Congrats on beating the game. Sada can be a tough battle: the paradox Pokémon are no joke, and not knowing the typings can screw things up.
I'm sad that two of your Pokémon died, Clew and booba were such good Pokémon. But at least you didn't wipe, and that's all that matters.
It was one heck of an adventure, and it's been a blast reading it all the way to the end.
Yeah there are theories that the Paradoxes aren't actually from the past/future, but personally given how far back we see Pokéball imagry going (several thousand years at least if you allow for the anime) I'm not surprised that it would first appear on a Pokémon. The real question is the event exclusive Walking Wake, which is a past form Suicune that's a raptor.
So on the subject of Sandy Shocks, Brute Bonnet, and Walking Wake, I'm just gonna link to three theory vides on those subjects because it's easier than me trying to infodump somebody else's theories:
What a run, rip to the fallen but you did it. Also that ending hits harder than most Pokémon games. I lost my gyarados to the final mon too but i did well otherwise.
And here we are, at this point the game lets us travel freely, though without Koraidon we actually have to walk, or well run at least, which feels like such a downgrade. On the other hand, it really makes this feel like an adventure, as you can't just jump around and fly from place to place, and have to navigate your way through the actual terrain. An excellent game-design choice in my opinion, even though it takes me a few minutes to get into this set of mind. It's also really cool to see the rest of the gang follow me around.
I really like that you can't use Koraidon. It really makes the already massive Area Zero feel so much larger and intimidating. Also, it's important to Koraidon's character, of course.
First of all, I love this pokemon, and really want to use one. Second of all, I really like the naming theme of these past pokemon we met so far, such a cool concept.
I wish there are an interim event in the game where all three of your buddies got to meet before the end so all their interactions didn't have to be crammed into a montage, but I think they did a pretty decent job overall. It does feel like a group of mutual friends meeting up together for the first time and getting to know each other by comparing their relationships to the core person in the group.
The games have always included absent/difficult parents, and it's no surprise that all of the super friends in ScarVi also have their own parental issues. I also really appreciate that they run a spectrum too, from Penny's overly affectionate father to Nemona's parents being a little too hands-off to Arven's massive mommy/daddy issues. It would have been too much if they all had really horrible parents.
I does make me sad that there's really nothing in the game about the protagonist's parents. Jokes about your mom hitting of Clavel aside, she stops existing as soon as you step out the door, and your father is completely absent, as usual. With a game that has as much of an emphasis on poor parenting like this one, it's really too bad that your own parents aren't relevant in any way.
And once more before he starts to explain, Professor Sada jumps in and gives her own explanation. She says that Koraidon was the first pokemon she managed to retrieve using the time machine (so you made it work quite a while back I guess?), and that it must be an ancient form of Cyclizar.
Says a lot about the distance between Sada and Arven that she succeeded in getting the time machine running and then didn't bother telling her son about her success.
Also, if it is an ancient pokemon, and Amoonguss is a pokeball mimic and modern looking pokeball were invented in the last decade... Something doesn't add up here.
Yeah, that's a confusing one for sure. I think the running theory is that the Poke Ball gets its iconic look from the Pokemon like Voltorb and Foongus, rather than the other way around. Though Hisuian Voltorb/Electrode certainly imply that the Poke Ball-esque Voltorbs are much more recent.
I'm sorry, what did you just say? Passed away? In a pokemon game? Well, isn't that something! I don't want to be the sort of person who thinks "pokemon needs to be more violent and realistic in this sense for an adult audience to enjoy", as I really don't think that. However I do very much appreciate it when the story telling is set more to a "teen/young adult" level of complexity which I think can be fitting for the pokemon brand and can even be enjoyed by a younger audience (kids are starter than you think), and that's a good example of if in my opinion. Not everything is sunshine and rainbows, and that's part of life.
Death (and undeath) have always been present in the Pokemon games, but aside from the originals, it's generally been side content. Like in DPPt, you can read up on Drifloon and realize that if you didn't reunite that girl and her dad at the Valley Windworks and she really did find a Drifloon like she wanted to, she would most likely have been abducted and killed by it, but just playing through the game leaves you blissfully unaware of that.
RBY, its remakes, and finally ScarVi really get in your face about life and death. Profs Sada and Turo are really something for a kid's game. You speak to them, and think they are alive and well, only to find out you've been speaking to someone else essentially, and the prof was dead all along. Not exactly the same as a character dying off-screen, but it's pretty close.
And to me this is the true brilliance behind the story, this little twist that might seem minor compared to everything we learned so far, yet makes all the difference. So by now we got a pretty clear picture of what happened, more or less. In a sense a classic story, though I admit done very well. A very dedicated professor who loves her family, yet is obsessed with her research to the point it makes her harm everything she cared about. She becomes so blind she doesn't even see that she was originally doing it "to create a perfect world for her family" yet is losing her family, "to understand the past better" yet she is now destroying the past and the present together, and eventually her ways even brought her own literal destruction. The "Scientist playing god" trope. However, on the way she creates another version of herself, physically and also metaphorically if you will, that sort of gets a second chance of redemption. This AI, who is supposed to be like her, gets to see her make all these errors and learn from them, and realizes that this great dream that is still inside her own AI mind, will bring an end to everything that is important, and therefore decides to stop it. You can say that this is very faithful to the original idea of Frankenstein - The creator is too blind to see, what the created can easily understand. The monster is more humane than the human who made it. And that's the brilliance of this story. We are here to help Sada - stop Sada.
It really is a well-done story. It's nothing ground-breaking, but it doesn't need to be. It's a Pokemon game, after all. But the tragic tale of Sada/Turo is really well-presented. When I first played the game, I was expecting AI Sada to be the villain: a cold inhuman robot that ruined everything or whatever. But instead, she's got almost as tragic of a story as Arven's.
Also, kudos to Gamefreak finally making a "misguided villain who had good intentions" that wasn't either a total moron or legitimately evil. Archie and Maxie are super goofy so they get a pass, but how am i supposed to feel sorry for Lysandre or Lusamine when the game gives them no redemption? (A single melodramatic tear doesn't cut it!)
NO!!! Not Booba!!! Damn it damn it damn it... How could I have known that thing knows a Fire type move of all things... Booba, oh Booba... One of my best pokemon...
Ok so this is an ancient Salamence I guess. Though it does look like an ancient... Mega Salamence? I assume it is still Dragon type. And now a... But it looks even more of a Flying type with those feathers. It has Moon in its name - Psychic? Fairy? Dark? Pure Dragon? I have no idea. It might also Terastillize right? That's seems likely, so it might become mono Dragon?
This guy is the one that really got the Poke Tubers theorizing. I haven't kept up on any of that since the first week, but a primal mega Salamence sure is interesting.
I'm sorry Clew, I'm so sorry. Sometimes in Nuzlockes you make tough calls. Your death was not for nothing my girl, you earned us some much needed momentum and a free switch. And good thing I didn't leave Gamba out, I had this idiotic thought pop to my head but I clearly decided against it. Thank you for everything buddy...
Oh no... those situations really are the worst. I'm very glad that you took Clew all the way. Spidops may have bad stats, but they are sorely underrated imo.
We see "Professor Sada?" as the text says 😋, fighting her three different personalities (the true Sada, the free AI, and the last resort AI), telling Arven she is proud of him. Makes you wonder which of these three feels this way, you might say the original Sada however in a sense... I think it is the free AI who is talking.
As before, I really love this story. It's just great. And I'm glad you got to experience it unspoiled. You did great, and I hope you look into the post-game stuff too. There's not a lot, but the tournament provides a lot of great character interactions, and the stake collecting is pretty fun/infuriating.
