Evaluating Pokemon Violet - An Ambitious Disaster

When you mention how the main character could have been 18, they explicitly said the school was for all ages and you encounter and battle middle aged and even old students. They could have let you play as a character of any age, but they didn’t.

I cannot tell you how dumb I feel after not realizing that Herba Mysyica are just HMs. My brain just flatlined at that point.

Remember the days when you could enter any and all houses for a lore nugget, hint, event, or item? The only buildings you enter are stores or league buildings. The laws of the pokemon world have gotten too strict.

Pokemon Violet is absolutely the best alpha build I've ever played

I like to believe the whole parent AI just stated the whole "X always loved you" line because it was more human than the actual parent. It wanted to leave the son with something positive instead of just leaving him with the whole idea that everything was terrible and your childhood did actually suck. It was way too clear that the real human really gave no fucks about their child, all the logs they created made that overly clear.

Fun fact: your in game time on your Trainer card is essentially based on frames, rather than time passed. If you compare that time to your played hours on your Switch profile, you can see how many hours you have lost to lag.

During my playthrough I laughed extremely hard when Nemona said "Mountains! Forests! Grasslands! Beautiful nature stuff, as far as the eye can see" as she proceeds to show me 2D trees and n64 textures.

Nemona is like a player who beat the game then went back to build a new team and wanted to help you get stronger. In the postgame she admits she thinks sandbagging you like that was a bad idea and really she only did it because no one would battle with her and she was sad especially if you follow the subtext that since her parents weren't really around she would obsess over something to sort of cope. Then she says she'd go all out from now on

In Scarlet you have Sada - Arvens mom - who's spouse walked out on her right after Arvens birth. Looking at both versions together, we see that both Sada and Turo were Arvens parents and total shit. In one Universe they had the balls to walk out on their kid, in the other, they basically locked up the kid at home and dived into work. No matter how you look at it: Their respective AI had more heart than them. Damnit.

The reason Arven just throws out a squirrel in the beginning is because he's bad at battling; he admits it himself. That's why he needs your help with the herba mystica

43:49 the ingame dialogue actually mentions how Team Star never met their boss in person, they wouldn’t know the blue and red hair girl was their boss. She organized and coordinated them through online chats and video calls only.

I vote that Larry should appear in every new game from this point forward, always getting forced to take up random new jobs that he takes to with all the enthusiasm of his job as a Gym Leader.

I feel like Nemonas arc of finding a worthy rival where she could go all out was a nice mix up from a rival where they’re always giving it their all but still failing

"Larry" is a play on the word "saLARYman." His Japanese title is even "Extraordinary Salaryman." Best Pokemon character ever.

I think the reason why everyone likes larry so much is just because how (fittingly) normal he is. like you said, every goddamn character in this game (that's exaggeration, some of them are cool) feels like they were trying to twist some kind of trope. (especially in team star) Characters are like this so much that seeing just an overworked, normal guy is so relatable and (ironically) different.

I saw the "your parent actually did love you" part in a bit of a different light. The AI showed in some ways it had more humanity than the original professor, I think the parts of the consciousness that were copied were ironically the more human ones, as if the professor knew they needed someone to rein them in after researchers became lost or died, but they were still so arrogant they could only trust themself. It would explain why the AI seemed to actually care about Arven more than the actual professor, as well as why it would go against its own programming and want to shut the machine down. It's just headcanon really but the events we see do support it.

Damn, Turo did the Pokemon equivalent of going to get cigarettes

I think the "gym leaders adjust their team based on how many badges you have" comes from that OVA adapting gen 1 since Red challenges Brock and he grabs the pokemon meant for people with no badges.

At least in Sun/Moon, even if the National Dex wasn't there, they could still IMPORT to the game pokmon that weren't in the local dex; many people get attached to certain Pokemon, and not being able to use their favorites is a big gut punch for them.

I'm a bit late to the video, but I would like to add that Penny never met Team Star in person. She was too scared too, so she controlled the group remotely instead. I just wanted to add that in case it helps you enjoy the story ever slightly more.