Why Every Town in Scarlet & Violet Felt So Barren

one of my favorite aspects about RPGs other than getting to play through them as many different characters is getting to learn about their worlds and what better place for that than in their hustling and bustling towns so today I want to take a look at every town in scarlet and violet and see what we can learn about the paldia region I'll also give them a little rating based on things like the role they play the overall Story how useful or practical that town is and the overall aesthetic and Vibe can't have a YouTube video without a random tier list but before I begin I first need to decide on what would be considered a town I think the best way to go about it is to say that a Town and Pokemon is a place where wild Pokemon do not spawn and a place where you can interact with the people there so the team star bases not towns this gym building and battle Court a yes town now let's begin where it all begins Cabo Poco as far as introductory towns go this one is pretty standard you've got your own house that guy that loves science or technology or whatever his stick is some random lady to remind you what this place is called even though there's a sign right there and your neighbor's house nemona his home definitely stands out a lot compared to the other opening area towns since her home is more of a giant mansion with Gates a fancy fountain in its own private battle court on the beach on the inside there's loads of Pokemon servants and art one of my favorites is this two EV art called sibling love since it very likely gives an early game hint about nimona having an older sibling which is later revealed to be a sister and just like Evie's they'll likely turn out very different depending on what life circumstances they go through we also see art of Greninja a Pokemon that was not initially in the game and there's a lot of dragons like this Gumi and Gible inside the house plus that Dratini found outside it really makes me wonder if either of nemona's parents are part of the Dragon Tamer Clan and paudia her own measly home also reveals some interesting details since we're able to interact with almost everything at home we can learn about a region we've yet to see in the painting Street midday unless this is from a random spin-off game and I just can't recognize it speaking of different regions it is mentioned several times that we've recently moved here and since her mom refers to a cup of tea as Cuppa it is likely that we've moved here from galar of course it could also be a double hint towards an Australia region but I'm not gonna get my hopes up in other news we finally get to see that our mom has a bedroom after 25 years the mom is no longer sleeping in the kitchen now that's what I call progress the last interesting tidbit of lore around your house has to do with the garden outside since your house is very close to the inlet Grotto and it's mossed it looks all too similar to the urban mystica it is very likely that some of the vegetables growing at your home are actually some of those urbanistica after all even in the scarlet and violet books the urban mystica are depicted as all sorts of plants not just the leafy Sprouts we see during arvin's Quest and given that your mom's sandwich likely made from those garden fresh ingredients could temporarily revive karate on or ride on at the start of the game there might actually be Urban mystical at home in terms of Aesthetics kabo Poco is a very pretty little town it provides a lot of foreshadowing for the character development we see later in the game and in terms terms of function it is a completely useless area there's literally no reason to come back here you can get some recipes from your mom and you can pick up the TM for sunny day on the roof of your house but that's about it overall I Gotta Give Cabo Poco a b Los Platos this is the first town you get to visit in paldea and it does work as a sort of tutorial Town it introduces us to the new food mechanic with a little ice cream card most of the NPCs tell you generic info like how you can only have six Pokemon on your team and that each Pokemon can only remember 4 moves at a time but you also get to see some cool references like this boy who talks about pelipper delivering mail and this old lady who got her paralyzed heels not for herself but for her Pokemon and last but not least there is this lady on your way out of town who mentioned something about jotting down things so you don't forget what you've accomplished this really makes me wonder if they had initially planned to include a bunch of side quests and then decided against it because there currently isn't anything worth jotting down in this game aesthetically this was a pretty chill town but sadly there's absolutely nothing to do do here and the only World building we see is that there's a delivery service of sorts and as if that wasn't enough to put this town in F tier this is where you start to realize that you can no longer enter any of the buildings I was really curious to see what the insides of these homes look like but alas they're all locked maybe the citizens of paudia just don't want anyone breaking into their house so what if I was to who's there today's sponsor Aura did you know that the average American is three times more likely to be a victim of cyber crime than a home burglary and Aura wants to help people properly protect themselves