Also, kudos to Gamefreak finally making a "misguided villain who had good intentions" that wasn't either a total moron or legitimately evil. Archie and Maxie are super goofy so they get a pass, but how am i supposed to feel sorry for Lysandre or Lusamine when the game gives them no redemption? (A single melodramatic tear doesn't cut it!)
I do wish that SuMo had gotten an excellently written sequel rather than the USUM we got that feels like a bad romhack. I wanted to see what happened to the Aether family after Lusamine got medical attention.
I suppose this is what fanworks exist to provide; I just wish they didn't leave so much up to us.
Congrats! You did it man! You finally did it! The final battle is sure intense and oof...R.I.P for both Booba and Clew, AI Sada definitely did not pull any punches here, but you manage to took her down!(Grimmsnarl delivering the final blow to Roaring Moon simply epic!)
Fun fact that last battle Koraidon Vs Koraidon(Miraidon VS Miraidon in Violet) is scripted, your Koraidon CANNOT Be fainted at all so yeah, you cannot lose the fight in there.
Man, it such a fun journey, yet i wish it never ends. But yeah, everything will reach their end soon enough. Cannot wait for your next playthrough!
I love the crystalline trees in this update! And thank you so much for documenting the end game in such detail - it must have taken a truly herculian effort to upload all those screenshots! Now down to business:
And double Oh No for losing Clew in this update! I honestly thought you'd lost the Nuzlocke in that final battle, well done for being able to Clew - sorry, claw - victory from the jaws of defeat!
What continuity was Mew revived from a fossil? every version I can remember they either find a live specimen or something like a hair that Mewtwo was then cloned from
What continuity was Mew revived from a fossil? every version I can remember they either find a live specimen or something like a hair that Mewtwo was then cloned from
Summary of Sightless Scarlet
(And a few silly bonuses)
@Trollkitten - Ouch, I didn't even think about that. My hope that she traveled back in time back not in space and is therefore close to the Tera Crystals, but I doubt she could count on that so your theory is quite possible. We'll never know (or we will if she'll be in the DLC I guess). Either way, what an ending! Interesting videos, only watch his stuff sporadically but I do like Bird Keeper Toby's theories.
@Dee - You and me both, there was such a buildup for this ending, and boy did it deliver! Area Zero was indeed really cool and felt like its own mini adventure within this grand adventure. I agree, it really seems Game Freak finally made the decision to take more risks and open their franchise to more complicated content and just new things and I'm loving it. Indeed, they have done a great job to let you understand the process that took Sada to the extreme, and oh my bad about the third person not being Arven's father. But indeed, he is at least mentioned. Man, this makes Sada's care for Koraidon and not Arven even more tragic, and troubling... Whole "Good Ruby" "Bad Ruby" sort of bad 😋. You make a great point about Nemona and I met similar people myself. I think it is a sort of personality that tries to accomplish itself and show excellence where it can, and as focusing on a career and earning more money is not an option because the family is so rich or something it just has too much emotional associations in rich families, some kids go this path which can be either destructive if taken to the extreme or actually constructive like in Nemona's case, so good for her. From what I saw of Violet now I tend to agree, I think I picked the right version for me at least which has far cooler pokemon (And I like Sada and Koraidon better), though as you'll see down below, I also liked a few of the Future Paradox Forms (is Paradox form the official term? I saw people online use it and don't remember it was used in the game). Thanks for taking part in this, and I'm happy to hear you enjoyed!
@Nate - professor inside a processor it seems 😛. Cool about Glimmora, and interesting about Lunge but as I never played the Gen 7 post game I had no idea! So many new cool moves are made every generation, it is hard to keep track (still, I actually like it that they are adding more variations to the old ones and add more interesting effects to damage dealing moves). Yep, losing Booba was perhaps the most painful death of the run, maybe rivaled by losing Menace. Clew's death also hurt, but in a way I accepted it more as I saw it coming. Happy you enjoyed the ride and thank you for be a part of it!
@JavierE64 - Thanks! Yeah fighting those extremely weird looking pokemon and having to guess their types was no joke, and losing two pokemon is quite a price, but hi we made it! That's hardly a given in such a run, at least for me. Really happy you liked it, and thanks for joining the adventure, I will never look at a Sunkern the same again I promise you that 😋.
@Time Master Eon - Interesting, I'm not the only one who thought that. They just feel... Off in a way, but who knows. But good point about the pokeballs, it is really hard to understand when the classic pokeball appearance was truly invented as we get really mixed signals about it in different games. Hope the DLC might answer a few of these questions!
@redninjapuffle - Happy you enjoyed it and thanks for joining! Yep, AI Sada was no joke! Killing a Gyarados is no small feat, sorry to hear that. I can't say she is Cynthia level of difficulty, but is definitely at the same level of some of the other harder champions out there.
@Hayfever - I agree, the whole "can't use Koraidon" thing is the prefect example of my favorite motto of "gameplay/mechanism serves the story", or in this case the lack of it, which is a sign of great game design. Yep, I agree about the Scarlet Paradox Forms (And especially Scream Tail! I was always a Jiggly fan), but after seeing the Violet Paradox forms even though most of them are inferior in my opinion (Especially their names...) some of them are still pretty cool. I agree about the party of friends, and as I said part of my childhood dream was for pokemon games to give us the whole "pokemon journey experience", and so I was hoping one day you could play as part of a party, either with others or NPC it doesn't matter, and even though they sort of allowed it, it doesn't really feel like part of the journey at this point. Great points about the parents. You know it is a very common choice in many art media to make the protagonist as "tabula rasa" as you can so everyone could imagine themselves as being them, so I guess making the parents less dominant is also part of that, but I agree there is a lot of lost potential here, and a future pokemon game that would put more emphasis on the parents of the protagonist could be great. The parent can be the professor, or the champion, or even the evil team leader (all were sort of done, but not for your character but for a "friend"), and that would make for a great story, I mean look at Norman. Yeah, the whole pokeball thing is a mess, that's what happens when your franchise consists of so many games, things start to contradict whether it is intentional or not 😁. Yeah, I agree pokemon had discussed death before, but ever since Gen I where they allowed themselves to be more adult, pokemon really shied away from being too explicit about these subjects, and I'm glad to see they are willing to tackle these things head on again, to me that's a great sign of the franchise growing into new directions understanding that their fan base consists of both kids and former kids 🙂. I agree that the story is not ground breaking, but it was done so well. Characters had relatable motivations that made sense, the story touched on some great points without being too much in your face, everything was built just right, honestly - one of, if not the best pokemon story so far in a game in my opinion. I feel quite lucky that I managed to enjoy it unspoiled even a few months after its release! Happy you enjoyed this run, and thank you so much for taking part of it!
@Arie Kazami - Thanks so much! I know right? I finally made it! And I love that it required quite a lot of blood, sweat and tears. Trasgo the Grimmsnarl giving the finishing blow he was Terastillized just felt like the perfect ending 😎. Yeah I guess so about Koraidon, seemed too important to be left to chance. I feel exactly like you! Whenever one of my blind runs comes to an end, I get this strong urge to start another, but know it will take a few years until the next game will be release. But you can be damn sure I'll do another run once that happens! Who knows, Gen 5 remakes 😛? A New Let's Go Game? Or perhaps Gen 10 we'll see what comes first. Thanks again for joining as always!
@mewstein - Oh god you have no idea how much time it took to add each screenshot and resize it by hand... The things I do for love. *Scream back! Indeed, Penny is annoying at times but also has some charm to her sarcasm, you have to admit. Oh, I've seen messy labs before, believe me 😛. Losing Booba and Clew sucked (Hi! Too soon 🙂 ), but hi, I made it! Hope I represented this game well for someone who used my run as their way of experiencing it such as you, and thanks for being a part of it!
