Screenshot: Nintendo / Kotaku
Today’s Pokémon Presents revealed more details about how the fitness system in
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet works. You will play as a student at an academy and defeating some of the toughest trainers in the region is just part of your schoolwork. Hard, but fair.
Depending on the version of the game you have, you will visit Narania (Scarlet) or Uva (Violet). As part of your curriculum, you will embark on a “treasure hunt” throughout the Paldea region. The treasure hunt consists of three different storylines, while the fitness challenges consist of only one branch. So you can probably expect a lot more extensive content aside from the time-honored tradition of taking down fitness leaders. There are still eight leaders standing between you and “Champion Rank,” and Victory Road awaits you at the end of the journey. The trailer also showed the Glaseado Gym leader named Grusha using an Ice-type Pokémon like the new Cetitan.
The trailer reconfirmed what was previously tweeted by an official Pokémon account. Instead of limiting gym leaders in a certain order, you can choose when you want to take them down. Giving players the choice to challenge the halls however they want is a great departure from the series’ strict formula. I remember the old days when picking Charmander was the “challenge mode” of the Kanto games because fire was terrible against rock and water halls and not very good against electric. Those who picked up Chikorita in the Johto titles ran into a similar problem. Scarlet and Violet’s fitness system finally allows all Pokemon starters to be on an equal footing, and I’m all for it.
This isn’t the first time Pokémon has experimented with an unconventional fitness system. In the Pokémon Sun and Moon titles, the series replaced gyms with “trials”, in which players would sometimes solve puzzles instead of challenging the leaders (or fighting the trainers who work at the gym). However, the plot was still pretty linear compared to what Scarlett and Violet have presented so far.
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet will be released on Nintendo Switch on November 18, 2022.
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