Pokemon Scarlet & Violet - I'm Hyped

Pokemon S&V - Why I'm Hyped

Intro:

Yay! The new Pokemon game has been released and for the first time I bought both versions of the game: Scarlet & Violet. I'm super hyped about the game and look forward to start playing on Wednesday with my son. Here are the five aspects to the new game that I most look forward to experiencing.

Body:

Team Building Around Starter Pokemon

More new Pokemon have been released for this game than ever before! In total, there will be 103 new generation 9 Pokemon in the game. Nine of those new Pokemon species will be related to the three starter Pokemon:

1. Sprigatito
2. Fuecoco
3. Quaxley

My son has already communicated pretty clearly that he's into choosing the cute grass type cat Pokemon Spiragatito as his starter.  Based on feedback from the Pokemon community, this seems to be a solid choice. 

I'm choosing Fuecoco over Quaxley as my starter Pokemon. He's a super cute crocodile that breathes fire. I'm going to name him "Crikey" because it is close to "croc-y" and "crikey" is what I imagine an Australian saying in the Outback if they were to come across a crocodile that breathes fire.

Once a starter Pokemon has been chosen, the fun really begins. You get to strategically capture Pokemon who you think will compliment your starter as you battle your way through the story of the game. 

I'm going to build a party around Fuecoco that includes only the new generation 9 Pokemon. A generation nine Pokemon that I'm pretty excited about is Lechonk. Lechonk is a cute piggy Pokemon who evolves differently depending on the gender. This video offers an interesting breakdown on what gender might be best to capture and train for your party.

I'm not sure of how my son is planning to build a team around his Sprigatito, but there are plenty of interesting ideas out there. I look forward to seeing his decisions and making my own.

Trading Pokemon With My Son

Last Christmas, my son got his own Nintendo Switch. Therefore, I thought it would be fun to buy both Scarlet and Violet. My son wants Violet and I'll play with Scarlet. This will allow us to collect the Pokemon that are exclusive to each game and trade with each other.

In Shield & Sword, we had the Shield game and traded with friends who had Sword. But it was a bit difficult sometimes to organize the trading and we were often more enthusiastic about the trades then our friends. 

It should be fun to trade with an equally enthusiastic Pokemon partner this time around.

Co-Op Play

Game Freak developed a new co-op feature for Pokemon Scarlet & Violet. Not only will players be able to trade Pokemon and engage in Pokemon raids together like in Sword & Shield, but we will also be able to:

• explore each others world
• enter the battle stadium and fight together
• have picnics

This will be the first time that we'll play co-op together on our Nintendo Switches. It will be amazing.

Exploring Paldea

This should be the first true "open world" Pokemon game. At least, that is how Game Freak has been marketing it and the Pokemon community has been hyping it. While it seems there have been some technical issues with the open world from the initial game reviews,  I'm still really excited to experience a Pokemon game in a similar way to Zelda BotW. 

It should be really fun to explore the new Paldea region and get a bit lost in this Pokemon universe.

Competitive Play

Once we've managed to explore Paldea, defeat the story and devour the after-game content, it will be challenging to participate in online competitive play. We will be able to follow the so-called meta-game with team building trends on Pikalytics, watch YouTubers like Wolfe & Cybertron showcase cool competitive teams, strategies and battles by the best competitive players in the Pokemon community.

We can either use rental teams from others or try to build our own teams based on Pokemon that we breed and train. It should be a stimulating way to enjoy the game, after the game.

Conclusion:

Mentioning only five aspects to be excited about the game is challenging. There are countless other aspects that have been left out, such as:

• learning more about the Terastal Phenomenon and Tera Raids
• following the new story with the game
• analyzing the characters and their unique personalities
• enjoying the creativity of the Pokemon and the artwork

However, the five things mentioned in the post are what I'm most looking forward to and what I'm pretty sure will give me the most joy in experiencing this game over the next months with my son. I can't wait until Wednesday!