Uber wife surprised me with the gift of Pokémon a week ago when she came home with a copy of Pokémon Violet to play. Woot!
I was pretty forthcoming in saying that I kind of wanted to play this one, and she took that to heart knowing that I'd sit and waffle on that decision and probably end up not buying it. Why am I like that? Anyway, social media certainly has been trashing this game a lot because of "the glitches" but I have to say that for the most part I didn't encounter much of the weird stuff other people saw.
What I did notice was:
- I was able to see through ground geometry at the end of battle when the camera would focus in on the butt end of my Pokémon and I was on an incline.
- There was a bit of graininess to the screen once in a while.
- Characters out in farther draw distance would hitch their walk animations.
- Environment art in general was of a lower quality than character art.
It might just be that I have a more forgiving eye or perhaps it was because I didn't do group online play, but for me the gameplay was as solid as any other Pokémon game. If you were to listen to the grumpy lady at my local Gamestop, this was the worst Pokémon game ever and the glitches were so bad it was unplayable. Um, no.
This was not unplayable . . . in fact, I beat it yesterday!
I had a great time playing Pokémon Violet! At first gameplay felt very childish, and it took me a while to warm up to my character, but I finished strong by roleplaying him as the youngest member of Daft Punk.
I gave every Pokémon I caught a unique name . . . kinda. I mean I had to name every one of them some variant of "boi" at the end of their name. My yellow Oricorio became known as "cheerboi." My starter Feucoco was named "dumboi." My Iron Treads was "wheelieboi." It was a theme, save for special occasions like when I caught a Salandit and instead named it "Slayqueen" instead knowing it would evolve into Salazalle, aka the "hot looking lizard" Pokémon. (Props to my oldest for tipping me off to that.) The suffix "queen" then became a revered term amongst my Pokémon boxes.
This game basically has three main story paths you take. The first is the traditional Gym Championship path. The second is to take down Team Star. The third is more complex, and what I'd call the real story of Pokémon Violet. In Pokémon Violet you begin the game by coming to the aid of a legendary Pokémon named Miraidon who is badly injured. As the story progresses, you take down Titan Pokémon and obtain their Herba Mystica to heal not only Miraidon, but your friend's Pokémon, who is badly injured. Eventually list story leads you down to Area Zero where you uncover the plot of the game. (I'm trying not to give away too many spoilers here)
As for gameplay, this was pretty much what I'd expect from a Pokémon Open World game. The Team Star "slay 30" quests seemed odd, I will admit. Why did they give me 10 minutes to complete a course that took 2 minutes to complete? Outside of that, great! I don't have a lot of gameplay complaints. Difficulty did in fact scale up toward the end, and I even failed a battle with Headmaster Clavell there at the end and had a couple nail biter battles.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the new Terastallizing feature in this game. Basically what this is, is a one-shot buff to your Pokémon per visit to the Pokémon Center (or you can use a ground spawn crystal to recharge as well). Every Pokémon in Pokémon Violet has this ability, and it can be a pretty cool way to swap your battle type . . . but mostly I used it to boost a move’s power. If you're interested, you can check out the deets here.
After the credits rolled last night, I was presented with a new challenge which seemed to be a request to go face off against harder versions of the gym battles and continue to explore the open world environment of Pokémon Violet as I try to catch them all and get all the Pokémon registered in my Pokédex app.
Ultimately this has been a great game and really fun to play. If you've been playing, feel free to drop me a note and let me know what you thought of the game.
Happy Dueling!
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