grind for making competitive 'Mons each Gen for little to no reason, fueling their own reason for not bothering to include the Battle Frontier.
I don’t really care how good Terastallizing will be, as long I can ignore it most of the time I am fine with it.
I'm a very skeptical about the "three storylines". I think it will end up being the very same ever since circa gbc pokemon. You will battle gyms to reach the League, in between gyms you will be bothered by the villainous team and a sidequest that (so far) has been either cool and short or long and boring
You forgot 1 question for this article: Of all the Pokémon that’s confirmed so far.. which will be exclusive to which versions? That’s usually a deal breaker for a lot of fans.
@shoeses I strongly disagree that they make no improvements. EV training has improved drastically since Gen 5. They started introducing other ways to do it in Gen 6. Each core game since has had ways to EV train beyond simply battling Pokemon. Then there's the changes to the Destiny Knot, which now saves five stats from the parents instead of three, which drastically reduces breeding time.
Just makes it all the more frustrating that they don't bother with the Battle Frontier now that EV training and breeding do take so much less time. It'd be way more accessible with those changes.
@shoeses So then simplify the competitive requirements for them. Competitive battling isn't really the appeal of the Battle Frontier, it's the unique battling styles. We've pretty much lost that now (they did experiment a bit with unique battling styles outside of the Frontier with things like Rotation, Triple, Sky, and Inverse battles but those things are gone now too) and we're stuck with just the basic bitch Single, Double, and Multi battles we've been using for the last 20 years.
@majinx07 For what it's worth, Serebii keeps this list updated with all the info we have so far. https://www.serebii.net/scarletviolet/exclusives.shtml
pretty sure leaks cover 5 of these 8...
@King-Demon Well, yeah the leaks probably do, but not everyone follows the leaks. A ton of people are trying to avoid them, given they want a fresh experience.
On an unrelated note however, yet related to the article, we already know that Dex cuts are here to stay. The wording on the official website back when the game first got revealed made it clear that Pokemon Home compatibility was limited to pokemon only in the game.
Unanswered Question 9: why does the red legendary have wheels if it doesn't even use them?!
I had wanted Scarlet but I'm still trying to decide if this feature would ruin the game for me.
So legend Arceus catch mechanics are officially out?
The main question is, why are they still releasing games that stutter along at 30 fps?
@majinx07 I mean...it's so easy to trade for the missing Pokemons since Sun and Moon. This shouldn't be a selling point nowaday. Between this and people buying the 2 versions, Gamefreak will not update their business model.
@majinx07 The deal breaker where they give in and waste twice the money. Sounds like a bad deal.
@RunGMhx they were not meant to be in mainline pokemon games
"This happened because importing, animating, and balancing all 900+ Pokémon became too much work for Game Freak."
The outrage over Dexit wasn't overblown at all. The models in Gen 8 are exactly the same as previous generations. The outrage is because the standard level of content in a Pokemon game was cut, and there was nothing given in return. Graphics were ugly, animations underutilized at best, and downright embarrassing at worst. Game balance was completely broken by the time you reached the first gym.
@Ironcore Why put effort into it when it’ll still sell?
I can imagine a game where Pokemon sound like animals. In my head, that is so cool.
I'll read reviews and of course check some videos, but I think I'll pass on this game. Arceus already gave me the fresh pokemon game I was looking for. This feels like almost the same as before.
@ketrac - this is the first gen I’m skipping. After how much fun Arecus was for me I’m not interest in going back to more same old same old. This just looks like Sword and Shield V2.
I’ll probably buy Sonic Frontiers instead
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