is an all-in-one digital Security app or it provides you with everything you need to stay safe online you get a VPN an antivirus and password protection with notifications if there's been a breach I'm glad I changed my passwords often they go above and beyond by identifying data Brokers that are exposing your information and automatically submit opt-out requests on your behalf I was a bit shocked to find that there were 30 different data Brokers selling my information here I was thinking there's probably only going to be one or two but 30 no wonder I've been getting so many 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be split into three different parts West Central and East on the West Side you can find a nice array of shops selling all of the cooking items you'll ever need as well as this nice lady who give you a ribbon if you have a Pokemon that's very very tiny or very very large there's also two delibird shops for some reason as well as a building you can actually enter every which way is the paldian version of Subway and there you can see some locals chowing on sandwiches as well as their Pokemon chilling on these soft cushions in central massagoza you can find this lady that looks into your past lives and gives you a phone case silly rewards aside this hints to the fact that all of your save files on the other switch games are past lives of the main character kind of makes sense for Legends Arceus but what about sword and shield I thought the events of that game were fairly recent I don't remember seeing any trucks in gallery did you anywho we also get a bit of fun lore like why no one uses an umbrella when it rains in this region there's also a battle court that most people are too scared to use since they know everyone will be watching we also get walls of the exact same restaurant stacked right next to each other I know this is how spread out the Starbucks are in Atlanta but this doesn't seem like a good game design idea the last interesting tidbit in central massagoza is another building we can enter that's right there's two types of buildings you can enter in paudia subways and hair salons although there's not much to see inside this one that just leaves us with Eastern massagoza which comes with rooftop access a park this doggy filled which way and a nice High Ground area which is so out of the way that even sandwich shop is completely Barren it's honestly quite a shame since I think this is the best looking part of town but players have zero reason to visit it overall masagosa is both overwhelming and underwhelming at the same time it's packed with restaurants and food stalls yet most of them are of the exact same kind staggered back to back and despite its size there's an overwhelming lack of things to do or lore to learn about the world I gotta give this one a d at the Academy before setting off on our journey through paudia we have to go to school and I'm treating it as its own town because of how big it is in the main entrance you have access to a ton of books most of which are the a Culture magazine describing some of the Paradox Pokemon there's also Sonia's book from sword and shield as well as a couple of books talking about the gym leaders we learned that Katie inherited the bakery from her parents and that Ryan brought her dying Pokemon back to life there's a mysterious student registry that has a page torn out of it which was never fully explained but I assume it might be the page about Penny and there's an addendum to the school rules that specifically States the the students are forbidden from entering area 0. likely added after Arvin went there a year ago we know that it's a year ago because one of the students mentions how he's been having a rough time since last year apart from the books there are some students talking about how team Stardust races at night time which might be another game mechanic that got scrapped it's a shame because I would have loved to play some Mario Kart style races against team star this guy is addressing a growing mental health problem by hosting a cyclizarre therapy service and the school seems to grow its own vegetables for the kitchen everybody seems to love the nurse who lets the students come in and rest in her office and most of the teachers have some sort of nickname like sagu Rai and Mimi although Miriam does not like to be called mini and all of these teachers seem to look up to clavel there is a ton more lore about each of the teachers that you can unlock by talking to them between classes but that requires you to take the classes in the first place I thought this was a pretty cool part of the game and won't spoil it because it really is worth exploring for yourself if you do find the classes to be a dragon don't really care much for the teachers I would still highly recommend and you at least do the history class since that teacher will give you 4 flight points to take you directly to the four ruinous Pokemon the one up by casiora Lake is most useful since there aren't any other flight points nearby overall the school packs a ton of lore and even has different students out during the day and night and the school is where you go to the academy Ace tournament in the post game so you actually have a reason to come back this Academy gets an a cortando this small town on the west of massagoza is where most trainers go to battle the first gym since it is a farming town you see