Hello everyone! Welcome to this run's summary where I say thanks, blabber on about my thoughts on the game and the whole experience, and just write freely whatever comes to mind I guess as a way to summarize this run and my thoughts that rose after it.
First of all, I won! I freaking won! AT LAST!!! God, it has been too long since I did a posted run and actually won it, I was starting to feel a bit cursed 😋... Ok, good, I got this out of my system. Now we can begin the celebrations 🥳.
Before I begin, let me this time start with the "thank yous", a little tradition I like to do at the end of most of my runs, just to show how much I appreciate your support. I talked about this countless time, there are a few reasons why I post my runs here on the forums, but the most important one is the feeling that I'm doing this journey together with you, and that's why posting as I go and playing blind are such essential parts of my run as I want you guys to experience everything with me the first time I do it, or as much as you can do that in a posted written format at least. And even though I of course ask of you not to spoil anything for me, your comments are an important part of this adventure, seeing you interact with me as I go and giving me advice, sharing your thoughts about the different questions I raise as I play and asking your own, sharing your own stories and thoughts, and just showing your support! But this doesn't mean I don't appreciate all of you silent viewers as well, and I want to give you guys a special thank you too and hope you have enjoyed as well.
Also, a huge thank you for all of you who nominated and voted for this run in the extravaganza and made it win 3 awards! (Second place in all, Silver Ruby for the win 😋!), it really is great to know that something you create and worked on (and I admit, posted runs can take quite a lot of time to make!) is enjoyed and appreciated by other people. And it really gives me a lot of motivation to continue in the future.
As those of you who follow me know I'm also doing my "Hall of Fame" project where I try to Nuzlocke every single main pokemon game that was ever released (they just keep making them too fast and I can't keep up! Still only 5 left, and one day I'll make it! Perhaps by Gen 10, that could be round and nice). Anyway, here are the links to my Hall of Fame and Graveyard submission for this run if you want to check them out and see my final words about every single one of our heroes and fallen:
And now let's talk a bit about the run and then the game in general. As usual, I'm quite proud of myself for both avoiding the temptation of checking out spoilers and actually managing to avoid almost all of the spoilers when the game was released (and thanks to this great forum for doing their best to not spoil things in most other threads without a warning! That really helped). This kept the experience of this run almost totally blind to me, which was fantastic, What can I say, I just love doing blind runs, really, there's a certain magic and appeal to it no other format can give as you experience the game without help or planning before every battle and having to improvise, not knowing what your own pokemon will evolve into, and just enjoying it "as it was meant to be enjoyed". For me it is like reliving those childhood moments of playing a game like pokemon for the first time without even knowing what it is or being able to check things online (at least that was the case back when I was young...). And this run provided so many such moments, with a majority of my team being Gen 9 and evolving into creatures I couldn't dream of (I think Pilpelette evolving into Scovillian was the greatest surprise, though Gamba the Skeledirge and Salaria the Garganacl come in close seconds). Now I don't want to sound over the top, and perhaps there's still an effect of the hype of just finishing this game, but I think this run was one of the most fun posted runs I ever did on the forums, only possibly rivaled by my Blinded by the Sun and the original Into the Abyss blind run, each for their unique appeals. The game was surprisingly good (as I'll talk about shortly), the blind aspect added so much to it as it kept surprising me both when it came to the story and the challenges I faced, you guys were amazing, the pacing of the run was good, just a general fun time!
Now let's talk about the game, and I warn you, I'm a fan and it is going to sound like it so be ready for some praises 😄. But because of that, let's start first with the things I didn't like about this game. First, the easy target, the game has some very noticeable graphic issues. I mean the graphics themselves are fine. Nothing impressive most of the time, but not terrible at all, and hi we're pokemon player we were never here for the triple A graphics anyway. You can also see a lot of improvement especially in the textures compared to Gen 8. But the latency and frame rate issues are really annoying and certain other graphic bugs that sometimes appear can really break the immersiveness of the game. Again, it really isn't that terrible, but I doubt you can go through this game without witnessing these issues at least a few times in your run, which is a shame as it gives such bad first impression to a lot of people, that makes it harder for them to see all the great stuff this game has to offer. It also feels like the sort of bugs that more developing time can solve, but I might be wrong here and it might be built-in issues with trying to run such a heavy game on such a limited console, I honestly don't know.
But let's leave the frame rate and graphics aside. One of the things I noticed very early and have heard from other people as well that made this game feel a bit less polished is how empty and lifeless the cities feel. Past pokemon games managed to take far smaller cities of a few buildings and make them feel full of life, yet this game creates massive cities like we've never seen before and make most of them feel like computer generated cardboard boxes with roaming NPCs talking to themselves like Zombies doing the same routine again and again. That's such a shame for such a rich region who feels full of character and life outside these cities, and inside the few buildings that it has, to fail in this particular issue.
There are other issues that other pokemon games have as well so I won't go too much into them. This game made a huge step forward in so many aspects, yet there are still many things pokemon games lack compared to other games, and I think most of them can be summarized by saying pokemon games tend to be overly simplistic compared to other RPGs who have more dialogs/mechanisms/deeper battle systems in the main game (pokemon has a really interesting competitive battle scene, but let's face it there is a reason why we Nuzlocke this game). I know that part of the appeal of pokemon is its simplicity and I won't dent it has its benefits making the game more casually fun, but still it is hard not to compare it to other games. Again, I think pokemon are making some steps in the right direction every generation, but it still has some way to go.
And finally, I know this isn't a major thing but it is still annoying - please allow us to take off the kid gloves at will Game Freak, it costs you nothing, just allow it. You forced the exp-share on us, I still hate it but whatever, I can at least get the logic of saying you balanced the game according to this so you think this is the only way we should play it (but why not have a toggle off feature?). The long cutscenes and some of the tutorials can't be turned off, again annoying (I didn't even realize that until I just started my second Violet run, on my first Scarlet run it all felt prefect by the way), fine, I'll live with that and just click A again and again (and hi, moving some of the tutorials to the lessons in school was a great idea! So good for you for doing that). But now you took the option to play on Set (without manually clicking "no" every time), which is also the official way you play on competitive of course and how your opponents are forced to play on. Why?! You want to make Switch the default and that's it. Why not add a freaking on/off button!
Ok, and now I'm done with my rant 😋. And it is time to talk about everything that is good in this game. Let's start with the obvious, the Open World. I think people, and when I say people I also mean myself, tend to just take that as a given for some reason without realizing how awesome it is that we finally got a pokemon game that is truly open world. No wild area, no divisions and loading screens, everything happens in the world itself. The battles, the encounters, the routes, the cities, it is all connected and happening as part of the same world, and that's freaking amazing. You know, before I set down to write this summary I went to read the summary I wrote 5 years ago (yep... damn time flies by) of "Blinded by the Sun" and over there I wrote on how Alola finally starts to take the pokemon game in the right direction with wider routes feeling a bit more like the open world we so desperately want. And look at that, 5 years later and we actually got it! Gen 8 toyed with the idea a bit, but almost gave it a bad name compared to what Paldea finally did. As with so many other things I think we have Legends Arceus to thank here as pokemon finally allowed themselves to take risks and test certain concepts in a less risky environment, and it worked so well for them! So yeah, Paldea is an amazing open world. There are a few other things I'd like to see added to make this experience feel even more like other Open World RPGs, but generally they did it really well, and we are finally to experience the "Pokemon Journey" closer to high I always imagined it to be.
