It’s not badly set up it’s intentional they didn’t want u in towns they wanted u exploring That’s easy because in past Pokémon games the appeal was going from town to town and Interacting with all the NPCs and in this game because they make it so seamless and that it’s open world they wanted the bigger focus on exploration and finding Pokémon They didn’t want u in towns they wanted u out in the wilds And also because You have to remember gamefreak are inexperienced with developing open world games so of course there will be some trial and error the more they work on and improve the game and do future games the better at it they’ll get Rome wasn’t built in a day we need to be patient Assuming we get more open world games NOT TO MENTION ScarVi’s development was probably screwed up by the pandemic Probably turned it upside down And before u say just delay the game They can’t delay the game The franchise was designed so that every aspect of it has a symbiotic relationship The games can’t release without the anime the merch and the manga and the manga the merch and the anime can’t release without the games And it’s about time you all understand that by now They are doing their best trying to balance the games with the tcg and the anime The Pokémon franchise is like a game of jenga If you move one thing it all falls apart They are doing the best they can sorry I’m the only one who appreciates that Unless you want them to hypothetically release the Gen 10 anime and then wait till the anime gets to Gen 15 to release the Gen 10 games Hope this is a good explanation
@@madnessarcade7447 No, it's just badly set up. Just because GameFreak wants you to explore the world doesn't mean that the towns have to be so devoid of life. Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom also want you to explore the wild world, yet their towns are much more interesting than those of Scarlet/Violet. Scarlet/Violet was probably screwed over by the pandemic sure, but it was probably also because they (A) decided to only spend three years on development when an open world game usually takes more time to make (especially if you're inexperienced making them), and (B) they developed Scarlet/Violet alongside Legends Arceus with many of the developers working on both projects simultaneously. Making two video games where they both have two unique, big maps (one being an open area game and another an open world game) with the same developers on both projects and without any experience making such games in just three years definitely sounds like a disaster and incredibly unhealthy for the developers. And yes, they could've delayed the game. Because they released everything else months after the release of Scarlet/Violet. The TCG didn't come out until March of this year. The anime didn't release until April. The Adventures manga has yet to be released. Everything else Gen 9 related was released around spring of 2023 except the video game, which came out in November of 2022. The game released without the TCG, manga, and anime, and the TCG, manga, and anime released without the game. They moved everything to spring except the game. So Scarlet/Violet releasing in November of last year had nothing to do with "balance the games with the tcg and the anime" or to maintain a "symbiotic relationship". It was done because the higher ups at The Pokémon Company, Nintendo, and/or GameFreak (key word is higher ups, not developers, who were probably crunched really hard during development) wanted Scarlet/Violet to come out in November so that they could maximize profit for the holidays. They did it because they knew it would sell regardless of how good or bad the game was. They did it because they didn't care about the state of the game or what players would think of it.
What's especially telling is that hackers actually found interiors for NPC houses _inside_ the game files. Implying that they were definitely cut for time..
Oh that's actually really cool! Maybe some day in the future there will be mods for this game that will allow us to see what this game *could* have been. Imagine a pokemon game with the open world but also the ability to really experience what a town could feel like with the capabilities of the current systems!
Call me old fashioned but one of the BEST part of the older games was just running around and checking every house to see if the TRASH CANS had any loot.... this tiny incentive to explore every room led to you talking to everyone which also had it's own rewards further enforcing the player's exploration I think it was G6 when they stopped doing this and also stopped hiding items inside things and just leaving the pokeball icon on the ground and overall reduced the number of items not in the world, tending to limit them to outside or in places the player is forced to go through anyways
Most of the stuff found in xy is on the ground outside or from talking to random people, I guess it makes sense since it's be weird to just steal stuff from people though. At least in quite a few of the houses there's someone who gives some random thing, it gives a tiny insensitive to explore but it's usually like a pokedoll or something.
When I first played pokemon as a kid, I was not bilingual yet and choosing languages was not an option. I couldn't read english very well and I got stuck in pokemon diamond because I didn't knew I had to steak to someone to get the CT "cut". I managed to understand years later. Let me tell you, the moment I figured out some people gave you stuff when you talked to them, I started talking to everyone, going in every building etc. It was so much fun. I'm really sad they took that away
Yes but because this game is open world they don’t want you doing that they wanted you out in the world That’s the focus of the game That’s why the approach is different actually it’s because unlike past Pokémon games the appeal was going from town to town and Interacting with all the NPCs and in this game because they make it so seamless and that it’s open world they wanted the bigger focus on exploration and finding Pokémon They didn’t want u in towns they wanted u out in the wilds And also because You have to remember gamefreak are inexperienced with developing open world games so of course there will be some trial and error the more they work on and improve the game and do future games the better at it they’ll get Rome wasn’t built in a day we need to be patient Assuming we get more open world games NOT TO MENTION ScarVi’s development was probably screwed up by the pandemic Probably turned it upside down And before u say just delay the game They can’t delay the game The franchise was designed so that every aspect of it has a symbiotic relationship The games can’t release without the anime the merch and the manga and the manga the merch and the anime can’t release without the games And it’s about time you all understand that by now They are doing their best trying to balance the games with the tcg and the anime The Pokémon franchise is like a game of jenga If you move one thing it all falls apart They are doing the best they can sorry I’m the only one who appreciates that Unless you want them to hypothetically release the Gen 10 anime and then wait till the anime gets to Gen 15 to release the Gen 10 games Hope this is a good explanation
@@madnessarcade7447 wow, someone is mad. If it can reasure you, I don't think the Pokemon franchise is in any danger just because people criticize their game. Not criticizing it would mean they'd just keep doing the same thing, and the game is far from perfect let's admit it. But, the team will learn from this experience, the pandemic is over, and with the comments, good and bad, from the people. They now know what displeases us from this. And they know how to improve and where to put more focus. I get that you love the franchise, but not everything they pop out is a masterpiece. "awww you did good, you tried" will not help. The team was rushed and it's not their fault. But I blame their superior. "Can't delay" is a poor excuse when the final product looks like a beta. Just thinking about that sandwich animation hurts. They clearly didn't have time to do anything better. When you see this and get told "can't delay" it's a bit gratting. But I'm guessing you feel the same way about negative comments toward the game given your reaction. But we're all entitled to our opinion. What the first commenter said about there being no interior to houses and not talking to people is very true. It is disapointing. Time crunch or no time crunch. Good game or not. It's something that is fun in Pokemon games. It's always been there. They've reduced it over time, but removing it completely makes us old players sad. That is all that was said.
@Madness Arcade TLDR Pokemon company got lazy in G6's worldbuilding and just decided to stay that way Even WITH exploration outside being the main focus all the items you find are randomized Having everything outside shows a lack of creativity when it comes to making inside puzzles... even outside puzzles are nothing more than run around and climb stuff
No joke, I didn't realise that you could go into the sandwich shop and Nemona's house, as I thought that all houses were blocked off except for the salon and the player's house. Just another example about how SV teach weird lessons that may be detrimental to the player.
Came here to say this. I never really needed the non-clothing stores for anything so I never tried because the game set me up for disappointment from the start. I only knew you could go in Nemona's because I tried before I realized most buildings aren't useable.
@@sleepicat actually it’s because unlike past Pokémon games the appeal was going from town to town and Interacting with all the NPCs and in this game because they make it so seamless and that it’s open world they wanted the bigger focus on exploration and finding Pokémon They didn’t want u in towns they wanted u out in the wilds And also because You have to remember gamefreak are inexperienced with developing open world games so of course there will be some trial and error the more they work on and improve the game and do future games the better at it they’ll get Rome wasn’t built in a day we need to be patient Assuming we get more open world games NOT TO MENTION ScarVi’s development was probably screwed up by the pandemic Probably turned it upside down And before u say just delay the game They can’t delay the game The franchise was designed so that every aspect of it has a symbiotic relationship The games can’t release without the anime the merch and the manga and the manga the merch and the anime can’t release without the games And it’s about time you all understand that by now They are doing their best trying to balance the games with the tcg and the anime The Pokémon franchise is like a game of jenga If you move one thing it all falls apart They are doing the best they can sorry I’m the only one who appreciates that Unless you want them to hypothetically release the Gen 10 anime and then wait till the anime gets to Gen 15 to release the Gen 10 games Hope this is a good explanation
@@reaven2535 actually it’s because unlike past Pokémon games the appeal was going from town to town and Interacting with all the NPCs and in this game because they make it so seamless and that it’s open world they wanted the bigger focus on exploration and finding Pokémon They didn’t want u in towns they wanted u out in the wilds And also because You have to remember gamefreak are inexperienced with developing open world games so of course there will be some trial and error the more they work on and improve the game and do future games the better at it they’ll get Rome wasn’t built in a day we need to be patient Assuming we get more open world games NOT TO MENTION ScarVi’s development was probably screwed up by the pandemic Probably turned it upside down And before u say just delay the game They can’t delay the game The franchise was designed so that every aspect of it has a symbiotic relationship The games can’t release without the anime the merch and the manga and the manga the merch and the anime can’t release without the games And it’s about time you all understand that by now They are doing their best trying to balance the games with the tcg and the anime The Pokémon franchise is like a game of jenga If you move one thing it all falls apart They are doing the best they can sorry I’m the only one who appreciates that Unless you want them to hypothetically release the Gen 10 anime and then wait till the anime gets to Gen 15 to release the Gen 10 games Hope this is a good explanation
@madnessarcade7447 gen 4 lasted longer than expected and they fixed it by making a new season in the anime focused on the battle frontier. why would they not be able to do that again? pokemon journeys was all over the place anyway, they could've just made more stories, maybe even introducing new pokemon/characters to get more hype for the new gen.
When a NPC that provides a service is the difference between grades, I think that really speaks to how abysmal the towns were. Also as someone who celebrated being able to sit down in gen 6, it does make me sad that we can't do that anymore. Sure, it was a tiny feature. It was something though.
