Pokémon Violet
I don't really review DLC if it doesn't act like a standalone game, so Pokémon Sword's Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra never got any sort of recognition here. Even so, I still remember how exciting it was to have a mainline Pokémon game with a free camera, overworld encounters, and buddy Pokémon to follow you around, all complemented by the freedom to explore. Now if you were to juice up those ideas, dash in some non-linearity, and make a whole game out of it, you'd have Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. While it's a shame that more influence wasn't taken from Legends: Arceus, what we got was still a ton of fun and a great step forward for the series.
Pokémon Violet's biggest selling point, and by far the biggest change from the previous games, is the freedom it offers in how you approach its many challenges. Capturing and battling is pretty much the same as it always was, save for the new type-changing "terastalization" mechanic that I hardly used, but the new level of freedom lies not in how you fight, but when and with whom you fight. Fully replacing random encounters with Pokémon visible in the overworld means it is far easier to decide which wild Pokémon are worth your time, and which are okay to run past. Battling the eager trainers scattered across the map is also optional now, as none of them will actually challenge you, even after locking eyes. Only once you strike up a conversation are you locked into the battle, so you have complete control over who you take on outside of the story. Even the gym leaders (and other challengers from the campaigns) can be battled in any order, allowing for everyone's journey to be just a little different. Different still is the game's approach to the story when compared to other contemporary open-world RPGs.
While the typical approach to open-world games involves a main storyline broken up by dozens of optional sidequests, Pokémon Violet opts to ditch the sidequests in favor of three separate campaigns that culminate in one shared grand finale. While we saw that sidequests work in Pokémon with Legends: Arceus, this almost Octopath-Traveler-reminiscent approach works incredibly well, especially with so much content being optional. In previous Pokémon games, your team would naturally grow stronger through the mandatory wild Pokémon and trainer fights that occur between the story beats. With those requirements gone, you technically could go from one story moment to the next without a single battle in between, which could end up leaving you incredibly underpowered. However, with the three campaigns, if you ever feel unprepared to take on the next challenge of one, you can switch over to one of the other two and just keep playing!
At the start of the game, you don't have any of the campaigns available to you. It's not until you choose your starter Pokémon, encounter Miraidon (the cover legendary and your mount for the rest of the game), learn the basics in a small starter area, and then go to school that you actually begin these stories. Before you leave your first day at school, the director announces that everyone's project for the semester is to explore the Paldea region and find their "treasure." With that, you are invited on three different adventures by three separate classmates.
My favorite of them is the "Victory Road" campaign that follows the structure of a traditional Pokémon game, asking you to defeat eight gym leaders before taking on the Elite Four and becoming champion. Led by Nemona, your battle-addict friend from the start of the game, you'll find yourself constantly being challenged to rival battles in between the gym leaders, with each one emphasizing your personal growth as a trainer. While it isn't my favorite mechanically, the "Path of Legends" campaign definitely has the best narrative and rewards of the three. Led by Arven, son of the mysterious Professor Turo, your goal is to track down and defeat the five powerful titan Pokémon living across the region so you can claim the "herba mystica" that grants them their power. Every time you succeed, Arven will make a sandwich with the herba that unlocks new traversal abilities for Miraidon, making exploration much faster and easier. Finally, my least favorite of the three is "Starfall Street," which fulfills the series trope of taking down a trouble-making team almost single-handedly as a prodigious young child. This time masterminded by the enigmatic Cassiopeia whom you only speak with over the phone, you raid the bases of Team Star, defeating their grunts using a version of the new "Let's Go" mechanic that allows your Pokémon to roam and fight on their own. Once you've defeated enough of the rabble, the base's leader will challenge you, with your victory forcing them to step down.
Completing all three of these campaigns unlocks a grand finale in a new area full of exciting, powerful Pokémon and a final narrative slice with one of the best twists in the franchise's recent history. It's unfortunate how many people probably quit the game before this point due to the technical issues. I've been pleased with every Pokémon story I've played, but this one was particularly enjoyable, and I think it does a lot to redeem the game's faults. Although I encountered all manner of technical issues, and despite the fact that there was a whole third of the campaign that I could take or leave, I was absolutely, thoroughly engaged in Pokémon Violet, and I played it virtually non-stop for a month. Every mainline entry in the Pokémon series makes it a little harder for me to play the older games, but I don't think it's been this extreme since Pokémon X and Y introduced fairy types, 3D, and the full-party exp share. You just have so much freedom, and I truly can't imagine enjoying going back to random encounters. The only design choice I can think of that should be improved for next time is the inability to enter most buildings. I loved exploring towns in previous games and talking to NPCs in department stores, restaurants, their homes, and more. Now, even most of the stores are just pop-up menus. However, that complaint is minor relative to everything else Pokémon Violet offers its players. I truly believe that most Pokémon fans will enjoy this game, just as long as they can ignore the performance issues. Hopefully, we'll see an update that fixes all of that soon, but in the meantime, there's still a fully enjoyable game ready to go.