Next, we have to talk about the 18 badges challenge. Another feature that we tend to take for granted but added so much content to the game! I mean compare this to every other pokemon game, what they did here is as grand as Gen II adding Kanto the Johto, in some aspects even greater than this. 18 different badges, part of 3 different pathways, and it all felt complete and full of content, and different from one another. That's pretty amazing. The Titans were my favorite of the three, both because of the great story and the uniqueness of the Titan battles, but the Team Star battles were also pretty great, and of course leaving on top of that the classic 8 gym challenge was a great choice. Pokemon is always so afraid of messing even a bit with its formula not to upset everyone or harm their golden eggs goose, so the approach of "let's just add more stuff" is a win-win in my opinion that makes everyone happy. The only thing I'll say that was a bit problematic, and I heard some people didn't like is that the gyms didn't scale in level. Now I only partially agree with this criticism. I don't like it when the wild encounters in an RPG scale in level (see Skyrim e.g.), it just feels so artificial to walk through the same path and now face demons and dragon where goblins and rat were before just because you leveled up (or stronger goblins and rats). I think the same should be true for the Titans and Crews, scaling them would be a bad idea that would harm the realism of the story. However specifically for the gym leaders, I think it could have been really cool if each gym had a different team depending on when you meet them. I think that would satisfy most people, feels realistic, and still keeps to the general vibe of the game as it is now.
There are so many other things done well in this game, and I talked about most of them throughout this run. The academy being a place where you can meet characters and learn about Paldea is a great idea (reminds me a bit of your time on your Spaceship in Mass Effect where you could read stuff, improve your relations with the other character, etc). The TMs being accessible the way they are was brilliant, and generally adding a simplified crafting system is such a great step in the right direction (again, much like Legends Arceus did, only differently). The way you unlock Koraidon's HMs is such clever game design, simple yet effective. It feels gradual yet meaningful. The abilities it is actually granted don't feel like artificial roadblock removers rather improvements that allow you easier access to certain parts of Paldea that are scattered all around (so much better than HMs for example, and even riding pokemon). The way they connected it to Koraidon and the story, all just great. Sorry for repeating myself but Game Freak did such a great job taking their old mechanisms and improving them, it really shows they put a lot of thought into all of this. Oh and the Paradox Forms and New Evolutions of old pokemon are all so well made. And generally, Gen 9 introduced so many cool new pokemon, you've got to give them credit for that.
And finally, the story, wow! I mean again, this is a pokemon game, they aren't really known for having good deep stories. Hell, Gen 1 and 2 barely had a story in a sense. Still, this is 2023 and the fans have higher expectations now, and boy did Game Freak deliver. The story itself is one of the best pokemon ever did, the way it is connected to the gameplay is brilliant and feels so natural, the end-game being its own separate mini story and conclusion to it all and the buildup you feel working towards it are wonderful. I don't want to bore you with over-analysis of it all as I already did that, but I think they did an amazing job. In my opinion - the best story in a pokemon game so far.
In fact if I'll have to compare this games to other games, in my own personal opinion this is one of the best pokemon games ever made. Really. I mean let's break it Gen by Gen (again in my own personal opinion, don't get angry 😁). Kanto is a classic, it is hard to compare it to anything both because of nostalgia and how it was made in a different era and was the very first, but I think no one will claim Pokemon Red is the best pokemon game ever made. Johto in my opinion has the best lore and atmosphere of any game so far. The region feels so alive, every city has a meaning, every grove has a story, and the HGSS are some amazing games, and among my personal favorites. Still the game itself doesn't really have a story, the level jumps are terrible, and the Kanto addition even though it is amazing still feels a bit incomplete. Gen 3 and 4 are great games, who perfected some of the game mechanisms and created the pokemon formula as we know it, but I don't think they excel in story or any of the other aspects (don't stone me!). Now Gen 5 was ground breaking in my opinion perfecting the pokemon mechanisms that were introduced in the last two generations, but also bringing us the best story up to that point, taking so many risks and doing things differently like making a game with only Gen 5 pokemon, and just perfecting the age of DS in my opinion. Black/White and Black2/White2 are among my favorite games of all time, and yet... I think their story as great as it is, is not as good as that of Gen 9. Gen 6, well, hmm poor Gen 6 reminds me of Gen 8, it came up with some great ideas but didn't have the time to do it right and had to wait for the generation after it to fix its problems. Now Gen 7 is another game that finally took risks, changed things, and brought the age of the 3DS to its peak in my opinion, and are also among my favorite games of all times. And again, everything that I loved about it, I think Gen 9 did even better. It shook up the old formula with the Totems, but Gen 9 found a way to both do that and keep everything that people love. It had a great slightly more mature story with a fun team that did things differently, same as Gen 9. So yeah, I might be biased here, but I think Gen 9 is in this sense the perfection of the Switch age. I have no idea if Gen 10 will be released on Switch or not, but still in essence Gen 9 feels like Gen 2 was to Gen 1, like Gen 5 was to Gens 3-4, and like Gen 7 was to Gen 6, a polished gem that was taken to its superior form. I think I'll have to wait a year or two to actually be able to rank it compared to the other games, but I have no doubt at this point that ScVi are in my top three favorite pokemon games of all times.
Oh and one last note, Nuzlocking this game is a delight. So many different encounters you'll never get the same team. Some very fun challenges (depending on your ruleset of course), lots of content, good pacing (if you are playing with a level cap it can be a bit annoying, but as long as you have a rotating team you'll be fine). Great stuff.
And now that I'm done with the game summary, let's talk about what's next? Well first, I'll take a short break from posted runs as I often do after a run. I'll continue to do unposted runs, mostly as my attempt to complete my Hall of Fame, and just for the fun of it. But what my next posted run will be? Well, I honestly don't know. First, to be honest, I'd love to hear what you guys think or want to see. You can be sure that once a new game will be released, I'll do a posted blind run of it, but that might take a while. In the meantime, is there anything specific you'd like to see? I really want to get back into a story run like my Kantonian Fables though in all honesty I sadly don't think I have the time to get into such a project in the near future. I also really wanted to do another Lorelocke to both showcase my ruleset some more and also get to test the rules. I've been thinking of doing a White 2 Hardcore Lorelocke for example (and get two birds with one stone as I still need to complete it for my Hall of Fame anyway). I also have very limited experience with ROM Hacks so that could be cool, and actually work as a blind run as I take games I never seen someone complete before (and there are a lot of those), so if you think that could be cool I'd love to hear recommendations. That's about it I think. I'm always up to trying cool new things, like my really fun Soulinks and Cagelocke I did ages ago. I never completed a Wonderlocke or even tried an Egglocke before so those could also be fun. So yeah, throwing a lot of ideas out there, but have no idea what I want to do to be honest.
And finally, a little silly and unoriginal bonus, a list of my top 10 Paldean Pokemon! I allowed myself to check all the pokedex now that I finally don't fear spoilers, but of course I might be biased by this initial experience and my opinion will probably change in time. Still, enjoy!
10. Espathra - Yeah I know, I never mentioned I particularly liked this pokemon in this run, but I've always liked Psychic types, Ostriches are really cool animals that deserved a proper pokemon, and the whole 60s aesthetics meeting Cleopatra just really click for me. It's pre-evo though not as much. Also, that's quite a signature move!
9. Tinkaton - I'm still a bit bummed I lost my own before I got to evolve and use her. I mean look at that thing, a tiny pink fairy with a huge hammer, what's not to like?
8. Great Tusk - Paradox Pokemon are such a great concept, and most of them are really well made in my opinion. Great Tusk is the first you meet in Scarlet, and they chose it for a good reason as it embodies the primal vibe so well. Still wish Donphan would get a proper evolution as well in the future.
7. Iron Hands - Yep, a future Paradox form made it on the last! I agree that the past ones have much better designs and far better names (good thing I picked Scarlet as my first game), but I'm already a big fan of Hariyama and Iron Hands just feels like a great homage to it.