XY was the first pokemon game I played and I always made sure that my character was sitting down somewhere when I saved and left the game. And when I found out that my character in UM couldn't sit down somewhere I was literally like: "But her legs are going to hurt!" But for whatever reason we're able to lay down onto other people beds...
@@FarrahKeks them in SwSh they brought back sitting. But then they removed the different camera angles you used to get from sitting because something something money money money Kristy krab argargargargarg
They gave the trainers more world building than the NPC's and there's no time-wasters side activities in the towns. Just food vendors and pop up text boxes that never go beyond 1-line.
For real. Scarlet and Violet unironically have to be the worst open world games I’ve ever played. No side quests, no interesting characters to talk to, no mini games anywhere in the world, and you can’t even say “well at least you have a world to explore” because you have the entire map revealed right away! It would have been so so easy to at the very least have location markers like in the Fallout games. At least riding around on the dragon bike was fun.
@@samueltitone5683 yeah, you can definitely tell the "open world" was just shoe horned in and wasn't thought out pretty much at all I mean, there's no level scaling for crying out loud!
kinda feel like after the starter town, you also really see the quality drop visually in the towns. Your own house is stunning, and the area is very pretty, which is what was hyped up in trailers. But actual areas ended up nothing like the beginning.
It's so clearly rushed for release. I really wish they'd at the very least return to making third games so at least one version exists that isn't empty and disappointing.
@@JOCoStudio1 how about ONE game, made properly? Instead of shelling out $500 by the end of 3 games. And yes I'm exaggerating, but my point is completely valid. Pokemon is price gouging us.
Dear God, not mentioning the horrible frame rates of people that walk around in towns, but mesagosa especially, building (and especially the staircases leading to them) look so awkward on slanted ground. There are a bunch of little corners that are blocked off (probably so you can’t glitch though) because of the weird placement of building, and then all the random skinny walkways to nowhere. And then my biggest one, is the top left of mesagosa because it’s so empty the buildings look so in the middle of nothing. It’s sad
Fun (not really, moreso wildly disappointing) fact: the olive actually can not be used in online multiplayer, everyone has their own olive when in multiplayer and so bouncing it around on your screen does not display that bouncing to other players.
Fun fact: The platforms in the olive roll minigame only exist in the world of whoever is playing the minigame. To other players who aren't participating, it will look like you are standing on air.
Small comment, The protagonist's mom had a room in Pokemon Sun and Moon, as well as Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. So no, Scarlet and Violet isn't the first game to introduce a mom having a room.
There's a door near the kitchen in Sword and Shield, which I can only assume is our mother's bedroom. So yeah, mom having a room in the house has been thing since gen 6
Your comment made me realize how perfect secret bases would be for this game. ORAS let you turn your secret bases into little mini gyms and being able to stumble upon those while out about in Paldea would have been so much fun! Imagine Breath of the Wild’s shrines or Elden Ring’s catacombs but completely made by the community. Give players the ability to rate bases like they have in Super Mario Maker and you could potentially have a reason for players to keep playing after completing the story and reaching master ball rank in the online battles.
@@samueltitone5683 FINALLY! Somebody else thinks this! I've been literally saying this since I played through it. Like at the very least let us decorate our own dormrooms. They would've been perfect for secret bases! I hate how bland ours are compared to Nemoma's Penny's, and Arven's...
I loved secret bases in oras, even though bdsp was a disappointment in my eyes I was at least hoping they'd stay true to the "faithfulness" and let is make our secret bases decorated but we didn't even get that. I would absolutely love a return to secret bases, maybe now we could have our own pokemon kinda hang around inside our base if we wanted them to, I just want something to build up really.
@@user-jl7cz2pe6d I noticed how weird it was not to be able to decorate the dorms
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I feel there are very few and empty cities compared to other games. Despite Kanto being the first and simplest region, they added something unique to most towns and cities to make them worth visiting for lore, rare Pokemon or minigames (Pewter Museum, Cerulean Cave, SS Anne, Pokemon Tower, Game Corner, Dept. Store, Safari Zone, Pokemon Mansion). Johto had more traditional landmarks and a lot of lore locations (Bellsprout Tower, Ilex Forest, Radio Tower and Game Corner, National Park, Burned Tower and Tin Tower, Lake of Rage, Dragon's Den) Hoenn shined for its routes and Emerald did a great job by adding Battle Tents to get some variety here and there. They could have more of these, actually. Sinnoh was a nice combination of everything with good NPCs here and there, unique landmarks, tons of minigames and side quests, and very solid exploration. Unova had very great exploration sites like Chargestone Cave, Reverse Mountain, Pinwheel Forest, and also had great things like an Airport, Ferris wheel, Art gallery... it felt very alive. Kalos kept the seasons theme on most of its routes, and also had some great landmarks and unique city aesthetics. I feel this is the last interesting region that tried to provide such an alive world. Galar tried to do something similar, but it felt "fake", like, its only visually appealing, but that's it. Paldea definitively needs more landmarks, minigames, exploration and themes on its cities to feel alive.
I do seem to remember Alola's towns at least having stuff to do. One or two towns weren't that useful again, but Malie City, for example, was rather nice to come back to. Also helps that the music was lovely. Maybe it's a hot take, but I thought the music in gen 9 was pretty lacking. The battle themes are alright, but I barely remember the overworld music, except for the main one in the beginning areas (and, honestly, that's not that great either). The first city in Sun and Moon (whose exact spelling I forget) might not have that much to do, but I can't help but hum the tune all day lol.
Unova also has probably some of the most "over the top" locations. Also most areas, even minor, have at least something interesting to them or something to do. Which is a bit more then some towns/areas in Gen 8 and Gen 9.
Even Alola had at least nice and unique aesthetics. And Galar was SO close, they had some really interesting town concepts but they never lived up to their own potential. :/
their recent 2 gen provide slight step up then massive step down. Gen 8 has the best customizations we ever have in a pkm game, lots of cool clothings and trainer card customizations. But they cut down towns and routes a lot then there the lackluster open world. Then Gen 9 came, they improve open world, team stars and titan pokemon are great addition. But the game has lots of technical issues, towns and routes are non existent, terrible customizations: only 4 costumes, limited trainer card options and terrible camera. I cant take a selfie with Koraidon without him disappear. The game is open world but feel way emptier than Unova and Kalos
i’m convinced that Zapapico (and maybe Porto Marinada) were planned to be version exclusive gym towns. they could be interchangeable with some of the emptier towns maybe.
Yup. I've been saying this to friends since I took the class where you find out Tyme was a Rock type gym leader. I'm convinced Zapapico was going to be her version exclusive gym town and that in the other version Ryme would have been the teacher instead.
The older Pokemon games actually had better towns because not only could you enter more buildings and talk to NPCs, but they also weren't open-world. In a standard RPG game like Pokemon its okay for each town to not have anything unique or special as the main focus is just doing the Gym battle and moving on to the next town... but this is an open-world game. Part of the appeal of open-world games is that they're supposed to feel like an actual world instead of just the setting of a game. Scarlet and Violet definitely dropped the ball. Pretty much everything about it is decent at best and straight up bad at its worst... the graphics are really not that great, making it look lower quality than Wii games that came out over a decade ago, the performance isn't just bad but can directly interfere with gameplay at times, and a lot of the execution just feels clunky and odd (like the sandwiches for example). Gamefreak REALLY needed more time to work on this game, because if they actually had time and knew what they were doing, it would be amazing.
You were definitely far more forgiving than me - due to the lack of anything to do in each town I pretty much never visited any of them after clearing their gyms. Also, the trades were stupid. This could have been an interesting way to incorporate a mini-quest into the game- “hey trainer, I heard that a Pokémon called X lives in area Y, I’ll trade you my mom for it if you can find one”. Instead, I don’t think any of the trade Pokémon were more than a minute away from the NPCs that wanted them. I also don’t remember any other mini quest-like events: no people asking for favors or talking about a local legend that may have led to some treasure or a rare Pokémon spawn. I finished the game, but it left me feeling like I wasted my time- even SwSh had some memorable moments/places for me. Hell, I can’t even remember some of the Pokémons’ names from this Gen. Maybe I’m getting old, but I really think this Gen was the worst out of all of them in terms of player satisfaction. The stories were passable, as always, but hinted at nuances that just didn’t exist.
I missed being able to go into people's houses and talking to them, maybe stumple upon a pokebattle or some little sidestory of whats going on in their lives. It gave earlier games so much more life.
With every new pokemon game I feel like the region suffers more and more, more so on the switch, we don't have puzzles or a variety of battle facilities like we use too and the region just gets more bland.
Fun fact, I learned from Nuzlockes. There is a wild pokemon spawn on the top of your house in the start of the game. If you get your starter, and the pokeballs, then run back to your house. If you try and target towards the roof of your home, you will be able to target the Squawkabilly up there, though it's a bit of a hassle.
I don’t think it’s nostalgia goggles that’s making us hate on the newer gens’ towns and cities. To prove it, I think we should see how the original three gens handled their worlds. I always felt like there was something to do in kanto cities or people to talk to in hoenn towns.
I think the towns are alright. What's not alright, though, are the wild areas. Like, in older Pokémon games you can stumble upon a lot of cool special "sub-areas" when exploring a place, like Mirage Tower in emerald's desert or old chateau in eterna forest. In SV, most wild areas are just a whole lot of nothing. Chi-yu's den is somehow one of the best "sub-areas" in SV and I don't even know if it qualifies as an sub-area.
I think a lot of this is a result of having to make choices on a very strict deadline. The emphasis is on the outdoor environments and the storylines you go through. The academy is the starting and end point for that. Because of that there are less resources available for the other towns and interiors. Towns are really just pit stops where you can spend your money.
Bad news about the olive field. as i learned through AcousticHarmonia when in union circle everyone has their own olive, completely invisible to the other player.
As I recall, the data miners found the mother's room in the player's house in Sun and Moon's data, but it had been cut out. And the same in Sword and Shield. In Scarlet and Violet, the mother has a door to the room after all.
