Pokémon Scarlet and Violet increase on the world of Pokémon in so some ways. The video games are set within the big, sprawling world of Paldea, one of many greatest areas the franchise has ever featured. The video games additionally widen the core journey by offering gamers with alternate routes along with difficult fitness center leaders. Whereas the imaginative and prescient and scope are effectively past what we’ve seen in prior mainline Pokémon video games, there’s one key facet the place they take a transparent step backward: character design.
That’s as a result of, for the primary time since Pokémon X and Y, you possibly can’t customise the complete outfit of your coach. You’ll be able to customise the look of your character with a variety of non-gender-locked hairstyles, 4 pores and skin tones, and varied equipment, however you solely have 4 choices of outfits to select from.
In Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, you play as a newly minted coach attending an ultra-elite college. You’ll be able to decorate your coach with gadgets like backpacks, sun shades, socks, footwear, or hats which you could purchase in varied cities. However you possibly can’t change your character out of the college uniform. As it’s now, there are 4 base uniform choices: a pants-and-suspenders scenario, a puffer vest with shorts (shorts!), a type of wrinkly seashore shorts look, and eventually a extra formal pants and winter coat over your white button-up combo. All of those outfits riff on the college’s stiff look of a white button-up and tie.
Moreover, shopping for equipment will be cumbersome. Every city has its personal set of outlets, and it’s important to discover every particular person store and purchase totally different sorts of equipment one after the other. You’re pressured to retailer hop as you purchase each merchandise — from the sock store to the backpack store and to the hat store — in every city. The video games’ technical points additionally influence the flexibility to buy. After I entered a store menu, I must set my Change down and wait round a minute for the outfit and coach avatar to load so I may see what my coach appeared like with pink stockings on.
However even this irritating course of is eclipsed by different limitations. I chosen a curly coiffure for my character and wasn’t capable of put on lots of the hats. This eliminated a whole part of an already restricted set of customization choices. I preferred the choices I did have — I settled on some hip spherical sun shades, however I simply wished I may put her in a skirt or gown or one thing aside from the 4 primary choices.
The sport does justify the outfit with its story. You’re a pupil, and whilst you can skip out on college after a couple of hours of hanging on the market at first, you’re technically doing impartial research through which you discover the bigger world. Nonetheless, I simply wished it could have even let me select a skirt. I really like my character and I really like the lovable selfies she takes with others, however it’s only a bummer to see that cute outfits didn’t appear to be a precedence on this explicit journey.
