As November 18 slowly creeps up on us, Nintendo is increasingly ramping up the hype for the first all-new main game in three years. Pokemon Scarlet and purple got their latest huge 14 minute trailer today, and you can see the whole thing below.
With just over a month to go, it’s honestly hard to imagine Nintendo needing to do much more to get the pokemon believers will pick up the game. It’s the stragglers they’re looking for now, trying to lure them in with the quite literal shiny new “Terastal” feature. This worst of pokemon Puns see the creatures take on a crystalline form and also change into their Tera type. Today’s trailer revealed a lot more about that, and a lot more. Here are X things that caught our eye today.
Tera Pokémon will appear in the wild for regular battles.
Betrayed by their sparkly appearance, it seems that Tera Pokémon aren’t just for the bigger battles, but roam the open wilds of Scarlet & Violet. The trailer shows us a small Jigglypuff glistening and glistening in a sandy spot, which instantly terastallized upon approach. With a crystal fountain over its head, it reveals that the normal Fairy/Normal type Pokémon has become a Water type in its crystal form.
If you fight them, you’ll need to beat their Terastal barrier before you can throw a Poké Ball to catch them. Once captured, they revert to their normal form, but when used in battle, they revert to their Tera type. It means you can collect a team of monsters with very peculiar types in their normal form, in all 18 types.
There are now TM machines in Pokémon Centers
For the first time, you can now create your own TMs – technical machines used to alter a Pokémon’s moves – from items found in the region. Feed them into a TM machine and the mysterious plates can be made to your liking. This is great news for min-maxers who want to give their monsters just the right attacks for expert-level combat. And probably ignored by anyone who just wants to look at the adorable creations throwing the colors at each other.
Auto fight looks attractive
The idea of auto-fighting worried me, it felt like it took away from the core experience of a mainline Pokémon game. But since a player’s Quaxly gets the “Let’s Go” command, it’s just your buddy in the wild, picking out quick fights while you focus on something else. It looks more like an addition than a replacement, and of course never ends with catching the Pokémon.
We get a real open world map
This game’s large, open-world design obviously makes it harder to find your way around, especially since you can tackle the Gyms in any order for the first time. But they’ve added some basic open-world features, like a map where you can place markers that will guide you through a mini-map to where you want to get to.
The game seems to be inspired by… Far cry?
In a moment that seemed unbelievable Far cry, we’re shown how to infiltrate Team Star’s rebel bases and then take out all the mischievous bullies inside. Bases are found in the open world and can be accessed. Defeat all the inhabitants in Pokémon battles, and then the boss of that hideout will appear for a bigger battle – which they aren’t revealing at this point. No word yet on whether you can let wild tigers in before you go inside.
Titans look really nice to fight
One of the game’s three paths (the other two being the traditional Gym story, the other fighting those enemy bases) is The Path of Legend. Apparently it’s about finding “legendary herbs”, but you’ll be fighting Titans along the way. In the trailer, Klawf shows up, a huge crab-like beast, so startled by a Drifloon’s Tera Blast movement that it runs away.
Tera Raid Battles are improved Dynamax battles
Tera Raid Battles are a lot like Sword & Shield Dynamax fight, and play with four players in multiplayer, working together as a team to defeat a huge crystal Pokémon. This time you can cheer on your companions, who will inspire their pocket monsters in their attacks.
You can have a picnic and give your Pokemon a bath
There are all kinds of extracurricular activities here. ‘s Pokémon camps Sword & Shield are now much more comprehensive, with picnic tables, a sandwich-making mini-game, and even the ability to give your monsters a bath. Seriously, you scrub-a-dub them until they’re shiny clean. Sandwiches will boost your friends in a variety of ways, while baths apparently just make them feel good.
Girafarig can now evolve!
Everyone’s favorite palindrome Pokémon, in its Paldean form, can evolve for the first time! Since the Gen 2 of 2000, it has never been anything but for the push-me-pull-you-like creature. But here in the trailer we see one being traded with another player, then left to run around and level up in the wild, turning into… Farigiraf. Oh yes indeed. Somehow his head-tail is now his tail-head, and, well, it just looks great.
You can take selfies with your monsters
After Pokemon Arceus let’s take pictures next to our favorite pokemon, Scarlet & Violet takes the next logical step and lets you take your own selfies. You hold up your camera so you can see yourself and your Pokémon at the same time, then take a photo and even set it as your own profile picture.
The appetizers out this time are Sprigatito, Fuecoco, and Sergeant Duck, who some people still mistakenly call Quaxly. All very cute, but we can’t be friends if you don’t pick the duck. Scarlet and purple‘s legendaries are even more insane, both Koraidon and Miraidon seem to be some kind of motor-based Pokémon. Engines that can also swim and fly.
Although as far as I’m concerned the main reason to choose between the two different versions of the game are which Professor you want to nag? all the way through. They’re both terrifying, but Pokemon ScarletProfessor Tudo’s sleek, slick appearance is far too intimidating for me. So it must be Professor Sada and… Pokémon Violet. (Fun fact: ‘sada’ is Spanish for ‘past’ and ‘tudo’ is Spanish for ‘future’, making them the first professors not named after trees or plants.)
By March of this year Sword & Shield had sold over 24 million copies, making it the second most successful pokemon game of all time. (It still fell far behind the OG Pokémon Red/Blue/Green‘s all-time sales of 31 million.) It will be very interesting to see if the open-world approach of Scarlet & Violet will prove to be just as popular, especially as it supports multiplayer for up to four players while roaming the open maps and cities.
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