"After 25 years moms not sleeping in the kitchen" Did you happen to forget about alolha? Where our mom also had a room? That we could actually interact with?
The lacking of interior is most towns just make it feel barren. So few houses can be entered making the town feel empty. One thing that set me off the most is the fast travel in the school. I do think being able to fast travel is good for players who don't want to walk, but I wish the schools interior was developed, allowing you to walk through the hallways class to class and see other students in the hallways walking. I really wish scarlet and violet had a lot more development time to flesh out the world and optimize the game.
I've been playing through violet lately and it feels so empty and disappointing, hopefully this isn't a common thing going forward in the Pokemon series but it definitely feels like it is
Please just wait for reviews before you buy the next one. this whole "its Pokémon so we'll just buy it anyway" crap is getting really cringe. this is why GF is doing this, like this. its because they KNOW for a fact that the quality of the game doesn't matter. they know there well programed wallets with legs will throw money at it regardless.
It isn't a common thing. They simply just need more time to make these games as good as they were before but since they need to fill their pockets up with more money I guess we aren't getting that any time soon.
It is going to be. GF fights updating their design philosophy and keeps making what are essentially 2D games in a 3D enviroment. Even when they make larger cities to make it seem more believable they won't add enough NPC and do it by mostly copy and pasting the same building.
Something I noticed when I played was that near Lake Casseroya it's only older people, mainly students. It being a higher level area gives the idea that these people took decades to train their pokemon that much.
i felt so cheated upon finding out that you basically can't enter ANY houses. even Sword and Shield (which doesn't deserve all the shit it gets imo, but that's another thing) has TONS of random NPC houses that serve literally no other purpose than making the town feel lived in
@@kasagure. Boring, ugly, easy, gamefreak making terrible decisions to save money while lying about why they made those decisions, horrible post game, hop, selling features that should have been in the game for $30, bland gimmick, poor implementation of raids, terrible online, hop
This would be a great series! I feel like the shift away from lore filled cities happened only more recently from sun and moon onwards, but it would be interesting to see.
I think ever since the start of the 3D era of Pokemon with X and Y, the towns have gotten more and more things about them cut. It started with one or two towns in XY where it felt like there was missing lore, to about three or four towns in Sun and Moon having nothing to do/starting to bar off houses to enter. Then we've got Sword and Shield attempting to expand with the wild area but also making the towns more and more uninteresting/having less things to access in them, like Spikemuth being a single line you go through during the Gym Challenge and Raihan's Gym only being an empty room. Plus putting the post-game content behind a paywall when literally no other Pokemon game did that before. Then we have Scarlet and Violet that has janky frame rates, awful animations, barren towns, and you literally can't go into any building that isn't a shop or a Gym. Nintendo and Game Freak are putting their employees through so much crunch, forcing them to churn out a new game every year. In turn, it's making subpar video games that only exist to turn a profit and make people buy merchandise. Legends Arceus feels like the freshest take on the franchise and even then, the graphics quality and frame rates could be better.
"Jotting down" has been a common way for NPC's to remind you to save your game progress. So in the world of the game, when you are saving, you character is just writing in a journal/diary of sorts. This is also why when you save in more recent games the little icon that pops up, while the save is in progress, is a little pencil.
Paldea is very open but is it like the houses… It seem like it… Many place have little substance or underwhelming. My hotspot are: Monteverra, I spent alot time on the ice Mountain that high tide started to remind me of the League in Alola tons and started myself as Red. It the perfect place to perfect my own pokemon. Cascarrafa and Levsina for fashion and item. I’m totally not getting paid and offer to do a collab by Iono if I say this. If you have cash, Port Mirinda is perfect. Good luck for Balls. I’m going for Beasts. Alfornoda, is exactly underwhelming and just like make-up. Enjoy the training. Nostalgia blinds. I recommend going to the Rai class. I found some special pokemon ready to ruin. Lillie extra: Dang Terra is exclusive to Paldea, good thing I got my Tera Orb. *Lillie holds a pokeball and sip her lemonade* (SV seem to have potential but it waste or under preform a bit Crossing my fingers that the DLC will give substance. Oozing lore like the Isle de Armor or Crown Tundra.)
Alfornada is literally called "All for nothing (nada)" too, since it's the most pointless town with a Gym Leader. Tulip is also the most forgettable Gym Leader, which is funny since she keeps on saying stuf like "Oh it's so sad when people don't live up to their dreams. What a waste".
I know I'm commenting twice, But I definitely agree with this. The towns feel so empty... Like really empty... You can't even go into other people's houses! And I think it would have benefit from some side quests. Like one of my favorite things from Legends Arceus was that some trainers will ask you to catch Pokemon for them. And when you do that, the Pokemon appear in their house or around in Jubilife Village. One of my favorites is watching Beauregard's Wurmple slowly but surely evolve into a Dustox. Double satisfying if it's a shiny. I don't know. Just made the town feel a little bit more alive.
Nice vid. A series on video game towns in general sounds pretty interesting. I think all Pokemon towns have more or less been the same over the years (in the main games, anyway), it's just that the bigger they are, the more you realize that there's not a lot to do in towns beyond plot, gyms, getting items and using services along your journey. Everything else is basically just set dressing. Maybe if Paldea (and other locations in Pokemon games) had smaller towns, that emptiness and copy-pasting would feel more acceptable since it isn't as prevalent...or at least tolerated.
I'd say having one or two major features makes a town interesting, though. Like, the Safari Zone makes a town worth coming back to, as does a Contest Hall, even a little distraction like Amity Square. Nimbasa City, for example, had the Battle Subway, the Ferris Wheel, two stadiums, the Pokémon Musical Hall, that one house where you fight people, plus a number of buildings just for talking to NPCs. There are a number of reasons to come back to it that aren't just plot or items - I suppose all of these count as "services"? And, when you keep going back, that place will start to be more memorable, just through repetition. Scarlet and Violet never make you go back somewhere except for plot. I think they do have one or two places with minigames or the auction, but those are far from interesting enough.
With the design of the cities I was... not really fond of them. For me they where not so memorable, because in none there is really something hidden. It felt like nearly everything is shoved into the main city and then there is only hollow ones next to it
Playing Tears of the Kingdom, I feel like I talk to 75% of the npcs because so many of them give you some kind of hint of cool stuff to find in the game. They greatly incentivize you to check out every building and every person
a game I always felt had good town design...is unironically ocarina of time idk why but they felt....full for there age but that could just be my nostalgia goggles being on
I personally thought the towns in BotW were kinda on the small end (and TotK because technically the towns should have gotten bigger after the basically apocalypse in BotW). In TotK i thought surely they could have gotten bigger as life was safer and there were many years in between the story of the games. Anyways it's mostly just Kakariko village that seems kinda tiny.
8:33 I'd loved to race against team Star too. My inner Mario Kart fan would of been so happy if it was in game. It would be a great way to bond with the team star leaders too in my opinion. Tbh I wish we'd be able to become friends with everyone from team Star, (spoiler) not just Penny. It would also make sense since Penny was so worried about them fitting in after returning to the academy.
it makes me so sad that you can’t go into the buildings. being a little shit breaking into homes and businesses to snatch any items laying around and terrorize the residents was my favorite part of pokémon towns. i really loved what they did with the story and characters, and having the multiple goals instead of just gym battles, but the overall jankiness of the world just makes it hard to fully enjoy.
2:11 the mom has had a bedroom since XY 3:41 she's probably referring to saving your game, since saving is usually depicted in game as you writing in a journal. 18:51 OH BOY, DO I!
Great video, dude. You reminded me of so many things I forgot about - gonna go get that Gengar now! Would love to see your thoughts on all the regions and towns, then use it to rank the regions
When I got to the first town and found out we can't enter any buildings I was a little disappointed at first but quickly realized that's not what Scarlet/Violet are about. It's not like Sword/Shield. It's an open world where you can enjoy the freedom and go wherever. When I was doing my first playthrough I heard from an NPC about the ten sights of Paldea and decided one of my missions while traveling on my journey would be to find all ten without any guides. It took awhile to find them all but it was fun and engaging to travel with a purpose in mind and see so much and experience so much that's not even part of the main story. And at the start they say the Treasure Hunt is to discover your true treasure so while traveling I took it seriously for my character and truly thought about what was my treasure and I remember standing on the bridge above the giant Casseroya Lake and looking over everything and thinking about how far we've come and realizing my true treasure is the memories and friendships I make along the way. And that's what makes Scarlet/Violet so good. Every player has their own journey and experiences and goals that aren't even related to the story itself. True freedom and expression while making your own story. I love Scarlet/Violet.
First video I’ve seen of yours, but I would definitely watch a series doing this with all the main line Pokémon games. Good work, entertaining concept.
17:20 You actually can ride the legendary mount up the cliffs, it just is only some of them. In particular, you can't ride up the walls with water on them, just climb up the regular flat stone wall sections.
It felt worse than barren for me cause the Tauros owner froze my game twice so I just stopped talking to non essential npcs. Which is terrible cause some pokemon had their evolution tips hidden in dialogue like my Echo the dolphin.
Wait, what if Cynthia is a relative of Nemona? Hear me out here. First of all, Cynthia mentions having a home in a different region (which was not discovered at the time). Being the Sinnoh Champ, she probably gets paid by the bucketful and has more than enough to afford that fancy house. Second, there are dragons everywhere, one of which is Gible, which also links to the fact that the first 3 sync pairs Cynthia had were with dragon types exclusively. Finally, and this is the biggest stretch, but the painting of the Eevee could be a reference to her Glaceon in Unova and the anime.
I had to google it to see where this is! In all my 5 runs of this game so far, not once did these Stones register as a flight point even thought I've been in the area alot, gonna go grab it on my main save at least. Thanks :)
I would love to see a town review video series - you could do whole games or a theme of towns, like starting towns, the biggest towns, coastal towns, or some other theme.
