Pokemon Scarlet and Violetmay very well be the most revolutionary games in the franchise to date, and that’s because of the many changes that were made to the core experience, such as allowing free exploration or removing tall grass encounters with wild critters.Pokemon Scarlet and Violetbroke many traditions, which can be quite a polarizing thing to do, but one could argue that The Pokemon Company’s intent was always to improve on the series' shortcomings. However, there are consequences for the design choices made for Gen 9 games, and while some of them may be immediately palpable, others may only become apparent as time passes and new mainline titles are added to the franchise.
For example, makingPokemon Scarlet and Violet’s Professors the villains of the storydoes make for a good narrative twist that the series had never explored before, but it also takes something away from the familiar trope of Professors being trustworthy and good-natured. Future games may struggle to reconcile the view players have of Pokemon Professors, but this is not something that can be ascertained here and now. But this is far from the only major change brought about by Gen 9 games. In fact, there is a longstanding feature that didn’t make the cut inPokemon Scarlet and Violet, and that’s Victory Road.
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Victory Road hasn’t been always present in every mainlinePokemongame, with it being absent from the base Gen 2 titles and only appearing in its Kanto form inPokemon Crystaland later inPokemon HeartGoldandSoulSilver. Most notably,Pokemon SwordandShielddidn’t feature Victory Road, and now that it’s missing from Gen 9 too, it’s easy to see how this could become a permanent trend in future titles. One of the main culprits of this design choice is likelyPokemon Scarlet and Violet’s free exploration, as well as the games' open-world setting.
Free exploration was something thatPokemongames have been trying to do to a degree with their modern entries, with titles likePokemon XandYpaving the way for it, all the way toPokemon Legends: Arceus. Because an open-world setting designed with free exploration in mind has to be as accessible as possible, this probably was the reason behind the removal ofline-of-sight trainer battles inPokemon Scarlet and Violet. Another consequence was that the level design for Gen 9 had to be anything but linear, which instead has been a staple for past games, including Gen 8.
The line-of-sight mechanic and a linear level design are both core components of the experience behind Victory Road, which is usually a cave that holds many secrets and is filled with trainers that use more optimized Pokemon than they do in the rest of the game. Victory Road is usually seen as a rite of passage of sorts before players can challenge the Elite Four, but this wasn’t included in Gen 8, and it isn’t present in Gen 9 either. Instead, accessing the Pokemon League and theElite Four inPokemon Scarlet and Violetis extremely easy, as all it takes is entering a short tunnel in Mesagoza after beating all the Gyms.
A big part of Victory Road is to create a challenging route with unskippable battles where players have to use the tricks they learned in their adventure to continue to the Pokemon League, but this is far from what Gen 9 is about. As such, it may seem like Victory Road will never return in the future because it’s hard to imagine a sequel toPokemon Scarlet and Violetthat abandons both the open-world setting and the free exploration. Considering that this longstanding feature was absent from Gen 8 as well, it’s possible that its absence from Gen 9 sealed its fate, and players won’t be seeing it again.
PokemonScarlet and Violetare available now on Nintendo Switch.
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