The most insane part of Scarlet and Violet is actually how fucking different the three storylines were???
The Gym story was extremely dull. I honestly expected more from it, especially since Sword and Shield had such fleshed out gym leaders who were really engaging, while for the most part I met the gym leader, they spoke for two minutes, and then boom never see them again. Plus none of them seemed to actually want to be gym leaders, like they all had day jobs and shit, what they battling a bunch of twelve year olds for? Larry was the only one that I have like a clear memory of, and that’s because he’s the only one I lost to, and he showed up in the elite four. Rival girl was also kind of dull, like I liked that she wasn’t competing with you, but what made me like Hop is that he had so much debt to him. Meanwhile she was just…there. Idk, a lot of people loved her but to me she was just meh. So yeah, dull story.
The Team Star storyline was very weird. Like, it felt almost goofy with the weird Team Star grunt designs and the Director looking like…that. Also the whole bullying thing was very weirdly made. Like Team Star just said “we were bullied” over and over again, implying that the whole fucking school was decided between two groups, Bullies and Victims, like 50/50 or smt, and then all the bullies just dropped out. Now don’t get me wrong, I loved the Team Bosses, especially poison guy, and like their designs were fricking amazing. I just wish for more debt I guess. Penny was also very underwhelming, and after she became your friend she was just really rude?? Like, she reminded me of Velma but in the worst way. Small snappy smart characters that constantly say they’re better than you aren’t charming or cute, they’re annoying. So the only thing making this storyline not straight up bad were the bosses, but that also just made it a bit of a mess.
Now the Titan story line though. Holy shit. Arven slowly being unraveled as a character and you slowly learning his motives are handled so well. I first thought he was gonna be like a Gary type rival, but then he said that he just wanted to make sandwiches which like okay! Then it’s like oh, your mom has been neglecting you for years and now completely abandoned you, and because of her your dog is dying and the reason you’re looking for the plants is because you want to save it. Fucking what. It also helps that I enjoy Pokémon bosses a lot more than fighting trainers. The slow mystery of what happened to Arvens mom, and what’s going on with your weird lizard, is easily the best part of the game. I’ve never cried to a Pokémon game and I probably never will, but this brought me close. Finding out just how shitty is mom is, to the point that an AI resisted its programming because it thought it was all a lil fucked up, like man. Also that the big threat wasn’t a bad guy who wanted to destroy the world, or make a new better world, or make the world only water, or whatever, but just a dream that went too far and that couldn’t be stopped. A mistake no one wanted. Brilliant
But it’s actually sad that the Titan storyline was so good. I spoke in the other two about how I wished for more debt in the characters and story, which I never would have asked for otherwise with Pokémon. But because they made the Titan storyline so rich and incredible, it really drags down the other two