It would be really cool to see you ranking more towns in Pokémon games, I hadn't noticed some of the cut content you pointed out, really interesting video
A few things worth mentioning: -There are actually 3 Delibird Presents in Mesagoza. Not that it really matters much, as they all have the same inventory. Go to Cascarrafa or Levincia for different wares. -Referring to the Ultra ball tier gym challenge in Cascarrafa, the tiering system there is alluding to the online ranked battle tiers, with ultra ball specifically being the 2nd highest under master ball tier. -For the ESP training, this is the most accessible way to get some of the rarer berries (Leichi, Petaya, Salac, Lansat, etc.) Depending on the difficulty setting. Endless challenge isnt recommended, as you only get the friendship berries from it, which are far more plentiful in the Porto Marianda Auction House.
This video really helped to put into words the uncomfortable, empty feeling I got in most of these towns. I'd really like to see more town analysis of other games, too! The Xenoblade games definitely feel like a great direction that I'd love to see. Other Pokemon games are another obvious pick, of course. But one option i'd really like to see is a look at the towns in Monster Hunter Stories 2. I feel like that game is criminally underlooked.
I feel like we should have had more interactive stuff with the school. Idk maybe the Tutorial being in the the actual school and we end meeting the legendary Pokémon after we’re prompted to visit our mom IDK I’ve never played a game this empty before
Id love to see a series where you look at different towns from different games! Its also one of my favorite parts of rpgs and it would be really unique series!
I would definitely be interested in a series exploring the good or bad aspects of town building in games, especially one that compares other generations to this one, as I believe this is one of the worst world and least filled worlds in the franchise
This was the first pokemon game where i never explored any of the cities, they just seemed kind of bland, especially when you cant even go into most houses.
Dude I went out of my way to get to the town with the fashionista gym leader. Can you imagine my reaction when I find out there's not a single damn clothing store? How can we not get some of the coolest looking clothes from the town where a fashionista lives?
From what I've seen, the Olive Roll doesn't even work in multiplayer; every player just sees their own olive, meaning everyone just has their own ball. (A YTer named AccousticHarmonia tried it and included that in his... 7 hour long SV vid. Yea, people can go this long about this game. '^^)
It’s very telling that I can name every single town/city from gen 1 to 5, and tell you every story beat and/or location of interest in said town/city. I could not name a single location in SV besides Medali, which I only know because it’s where I hatch eggs. Even then I had to look it up just to confirm that’s what it was called. I don’t know the names off the top of my head but there’s that one snowy town with the bottle cap guy, or the port with the auction, and that’s it. In previous games you’d show up in a city ready for another gym battle, meet up with your rival, help them defeat some grunts from the evil team you heard about, catch a glimpse of a legendary Pokémon and then get distracted by a game corner. There was a lot to do in the world, so naturally you’d remember the places you’re revisiting, even the small and relatively empty locations. It wasn’t just routes, but also story beats that connected locations. In recent generations the story feels like it’s been separated. You show up in a city, maybe talk to your rival, and fight a gym. Then you go to an evil team section and beat them. They’re very much disconnected, and this can probably be attributed to the games being non-linear. Making a non-linear game is hard. It’s especially hard, if it’s a heavily story-based game like Pokémon. There are shortcuts that can be taken, such as separating it into small, interchangeable sections, each independent from the rest, but this doesn’t really work when the story is integral to connecting one location to another. Pop quiz time. Non-linear games seem to be all the rage these days. People like the option to do things out of order, but you don’t have the time to fully flesh it out and make every section mesh cohesively with one another. Do you: A. Cut every corner and design each section as disconnected from each other section as possible, in order to retain the non-linearity. B. STOP TRYING TO MAKE A NON-LINEAR GAME WHEN A LINEAR GAME WITHOUT THIS ISSUE WOULD WORK JUST FUCKING FINE????
"Empty" is what I feel everywhere in this game... I do have fun catching pokemon, but exploring feels boring. You aim to visit every canyon, every island, every corner, just to end up with dozens of potions and a feeling of emptynees. The mine were the worst par for me. I mean, it's just a bunch of holes and tunnels with random metal structures, with no building, no npc, no lore, nothing. Where are the workers? What do they mine? How does it work? Why is there a giant metal worm that just chill in the middle of an extraction facility??
You CAN actually climb the levels of Cascarraca with Koraidon/Miraidon, but only on the non-waterfall parts of the walls. It is indeed faster than the elevator animation
even Pokemon X and Y actually had your mother's bedroom in the house AND offered a lot more with the towns. they each have very unique looks to them, many of them maintain post-Champion relevance, and Lumiose City, while absolutely dizzying, is the single largest and most populous city in Pokemon to date, and has TONS to do. and when POKEMON X AND Y have better towns than this, that speaks a lot about just how underwhelming these are.
I agree with your placement for levincia, but there are two things you didn't mention (probably because they are so obscure): 1) There is actually a supermarket that sells some exclusive sandwich ingredients, including Klawf Sticks. However, it doesn't stand out and I think some of the ingredients are locked behind gym progress (like sais Klawf Sticks), so you could easily go in once, not see anything special, then leave. 2) The Deliberd Presents here actually sells some good items in the post game, namely stuff like the Toxic Orb. Again, not sure why THIS is locked behind game progress, especially since you can get the leftovers and EV bands in Megazoza, but it's still there. That being said, that isn't enough for me to argue for it being a higher rank. Just worth mentioning/cementing it's place.
Xenoblade town designs is an interesting idea that I'd like to see. One thing you should make note of though is the navigation of the towns, a couple are rather annoying to get around which you may see as a major downside, or not. (New LA is a mess!)
11:24 I WISH it worked that way. But sadly if you go there and use the Union Circle, it's just two different screens. So I could hit the giant olive but on my brother's switch, it looked like I'm just running around while his olive was still there.
The thing about Nemona’s sister and the Dragon-types makes me wonder if maybe she’s related to Drasna. Not if Drasna is her sister or something, but just the thought that there’s a certain amount of physical resemblance there
The towns are absolutely gorgeous and have really nice aesthetic and music, but they feel like they've been abandoned because of how one-dimensional all of the npcs seem to be, even the useful ones. So it feels like we were left with stunning ghost towns all across the map.
You should make this a series. While I don't agree that the auction town should be lower tier than a town with a gimmick that most people won't use seriously (outside the competitive community), I'd love to learn more about towns; their lore and usefulness in other games since I want to start playing more RPGs and JRPGs like Xenoblade Chronicles and whatnot. It'd be great to have info that I would need- or feel the need to have- when playing a game for the first time. Playing a game "blind" can be fun, but when I'm completely confused or don't understand the lingo used or make a mistake that would result in me soft locking myself, it can ruin that fun.
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I already knew that terrestrializing was going to be a generational gimmick but yes that confirms that it is a generational gimmick
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When one single NPC makes such a massive difference it's pretty clear how badly set up these towns are as a whole...
Remember Johto when a single town could have a Gym and dance studio with trainers to battles and two towers to explore.
Every town (except maybe ciennwood) had at least 2 things to do
It’s not badly set up it’s intentional they didn’t want u in towns they wanted u exploring
That’s easy because in past Pokémon games the appeal was going from town to town and Interacting with all the NPCs and in this game because they make it so seamless and that it’s open world they wanted the bigger focus on exploration and finding Pokémon
They didn’t want u in towns they wanted u out in the wilds
And also because You have to remember gamefreak are inexperienced with developing open world games so of course there will be some trial and error the more they work on and improve the game and do future games the better at it they’ll get
Rome wasn’t built in a day we need to be patient
Assuming we get more open world games
NOT TO MENTION ScarVi’s development was probably screwed up by the pandemic
Probably turned it upside down
And before u say just delay the game
They can’t delay the game
The franchise was designed so that every aspect of it has a symbiotic relationship
The games can’t release without the anime the merch and the manga and the manga the merch and the anime can’t release without the games
And it’s about time you all understand that by now
They are doing their best trying to balance the games with the tcg and the anime
The Pokémon franchise is like a game of jenga
If you move one thing it all falls apart
They are doing the best they can sorry I’m the only one who appreciates that
Unless you want them to hypothetically release the Gen 10 anime and then wait till the anime gets to Gen 15 to release the Gen 10 games
Hope this is a good explanation
@@madnessarcade7447
No, it's just badly set up. Just because GameFreak wants you to explore the world doesn't mean that the towns have to be so devoid of life. Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom also want you to explore the wild world, yet their towns are much more interesting than those of Scarlet/Violet.
Scarlet/Violet was probably screwed over by the pandemic sure, but it was probably also because they (A) decided to only spend three years on development when an open world game usually takes more time to make (especially if you're inexperienced making them), and (B) they developed Scarlet/Violet alongside Legends Arceus with many of the developers working on both projects simultaneously. Making two video games where they both have two unique, big maps (one being an open area game and another an open world game) with the same developers on both projects and without any experience making such games in just three years definitely sounds like a disaster and incredibly unhealthy for the developers.
And yes, they could've delayed the game. Because they released everything else months after the release of Scarlet/Violet. The TCG didn't come out until March of this year. The anime didn't release until April. The Adventures manga has yet to be released. Everything else Gen 9 related was released around spring of 2023 except the video game, which came out in November of 2022. The game released without the TCG, manga, and anime, and the TCG, manga, and anime released without the game. They moved everything to spring except the game.
So Scarlet/Violet releasing in November of last year had nothing to do with "balance the games with the tcg and the anime" or to maintain a "symbiotic relationship". It was done because the higher ups at The Pokémon Company, Nintendo, and/or GameFreak (key word is higher ups, not developers, who were probably crunched really hard during development) wanted Scarlet/Violet to come out in November so that they could maximize profit for the holidays. They did it because they knew it would sell regardless of how good or bad the game was. They did it because they didn't care about the state of the game or what players would think of it.
@@madnessarcade7447 “they don’t want you exploring the towns they want you exploring” what?
What's especially telling is that hackers actually found interiors for NPC houses _inside_ the game files. Implying that they were definitely cut for time..
