By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Yes, THAT'S my takeaway.
In the August 2022 Pokémon Presents, The Pokémon Company International told us that Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet not only has a somewhat-traditional gym leader quest (though you can tackle them in any order, which is dangerous game design if handled poorly), but two other stories as well that you can swap between as a “special independent study project.” The path to champion is called Victory Road, while the other two stories are called Path of Legends and ★ Starfall Street ★. This new trailer has some of the new information:
★ Starfall Street ★ pits you against Team Star, who are described as “rebellious students” across the whole region of Paldea that are all actually from the one school you attend. The fact that one educational institution has such a wide and centralising sphere of influence over a whole region gives strong Garreg Mach Monastery vibes, so that makes Team Star the equivalent of, uh, Edelgard, I guess. Anyway, Team Star, despite being school-children, have grunts, bases, and crews (and crew bosses, such as Mela, the woman with the giant boots, Torkoal, and a giant mecha car that takes me back as far as yesterday when I was talking about No More Heroes 3 having a minigame where you destroy one of those mecha cars).
As for the Path of Legends, the trailer features a new Pokémon, Klawf, which is a giant enemy crab. The gist of this storyline is to collect Herba Mystica in partnership with an upper-classman named Arven, who has poor battling skills so you need to do the hard work for him. These herbs are rare and powerful, but guarded by Titan Pokémon. There are more and more of these Titans appearing throughout Paldea, which suggests maybe the herbs themselves are responsible? Klawf itself has claws that are “considered a valuable cooking ingredient” and it's apparently possible for Klawf to have its claws broken off. Breakable monster parts used to synthesise other things? That's just Monster Hunter. Klawf, like a Monster Hunter boss, also has a sort of form change with its Anger Shell ability, where it gets angry at below half health and changes its behaviour by its Defense and Special Defense dropping by a stage, while Klawf's Attack, Special Attack, and Speed all boost by a stage. I already think Pokémon Legends: Arceus is very inspired by the Monster Hunter games, so it makes sense that if Legends Arceus might have inspired or been something of a testing ground for Scarlet and Violet, then you can say there's Monster Hunter influence there too.
Regarding the Mega Man inspiration, take a look at the version exclusives Armarouge (the red Fire Warrior Pokémon with the arm cannons exclusive to Pokémon Scarlet) and Ceruledge (the purple Fire Blades Pokémon with the blades exclusive to Pokémon Violet).
yeah the new Pokemon are pretty cool pic.twitter.com/1Mv1qtpAKE
— milk (@milk_ohk) September 7, 2022
I think Pokémon having arm cannons/Mega Busters is way cooler than Pokémon having swords/sabres (even if it's a Z-Saber), so Armarouge is definitely the cooler pick here.
 |
| Armarouge puts the arm in arm cannon, and I'm a fanboy for that design. |
If you look closely at the engine of the car mecha, you'll see something with a tongue that I'm reading people think is a Pokémon. There's no announcement saying this is a Pokémon or even a thing. Until further notice, I'll consider it akin to a Mechaniloid (while Pokémon would be more like Reploids). Nothing from TPCi says that the tongue isn't just a robot design for the purpose of Team Star just to be hooligans.
Ludwig was actually more excited to be looking at actual Mega Man material than the fake-Mega Man material of Armarouge and Ceruledge. He also thinks Team Star is a pretty weak gang of children, but there's probably a fantastic reason why so many of them would want to rebel against the school.
Ludwig also got excited for Galarian Slowbro having an arm cannon and compared him to Acid Man.
Want more Monster Hunter comparisons? Let's look at Wiglett the Pokémon vs. Khezu the Monster.
Collecting materials to craft/forge new items really is a mechanic in Scarlet and Violet.
Honestly? They're both super cool. Still gotta go with Violet for my part, though. I wasn't aware until this article that Armarouge (I've noted spelling and therefore shall pronounce them like Rouge the Bat as opposed to the D&D character class rogue) has an actual arm cannon--my friend bringing up Mega Man in relation to these two makes a LOT more sense now--and yeah, theoretically that could be cooler than Ceruledge's sword.
ReplyDeleteWow, that sure was a sentence. ANYWAY, I'm still happy with my choice, because I'm majorly digging Ceruledge's anti-hero vibe. There's also one more point I'd like to bring up. My friend who is capable of playing at VGC level--he hasn't payed any attention to competitive since COVID hit, unfortunately--brought up the question to me of whether Armarouge and Ceruledge are going to be unique mons or not. He never actually said so, but I got the impression that he thinks they will be. I'd be slightly disappointed with that, to be honest. Although, I guess a new region/gen does need new legendaries/mythicals, huh?
One last thing that I thought up while I was typing the rest. Do you think they're going to have baby/pre-evolution forms? Going by their current known appearance, I reckon they're fairly well set up to have them.
Well, we dunno if Armarouge and Ceruledge will exist in >1 quantity. If they have baby forms, that'd at least imply you could breed them, so perhaps that'd contradict them being legendaries.
DeleteTheir pre-evolution form should be literally Proto Man.