6. Annihilape - This generation finally introduced many new evolutions for pokemon from past generations (without making them regional forms and therefore locking them from future regions, poor Faretch'd). Some of them I liked better, others not as much, but Annihilape is just perfect. I didn't even think Primeape needed an evolution before it, but this guy totally changed my mind. Such a badass pokemon!
5. Scream Tail - I've always been a Jiggly fan. But a caveman monstrous yet Adorable huge Jigglypuff with a tail instead of its puff? That's just PERFECT.
4. Scovillain - We've been waiting for a Fire Grass type pokemon for quite some time, and a hot pepper might not be the most original idea for one, still Scovillian executed it so well. You might be surprised that I didn't take it to the E4 if I liked it so much? But in Nuzlockes you sadly have to make hard choices, and sometimes not let you personal preferences get in your way. Especially if you are like and was so freaking afraid of losing at the very end again 😋.
3. Orthworm - When I first saw that thing I thought it was funny and cute, but not a whole lot more than that. But after using Booba throughout this run I just fell in love with this powerful goofy thing!
2. Koraidon - Surprised? I'm not usually a huge fan of legendary pokemon, especially in the newer games, as you don't often get to use them (especially in Nuzlockes as I don't allow them). However Scarlet wisely allowed you to get in touch with your big red buddy from the very beginning, and what can I say? It worked. It took me some time to get used to that big wheel coming out of its chest, but other than that - such a majestic creature!
1. Skeledirge - Could it really be anyone else? I've always loved Fire type starters (though not all of them the same), and Skeledirge here is just so wild, such an unexpected combination of things that somehow work perfectly together! And of course, my love for Gamba played a big role in this choice. I like it so much that it even gives quite a fight to my two other favorite fire types! (Charmander and Litten).
Honorable mentions go to: Klawf, Houndstone, Clodsire, Kingambit, Iron Moth, Roaring Moon, Dondozo+Tatsugiri, Glimmora, Garganacl, Dachsbun Lechonk and Spidops who I really wanted but didn't make it on the list. I'm sure there are others as well, that's a pretty solid Gen when it comes to pokemon in my opinion!
That's it for this time! No fallen to remember, no team to acknowledge, all are to be saved in the pages of history.
See you on our next adventure fellow Nuzlockers. Game on!
I am all for a White 2 lorelocke (hopefully it won't end the same way the randomized HGSS lorelocke did) and eagerly anticipate whatever you choose to do next.
Dex Entry
Your Honor, I'd like to ask the esteemed members of the jury: who amongst us *hasn't* been in a knife fight in the dumpster behind the Denny's?
We are then joined by Nemona and Penny, who turns on the light using her computer hacking skills. I admit that her being a "computer genius" feels a bit cliché, but I do enjoy how each character brings their own thing to the party, a bit like a classical D&D adventure.
Yeah, the way or reason you recruit Penny and Nemona to Area Zero is a bit forced, but I really appreciate we got more time with them after the conclusion of their storylines.
😋. I sadly can't show you all the fun interactions between these characters as I have too much content I want to cover for one chapter anyway, but I have to say I'm loving the group dynamic so much I really wish we had more time to spend together other than the end game. The way each of these characters just completely seem to fail to understand the others is extremely funny, and the way they do learn to understand each other over time is pretty cool. You know part of going on a pokemon adventure, based on how the anime portrayed it at least, always felt to me like something you do as a party. Perhaps something Game Freak can work on for future generations.
Adding to the above, I really wished we had more time for them to interact with each other. We already saw Arven and Nemona interact in the beginning, but as a trio, definitely not. Wish there were points during the story where they were able to meet each other. It would definitely make them more cohesive by this point.
I'm sorry, what did you just say? Passed away? In a pokemon game? Well, isn't that something! I don't want to be the sort of person who thinks "pokemon needs to be more violent and realistic in this sense for an adult audience to enjoy", as I really don't think that. However I do very much appreciate it when the story telling is set more to a "teen/young adult" level of complexity which I think can be fitting for the pokemon brand and can even be enjoyed by a younger audience (kids are starter than you think), and that's a good example of if in my opinion. Not everything is sunshine and rainbows, and that's part of life.
God, this twist hit me like a ton of bricks. It wasn't that unlikely at this point in the story, but at the same time, I really couldn't believe that they killed off an actual professor. A villain, maybe, is fine, but a professor? Man...
And to me this is the true brilliance behind the story, this little twist that might seem minor compared to everything we learned so far, yet makes all the difference. So by now we got a pretty clear picture of what happened, more or less. In a sense a classic story, though I admit done very well. A very dedicated professor who loves her family, yet is obsessed with her research to the point it makes her harm everything she cared about. She becomes so blind she doesn't even see that she was originally doing it "to create a perfect world for her family" yet is losing her family, "to understand the past better" yet she is now destroying the past and the present together, and eventually her ways even brought her own literal destruction. The "Scientist playing god" trope. However, on the way she creates another version of herself, physically and also metaphorically if you will, that sort of gets a second chance of redemption. This AI, who is supposed to be like her, gets to see her make all these errors and learn from them, and realizes that this great dream that is still inside her own AI mind, will bring an end to everything that is important, and therefore decides to stop it. You can say that this is very faithful to the original idea of Frankenstein - The creator is too blind to see, what the created can easily understand. The monster is more humane than the human who made it. And that's the brilliance of this story. We are here to help Sada - stop Sada.
And god, everything you typed was just how I felt. Like I think both of us coming from science backgrounds really helps us to appreciate the pursuit for knowledge, but you also have to temper it with some compassion and ethics.
NO!!! Not Booba!!! Damn it damn it damn it... How could I have known that thing knows a Fire type move of all things... Booba, oh Booba... One of my best pokemon...
I'm sorry Clew, I'm so sorry. Sometimes in Nuzlockes you make tough calls. Your death was not for nothing my girl, you earned us some much needed momentum and a free switch. And good thing I didn't leave Gamba out, I had this idiotic thought pop to my head but I clearly decided against it. Thank you for everything buddy...
Man, I remember reading this update and feeling really bad about these deaths. I was really excited for someone to use an Orthworm. And Flutter Mane really has a lot of SpAtk, so yeah... it really was just something you couldn't have predicted.
And Clew... Clearly, I have developed a love for Spidops as time went on, so it really feels bad for me. But she did her part and she helped keep your starter alive.
Honestly, I was really scared since the AI battle is not easy at all, so getting only 2 deaths is perfectly fine especially for a blind run. And you did so well in guessing a lot of the types actually, I was really impressed! I definitely didn't predict a lot of those types.
Overall, a wonderful retrospective as well. I definitely share a lot of your thoughts, if not all, and I'm looking forward to Game Freak perfecting this formula.
But I'm happy I was finally able to follow a run of yours! I don't think I actually was able to follow one from start to finish, so this was a real treat! Looking forward to what you do next!
Dex Entry
A curse bestowed upon DYLAN renders him an amusing injury magnet. Pompous prince PAGET's ego can be inflated to a size that could rival a WAILORD.
Summary of Sightless Scarlet
(And a few silly bonuses)
@Trollkitten - Ouch, I didn't even think about that. My hope that she traveled back in time back not in space and is therefore close to the Tera Crystals, but I doubt she could count on that so your theory is quite possible. We'll never know (or we will if she'll be in the DLC I guess). Either way, what an ending! Interesting videos, only watch his stuff sporadically but I do like Bird Keeper Toby's theories.
