Courtney Balcombe – Staff Writer

clb6264@psu.edu

Before Thanksgiving break, Nintendo released the first installments for the ninth generation of the Pokémon video game series, “Pokémon Scarlet” and “Pokémon Violet.” First announced in February 2022, they released on November 18. Unlike the previous installments in the Pokémon franchise, Scarlet and Violet take place in an open world, similar to “Pokémon Legends: Arceus.”

After waiting in a short midnight release line, my boyfriend, Leland, and I left with our pre-releases for both games. He took “Scarlet” while I took “Violet,” and as soon as we got home, both games were booted up and we each began.

Like other significant entries in the franchise, Scarlet and Violet introduces dozens of new Pokémon, and gives players a new expansive region, Paldea, to explore. That also adds several new gameplay mechanics to the signature gotta catch ’em all formula.

The starter pokémons include grass type, Sprigatto, fire type, Fuecoco, and water type, Quaxly. I quickly chose Sprigatto, but I felt I needed my real cat in the game, so his name ended up “Clark.” Leland, on the other hand, chose Fuecoco and did not want to have fun with naming his starter.

The game starts like any other Pokémon game: each player starts by leaving home on their journey, this journey, however, takes you to Uva Academy to begin the tutorial of the game. Yet from the second you leave the school after you can run to late-game areas full of powerful trainers and Gym Leaders, catch high-level Pokémon, and make the adventure very difficult and rewarding for yourself accordingly. For anyone worried about accidentally leaping into a too-difficult area, fear not: Paldea is largely arranged to be friendly to those looking for a more gradual challenge, and even more so is designed just right for getting pleasantly lost, backtracking, and wandering off the beaten route.

Based on my experience in the game, I highly recommend starting on missions with Arvin while also completing early on Gym Leaders and Operation Team Star. To put it simply, the Pokémon Titans you fight to collect herbs will help you power up, Miraidon in Violet and Koraidon in Scarlet. These power-ups then help you advance through the game by running, swimming, climbing, and eventually, the box legendaries can be used in battles.

After working through the first couple of Titans with Arvin, I was able to then get to some of the Team Star camps as well as gyms because many of them are in areas of the map where you need to use Miraidon and Koraidon to complete those quests.

Along the way, the greatest part of each area in Paldea are the trainers that you can fight and help level up your team between Gym Leaders and Team Star camps, these come in very handy so your team can learn new moves and even evolve. Specifically while walking, S&V use the same idea they had in Arceus to send out your Pokémon to fight wild ones as you walk. The downside to battling and catching wild Pokémon, to me, is that the wild Pokémon can just so happen to be in the same place as you when you get out of a battle, which in turn drops you into another battle with no preparation.

So after completing the first storyline of Gym Leader challenges, Arvin, and Team Star, then you finally battle Casseopia and Nemora before continuing with Arvin’s father, Toru, to travel to the Great Crater of Paldea. While exploring the crater I did not battle or attempt to catch the Pokémon that I could find outside of the crater. However, due to the time change in the game, many of the Pokémon are high levels and some are metal and can only be found in the crater.

Overall, I would like you guys to buy and experience the game for yourself so I’m not going to spoil anything else for you. Rating this game can vary by the player though, as someone who is played older Pokémon gens, I’d give this game a 9/10. I’m taking one point because you have to “battle” Pokémon to catch them rather than just throw a ball at them the way you can in Arceus which was a huge game-changer at the time. Instead, this game went back to “Pokémon Sword and Shield” and took that mechanic away.