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in previous games in the pokemon franchise, you had all of the classic RPG tropes, such as random encounters, level grinding, tough bosses, and a stricter order of progression that could only be accomplished in one proper way. however, it's become obvious to me now that game freak is trying to do away with some of these tired, time-consuming tropes and mechanics in order to make way for an enhanced roleplaying experience.
i'd say it truly started with sword and shield, which introduced the idea of max raid battles that you could play with friends. in addition to being pretty fun and allowing the opportunity for the player to catch rare and ultra-strong pokemon, max raid battles provided valuable resources such as sellable treasure and, most importantly, EXP candy.
EXP candy effectively eliminates grinding from the game, the tradeoff being that you have to play some raid battles instead, but the rewards are well worth the effort. a large or extra large-sized EXP candy is enough to make pokemons' levels jump up in crazy amounts with a few presses of a button. this allows the player to easily let pokemon catch up that are lagging behind, and, furthermore, lets them easily add new pokemon to their team and swap them out when things get tough.
this is a radical departure from previous games, where you were pushed towards making more permanent additions to your team, as any new additions had to be brought up to the same level as the rest via grinding. here, you can add a new pokemon to your team and have them ready to go in seconds - this is huge!
scarlet and violet, the latest entries in the franchise, include raid battles & their rewards wholesale. but they take it a step further by placing entries to raid battles all over the world instead of just in a centralized area, meaning there's always one nearby to discover and take down for sweet rewards. additionally, the game makes the big change of not forcing you to fight trainers that might spot you. you can roam to your heart's content and ignore all non-story required trainers if you so desire.
and this isn't even a hypothetical; i'm doing it right now! in my violet playthrough, i fought trainers and played the game more traditionally as i had in previous entries, using EXP candy more sparingly. in my scarlet playthrough, however, i'm focusing my attention solely on filling the pokedex, ignoring all non-required battles i see. i'm able to do this because of the freedom that raid battle rewards such as EXP candy give me, allowing me to level up my pokemon in my own way. i think this is a major strength of the game, because it plays well with the wide open world, letting you decide how you want your playthrough to unfold.
scarlet and violet also throw competitive players a bone, removing the need to grind for BP in a battle facility to buy items to make your pokemon competitively viable. now, you can just buy these items from special shops for in-game money. nature mints? vitamins? held items such as eviolite? ability capsules? bottle caps for maxing IVs? just pop into the chansey supply and delibird presents shops littered around the region, and you can easily create a competitively-viable pokemon in under 20 minutes. no joke! it's a far cry from the days where we used to breed and train pokemon for hours and hours in order to give them the stats we wanted.
there are a few drawbacks to scarlet and violet's gameplay system, namely that level scaling to the player's pokemon is nonexistent, creating an obvious order in which the badges need to be obtained for a smooth level curve. but it doesn't force you into this order by any means, you can still take on the stronger badgeholders if you truly desire, it's just gonna be a little difficult! i think this is one thing they could improve on next time, as level scaling is included with great success in fanmde rom hacks such as pokemon crystal clear.
overall, the changes they have made to pokemon's systems over the past few years have been worth celebrating, as i think they provide the player more freedom than ever to pick their own path and decide how they would like to tackle the story. i hope game freak continues to explore these convenient quality of life features, and bring back some old ones... battle scene setting, where did you go?! 😔
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