Pokemon Generation 9 is a Step in the Right Direction

It used to be that I didn’t pay a whole lot of mind to Pokemon games.  Oh, I played most of them, sure, and even occasionally mustered up enough effort to complain about their flaws, be they trivial or serious.  But ultimately, the main-line installments in the Pokemon series were defined by consistent low-effort stories that said nothing, enacted by casts of flat NPCs and silent protagonists, and which only included the very namesakes of the franchise in the capacity of plot devices, collectibles, and lore scenery.  For 2 decades, Pokemon games were transparently nothing but Nintendo’s way of printing money every now and then.  Some like Generation 1 were more boring than others, some like Generation 3 were more stupid than others, and some like Generation 4 gave a token effort to do something with themselves, but ultimately they were all subpar as RPGs go, to put it a bit generously.  Highly ignorable as a whole.

Simpler times.

Because then 2016 rolled around, and for its 20th anniversary with the series, Nintendo went and did the unthinkable: they released an actual, genuine, all-around great game in the Pokemon series.  Generation 7 had a story with nuance, legitimate heart, and sincere purpose, told through the vehicle of a great main character and a compelling villain with some depth, and defined itself by their dichotomy.  Generation 7 also fulfilled its quota of new Pokemon, a new region, and even gave that region an interesting place in the world that expanded the franchise’s lore pleasingly.  But the main quality of note was definitely the fact that it told a well-written, gripping, thoughtfully emotional story of independence, love powerful enough to forgive, the heroism born when those qualities meet, and expressed itself through a colorful cast with a lot of personality.  There was even the seed of a promising new perspective on the titular Pokemon and what their place should be.  Generation 7 was so great that, suddenly, Pokemon was something I could actually give a shit about.

So of course, the next installment of the series turned out to be the most vapid, hands-off, lazy non-story the series has yet seen.  I’ve made my complaints known about Generation 8 on more than 1 occasion, but suffice to say that it was the absence of every quality that makes an RPG even remotely worth playing, and proud of being so.  Nintendo and Game Freak didn’t just go back on the progress that Generation 7 had made, they reversed it so hard that they wound up at a lower, lousier level than they’d even started at.

Thankfully, though, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet have actually managed to reach down into the hole that Generation 8 dug for itself, and haul the series back up.  Not to the height that Generation 7 achieved, of course, or really even anywhere close to it, but at least we’re back above-ground at this point.

Generation 9 involves an actual story you get to participate in, for starters.  Not the journey to beat all the Gym Leaders and become Champion so much, of course.  That’s just the same bland, pointless filler it’s always been, punctuated by Nemona, a rival so 1-dimensional in her obsession with battles that even the largely parodical Big Bull of Okage would tell her to get a damn hobby, and Geeta, a Champion who’s generic and forgettable to an extreme fault.  On the other hand, she’s not Leon, so I guess she still represents a huge step up from last time.  But besides the regular, canned Pokemon journey, Generation 9 also focuses on a story about investigating the delinquent student group known as Team Star and hauling their asses back to class, and a story about getting ingredients to make sandwiches for a dog.

And okay, yeah, those don’t sound terrifically interesting, admittedly.  But learning the history behind Team Star actually turns the ordeal into a halfway decent story of regret, friendship, and the failure of the system to do right by those on the fringe of society.  And procuring ingredients winds up having the player participate in a plot with some poignant pathos as Arven pursues his plan to restore the health of his Pokemon pup who was injured while protecting Arven.  This one’s particularly good, as it’s a decent story in its own right, it actually follows through on Nintendo’s “they’re partners that we value and grow together with, not gladiatorial slave animals!” narrative, and it establishes Arven’s character very well, which is important since he’s the guy with a significant connection to Professor Sada or Turo, the main figure of the final, overarching story of the Paldea region.

And speaking of, the last arc in which the truth of Sada/Turo is revealed is pretty decent, too.  It may not ultimately be all that truly meaningful and poignant in actuality, nor Sada/Turo all that impressive an antagonist, but it manages to sell itself as such pretty effectively with its atmosphere and earnestness.  The line between the moron in Generation 9 who aimed to completely destroy the ecosystem with temporally-displaced invasive species and the the morons in Generation 3 who aimed to completely destroy the ecosystem by fucking around with land/ocean distribution ratios may be thin at best, but unlike the joke that is Generation 3’s main plot and villains, Generation 9 goes as hard as it possibly can to make this seem like a more epic finale to a long quest than it actually is, and it does actually pay off to a decent degree.  The final confrontation with Sada/Turo feels compelling, and the preamble setting of the Great Crater helps get the player into it.  The final arc of Generation 9 also represents a decent (if a little too understated) conclusion to Arven’s personal story, and also a good finish to the story of the protagonist’s partner Koraidon/Miraidon.

