Pokemon Generation 9 is on its way! (Thoughts on Pokemon Scarlet and Violet)

     Hey friends, last week I had a very dark and brooding look at a fantastic superhero movie, and now I'm back to being the fairly positive Self-Proclaimed Dreamer that you know and love! A few weeks ago I wrote about Pokemon Legends Arceus, and in that post I said something to the effect of, "I can't wait to see what Game Freak does with this engine next!" Fortunately I didn't have to wait very long, because this past Sunday, February 27, there was a Pokemon Presents where they announced several updates to already released games, as well as a brand new generation of Pokemon! Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet were not announcements that I thought we would get during that presentation, but I'm certainly happy that they revealed that these games are coming in late 2022 (November if I had guess on a month). I decided to use my post this week to talk about some of the information that we got this week on the upcoming new Pokemon adventures, though not a lot is known as of yet, so let's get to it!

Wide open spaces to roam!

    While we don't know the name of this new region in the Pokemon world, we do have a real world comparison already. If you're not familiar with the different games and regions of Pokemon, the series has always been based on some real world area. The first few games were based on Japan, while more recent entries have focused on France, Hawaii, and the United Kingdom. The newest games in the series will be taking place in an area inspired by Spain and Portugal, if the first information is to be believed! Interestingly though, for the first time, it appears like there aren't very many cities to go to. The first trailer only seemed to show one real city, and according to people who have checked out the trailer multiple times for information, they think there may be only three cities, as the rest of the map looks to be a pretty massive wild area. The wild area isn't exactly a new concept as we saw the idea of an open area in Pokemon Sword and Shield, but this looks to be more on the level of Pokemon Legends Arceus. We didn't see any real gameplay of battles really, so it's impossible to tell if the combat will play out in a more traditional style for the series, where the only way to catch Pokemon is to battle them after interacting running into them in the tall grass, or the more fast paced Arceus-style catching, where it's possible to just sneak up on a Pokemon and throw a Poke Ball from behind. I would imagine it's the latter idea, but we'll just have to see. Even if it does take heavy inspiration from the most recent game, there will likely be more trainer battles because the upcoming game takes place in modern day, where that one took place in the distant past when most people were afraid of Pokemon. We see a battle area in the one city that was shown in the trailer, which presumably will be used for battling other trainers, maybe even the gym leader, if traditional gyms are even in this game. Pokemon has been changing the game a bit recently, Pokemon Sun and Moon, the last games for 3DS, didn't have traditional gyms, instead having "Kahuna battles" and trials to take their place. Sword and Shield, however, did come back to the gym system, and actually placed most of the story significance on the different gyms that you had to go to, so it's hard to say which direction that this game will take.

    Pokemon Centers have been a staple of the franchise since the very first entry. They have always been a place for your character to heal the Pokemon in his or her party, but it looks like this game may be shaking them up a bit from the norm. In Pokemon Sword and Shield (and maybe Pokemon Sun and Moon), they added the shop to the Pokemon Centers, where they had always been separate buildings before, but in this game, it looks like the Pokemon Centers are more frequent and are going to be out in the wild area instead of being in towns. Pokemon Legends Arceus had a similar system where there would be two camp sites in each of the locations, but this appears to be throughout the whole world. From what we've seen so far, this game will be much more open world where Arceus was set up like the Monster Hunter series, split up over a few different regions that you could get to from the hub area, Jubilife Village. This is already looking to be a huge departure from the norms that Pokemon games have been clinging to since the inception, but there are still quite a few conventions that are sticking around, namely, the Pokemon themselves.

New area, new friends!

    The trailer didn't show many new Pokemon, I'll get that out of the way right now, but the ones that they showed are among the most important in any game, the starters. The grass starter this time around is Sprigatito, an adorable little green cat that's described by the official web site as being "capricious and attention-seeking." The fire starter is Fuecoco who looks like a goofy red dinosaur that many have rushed to call an apple look alike, but I think it looks more like a pepper almost. Finally, the water starter is a little duck named Qwaxly, which people have been making Donald Duck jokes about since it was revealed. All of these Pokemon are appropriately cute in their own ways, as almost all starters are, but I look forward to seeing the fully evolved forms of each as we get closer to the release date. We got a look at Combee, Seviper, Larvitar, Meowth, Swablu, Pikachu, Hoppip, Starly, and Psyduck among many many others. There's also a Pokemon that reminds me of Stonehenge, we see that one walking through the desert, but I'm honestly not sure if that's a new Pokemon or not. I haven't played any of generations 5, 7, or 8 yet, so it is entirely possible that this is a Pokemon from one of those. We don't know anything about "version exclusive Pokemon yet, which will be in one game but not the other, but they did announce that whichever version you choose will determine what outfit you wear, at least at the beginning. In Pokemon Scarlet, your character (whether boy or girl) will wear a blue hat, a white shirt with an orange tie, orange pants, white socks with an orange stripe and Black shoes. In Pokemon Violet, your character will wear a white hat, a white shirt with a purple tie, purple pants, black socks with a yellow stripe, and brownish shoes. It's weird to have the clothes changed based on which version of the game you're playing, but this could show that Game Freak is more devoted to making two different games instead of just one with different Pokemon showing up depending on which you choose. I'm not holding my breath for anything too major in terms of differences, but we'll have to see.

    Like I said at the beginning of this article, there has not been much information put out about this new region of the Pokemon world, but I have to say that I'm pretty interested to see what the games are like, and I hope that hardcore fans of the Pokemon franchise are excited for it. It looks like it could be something pretty special, especially following on the heels of the pretty great Pokemon Legends Arceus, but only time will tell what's waiting for us in this new region. Fortunately, we won't have to wait too long, since the games are due out later this year.

    Thanks so much for reading this post, friends! There was a lot of information in the trailer that I probably missed, but I'm just giving a taste of what I thought about what I saw. I'm still not a huge Pokemon fan, so there are probably bigger things that I didn't pay attention to, but hopefully I did a decent job of capturing some of the new elements featured in this new trailer. Are you excited about the new Pokemon games? I sincerely hope you are, this year is already pretty wild in terms of the announcements that we've gotten and the games that are coming later in the year, so I hope Pokemon will have a good year as well. I hope you've had a good week and that you're all doing well, despite all that's going on in the world. Until next time, I've been Jonathan, your Self-Proclaimed Pokemon Trainer, and I'll talk to you next week.