Oh that's actually really cool! Maybe some day in the future there will be mods for this game that will allow us to see what this game *could* have been. Imagine a pokemon game with the open world but also the ability to really experience what a town could feel like with the capabilities of the current systems!
Or the people of Paldea just has a good sense of safety
Call me old fashioned but one of the BEST part of the older games was just running around and checking every house to see if the TRASH CANS had any loot.... this tiny incentive to explore every room led to you talking to everyone which also had it's own rewards further enforcing the player's exploration
I think it was G6 when they stopped doing this and also stopped hiding items inside things and just leaving the pokeball icon on the ground and overall reduced the number of items not in the world, tending to limit them to outside or in places the player is forced to go through anyways
Most of the stuff found in xy is on the ground outside or from talking to random people, I guess it makes sense since it's be weird to just steal stuff from people though. At least in quite a few of the houses there's someone who gives some random thing, it gives a tiny insensitive to explore but it's usually like a pokedoll or something.
When I first played pokemon as a kid, I was not bilingual yet and choosing languages was not an option. I couldn't read english very well and I got stuck in pokemon diamond because I didn't knew I had to steak to someone to get the CT "cut". I managed to understand years later.
Let me tell you, the moment I figured out some people gave you stuff when you talked to them, I started talking to everyone, going in every building etc. It was so much fun. I'm really sad they took that away
Yes but because this game is open world they don’t want you doing that they wanted you out in the world
That’s the focus of the game
That’s why the approach is different
actually it’s because unlike past Pokémon games the appeal was going from town to town and Interacting with all the NPCs and in this game because they make it so seamless and that it’s open world they wanted the bigger focus on exploration and finding Pokémon
They didn’t want u in towns they wanted u out in the wilds
And also because You have to remember gamefreak are inexperienced with developing open world games so of course there will be some trial and error the more they work on and improve the game and do future games the better at it they’ll get
Rome wasn’t built in a day we need to be patient
Assuming we get more open world games
NOT TO MENTION ScarVi’s development was probably screwed up by the pandemic
Probably turned it upside down
And before u say just delay the game
They can’t delay the game
The franchise was designed so that every aspect of it has a symbiotic relationship
The games can’t release without the anime the merch and the manga and the manga the merch and the anime can’t release without the games
And it’s about time you all understand that by now
They are doing their best trying to balance the games with the tcg and the anime
The Pokémon franchise is like a game of jenga
If you move one thing it all falls apart
They are doing the best they can sorry I’m the only one who appreciates that
Unless you want them to hypothetically release the Gen 10 anime and then wait till the anime gets to Gen 15 to release the Gen 10 games
Hope this is a good explanation
@@madnessarcade7447 wow, someone is mad.
If it can reasure you, I don't think the Pokemon franchise is in any danger just because people criticize their game. Not criticizing it would mean they'd just keep doing the same thing, and the game is far from perfect let's admit it.
But, the team will learn from this experience, the pandemic is over, and with the comments, good and bad, from the people. They now know what displeases us from this. And they know how to improve and where to put more focus.
I get that you love the franchise, but not everything they pop out is a masterpiece. "awww you did good, you tried" will not help. The team was rushed and it's not their fault. But I blame their superior.
"Can't delay" is a poor excuse when the final product looks like a beta.
Just thinking about that sandwich animation hurts. They clearly didn't have time to do anything better. When you see this and get told "can't delay" it's a bit gratting.
But I'm guessing you feel the same way about negative comments toward the game given your reaction. But we're all entitled to our opinion.
What the first commenter said about there being no interior to houses and not talking to people is very true. It is disapointing. Time crunch or no time crunch. Good game or not. It's something that is fun in Pokemon games. It's always been there. They've reduced it over time, but removing it completely makes us old players sad. That is all that was said.
@Madness Arcade TLDR Pokemon company got lazy in G6's worldbuilding and just decided to stay that way
Even WITH exploration outside being the main focus all the items you find are randomized
Having everything outside shows a lack of creativity when it comes to making inside puzzles... even outside puzzles are nothing more than run around and climb stuff
No joke, I didn't realise that you could go into the sandwich shop and Nemona's house, as I thought that all houses were blocked off except for the salon and the player's house. Just another example about how SV teach weird lessons that may be detrimental to the player.
Came here to say this. I never really needed the non-clothing stores for anything so I never tried because the game set me up for disappointment from the start. I only knew you could go in Nemona's because I tried before I realized most buildings aren't useable.
@@sleepicat actually it’s because unlike past Pokémon games the appeal was going from town to town and Interacting with all the NPCs and in this game because they make it so seamless and that it’s open world they wanted the bigger focus on exploration and finding Pokémon
They didn’t want u in towns they wanted u out in the wilds
And also because You have to remember gamefreak are inexperienced with developing open world games so of course there will be some trial and error the more they work on and improve the game and do future games the better at it they’ll get
Rome wasn’t built in a day we need to be patient
Assuming we get more open world games
NOT TO MENTION ScarVi’s development was probably screwed up by the pandemic
Probably turned it upside down
And before u say just delay the game
They can’t delay the game
The franchise was designed so that every aspect of it has a symbiotic relationship
The games can’t release without the anime the merch and the manga and the manga the merch and the anime can’t release without the games
And it’s about time you all understand that by now
They are doing their best trying to balance the games with the tcg and the anime
The Pokémon franchise is like a game of jenga
If you move one thing it all falls apart
They are doing the best they can sorry I’m the only one who appreciates that
Unless you want them to hypothetically release the Gen 10 anime and then wait till the anime gets to Gen 15 to release the Gen 10 games
Hope this is a good explanation
@@reaven2535 actually it’s because unlike past Pokémon games the appeal was going from town to town and Interacting with all the NPCs and in this game because they make it so seamless and that it’s open world they wanted the bigger focus on exploration and finding Pokémon
They didn’t want u in towns they wanted u out in the wilds
And also because You have to remember gamefreak are inexperienced with developing open world games so of course there will be some trial and error the more they work on and improve the game and do future games the better at it they’ll get
Rome wasn’t built in a day we need to be patient
Assuming we get more open world games
NOT TO MENTION ScarVi’s development was probably screwed up by the pandemic
Probably turned it upside down
And before u say just delay the game
They can’t delay the game
The franchise was designed so that every aspect of it has a symbiotic relationship
The games can’t release without the anime the merch and the manga and the manga the merch and the anime can’t release without the games
And it’s about time you all understand that by now
They are doing their best trying to balance the games with the tcg and the anime
The Pokémon franchise is like a game of jenga
If you move one thing it all falls apart
They are doing the best they can sorry I’m the only one who appreciates that
Unless you want them to hypothetically release the Gen 10 anime and then wait till the anime gets to Gen 15 to release the Gen 10 games
Hope this is a good explanation
@madnessarcade7447 gen 4 lasted longer than expected and they fixed it by making a new season in the anime focused on the battle frontier. why would they not be able to do that again? pokemon journeys was all over the place anyway, they could've just made more stories, maybe even introducing new pokemon/characters to get more hype for the new gen.
@@madnessarcade7447 shut up fanboy!
When a NPC that provides a service is the difference between grades, I think that really speaks to how abysmal the towns were.
Also as someone who celebrated being able to sit down in gen 6, it does make me sad that we can't do that anymore. Sure, it was a tiny feature. It was something though.
We could "sit" in some games before gen 6 but it was just walking over the chair, couch or whatever, well except for one side.
XY was the first pokemon game I played and I always made sure that my character was sitting down somewhere when I saved and left the game. And when I found out that my character in UM couldn't sit down somewhere I was literally like: "But her legs are going to hurt!"
But for whatever reason we're able to lay down onto other people beds...
@@FarrahKeks them in SwSh they brought back sitting. But then they removed the different camera angles you used to get from sitting because something something money money money Kristy krab argargargargarg
@@huntdowntherefund to avoid up skirt shots haha
" and she says... No but i got krabbies!!"
They gave the trainers more world building than the NPC's and there's no time-wasters side activities in the towns. Just food vendors and pop up text boxes that never go beyond 1-line.
For real. Scarlet and Violet unironically have to be the worst open world games I’ve ever played. No side quests, no interesting characters to talk to, no mini games anywhere in the world, and you can’t even say “well at least you have a world to explore” because you have the entire map revealed right away! It would have been so so easy to at the very least have location markers like in the Fallout games. At least riding around on the dragon bike was fun.
@@samueltitone5683 Tell me about it. This game is super fun, but it's held back by so much internlly from truly being great.
@@samueltitone5683 there are technically replayable gympuzzles which act as minigames.
@@samueltitone5683 yeah, you can definitely tell the "open world" was just shoe horned in and wasn't thought out pretty much at all
I mean, there's no level scaling for crying out loud!
@@stormy_does_stuff I mean, it's pretty much agreed by pretty much every RPG fan that I've seen that level-scaling sucks in those sorts of games
I think the “jotting down” thing is ment to be in reference to the save feature since it’s always represented as you writing stuff in a notebook
It is. "...so you don't forget" is in reference to closing the game without saving. You effectively forgot what you did before and have to redo it.
This and in Japanese you don't save, you "write a report". It's been like that since gen 1.
Part of the charm it’s always been like that
kinda feel like after the starter town, you also really see the quality drop visually in the towns. Your own house is stunning, and the area is very pretty, which is what was hyped up in trailers. But actual areas ended up nothing like the beginning.
It's so clearly rushed for release. I really wish they'd at the very least return to making third games so at least one version exists that isn't empty and disappointing.
@@JOCoStudio1 how about ONE game, made properly? Instead of shelling out $500 by the end of 3 games. And yes I'm exaggerating, but my point is completely valid. Pokemon is price gouging us.
@@Varunic219 Oh absolutely, skipping the unfinished version entirely and just releasing when ready would be ideal!