@Dee - You and me both, there was such a buildup for this ending, and boy did it deliver! Area Zero was indeed really cool and felt like its own mini adventure within this grand adventure. I agree, it really seems Game Freak finally made the decision to take more risks and open their franchise to more complicated content and just new things and I'm loving it. Indeed, they have done a great job to let you understand the process that took Sada to the extreme, and oh my bad about the third person not being Arven's father. But indeed, he is at least mentioned. Man, this makes Sada's care for Koraidon and not Arven even more tragic, and troubling... Whole "Good Ruby" "Bad Ruby" sort of bad 😋. You make a great point about Nemona and I met similar people myself. I think it is a sort of personality that tries to accomplish itself and show excellence where it can, and as focusing on a career and earning more money is not an option because the family is so rich or something it just has too much emotional associations in rich families, some kids go this path which can be either destructive if taken to the extreme or actually constructive like in Nemona's case, so good for her. From what I saw of Violet now I tend to agree, I think I picked the right version for me at least which has far cooler pokemon (And I like Sada and Koraidon better), though as you'll see down below, I also liked a few of the Future Paradox Forms (is Paradox form the official term? I saw people online use it and don't remember it was used in the game). Thanks for taking part in this, and I'm happy to hear you enjoyed!
@Nate - professor inside a processor it seems 😛. Cool about Glimmora, and interesting about Lunge but as I never played the Gen 7 post game I had no idea! So many new cool moves are made every generation, it is hard to keep track (still, I actually like it that they are adding more variations to the old ones and add more interesting effects to damage dealing moves). Yep, losing Booba was perhaps the most painful death of the run, maybe rivaled by losing Menace. Clew's death also hurt, but in a way I accepted it more as I saw it coming. Happy you enjoyed the ride and thank you for be a part of it!
@JavierE64 - Thanks! Yeah fighting those extremely weird looking pokemon and having to guess their types was no joke, and losing two pokemon is quite a price, but hi we made it! That's hardly a given in such a run, at least for me. Really happy you liked it, and thanks for joining the adventure, I will never look at a Sunkern the same again I promise you that 😋.
@Time Master Eon - Interesting, I'm not the only one who thought that. They just feel... Off in a way, but who knows. But good point about the pokeballs, it is really hard to understand when the classic pokeball appearance was truly invented as we get really mixed signals about it in different games. Hope the DLC might answer a few of these questions!
@redninjapuffle - Happy you enjoyed it and thanks for joining! Yep, AI Sada was no joke! Killing a Gyarados is no small feat, sorry to hear that. I can't say she is Cynthia level of difficulty, but is definitely at the same level of some of the other harder champions out there.
@Hayfever - I agree, the whole "can't use Koraidon" thing is the prefect example of my favorite motto of "gameplay/mechanism serves the story", or in this case the lack of it, which is a sign of great game design. Yep, I agree about the Scarlet Paradox Forms (And especially Scream Tail! I was always a Jiggly fan), but after seeing the Violet Paradox forms even though most of them are inferior in my opinion (Especially their names...) some of them are still pretty cool. I agree about the party of friends, and as I said part of my childhood dream was for pokemon games to give us the whole "pokemon journey experience", and so I was hoping one day you could play as part of a party, either with others or NPC it doesn't matter, and even though they sort of allowed it, it doesn't really feel like part of the journey at this point. Great points about the parents. You know it is a very common choice in many art media to make the protagonist as "tabula rasa" as you can so everyone could imagine themselves as being them, so I guess making the parents less dominant is also part of that, but I agree there is a lot of lost potential here, and a future pokemon game that would put more emphasis on the parents of the protagonist could be great. The parent can be the professor, or the champion, or even the evil team leader (all were sort of done, but not for your character but for a "friend"), and that would make for a great story, I mean look at Norman. Yeah, the whole pokeball thing is a mess, that's what happens when your franchise consists of so many games, things start to contradict whether it is intentional or not 😁. Yeah, I agree pokemon had discussed death before, but ever since Gen I where they allowed themselves to be more adult, pokemon really shied away from being too explicit about these subjects, and I'm glad to see they are willing to tackle these things head on again, to me that's a great sign of the franchise growing into new directions understanding that their fan base consists of both kids and former kids 🙂. I agree that the story is not ground breaking, but it was done so well. Characters had relatable motivations that made sense, the story touched on some great points without being too much in your face, everything was built just right, honestly - one of, if not the best pokemon story so far in a game in my opinion. I feel quite lucky that I managed to enjoy it unspoiled even a few months after its release! Happy you enjoyed this run, and thank you so much for taking part of it!
@Arie Kazami - Thanks so much! I know right? I finally made it! And I love that it required quite a lot of blood, sweat and tears. Trasgo the Grimmsnarl giving the finishing blow he was Terastillized just felt like the perfect ending 😎. Yeah I guess so about Koraidon, seemed too important to be left to chance. I feel exactly like you! Whenever one of my blind runs comes to an end, I get this strong urge to start another, but know it will take a few years until the next game will be release. But you can be damn sure I'll do another run once that happens! Who knows, Gen 5 remakes 😛? A New Let's Go Game? Or perhaps Gen 10 we'll see what comes first. Thanks again for joining as always!
@mewstein - Oh god you have no idea how much time it took to add each screenshot and resize it by hand... The things I do for love. *Scream back! Indeed, Penny is annoying at times but also has some charm to her sarcasm, you have to admit. Oh, I've seen messy labs before, believe me 😛. Losing Booba and Clew sucked (Hi! Too soon 🙂 ), but hi, I made it! Hope I represented this game well for someone who used my run as their way of experiencing it such as you, and thanks for being a part of it!
Hello everyone! Welcome to this run's summary where I say thanks, blabber on about my thoughts on the game and the whole experience, and just write freely whatever comes to mind I guess as a way to summarize this run and my thoughts that rose after it.
First of all, I won! I freaking won! AT LAST!!! God, it has been too long since I did a posted run and actually won it, I was starting to feel a bit cursed 😋... Ok, good, I got this out of my system. Now we can begin the celebrations 🥳.
Before I begin, let me this time start with the "thank yous", a little tradition I like to do at the end of most of my runs, just to show how much I appreciate your support. I talked about this countless time, there are a few reasons why I post my runs here on the forums, but the most important one is the feeling that I'm doing this journey together with you, and that's why posting as I go and playing blind are such essential parts of my run as I want you guys to experience everything with me the first time I do it, or as much as you can do that in a posted written format at least. And even though I of course ask of you not to spoil anything for me, your comments are an important part of this adventure, seeing you interact with me as I go and giving me advice, sharing your thoughts about the different questions I raise as I play and asking your own, sharing your own stories and thoughts, and just showing your support! But this doesn't mean I don't appreciate all of you silent viewers as well, and I want to give you guys a special thank you too and hope you have enjoyed as well.
Also, a huge thank you for all of you who nominated and voted for this run in the extravaganza and made it win 3 awards! (Second place in all, Silver Ruby for the win 😋!), it really is great to know that something you create and worked on (and I admit, posted runs can take quite a lot of time to make!) is enjoyed and appreciated by other people. And it really gives me a lot of motivation to continue in the future.
As those of you who follow me know I'm also doing my "Hall of Fame" project where I try to Nuzlocke every single main pokemon game that was ever released (they just keep making them too fast and I can't keep up! Still only 5 left, and one day I'll make it! Perhaps by Gen 10, that could be round and nice). Anyway, here are the links to my Hall of Fame and Graveyard submission for this run if you want to check them out and see my final words about every single one of our heroes and fallen:
And now let's talk a bit about the run and then the game in general. As usual, I'm quite proud of myself for both avoiding the temptation of checking out spoilers and actually managing to avoid almost all of the spoilers when the game was released (and thanks to this great forum for doing their best to not spoil things in most other threads without a warning! That really helped). This kept the experience of this run almost totally blind to me, which was fantastic, What can I say, I just love doing blind runs, really, there's a certain magic and appeal to it no other format can give as you experience the game without help or planning before every battle and having to improvise, not knowing what your own pokemon will evolve into, and just enjoying it "as it was meant to be enjoyed". For me it is like reliving those childhood moments of playing a game like pokemon for the first time without even knowing what it is or being able to check things online (at least that was the case back when I was young...). And this run provided so many such moments, with a majority of my team being Gen 9 and evolving into creatures I couldn't dream of (I think Pilpelette evolving into Scovillian was the greatest surprise, though Gamba the Skeledirge and Salaria the Garganacl come in close seconds). Now I don't want to sound over the top, and perhaps there's still an effect of the hype of just finishing this game, but I think this run was one of the most fun posted runs I ever did on the forums, only possibly rivaled by my Blinded by the Sun and the original Into the Abyss blind run, each for their unique appeals. The game was surprisingly good (as I'll talk about shortly), the blind aspect added so much to it as it kept surprising me both when it came to the story and the challenges I faced, you guys were amazing, the pacing of the run was good, just a general fun time!
