Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet - The game is out but let's be careful with them spoilers!

Fave newbies:

• Wattrel & Kilowattrel - Partly because I saw storm petrels when I went to Shetland last year so it was fun to see a storm petrel Pokemon, but also because of the typing. An option that isn't Zapdos or Oricorio!
  
• Skeledirge - I didn't like him much at first, but the more I used him the more I got attached to my singing death crocodile. Also, the best of the three starter final evos.
  
• Clodsire - What a cutie.
  
• Bellibolt - What a cutie!
  
• Toedscool - Its running animation is brilliant, and I like the convergent evolution idea.
  
• Glimmora - A total babe from my Scarlet team. It's cute with all of its flappy bits out and I like its ability.
  
• Mabosstiff - Is this because of Arven's one? Maybe. It's cute, I would pat it.

Least favourite newbies:

• Meowscarada - Stop making weird humanoid Pokemon that weirdos on the internet will want to smooch.
  
• Quaquaval - Creepy.
  
• Tinkaton - Genuinely surprised at how much love this line got. I think they all look honking.
  
• Grafaiai - This is a shame because I think Shroodle is cute. Grafaiai looks bum.

There are a fair few I'm non-plussed about but those are some top bananas.

My top/bot picks are

poks:

I was fortunate enough to get this as a gift for Christmas and I'm having a great time with it so far. I'll put up longer thoughts in the review thread once I've finished it - which isn't far off as I've just got the last bit of each of the three questlines to do along with the finale - but what I'll say for now is that this is easily my favourite mainline Pokémon game since B/W.

They've taken the world design from Arceus and implemented more of a reason to explore alongside much needed trainer battles and activities to do, so that's a win in my book. I've spent ages just wandering about, catching critters and filling up my Pokédex. I think they've nailed the formula in that regard - I'd like to have seen the ability to catch Pokémon outside of battling retained from Arceus, but it's not a dealbreaker. I think the freedom the game offers you is great on a whole, but there's been a couple of areas where I've ended up either struggling more than I should have or had the reverse in which I steamrolled everything. Not sure how they'd sort that as I don't think it's as sample as adding scaled encounters.

I will say it's a real shame the game performs as it does. I feel the performance holds the game back from really shining brightly in my eyes - I can stomach some dodgy textures and stuff like character models in the background running at a lower framerate, but some of the areas in the game really ran like arse. The big lake in particular was utterly miserable and I dreaded trying to catch Pokémon in that area as the slowdown made the battles so frustrating to get through. The pop-in has been annoying too as I've found myself all too often crashing into Pokémon that materialise two feet in front of me as I'm travelling along.

Still, I've having a great time and I'm looking forward to seeing how the finale of the game unfurls.

Here's my team:

The gang:

Rum wrote:

Skeledirge - I didn't like him much at first, but the more I used him the more I got attached to my singing death crocodile. Also, the best of the three starter final evos.
Tinkaton - Genuinely surprised at how much love this line got. I think they all look honking.

Quite sad I didn't spend as much time with my Skeledirge as I should've.  I dumped it for JayMoyles Ceruledge as soon as it evolved because I thought it was kind of ugly, but the more I think about it (the soul bird on its nose, the fact that it's an actually quadrupedal starter) the more I appreciate it.  I still like the grass cat more though, and I never wanted to kiss it.

The second point really marks you out as somebody who hasn't experienced the joys of Gigaton Hammer Kills Everything.  Also she's based off Spanish blacksmith goblins, I'm here for her. (The rest of the line are bad though.)

Muss wrote:

Toedscool is great too...
Ting Lu - It's got a stupid head

I had a Toedescruel all the way through.  It wasn't the best Pokémon but it made me laugh.  Ting-Lu looks horribly unbalanced and is just a big beefy cow, definitely the worst of the legendaries.

JayMoyles wrote:

Tinkaton - Big hammer, big love.

YES

JayMoyles wrote:

Ceruledge - This Pokémon was made for me.

YESSSSSSSSSS

Do you have a theme to your nicknames Jay?  On the whole I think you're being kind to the game, but you know that already.

Jay and Balla totally want to kiss Meowscarada.

Balladeer wrote:

Do you have a theme to your nicknames Jay?  On the whole I think you're being kind to the game, but you know that already.

They're Street Fighter characters! I tried to theme them, like electric lad being named Blanka, tall bipedal scary lad being named Sagat and so on. Some of them didn't really fit though.

And I'm really fond of this game, actually. I'd rate it very highly - probably top 3 in the series for me. I just finished the big endgame bit and thought it might just be the best finale Pokémon has ever put together. I'll put some more thoughts in the last game we finished thread over the weekend, but aye, performance issues aside, big thumbs up to this game.

Rum wrote:

Jay and Balla totally want to kiss Meowscarada.

You would too if you saw how good Flower Trick is - guaranteed critical hit = destruction of anything that's weak to Grass.

I also finished this last night and I have to echo Jay's thoughts, one of the best Pokémon games yet and the ending nailed it too. It was a funny one for me, when I first started it I was just wondering about catching everything and thinking the story would take a backseat but after the 2nd part of Arven's story I wanted to see where it went (and to save his good doggo) so I pretty much barreled through from there. The team star stuff was really good too, the Pokémon League stuff less so but it was by no means boring and the trials helped keep it interesting.

The endgame is tremendous, not denying that at all.  It's just the bits before that I was disappointed with.  Anyway we all know that Smurf only likes the game because he wants to have sex with the nurse.

I'm all about the History Teacher now, I've got a bone for her to uncover.

I was all about the history teacher and the PE one who had to learn to make sandwiches.

Do you have top monster picks Buska, or do you love them all equally?

Listen to Luke Loves Pokémon on apple podcasts, spotify, youtube or wherever you like to get your pods to hear my thoughts in detail about all the new monsters in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet!

If I have a favourite right now, I think I'd say Espathra. It looks unique, unusual but still like a living animal, seems like it would be a cool animal companion, powerful but oddly beautiful.

Buskalilly wrote:

powerful but oddly beautiful.

Like me!

I think Espathra looks a bit like Lady Gaga.

I don't like the 'but'. Why are you afraid of powerful AND oddly beautiful people like me and Lady Gaga?

That's a typo, Powerful Butt Oddly Beautiful.

Rum wrote:

I don't like the 'but'. Why are you afraid of powerful AND oddly beautiful people like me and Lady Gaga?

You intimidate me sexually. I want Espathra to step on my balls. See also; Lady Gaga, Rum.