That’s because game freak is more concerned about the initial presentation of the towns
Dear God, not mentioning the horrible frame rates of people that walk around in towns, but mesagosa especially, building (and especially the staircases leading to them) look so awkward on slanted ground. There are a bunch of little corners that are blocked off (probably so you can’t glitch though) because of the weird placement of building, and then all the random skinny walkways to nowhere. And then my biggest one, is the top left of mesagosa because it’s so empty the buildings look so in the middle of nothing. It’s sad
"Jot it down so you don't forget" is just NPC speak for saving your progress.
Fun (not really, moreso wildly disappointing) fact: the olive actually can not be used in online multiplayer, everyone has their own olive when in multiplayer and so bouncing it around on your screen does not display that bouncing to other players.
I remember the first time I did union circle with my friend we tried to play olive soccer and were bitterly disappointed
Fun fact: The platforms in the olive roll minigame only exist in the world of whoever is playing the minigame. To other players who aren't participating, it will look like you are standing on air.
@@strawdeath263 wow what a good game
Small comment, The protagonist's mom had a room in Pokemon Sun and Moon, as well as Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. So no, Scarlet and Violet isn't the first game to introduce a mom having a room.
Your mom in X and Y kind of has one too
I was going to mention that as well
If I remember correctly, you could even go in your mom’s room in x and y.
YES THANK YOU, I won’t take this starting house slander.
There's a door near the kitchen in Sword and Shield, which I can only assume is our mother's bedroom.
So yeah, mom having a room in the house has been thing since gen 6
In Artazon, I do like how some of the sculptures are some of the art pieces you can buy for your secret base in ORAS
Your comment made me realize how perfect secret bases would be for this game. ORAS let you turn your secret bases into little mini gyms and being able to stumble upon those while out about in Paldea would have been so much fun! Imagine Breath of the Wild’s shrines or Elden Ring’s catacombs but completely made by the community. Give players the ability to rate bases like they have in Super Mario Maker and you could potentially have a reason for players to keep playing after completing the story and reaching master ball rank in the online battles.
@@samueltitone5683 that sounds amazing
@@samueltitone5683 FINALLY! Somebody else thinks this! I've been literally saying this since I played through it. Like at the very least let us decorate our own dormrooms. They would've been perfect for secret bases! I hate how bland ours are compared to Nemoma's Penny's, and Arven's...
I loved secret bases in oras, even though bdsp was a disappointment in my eyes I was at least hoping they'd stay true to the "faithfulness" and let is make our secret bases decorated but we didn't even get that. I would absolutely love a return to secret bases, maybe now we could have our own pokemon kinda hang around inside our base if we wanted them to, I just want something to build up really.
@@user-jl7cz2pe6d I noticed how weird it was not to be able to decorate the dorms
I feel there are very few and empty cities compared to other games.
Despite Kanto being the first and simplest region, they added something unique to most towns and cities to make them worth visiting for lore, rare Pokemon or minigames (Pewter Museum, Cerulean Cave, SS Anne, Pokemon Tower, Game Corner, Dept. Store, Safari Zone, Pokemon Mansion).
Johto had more traditional landmarks and a lot of lore locations (Bellsprout Tower, Ilex Forest, Radio Tower and Game Corner, National Park, Burned Tower and Tin Tower, Lake of Rage, Dragon's Den)
Hoenn shined for its routes and Emerald did a great job by adding Battle Tents to get some variety here and there. They could have more of these, actually.
Sinnoh was a nice combination of everything with good NPCs here and there, unique landmarks, tons of minigames and side quests, and very solid exploration.
Unova had very great exploration sites like Chargestone Cave, Reverse Mountain, Pinwheel Forest, and also had great things like an Airport, Ferris wheel, Art gallery... it felt very alive.
Kalos kept the seasons theme on most of its routes, and also had some great landmarks and unique city aesthetics. I feel this is the last interesting region that tried to provide such an alive world. Galar tried to do something similar, but it felt "fake", like, its only visually appealing, but that's it.
Paldea definitively needs more landmarks, minigames, exploration and themes on its cities to feel alive.
I do seem to remember Alola's towns at least having stuff to do. One or two towns weren't that useful again, but Malie City, for example, was rather nice to come back to.
Also helps that the music was lovely. Maybe it's a hot take, but I thought the music in gen 9 was pretty lacking. The battle themes are alright, but I barely remember the overworld music, except for the main one in the beginning areas (and, honestly, that's not that great either). The first city in Sun and Moon (whose exact spelling I forget) might not have that much to do, but I can't help but hum the tune all day lol.
Forgot Alola
Unova also has probably some of the most "over the top" locations. Also most areas, even minor, have at least something interesting to them or something to do. Which is a bit more then some towns/areas in Gen 8 and Gen 9.
Even Alola had at least nice and unique aesthetics. And Galar was SO close, they had some really interesting town concepts but they never lived up to their own potential. :/
their recent 2 gen provide slight step up then massive step down.
Gen 8 has the best customizations we ever have in a pkm game, lots of cool clothings and trainer card customizations. But they cut down towns and routes a lot then there the lackluster open world.
Then Gen 9 came, they improve open world, team stars and titan pokemon are great addition. But the game has lots of technical issues, towns and routes are non existent, terrible customizations: only 4 costumes, limited trainer card options and terrible camera. I cant take a selfie with Koraidon without him disappear. The game is open world but feel way emptier than Unova and Kalos
i’m convinced that Zapapico (and maybe Porto Marinada) were planned to be version exclusive gym towns. they could be interchangeable with some of the emptier towns maybe.
Yup. I've been saying this to friends since I took the class where you find out Tyme was a Rock type gym leader.
I'm convinced Zapapico was going to be her version exclusive gym town and that in the other version Ryme would have been the teacher instead.
The older Pokemon games actually had better towns because not only could you enter more buildings and talk to NPCs, but they also weren't open-world. In a standard RPG game like Pokemon its okay for each town to not have anything unique or special as the main focus is just doing the Gym battle and moving on to the next town... but this is an open-world game. Part of the appeal of open-world games is that they're supposed to feel like an actual world instead of just the setting of a game.
Scarlet and Violet definitely dropped the ball. Pretty much everything about it is decent at best and straight up bad at its worst... the graphics are really not that great, making it look lower quality than Wii games that came out over a decade ago, the performance isn't just bad but can directly interfere with gameplay at times, and a lot of the execution just feels clunky and odd (like the sandwiches for example). Gamefreak REALLY needed more time to work on this game, because if they actually had time and knew what they were doing, it would be amazing.
You were definitely far more forgiving than me - due to the lack of anything to do in each town I pretty much never visited any of them after clearing their gyms. Also, the trades were stupid. This could have been an interesting way to incorporate a mini-quest into the game- “hey trainer, I heard that a Pokémon called X lives in area Y, I’ll trade you my mom for it if you can find one”. Instead, I don’t think any of the trade Pokémon were more than a minute away from the NPCs that wanted them. I also don’t remember any other mini quest-like events: no people asking for favors or talking about a local legend that may have led to some treasure or a rare Pokémon spawn. I finished the game, but it left me feeling like I wasted my time- even SwSh had some memorable moments/places for me. Hell, I can’t even remember some of the Pokémons’ names from this Gen. Maybe I’m getting old, but I really think this Gen was the worst out of all of them in terms of player satisfaction. The stories were passable, as always, but hinted at nuances that just didn’t exist.
I missed being able to go into people's houses and talking to them, maybe stumple upon a pokebattle or some little sidestory of whats going on in their lives. It gave earlier games so much more life.
My favorite was the international party in Castelia City where you meet people from all over the world.
With every new pokemon game I feel like the region suffers more and more, more so on the switch, we don't have puzzles or a variety of battle facilities like we use too and the region just gets more bland.
@teamplasmacolresstpc8234 that was pretty much Galar nowhere to even make detours besides the wild areas
Fun fact, I learned from Nuzlockes.
There is a wild pokemon spawn on the top of your house in the start of the game.
If you get your starter, and the pokeballs, then run back to your house.
If you try and target towards the roof of your home, you will be able to target the Squawkabilly up there, though it's a bit of a hassle.
In Medali there’s also the NPC that will give you your extra Gimmieghoul coins if you collect more than the 999 inventory limit.
I don’t think it’s nostalgia goggles that’s making us hate on the newer gens’ towns and cities. To prove it, I think we should see how the original three gens handled their worlds. I always felt like there was something to do in kanto cities or people to talk to in hoenn towns.
I think the towns are alright. What's not alright, though, are the wild areas. Like, in older Pokémon games you can stumble upon a lot of cool special "sub-areas" when exploring a place, like Mirage Tower in emerald's desert or old chateau in eterna forest. In SV, most wild areas are just a whole lot of nothing. Chi-yu's den is somehow one of the best "sub-areas" in SV and I don't even know if it qualifies as an sub-area.
I think a lot of this is a result of having to make choices on a very strict deadline. The emphasis is on the outdoor environments and the storylines you go through. The academy is the starting and end point for that. Because of that there are less resources available for the other towns and interiors. Towns are really just pit stops where you can spend your money.
Bad news about the olive field. as i learned through AcousticHarmonia when in union circle everyone has their own olive, completely invisible to the other player.
As I recall, the data miners found the mother's room in the player's house in Sun and Moon's data, but it had been cut out. And the same in Sword and Shield. In Scarlet and Violet, the mother has a door to the room after all.
pokemon X and Y has the mother's room actually in the game. scarlet and violet is not revolutionary for this.
"After 25 years moms not sleeping in the kitchen"
Did you happen to forget about alolha? Where our mom also had a room? That we could actually interact with?
The lacking of interior is most towns just make it feel barren. So few houses can be entered making the town feel empty. One thing that set me off the most is the fast travel in the school. I do think being able to fast travel is good for players who don't want to walk, but I wish the schools interior was developed, allowing you to walk through the hallways class to class and see other students in the hallways walking. I really wish scarlet and violet had a lot more development time to flesh out the world and optimize the game.