Now let's talk about the game, and I warn you, I'm a fan and it is going to sound like it so be ready for some praises 😄. But because of that, let's start first with the things I didn't like about this game. First, the easy target, the game has some very noticeable graphic issues. I mean the graphics themselves are fine. Nothing impressive most of the time, but not terrible at all, and hi we're pokemon player we were never here for the triple A graphics anyway. You can also see a lot of improvement especially in the textures compared to Gen 8. But the latency and frame rate issues are really annoying and certain other graphic bugs that sometimes appear can really break the immersiveness of the game. Again, it really isn't that terrible, but I doubt you can go through this game without witnessing these issues at least a few times in your run, which is a shame as it gives such bad first impression to a lot of people, that makes it harder for them to see all the great stuff this game has to offer. It also feels like the sort of bugs that more developing time can solve, but I might be wrong here and it might be built-in issues with trying to run such a heavy game on such a limited console, I honestly don't know.
But let's leave the frame rate and graphics aside. One of the things I noticed very early and have heard from other people as well that made this game feel a bit less polished is how empty and lifeless the cities feel. Past pokemon games managed to take far smaller cities of a few buildings and make them feel full of life, yet this game creates massive cities like we've never seen before and make most of them feel like computer generated cardboard boxes with roaming NPCs talking to themselves like Zombies doing the same routine again and again. That's such a shame for such a rich region who feels full of character and life outside these cities, and inside the few buildings that it has, to fail in this particular issue.
There are other issues that other pokemon games have as well so I won't go too much into them. This game made a huge step forward in so many aspects, yet there are still many things pokemon games lack compared to other games, and I think most of them can be summarized by saying pokemon games tend to be overly simplistic compared to other RPGs who have more dialogs/mechanisms/deeper battle systems in the main game (pokemon has a really interesting competitive battle scene, but let's face it there is a reason why we Nuzlocke this game). I know that part of the appeal of pokemon is its simplicity and I won't dent it has its benefits making the game more casually fun, but still it is hard not to compare it to other games. Again, I think pokemon are making some steps in the right direction every generation, but it still has some way to go.
And finally, I know this isn't a major thing but it is still annoying - please allow us to take off the kid gloves at will Game Freak, it costs you nothing, just allow it. You forced the exp-share on us, I still hate it but whatever, I can at least get the logic of saying you balanced the game according to this so you think this is the only way we should play it (but why not have a toggle off feature?). The long cutscenes and some of the tutorials can't be turned off, again annoying (I didn't even realize that until I just started my second Violet run, on my first Scarlet run it all felt prefect by the way), fine, I'll live with that and just click A again and again (and hi, moving some of the tutorials to the lessons in school was a great idea! So good for you for doing that). But now you took the option to play on Set (without manually clicking "no" every time), which is also the official way you play on competitive of course and how your opponents are forced to play on. Why?! You want to make Switch the default and that's it. Why not add a freaking on/off button!
Ok, and now I'm done with my rant 😋. And it is time to talk about everything that is good in this game. Let's start with the obvious, the Open World. I think people, and when I say people I also mean myself, tend to just take that as a given for some reason without realizing how awesome it is that we finally got a pokemon game that is truly open world. No wild area, no divisions and loading screens, everything happens in the world itself. The battles, the encounters, the routes, the cities, it is all connected and happening as part of the same world, and that's freaking amazing. You know, before I set down to write this summary I went to read the summary I wrote 5 years ago (yep... damn time flies by) of "Blinded by the Sun" and over there I wrote on how Alola finally starts to take the pokemon game in the right direction with wider routes feeling a bit more like the open world we so desperately want. And look at that, 5 years later and we actually got it! Gen 8 toyed with the idea a bit, but almost gave it a bad name compared to what Paldea finally did. As with so many other things I think we have Legends Arceus to thank here as pokemon finally allowed themselves to take risks and test certain concepts in a less risky environment, and it worked so well for them! So yeah, Paldea is an amazing open world. There are a few other things I'd like to see added to make this experience feel even more like other Open World RPGs, but generally they did it really well, and we are finally to experience the "Pokemon Journey" closer to high I always imagined it to be.
Next, we have to talk about the 18 badges challenge. Another feature that we tend to take for granted but added so much content to the game! I mean compare this to every other pokemon game, what they did here is as grand as Gen II adding Kanto the Johto, in some aspects even greater than this. 18 different badges, part of 3 different pathways, and it all felt complete and full of content, and different from one another. That's pretty amazing. The Titans were my favorite of the three, both because of the great story and the uniqueness of the Titan battles, but the Team Star battles were also pretty great, and of course leaving on top of that the classic 8 gym challenge was a great choice. Pokemon is always so afraid of messing even a bit with its formula not to upset everyone or harm their golden eggs goose, so the approach of "let's just add more stuff" is a win-win in my opinion that makes everyone happy. The only thing I'll say that was a bit problematic, and I heard some people didn't like is that the gyms didn't scale in level. Now I only partially agree with this criticism. I don't like it when the wild encounters in an RPG scale in level (see Skyrim e.g.), it just feels so artificial to walk through the same path and now face demons and dragon where goblins and rat were before just because you leveled up (or stronger goblins and rats). I think the same should be true for the Titans and Crews, scaling them would be a bad idea that would harm the realism of the story. However specifically for the gym leaders, I think it could have been really cool if each gym had a different team depending on when you meet them. I think that would satisfy most people, feels realistic, and still keeps to the general vibe of the game as it is now.
There are so many other things done well in this game, and I talked about most of them throughout this run. The academy being a place where you can meet characters and learn about Paldea is a great idea (reminds me a bit of your time on your Spaceship in Mass Effect where you could read stuff, improve your relations with the other character, etc). The TMs being accessible the way they are was brilliant, and generally adding a simplified crafting system is such a great step in the right direction (again, much like Legends Arceus did, only differently). The way you unlock Koraidon's HMs is such clever game design, simple yet effective. It feels gradual yet meaningful. The abilities it is actually granted don't feel like artificial roadblock removers rather improvements that allow you easier access to certain parts of Paldea that are scattered all around (so much better than HMs for example, and even riding pokemon). The way they connected it to Koraidon and the story, all just great. Sorry for repeating myself but Game Freak did such a great job taking their old mechanisms and improving them, it really shows they put a lot of thought into all of this. Oh and the Paradox Forms and New Evolutions of old pokemon are all so well made. And generally, Gen 9 introduced so many cool new pokemon, you've got to give them credit for that.
And finally, the story, wow! I mean again, this is a pokemon game, they aren't really known for having good deep stories. Hell, Gen 1 and 2 barely had a story in a sense. Still, this is 2023 and the fans have higher expectations now, and boy did Game Freak deliver. The story itself is one of the best pokemon ever did, the way it is connected to the gameplay is brilliant and feels so natural, the end-game being its own separate mini story and conclusion to it all and the buildup you feel working towards it are wonderful. I don't want to bore you with over-analysis of it all as I already did that, but I think they did an amazing job. In my opinion - the best story in a pokemon game so far.
