Mar 142022
There’s one more big announcement from the end of February that we should discuss, and that’s the reveal of the next Pokémon generation, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet.
Scarlet and Violet were announced at the end of the Pokémon Day live stream, which otherwise didn’t show too much of note.
The announcement trailer started out with a live action scene that made me think it might be the Detective Pikachu sequel. However, even though that was recently confirmed to still be in development, the stream came and went without a trace of Detective Pikachu.
No, it shifted into the reveal of Pokémon Gen 9, with gameplay environments, the player characters, and the starters being revealed.
My first takeaway from this trailer was that it looks beautiful. I might be in the minority there, but the trailer left me excited to see this new Pokémon world.
However, my excitement did diminish upon learning that it’s an open world game.
There’s no room for doubt this time; the Pokémon Scarlet/Violet website clearly describes it as “a richly expressed open world” where “various towns blend seamlessly into the wilderness with no borders.”
Some players have dismissively said the same claim was made about Pokémon Legends: Arceus, but Legends was never officially described as open world. People looked at the trailer and started describing it that way themselves.
(Speaking of which, I’ve been playing Legends: Arceus and enjoying it!)
Open world doesn’t have to be a deal-breaker for me. I’ve been enjoying my time with Elden Ring so far, and you know I never miss a chance to praise Xenoblade Chronicles X. However, it does have to be pretty compelling to convince me. Since I skipped Pokémon Sword/Shield and BDSP, Scarlet and Violet will need to look fantastic to get me to go for an open world Pokémon game.
What are your thoughts on Pokémon Scarlet/Violet? Are you excited for open world Pokémon and Gen 9, or do you have doubts?
I’m excited for gen 9 especially if they keep moving forward with what worked in Legends: Arceus! I’ll definitely end up getting it, for the FOMO if nothing else!
Haha, glad to hear you’re excited. I’ll need to see a bit more to be convinced, but here’s hoping.
That actually looks really nice!
Yes, I thought the world looked really nice so far.
Since I skipped Shield specifically because it was a step towards an Open Borders game style, it’s only logically consistent for me to skip the game outright described as an Open Borders game.
The idea of the Wild Areas in Sword/Shield didn’t bother me because I don’t mind having big open areas… not that I ever ended up getting Sword/Shield, though. At least not yet.