I've been playing through violet lately and it feels so empty and disappointing, hopefully this isn't a common thing going forward in the Pokemon series but it definitely feels like it is
Yeah, I started Violet a month ago and pretty much haven't touched it since. I'm having much more fun making abominations in Pokemon Infinite Fusion.
Please just wait for reviews before you buy the next one. this whole "its Pokémon so we'll just buy it anyway" crap is getting really cringe. this is why GF is doing this, like this. its because they KNOW for a fact that the quality of the game doesn't matter. they know there well programed wallets with legs will throw money at it regardless.
@@freeasabird30 Fortunately I haven't paid for a Pokemon game since Gold and Silver.
It isn't a common thing. They simply just need more time to make these games as good as they were before but since they need to fill their pockets up with more money I guess we aren't getting that any time soon.
It is going to be. GF fights updating their design philosophy and keeps making what are essentially 2D games in a 3D enviroment.
Even when they make larger cities to make it seem more believable they won't add enough NPC and do it by mostly copy and pasting the same building.
Something I noticed when I played was that near Lake Casseroya it's only older people, mainly students. It being a higher level area gives the idea that these people took decades to train their pokemon that much.
i felt so cheated upon finding out that you basically can't enter ANY houses. even Sword and Shield (which doesn't deserve all the shit it gets imo, but that's another thing) has TONS of random NPC houses that serve literally no other purpose than making the town feel lived in
I think SwSh was mid but doesn’t deserve the hate it gets it’s not that bad as people say it is at all
@@cyanclyde8456 yes it does
Good for you
@@huntdowntherefund can you give any reasons why other than you personally didn't like it?
@@kasagure. Boring, ugly, easy, gamefreak making terrible decisions to save money while lying about why they made those decisions, horrible post game, hop, selling features that should have been in the game for $30, bland gimmick, poor implementation of raids, terrible online, hop
This would be a great series! I feel like the shift away from lore filled cities happened only more recently from sun and moon onwards, but it would be interesting to see.
The olive roll you can not play with friends, each of you have a separate olive that the others cant see
I think ever since the start of the 3D era of Pokemon with X and Y, the towns have gotten more and more things about them cut.
It started with one or two towns in XY where it felt like there was missing lore, to about three or four towns in Sun and Moon having nothing to do/starting to bar off houses to enter. Then we've got Sword and Shield attempting to expand with the wild area but also making the towns more and more uninteresting/having less things to access in them, like Spikemuth being a single line you go through during the Gym Challenge and Raihan's Gym only being an empty room. Plus putting the post-game content behind a paywall when literally no other Pokemon game did that before. Then we have Scarlet and Violet that has janky frame rates, awful animations, barren towns, and you literally can't go into any building that isn't a shop or a Gym.
Nintendo and Game Freak are putting their employees through so much crunch, forcing them to churn out a new game every year. In turn, it's making subpar video games that only exist to turn a profit and make people buy merchandise. Legends Arceus feels like the freshest take on the franchise and even then, the graphics quality and frame rates could be better.
"Jotting down" has been a common way for NPC's to remind you to save your game progress.
So in the world of the game, when you are saving, you character is just writing in a journal/diary of sorts.
This is also why when you save in more recent games the little icon that pops up, while the save is in progress, is a little pencil.
Paldea is very open but is it like the houses…
It seem like it… Many place have little substance or underwhelming.
My hotspot are:
Monteverra, I spent alot time on the ice Mountain that high tide started to remind me of the League in Alola tons and started myself as Red. It the perfect place to perfect my own pokemon.
Cascarrafa and Levsina for fashion and item. I’m totally not getting paid and offer to do a collab by Iono if I say this.
If you have cash, Port Mirinda is perfect.
Good luck for Balls. I’m going for Beasts.
Alfornoda, is exactly underwhelming and just like make-up. Enjoy the training. Nostalgia blinds.
I recommend going to the Rai class. I found some special pokemon ready to ruin.
Lillie extra:
Dang Terra is exclusive to Paldea, good thing I got my Tera Orb.
*Lillie holds a pokeball and sip her lemonade*
(SV seem to have potential but it waste or under preform a bit
Crossing my fingers that the DLC will give substance. Oozing lore like the Isle de Armor or Crown Tundra.)
Alfornada is literally called "All for nothing (nada)" too, since it's the most pointless town with a Gym Leader. Tulip is also the most forgettable Gym Leader, which is funny since she keeps on saying stuf like "Oh it's so sad when people don't live up to their dreams. What a waste".
Please look at Emerald next! I remember the towns being amazing and very diverse
They weren't
@@internetguy7319 they were all 5/10.
I know I'm commenting twice, But I definitely agree with this. The towns feel so empty... Like really empty...
You can't even go into other people's houses! And I think it would have benefit from some side quests.
Like one of my favorite things from Legends Arceus was that some trainers will ask you to catch Pokemon for them. And when you do that, the Pokemon appear in their house or around in Jubilife Village. One of my favorites is watching Beauregard's Wurmple slowly but surely evolve into a Dustox. Double satisfying if it's a shiny.
I don't know. Just made the town feel a little bit more alive.
Nice vid. A series on video game towns in general sounds pretty interesting. I think all Pokemon towns have more or less been the same over the years (in the main games, anyway), it's just that the bigger they are, the more you realize that there's not a lot to do in towns beyond plot, gyms, getting items and using services along your journey. Everything else is basically just set dressing. Maybe if Paldea (and other locations in Pokemon games) had smaller towns, that emptiness and copy-pasting would feel more acceptable since it isn't as prevalent...or at least tolerated.
I'd say having one or two major features makes a town interesting, though. Like, the Safari Zone makes a town worth coming back to, as does a Contest Hall, even a little distraction like Amity Square.
Nimbasa City, for example, had the Battle Subway, the Ferris Wheel, two stadiums, the Pokémon Musical Hall, that one house where you fight people, plus a number of buildings just for talking to NPCs. There are a number of reasons to come back to it that aren't just plot or items - I suppose all of these count as "services"?
And, when you keep going back, that place will start to be more memorable, just through repetition.
Scarlet and Violet never make you go back somewhere except for plot. I think they do have one or two places with minigames or the auction, but those are far from interesting enough.
With the design of the cities I was... not really fond of them. For me they where not so memorable, because in none there is really something hidden.
It felt like nearly everything is shoved into the main city and then there is only hollow ones next to it
Playing Tears of the Kingdom, I feel like I talk to 75% of the npcs because so many of them give you some kind of hint of cool stuff to find in the game. They greatly incentivize you to check out every building and every person
a game I always felt had good town design...is unironically ocarina of time idk why but they felt....full for there age but that could just be my nostalgia goggles being on
Zelda has always been great for towns. I can't think of a single bad town in Zelda
I personally thought the towns in BotW were kinda on the small end (and TotK because technically the towns should have gotten bigger after the basically apocalypse in BotW).
In TotK i thought surely they could have gotten bigger as life was safer and there were many years in between the story of the games. Anyways it's mostly just Kakariko village that seems kinda tiny.
“After 25 years our mom is finally no longer sleeping in the kitchen” Vasko
Sun and Moon: Allow us to introduce ourselves
21:40 fun fact:
In the gym test, if u don't control your character, u still pass it.
8:33 I'd loved to race against team Star too. My inner Mario Kart fan would of been so happy if it was in game. It would be a great way to bond with the team star leaders too in my opinion. Tbh I wish we'd be able to become friends with everyone from team Star, (spoiler) not just Penny. It would also make sense since Penny was so worried about them fitting in after returning to the academy.
it makes me so sad that you can’t go into the buildings. being a little shit breaking into homes and businesses to snatch any items laying around and terrorize the residents was my favorite part of pokémon towns. i really loved what they did with the story and characters, and having the multiple goals instead of just gym battles, but the overall jankiness of the world just makes it hard to fully enjoy.
i'd love to see a video like this for unova!!! you did a great job on this one :D
Nothing much to say, but I would really like this to become a series.
2:11 the mom has had a bedroom since XY
3:41 she's probably referring to saving your game, since saving is usually depicted in game as you writing in a journal.
18:51 OH BOY, DO I!
As a college student in Atlanta, the Starbucks map caught me completely off guard. 😂
Great video, dude. You reminded me of so many things I forgot about - gonna go get that Gengar now! Would love to see your thoughts on all the regions and towns, then use it to rank the regions
Paldea the first ever open world pokemon game! So open that the NPC's lock their doors 😅
When I got to the first town and found out we can't enter any buildings I was a little disappointed at first but quickly realized that's not what Scarlet/Violet are about. It's not like Sword/Shield. It's an open world where you can enjoy the freedom and go wherever. When I was doing my first playthrough I heard from an NPC about the ten sights of Paldea and decided one of my missions while traveling on my journey would be to find all ten without any guides. It took awhile to find them all but it was fun and engaging to travel with a purpose in mind and see so much and experience so much that's not even part of the main story. And at the start they say the Treasure Hunt is to discover your true treasure so while traveling I took it seriously for my character and truly thought about what was my treasure and I remember standing on the bridge above the giant Casseroya Lake and looking over everything and thinking about how far we've come and realizing my true treasure is the memories and friendships I make along the way. And that's what makes Scarlet/Violet so good. Every player has their own journey and experiences and goals that aren't even related to the story itself. True freedom and expression while making your own story. I love Scarlet/Violet.
Wouldn't an open world and freedom to go wherever you want include going into buildings and houses?
First video I’ve seen of yours, but I would definitely watch a series doing this with all the main line Pokémon games. Good work, entertaining concept.
17:20 You actually can ride the legendary mount up the cliffs, it just is only some of them. In particular, you can't ride up the walls with water on them, just climb up the regular flat stone wall sections.
Levincia's name is also part valencia. a city in the same part of spain as levincia is in Paldea.
It felt worse than barren for me cause the Tauros owner froze my game twice so I just stopped talking to non essential npcs. Which is terrible cause some pokemon had their evolution tips hidden in dialogue like my Echo the dolphin.