In fact if I'll have to compare this games to other games, in my own personal opinion this is one of the best pokemon games ever made. Really. I mean let's break it Gen by Gen (again in my own personal opinion, don't get angry 😁). Kanto is a classic, it is hard to compare it to anything both because of nostalgia and how it was made in a different era and was the very first, but I think no one will claim Pokemon Red is the best pokemon game ever made. Johto in my opinion has the best lore and atmosphere of any game so far. The region feels so alive, every city has a meaning, every grove has a story, and the HGSS are some amazing games, and among my personal favorites. Still the game itself doesn't really have a story, the level jumps are terrible, and the Kanto addition even though it is amazing still feels a bit incomplete. Gen 3 and 4 are great games, who perfected some of the game mechanisms and created the pokemon formula as we know it, but I don't think they excel in story or any of the other aspects (don't stone me!). Now Gen 5 was ground breaking in my opinion perfecting the pokemon mechanisms that were introduced in the last two generations, but also bringing us the best story up to that point, taking so many risks and doing things differently like making a game with only Gen 5 pokemon, and just perfecting the age of DS in my opinion. Black/White and Black2/White2 are among my favorite games of all time, and yet... I think their story as great as it is, is not as good as that of Gen 9. Gen 6, well, hmm poor Gen 6 reminds me of Gen 8, it came up with some great ideas but didn't have the time to do it right and had to wait for the generation after it to fix its problems. Now Gen 7 is another game that finally took risks, changed things, and brought the age of the 3DS to its peak in my opinion, and are also among my favorite games of all times. And again, everything that I loved about it, I think Gen 9 did even better. It shook up the old formula with the Totems, but Gen 9 found a way to both do that and keep everything that people love. It had a great slightly more mature story with a fun team that did things differently, same as Gen 9. So yeah, I might be biased here, but I think Gen 9 is in this sense the perfection of the Switch age. I have no idea if Gen 10 will be released on Switch or not, but still in essence Gen 9 feels like Gen 2 was to Gen 1, like Gen 5 was to Gens 3-4, and like Gen 7 was to Gen 6, a polished gem that was taken to its superior form. I think I'll have to wait a year or two to actually be able to rank it compared to the other games, but I have no doubt at this point that ScVi are in my top three favorite pokemon games of all times.
Oh and one last note, Nuzlocking this game is a delight. So many different encounters you'll never get the same team. Some very fun challenges (depending on your ruleset of course), lots of content, good pacing (if you are playing with a level cap it can be a bit annoying, but as long as you have a rotating team you'll be fine). Great stuff.
And now that I'm done with the game summary, let's talk about what's next? Well first, I'll take a short break from posted runs as I often do after a run. I'll continue to do unposted runs, mostly as my attempt to complete my Hall of Fame, and just for the fun of it. But what my next posted run will be? Well, I honestly don't know. First, to be honest, I'd love to hear what you guys think or want to see. You can be sure that once a new game will be released, I'll do a posted blind run of it, but that might take a while. In the meantime, is there anything specific you'd like to see? I really want to get back into a story run like my Kantonian Fables though in all honesty I sadly don't think I have the time to get into such a project in the near future. I also really wanted to do another Lorelocke to both showcase my ruleset some more and also get to test the rules. I've been thinking of doing a White 2 Hardcore Lorelocke for example (and get two birds with one stone as I still need to complete it for my Hall of Fame anyway). I also have very limited experience with ROM Hacks so that could be cool, and actually work as a blind run as I take games I never seen someone complete before (and there are a lot of those), so if you think that could be cool I'd love to hear recommendations. That's about it I think. I'm always up to trying cool new things, like my really fun Soulinks and Cagelocke I did ages ago. I never completed a Wonderlocke or even tried an Egglocke before so those could also be fun. So yeah, throwing a lot of ideas out there, but have no idea what I want to do to be honest.
And finally, a little silly and unoriginal bonus, a list of my top 10 Paldean Pokemon! I allowed myself to check all the pokedex now that I finally don't fear spoilers, but of course I might be biased by this initial experience and my opinion will probably change in time. Still, enjoy!
10. Espathra - Yeah I know, I never mentioned I particularly liked this pokemon in this run, but I've always liked Psychic types, Ostriches are really cool animals that deserved a proper pokemon, and the whole 60s aesthetics meeting Cleopatra just really click for me. It's pre-evo though not as much. Also, that's quite a signature move!
9. Tinkaton - I'm still a bit bummed I lost my own before I got to evolve and use her. I mean look at that thing, a tiny pink fairy with a huge hammer, what's not to like?
8. Great Tusk - Paradox Pokemon are such a great concept, and most of them are really well made in my opinion. Great Tusk is the first you meet in Scarlet, and they chose it for a good reason as it embodies the primal vibe so well. Still wish Donphan would get a proper evolution as well in the future.
7. Iron Hands - Yep, a future Paradox form made it on the last! I agree that the past ones have much better designs and far better names (good thing I picked Scarlet as my first game), but I'm already a big fan of Hariyama and Iron Hands just feels like a great homage to it.
6. Annihilape - This generation finally introduced many new evolutions for pokemon from past generations (without making them regional forms and therefore locking them from future regions, poor Faretch'd). Some of them I liked better, others not as much, but Annihilape is just perfect. I didn't even think Primeape needed an evolution before it, but this guy totally changed my mind. Such a badass pokemon!
5. Scream Tail - I've always been a Jiggly fan. But a caveman monstrous yet Adorable huge Jigglypuff with a tail instead of its puff? That's just PERFECT.
4. Scovillain - We've been waiting for a Fire Grass type pokemon for quite some time, and a hot pepper might not be the most original idea for one, still Scovillian executed it so well. You might be surprised that I didn't take it to the E4 if I liked it so much? But in Nuzlockes you sadly have to make hard choices, and sometimes not let you personal preferences get in your way. Especially if you are like and was so freaking afraid of losing at the very end again 😋.
3. Orthworm - When I first saw that thing I thought it was funny and cute, but not a whole lot more than that. But after using Booba throughout this run I just fell in love with this powerful goofy thing!
2. Koraidon - Surprised? I'm not usually a huge fan of legendary pokemon, especially in the newer games, as you don't often get to use them (especially in Nuzlockes as I don't allow them). However Scarlet wisely allowed you to get in touch with your big red buddy from the very beginning, and what can I say? It worked. It took me some time to get used to that big wheel coming out of its chest, but other than that - such a majestic creature!
1. Skeledirge - Could it really be anyone else? I've always loved Fire type starters (though not all of them the same), and Skeledirge here is just so wild, such an unexpected combination of things that somehow work perfectly together! And of course, my love for Gamba played a big role in this choice. I like it so much that it even gives quite a fight to my two other favorite fire types! (Charmander and Litten).
Honorable mentions go to: Klawf, Houndstone, Clodsire, Kingambit, Iron Moth, Roaring Moon, Dondozo+Tatsugiri, Glimmora, Garganacl, Dachsbun Lechonk and Spidops who I really wanted but didn't make it on the list. I'm sure there are others as well, that's a pretty solid Gen when it comes to pokemon in my opinion!
That's it for this time! No fallen to remember, no team to acknowledge, all are to be saved in the pages of history.
See you on our next adventure fellow Nuzlockers. Game on!
This was a lovely retrospective. I am so honored to have been able to follow along this journey with you! It was a fun read and I love your top 10 list. Scream Tail and Skeledirge are some of my new all-time favorites. There were so many fun new designs in this generation, I totally agree there!
Well, I certainly can't wait to see what adventure you take next! I'll for sure be there to react and support you!
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