Pokémon Gen IX (Scarlet and Violet)

game freak needs to slow down and take a break goddamn

Sprigatito is our grass starter
Fuecoco is our fire starter
Quaxly is our water starter
these all look like they're from one of those fake pokédexes people on deviantart or whatever make, ESPECIALLY the fire one
i like the cat i guess but i'm prepared to hate what it evolves into

male protagonist
female protagonist
g e n e r i c
these are really bad
the boy makes Victor look like the best design ever
the girl may be the single worst pokégirl ever created


i'm not even going to try and deny it though: i'm probably still playing it
releasing it in the same year as Legends Arceus makes me want to continue having skipped that one

WHO'S THAT POKéMON?

it's definitely not Pikachu
the new Pikachu clones just keep getting worse
Emolga was great, but since then, it just went so wrong

pig with a dumb name
we will never hear the end of this one because of its dumb twitter meme for a name

i thought this was a regional Budew but it's actually a completely new pokémon
another pokémon with a dumb twitter meme for a name
seriously though it's going to evolve into Oliveselia

Scarlet legendary that tries too hard
Violet legendary that is actually kind of cool


the theme of the game is clearly past vs future
the Scarlet legendary looks like an animal, and the exclusive professor is wearing tattered animal skins like a caveman under her labcoat
the Violet legendary has jet engines, and the exclusive professor is wearing a futuristic robo-suit under his labcoat

MOST IMPORTANT THING FIRST:
this may be the Pokémon game i've always wanted, even with the shit new Pokémon

the game features three storylines which all act independently from eachother
you can literally just do the gym battles and ignore the evil team, if i'm understanding this correctly
also, you can do gyms in ANY ORDER
i never thought this day would come
i just hope they add proper level scaling rather than "you can come to the dragon-type gym, but all the Pokémon are level 62 :^)"



if these are the Pokémon they're showing us pre-release, i can't even imagine what kind of garbage lurks in the depths of the Pokédex

Fidough
Cetitan
Paldean Wooper is fine I guess

the game's new gimmick is that you can use your not-mega stone to change your Pokémon's type in-battle
the type your Pokémon changes to varies not by species but by individual Pokémon (like hidden power)
this is awful, worse than the last eight gimmicks
Pokémon is a game entirely about rote memorization
each Pokémon's type is a given, aside from fringe cases like Kecleon
making an opposing Pokémon a random type isn't fun, it's just annoying
"oh look it's pikachu but it has a fountain growing out of its head so it's a water-type"

the legendaries are also motorcycles, which is cool

new Pokémon
it's clearly the new Cosmog
it'll evolve into the version's legendary
i find it hard to believe there'd be multiple unrelated motorcycle dragons

Smeargle 2
Smeargle 1 was better

dumb crab

our first non-legendary new version exclusives are
fire/psychic man for scarlet
fire/ghost man for violet
still definitely leaning toward violet

long white diglett
water-type
dumb as hell
(in a good way or a bad way remains to be seen)

girafarig evolution
i legitimately like this one

so far i like:
Paldean Wooper
Farigiraf
Ceruledge

prepared for Paldean Wooper to evolve into something stupid though

cute frog
missed the chance for another water/electric

cute ghost dog
i like it a lot but it feels like a missed opportunity for ghost/normal
i've wanted a ghost/normal Pokémon forever because it's a really fucking good type combination, which turns normal's weakness and one of ghost's weaknesses into an immunity