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Tuesday, May 30, 2023

Pokémon HOME 3.0.0—Connectivity with Scarlet and Violet is Here, BUT...

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - ...The company seems rather quiet about it. Is Mudsdale blocking them?

After straining the definition of early 2023 and spring 2023, The Pokémon Company International announced on May 18 that connectivity between Pokémon HOME and Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet would finally be a thing on May 23. ...And then a day later, they reversed that to be sometime in the future. That's not just a social media goof-up, either: a whole pokemon.com article also reflected that. That same article at least acknowledged connectivity with Pokémon Brilliant Diamond, Pokémon Shining Pearl, and Pokémon Legends: Arceus, which TPCi had earlier wiped all mentions of from the Pokémon HOME website approximately around November 2022.

However, as of publishing, the connectivity is here (May 30, 2023), with many trainers all over connecting Pokémon HOME with the Paldean games, including Pokémon from the Hisui or Sinnoh-based games. Not every Pokémon is allowed to be transferred into Paldea at this moment, however. Consult a website like serebii.net for the list.

But...there is something very strange about this situation, given how this article opened.


Here is the weird part: The Pokémon Company International, again, as of publishing this (and I waited until nearly midnight of the next day), hasn't said a word about the connectivity being turned on. Not on social media. Not on the main pokemon.com page. Not on the Scarlet or Violet minisite, and certainly not on the Pokémon HOME website (which continues to omit all references to Pokémon Brilliant Diamond, Pokémon Shining Pearl, and Pokémon Legends: Arceus, as well as not mentioning Pokémon Scarlet or Pokémon Violet.)

Why hasn't The Pokémon Company International announced it? They announced the wrong date but didn't announce the correct date? The May 30 time wasn't formally communicated, either. That pokemon.com article still says “ the launch date is now to be announced.” Not even their British sites/accounts have said anything, and they're in the future. But if you go way into the future and into another part of the company (The Pokémon Company in Japan; note the lack of International in the name), they have mentioned it!



Hopefully English-speaking TPCi will get on with that. I mean, their social media folks are clearly at work. They're just talking about Poké Balls, Steven, and Squishmallows instead.

Or maybe they believe that you shouldn't rush into transferring everything into Pokémon HOME and then into Pokémon Scarlet and/or Pokémon Violet. Some of your Pokémon will be worse off in terms of accessible abilities and moves between games. It's complicated and you'll want to look into specific circumstances for your Pokémon before transferring if you care about that sort of thing. And in very rare circumstances, your Pokémon will become straight-up worse. These are Zacian, Zamazenta, and for some horrible yet unexplained reason, Lady Cresselia of Fullmoon Island.


Pokémon HOME Cresselia Generation 8 to 9 transfer base stats nerfed lowered defense special defense Shining Pearl Brilliant Diamond Scarlet Violet
Observe how the same Cresselia, here named Hylia, lost 10 raw points of Special Defense and Defense just for coming to Paldea.
(Pictures generously provided from a friend.)


From Lady Cresselia's debut in Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl in Generation 4 all the way to Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Pokémon Shining Pearl, she has had base stats of 120 HP, 70 Attack, 120 Defense, 75 Special Attack, 130 Special Defense, and 85 Speed. That's a Base Stat Total (BST) of 600.

All of a sudden, with Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet in Generation 9, Cresselia now has a base Defense of 110 and a base Special Defense of 120, for a Base Stat Total of 580. Fellow Sinnoh Legendary Pokémon Heatran got to transfer generations maintaining his 600 BST. Why was Cresselia targeted? Her Mythical Pokémon counterpart, Darkrai of Newmoon Island, isn't available to be transferred to Paldea yet, so we don't know if his base stats have also fallen from 600 to 580. I hope so, for parity.

Cresselia now can learn the new move, Lunar Blessing, which is a moon-themed Jungle Healing (see: Zarude). Lunar Blessing restores Cresselia and her partner's (if it's a doubles match) HP by 25% of its maximum, while also curing status conditions. Useful if you're playing in a doubles format; not worth it otherwise. She can also now learn Thunderbolt and Thunder by Technical Machine for the first time, despite TMs for those moves also being available since her debut. Maybe this might inspire you to change Cresselia's Tera type to Electric, which combined with Levitate, will allow her to have no weaknesses outside of the use of things like Gravity. But plenty of other Pokémon benefited from new moves and the Terastallization mechanic, and they didn't get nerfed.

By the way, Pokémon usually get stat increases to deal with power creep in-between generations. Losing stats is unprecedented, with the exception of Aegislash going into Generation 7 (its debut) to 8, also losing 10 Defense and 10 Sp. Def base stats. Cresselia, however, had her stats drop much later than her debut and for no competitive reason, unlike Aegislash.



Ludwig hopes that by the morning of May 31, TPCi will be clearly communicating the Pokémon HOME 3.0.0 update and the whole first half of this article will become obsolete. He also hopes that the part about Lady Cresselia becoming less bulky will also be obsolete by a patch to reverse this injustice, but that seems less likely to happen. Cresselia and Tapu Bulu represent his two favourite Legendary and/or Mythical Pokémon. Tapu Bulu isn't even allowed into Paldea, so the region sucks.

2 comments :

  1. "Tapu Bulu isn't even allowed into Paldea, so the region sucks."

    It has tons of giraffes, though.

    ReplyDelete

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