Wait, what if Cynthia is a relative of Nemona? Hear me out here. First of all, Cynthia mentions having a home in a different region (which was not discovered at the time). Being the Sinnoh Champ, she probably gets paid by the bucketful and has more than enough to afford that fancy house. Second, there are dragons everywhere, one of which is Gible, which also links to the fact that the first 3 sync pairs Cynthia had were with dragon types exclusively. Finally, and this is the biggest stretch, but the painting of the Eevee could be a reference to her Glaceon in Unova and the anime.
Olive roll was one of the first things me and my friends tried to do, and the olive is non interactable on other players screen
There is actually a flight point by Casseroya Lake! It’s called Gracia Stones and it’s one of the 10 sights of Paldea
I had to google it to see where this is! In all my 5 runs of this game so far, not once did these Stones register as a flight point even thought I've been in the area alot, gonna go grab it on my main save at least. Thanks :)
@@VaskoGames don't forget about sonic frontiers that's also open world
I would love to see a town review video series - you could do whole games or a theme of towns, like starting towns, the biggest towns, coastal towns, or some other theme.
It would be really cool to see you ranking more towns in Pokémon games, I hadn't noticed some of the cut content you pointed out, really interesting video
A few things worth mentioning:
-There are actually 3 Delibird Presents in Mesagoza. Not that it really matters much, as they all have the same inventory. Go to Cascarrafa or Levincia for different wares.
-Referring to the Ultra ball tier gym challenge in Cascarrafa, the tiering system there is alluding to the online ranked battle tiers, with ultra ball specifically being the 2nd highest under master ball tier.
-For the ESP training, this is the most accessible way to get some of the rarer berries (Leichi, Petaya, Salac, Lansat, etc.) Depending on the difficulty setting. Endless challenge isnt recommended, as you only get the friendship berries from it, which are far more plentiful in the Porto Marianda Auction House.
This video really helped to put into words the uncomfortable, empty feeling I got in most of these towns.
I'd really like to see more town analysis of other games, too! The Xenoblade games definitely feel like a great direction that I'd love to see. Other Pokemon games are another obvious pick, of course. But one option i'd really like to see is a look at the towns in Monster Hunter Stories 2. I feel like that game is criminally underlooked.
I feel like we should have had more interactive stuff with the school. Idk maybe the Tutorial being in the the actual school and we end meeting the legendary Pokémon after we’re prompted to visit our mom IDK I’ve never played a game this empty before
I’d like to see you do tiers for the towns of past Pokémon games. This was a nice bit of insight.
Id love to see a series where you look at different towns from different games! Its also one of my favorite parts of rpgs and it would be really unique series!
I would definitely be interested in a series exploring the good or bad aspects of town building in games, especially one that compares other generations to this one, as I believe this is one of the worst world and least filled worlds in the franchise
bro must've forgot that the mom in sun/moon has an explorable bedroom also
The works by ‘an unknown artist’ are actually seen in or/as. They look a little different, though.
This was the first pokemon game where i never explored any of the cities, they just seemed kind of bland, especially when you cant even go into most houses.
Outside gym stuff I basically never spent any time in the towns, there's just nothing really of value in them
Dude I went out of my way to get to the town with the fashionista gym leader. Can you imagine my reaction when I find out there's not a single damn clothing store? How can we not get some of the coolest looking clothes from the town where a fashionista lives?
Even Sword and Shield had Eldegoss flowing in the win
From what I've seen, the Olive Roll doesn't even work in multiplayer; every player just sees their own olive, meaning everyone just has their own ball. (A YTer named AccousticHarmonia tried it and included that in his... 7 hour long SV vid. Yea, people can go this long about this game. '^^)
I enjoyed this video! I would like to see you try this with other RPGs for sure.
It’s very telling that I can name every single town/city from gen 1 to 5, and tell you every story beat and/or location of interest in said town/city.
I could not name a single location in SV besides Medali, which I only know because it’s where I hatch eggs. Even then I had to look it up just to confirm that’s what it was called. I don’t know the names off the top of my head but there’s that one snowy town with the bottle cap guy, or the port with the auction, and that’s it.
In previous games you’d show up in a city ready for another gym battle, meet up with your rival, help them defeat some grunts from the evil team you heard about, catch a glimpse of a legendary Pokémon and then get distracted by a game corner. There was a lot to do in the world, so naturally you’d remember the places you’re revisiting, even the small and relatively empty locations. It wasn’t just routes, but also story beats that connected locations. In recent generations the story feels like it’s been separated. You show up in a city, maybe talk to your rival, and fight a gym. Then you go to an evil team section and beat them. They’re very much disconnected, and this can probably be attributed to the games being non-linear. Making a non-linear game is hard. It’s especially hard, if it’s a heavily story-based game like Pokémon. There are shortcuts that can be taken, such as separating it into small, interchangeable sections, each independent from the rest, but this doesn’t really work when the story is integral to connecting one location to another.
Pop quiz time. Non-linear games seem to be all the rage these days. People like the option to do things out of order, but you don’t have the time to fully flesh it out and make every section mesh cohesively with one another. Do you:
A. Cut every corner and design each section as disconnected from each other section as possible, in order to retain the non-linearity.
B. STOP TRYING TO MAKE A NON-LINEAR GAME WHEN A LINEAR GAME WITHOUT THIS ISSUE WOULD WORK JUST FUCKING FINE????
The NPCS kinda felt empty to me. You can't actually talk to 90% of them, just see the text bubbles.
Oo, what a good video, interesting! I'd love to see more of these!
"Empty" is what I feel everywhere in this game... I do have fun catching pokemon, but exploring feels boring. You aim to visit every canyon, every island, every corner, just to end up with dozens of potions and a feeling of emptynees.
The mine were the worst par for me. I mean, it's just a bunch of holes and tunnels with random metal structures, with no building, no npc, no lore, nothing. Where are the workers? What do they mine? How does it work? Why is there a giant metal worm that just chill in the middle of an extraction facility??
Nah it's not nostalgia goggles, even as early as crystal almost every town had something going for it.
You CAN actually climb the levels of Cascarraca with Koraidon/Miraidon, but only on the non-waterfall parts of the walls.
It is indeed faster than the elevator animation
9:27 - there's a flight point close to the Groundblight Shrine for one of the 10 Wonders of Paldea: the Gracia Stones above it by the sea.
Among other things , having to race team start with either Koridon or Miridon would have been so cool .
Game Freak gave up on worldbuilding and lore for "opEN WorLD"
nah, trying to be an open world it's not the reason, it's making a game only to sell merchandising
a series would be great, I dont have any specific game recomendations, though the towns in paper mario are pretty unique so maybe that?
Gives me a good excuse to finally play Paper Mario!
even Pokemon X and Y actually had your mother's bedroom in the house AND offered a lot more with the towns. they each have very unique looks to them, many of them maintain post-Champion relevance, and Lumiose City, while absolutely dizzying, is the single largest and most populous city in Pokemon to date, and has TONS to do. and when POKEMON X AND Y have better towns than this, that speaks a lot about just how underwhelming these are.
Pokémon x and y’s theme was beauty though so that’s definitely why the towns are diverse and stuff
I agree with your placement for levincia, but there are two things you didn't mention (probably because they are so obscure):
1) There is actually a supermarket that sells some exclusive sandwich ingredients, including Klawf Sticks. However, it doesn't stand out and I think some of the ingredients are locked behind gym progress (like sais Klawf Sticks), so you could easily go in once, not see anything special, then leave.
2) The Deliberd Presents here actually sells some good items in the post game, namely stuff like the Toxic Orb. Again, not sure why THIS is locked behind game progress, especially since you can get the leftovers and EV bands in Megazoza, but it's still there.
That being said, that isn't enough for me to argue for it being a higher rank. Just worth mentioning/cementing it's place.
Xenoblade town designs is an interesting idea that I'd like to see. One thing you should make note of though is the navigation of the towns, a couple are rather annoying to get around which you may see as a major downside, or not. (New LA is a mess!)
There are SO many shops in Levincia. Unlike the Bug and Psychic gym towns. Plus, Levincia's background music is an absolute bop. S-tier for me lol
6:34 it actually doesn't make sense in Legends Arceus since the protagonist from that game was the winning protag being sent to the past by Arceus
11:24 I WISH it worked that way. But sadly if you go there and use the Union Circle, it's just two different screens. So I could hit the giant olive but on my brother's switch, it looked like I'm just running around while his olive was still there.
I'd love to see you do this for the other Pokemon games! The first 2 Paper Marios and their spiritual successor Bug Fables would be fun to see too
I would love to see more town rating content
The thing about Nemona’s sister and the Dragon-types makes me wonder if maybe she’s related to Drasna. Not if Drasna is her sister or something, but just the thought that there’s a certain amount of physical resemblance there
Caba Poco isn’t actually a town by the criteria listed; Pokemon do spawn there, such as rooftop Squawkabilly and Tarountula occasionally on the tree
Wasn't our mom in Alola also not sleeping in the kitchen, like didn't she have her own room???
The towns are absolutely gorgeous and have really nice aesthetic and music, but they feel like they've been abandoned because of how one-dimensional all of the npcs seem to be, even the useful ones. So it feels like we were left with stunning ghost towns all across the map.
You never noted that the rock place rains and the water place is prone to sandstorm
2:06 I WOULD LOVE THIS AS AN AUSTRALIAN AND BECAUSE ME AND MY FRIENDS MADE A POKEMON REGION FOR IT WHERE WE ARE ALL THE E4 AND SURPRISE CHAMPION
You should make this a series. While I don't agree that the auction town should be lower tier than a town with a gimmick that most people won't use seriously (outside the competitive community), I'd love to learn more about towns; their lore and usefulness in other games since I want to start playing more RPGs and JRPGs like Xenoblade Chronicles and whatnot. It'd be great to have info that I would need- or feel the need to have- when playing a game for the first time. Playing a game "blind" can be fun, but when I'm completely confused or don't understand the lingo used or make a mistake that would result in me soft locking myself, it can ruin that fun.