And yeah, I’m also pleased that a major character of the game’s story, one which is actually dynamic and has a relevant part to play as more than just as a plot device, is the main legendary Pokemon of the generation.  This is the third game in a row that has finally begun treating its series’s namesakes as characters, not just objects, with their own stories and personal development to achieve,* and it does so both in its main story and in 1 of its DLC ventures, so I’m very pleased with Generation 9 on that front, and I hope that this indicates that Nintendo has decided that Pokemon being important characters in their own damn games is now a series standard.

Honestly, there’s a lot to like about Pokemon Scarlet and Violet.  There actually seems to be some enthusiasm to the manner in which Generation 9 portrays and makes use of its setting (that being a Spain-inspired region), as it incorporates some occasional Spanish into its dialogue, and even makes a pun out of Team Star’s catchphrase “hasta la vistar.”  The DLC is overall pretty good--not something I can recommend buying due to being grossly overpriced, but still, way better than Generation 8’s, and, for that matter, Nintendo’s overall standard of quality for its games’ add-ons.  Even if I’m lukewarm on Penny, and Nemona is just an obsessive idiot, the overall dynamic of camaraderie between Juliana’s friend group by the end of the game is really appealing.**  The soundtrack is pretty decent, and even if there’s not a lot of tunes I really love, it definitely knows how to set its mood when it’s most important to do so (particularly through the final dungeon and finale).***

Sure, Generation 9 isn’t without its failings.  The character designs are pretty lackluster and few major characters, fewer Gym Leaders, and only half the Elite 4 stand out at all, whether visually or by gimmick.  And while there have certainly been worse generations for this, I can’t say that the Pokemon that Generation 9 introduces are too terribly interesting in my eyes--Koraidon and Miraidon are decently cool, and Ogerpon and Terapogos are both very cute, but not a lot else caught my attention.  And lastly, it’s buggier than it has any right to be, a problem which has unfortunately earned it a lot of scorn and dismissal by gamers.

But character design is a pretty minor and unimportant flaw, and Pokemon design is really only slightly worse a thing to flub.  Technical failings are frustrating, but the game is still very playable; it’s thankfully not the kind of mess you’d expect (and have that expectation met a dozen times over) from Bethesda, for example.  And such a buggy state is a symptom of bad management and unrealistic deadlines, whereas a tasteless nothingburger story like that of Pokemon Sword and Shield simply represents an outright bad game, one whose creators clearly didn’t give a shit about.  If I HAVE to choose between an RPG with merit that doesn’t function on a technical level as well as it should, and a worthless RPG that works perfectly but can offer nothing but wasted time, you can bet I’m gonna pick the former, so to me, Generation 9’s still a tremendous leap forward from Generation 8 even at its lowest moments.

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet’s not Pokemon Moon and Sun, not by a long shot.  But Generation 9 is still a pretty good game in its own right, the second best RPG the main Pokemon series has to offer (hell, just the second good one it’s produced).  And after having Leon shove me away from experiencing an actual story for 95% of Generation 8, and finding the contents of that last pathetic gasp 5% to be stupid and boring, you can bet that I find Generation 9’s fairly good plot, decent cast, and earnest attempt at quality to be a huge relief.  There’s every chance that the next mainline Pokemon game will be a return to subpar quality, but Generation 9 at least has shown that there’s cause for hope, that climbing out of the gaping landfill of Generation 8 wasn’t an insurmountable task.  Good work to Nintendo and Game Freak for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet!












* Granted, Generation 8 only did this in its DLCs, but that’s still more than Generations 1 - 6 bothered with.  And heaven knows Sword and Shield needs what little credit it can get for doing anything right.


** Although really, just about anything would be better than having to go through another game of Hop forcing his way into every single situation you come across.


*** Admittedly, this isn’t really a step up from the last game.  Generation 8 shares that curious quality with so many others like Chrono Cross, Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, and Final Fantasy 5, wherein a really bad RPG somehow manages to have an absolutely banging soundtrack.  Still, at least Generation 9 isn’t a noticeable drop in musical quality, personal tastes notwithstanding.