I'm loving Pokémon Violet so far

Hello!!

It's been almost a week since my winter break started (meaning it's almost over sadly), and ever since it started, I purchased a game called Pokémon Violet for my Nintendo Switch.

I am a person whose hobby is gaming! I usually just play a game that my boyfriend recommends for me, since he usually is more up to date with new releases and takes into consideration my interests. So when Pokémon Violet came out, he was excited. However, I wasn't really that interested.

I was never really into the Pokémon franchise. I only watched the season where there was Dawn and her Piplup back in grade 6, but that was because I was sharing the TV with someone who liked that show. In terms of games, my first game was Pokémon Ultra Moon, which I bought for my Nintendo 2DS back when I was in university (I think somewhere in 2017-2018). Fun fact, that 2DS was my first game console purchase!! My second Pokémon game I bought around the time of its release was Pokémon Sword. My boyfriend always bought the opposite version of each game so that we could play together.

My experiences with both Ultra Moon and Sword was overall ok. I did enjoy the game since I really loved collecting Pokémon to complete my Pokedex. I loved the adventure even though most areas were kinda linear and small. It was easy to collect every free loot you can find. I spent hours researching different Pokémon online, looking at their traits and potential skills, their evolutions (if applicable), and overall team strategizing. However, once I drop about 20+ hours into the game altogether, usually I dropped the game. Mainly for school of course. But anytime I tried going back to the game, it was really hard. Despite me and my boyfriend buying the games to play together, the game itself is more of a solo-game.

So with those two experiences, I assumed that Pokémon Violet and Scarlet would be similar. I saw how people complained about its glitches etc. But there wasn't much noise on my timeline since I didn't know anyone that played these games.

My boyfriend kept recommending me to play this game and asking me which version I would buy. He wanted to play this game with me and a part of me wanted to buy the game just to do that, since it was clear that he really wanted to play it with me. However, what won me over was when he mentioned that the game apparently had an open world. Now that was a game changer.

I love adventure, but it's always better when I have someone to adventure with. But of course, I was skeptical. I had many experiences in the past where I bought a game that had open world, but no social aspect to it. But this game was way better than I thought.

I admit, it was hard to play this game by itself. I admired the graphics yes. Everything felt familiar, with just a more modern touch to Rotom and the Pokedex. But since the world truly was big and open (similar to real life), it was frustrating to not be 100% certain that you collected everything available in that area. Then once I reached the area that had so many hills, I started to get tired of running back and forth to see if I truly explored everything, collected everything, and caught everything. It started to feel like grinding again but I hated grinding in games. I complained often to my boyfriend as a result.

However, once he started playing with me in my world, I learned that we can both actually progress TOGETHER. It wasn't like Genshin Impact where a friend can join your world and help you progress in your world, but that has no impact on their own progress. Other players in your world in Pokémon Violet can progress WITH you while in your world.

As a result, I often ran to wherever I wanted to go and my boyfriend would follow, or vice versa. It was fun with a companion to talk to during this time, much less grindy feeling when exploring by myself. We would coordinate when we fight trainers or random NPCs or do raids together. This added feature to the game was the best thing they could have done.

Obviously there are some features I don't like about the game, such as the lack of chat system and how your friends can't just drop in your world like how it's like in GTA V Online. Having no chat system in game truly sucks because it's harder to point out something to a friend who isn't in the same place as you. Having no ability for friends to drop in anytime is annoying for everyone because the host and all participants must all be available at the same time, be stuck in the host screen until everyone is ready, etc. If someone disconnects, you would have to disband the group and form a new group if you wanted to play with them again. Those were major pains, especially since sometimes disconnections happen because of random game crashes.

But once everyone is active and together in the same world, yes the adventure can feel a bit solo sometimes, but we always end up meeting up together or following someone. I think that's the part of the game that I truly enjoy and look forward to the most. Especially since the world is so big and some places are really well designed. Some areas truly look "similar" and you'd believe you explored it already, only to find out that you didn't. Other places sometimes feel like a maze. Other places are a flat terrain. Other places are just full of hills haha. I like that aspect because it's realistic. I can see the effort put into the world.

They also added this really cool new feature called Tera type transformations where Pokémon can have a temporary transformation that makes them so strong and more powerful. What I think is really cool about it is that the Pokémon can have a Tera type that is totally different from their regular Pokémon type. For example (just making it up), Pikachu is an electric type. However, it's possible for me to encounter a Pikachu whose Tera type is GRASS type for example. Pikachu's type can never be grass-type, but this Tera type feature changes the game!! This is what makes this game slightly different from previous Pokémon games.

Overall, I am so far loving this game. I'm making use of my winter break enjoying it to the best that I can and I hope I'll still love it as much as I do now. This is definitely not a game that you can finish in a couple of days, if you play it like me. It's just really big.

Thank you for listening!!