Pokémon Scarlet and Violet Third Trailer – VGU Reacts

It truly is a whole new Pokémon region we are living in!

Last week, Nintendo gave us a “Pokémon Presents,” and while certain things weren’t for me – such as Pokémon Café Mix adding Mewtwo as a customer or the new content coming to Pokémon Unite – there was truly one thing that got me excited (well, aside from the Masters EX tease with two heroes from Pallet town possibly interacting for the first time in the franchise’s 25+ year history). No lying I actually downloaded Masters EX from the App Store based on my genuine curiosity for it. But the real meat of this Pokémon Presents was the third trailer for Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet. So, without further delay, let’s take a look at this Pokémon Gen 9 trailer in all its glory!

Welcome To the Paldea Region:

The Paldea region is based on Portugal and Spain and is closest to the Kalos region from the X and Y games that were released on the 3DS. You are a student at a Pokémon academy (Naranja in Scarlet and Uva in Violet). You are tasked with going on an independent study for “The Treasure Hunt,” a journey to find treasure in the Paldea region. What this means, I am not quite sure. What I am sure of is that there are regional variants of familiar Pokémon from generations gone by, with Wooper, in particular, getting a regional variant/form as a poison type. The greater internet community has since dubbed this version of Wooper: Pooper. Fidough is one of three dog Pokémon that as you can tell from the name, have been described as “squishy and soft to the touch”. Cetitan is an ice Pokémon that can possibly inflict heavy ice damage, and lest we forget the three starters you have to choose from: Fuecoco, Sprigatito, and Quaxly.

Among other new features is the mysterious Terastal ability, which the Pokémon in this new region can do. This makes them shine like crystals and ultimately changes their type, giving you an edge over another trainer. The preorder bonus for the game is a Pikachu that can Terastilize and change its ability to Flying type. In order to get the real advantage, you must research your Pokémon’s Tera type. Eevee, for example, would typically be a Normal type but there could be Eevee’s that are Water or Grass Tera Type. Something that is returning from Gen 8 – much to my dismay – is the raid battles. As much as I understand that Nintendo wants to sell a ton of online memberships, I have and will never do a raid battle with other people. There has been a change to the formula though: you no longer have to wait for turns, as you can do everything in the raid battles at your own pace.

New Features

In Scarlet and Violet, things are radically different than even the changes we saw with Legends: Arceus. First of all, based on the trailer, each game’s respective Legendary (Koraidon/Moraidon) will act as your method of travel. They will fly, surf, act as a bike, and then some. This all makes sense now when it comes to their names. Furthermore, this time around you have a completely open world which is something I thought I’d never see in a Pokémon game. You will have three main stories unfolding in each version of the game. The first is the traditional Gym challenge as seen in almost every mainline Pokémon game – minus Sun and Moon of course. You will travel across the land, searching far and wide, seeking out eight Gym leaders and then tackling the Elite Four in order to prove yourself as the champion of Paldea. With the open-world style of these two games, you can tackle any Gym in any order you desire. Even better for people who are terrible at video games, there’s no level scaling, which means that if you want to go for the designated in-universe “first official Gym,” you can go in and have level 80 Pokémon partners who will wreck shop on your behalf. This and the return of the Elite Four are things I have been waiting for since playing the Gen 4 games on Switch and DS, respectively. The new “Union Circle” seems to be the multiplayer hub for initiating online cooperative play. Again, two words I never thought I would hear from Game Freak. However, after seeing some stuff about PokeMMO, I am intrigued by whatever it is that Game Freak wants to try. However, it won’t be as massive as PokeMMO, as you will be limited to three other friends to search for Pokémon, explore Paldea, and take on Tera Pokémon in the previously mentioned raid battles. While I doubt it will actually happen, I do wonder if there will be any subtle change to the order in which you do the Gym challenge. If you have one strategy in Scarlet and go a different direction in Violet, will there be something that shows that choice had some effect, no matter how minuscule?

The New Faces in Paldea

In earlier promotional material, we had seen three named characters in Scarlet and Violet. First, we saw Nemona, who is a friend of the player character, and then the game exclusive professors; Sada and Turo. Now we have even more characters, including Mr. Clavell, who is the head of the academy your character will be a student at. Your homeroom teacher will be Mr. Jacq, who is mentioned in the latest trailer as a teacher of biology. We also saw an upperclassman, Arven, who is described as being a great cook, and Penny, a shy student at the academy. We even got a name for one of the eight Gym leaders: Grusha, who is the Ice type Gym leader.

A Sunset Goodbye

So there you have it, a recap of the trailer, which you can see below! For my thoughts on Scarlet and Violet‘s second trailer, check out this VGU Reacts. Thanks for indulging me and making it to this part of the post. Stay classy trainer!