a lot of farming tools all over the place as well as crates filled with olives and these trucks uh-oh in the center of town you can find The Patisserie soapberry which includes a treetop court and decorations that resemble colorful tarantula hanging off the tree I smell the work of brassius unfortunately you cannot actually buy anything from The Patisserie which was quite a shame considering how much the game Hypes it up but hey at least you can go inside the Every Witch Way and there we see the beginning of a very clear theme within the shops all of the Pokemon inside cider bug types the same as the local gym leader and this one NPC actually tells you how to evolve your Scyther this may be common knowledge for veteran players but it is a very useful hint for newcomers to the series another cool tidbit related to bug type Pokemon is that there's two Heracross on either end of town one male and one female it's a tiny little detail but it's nice to see them showing the appearance difference of Pokemon so early on you can also see some Regional vivilon which are still not available in game at the moment we only have the fancy pattern but this guy has the continental and Tundra patterns we will eventually get these other patterns through Pokemon go but for the time being this is the only place where you can see these two in game there is an NPC who is willing to trade you their snom for a flabebe which is a tiny fairy Pokemon that does spawn in the area nearby I'm trying to find one but ended up having to go way off the beaten path to this area that's a bit hard to get to right eyes out of cartando you can also find the olive roll field where you can participate in the olive roll a mini game that is so clunky it felt like I was playing Mario 64 when a broken controller it also looks like you can just enter the field and bounce the ball around if you have some friends to join you through the union Circle you can probably go there and play some rocket League together bad puns aside cortado does have a bit of lore and does offer the olive roll as an actual multiplayer activity yet it lacks some pretty key features like letting you buy items from the famous soapberry so I gotta give this one a b Artisan since both of its main exits look the same I never know which side I'm about to walk out of and I'm not the only one getting lost in artesan there's also this couple who is supposed to meet by the weird statue and well there are a bunch of different areas in this town the maze with a sacred base in the middle the pool area a boardwalk with the red flowers needed to turn oricorio into a fire type and this playground throughout the town you can find a bunch of different sculptures on display most of which were made by brassius but some are from an anonymous artist although it's probably still brassiest just him during a creative rut or something lore wise we learned that strong winds tend to blow sunkern into the city which is why there's a lot of sunflora speaking of which you can redo the sunflora hide and seek to get a leaf Zone and a Sunstone although some of the sunflora are hidden in Annoying places like on top of trees also each of the sunflora has its own unique voice line and there might be an imposter among them because this one says some Florent for some reason what are you then there are two major problems with Artisan the first is that darn windmill which drops one frame rate for each step you take away from it even its shadow is super glitchy usually I don't mind bad Graphics but considering that this is the centerpiece of artisan it's a bit disappointing to see be all lagging glitchy most of the time the second problem is that the sunkern lore is probably total lie you'd think there'd be a ton of sunkerno and sunflora spawning near artesan and getting blown into town by the winds but no these Pokemon only spawn near Los Platos and cortando which are very far ways away from Artisan at first it felt like a cool tidbit but now I'm starting to wonder if it's even possible for these little guys to make it all the way over without dropping off in the canyons nearby instead said maybe there's special some current spawning in from area 0 or something I don't know I just feel kind of lied to overall artuzan is a pretty town yet somewhat underwhelming for the same reason as Mesa goza it's big but there's nothing there I did enjoy the whole some floor seeking thing but there really isn't much else to do or see lavencia apparently it used to be a small Port talented ship or from the mines nearby likely on the northern half of the bank not just because it's closer to the mines but also because that's where the lighthouse is now the city is lit up not by this secluded structure but by a ton of Tad bulbs it's also a privacy nightmare since their security cameras everywhere and they're actively being used by a Yono to live stream the gym test and Gym Battles how come I didn't get a pop-up telling me about this breach of privacy what if I don't want to accept these cookies no one seems to mind because Ayano is super popular and so are brassius and tulip we can see ads for their sculptures and perfumes on the Billboards in the central area but there's also some other interesting ads like this one for crocolo's cereal and the weirdest that is by far this one featuring quacks while trying to sell you a credit card as it turns out this isn't just a random ad There's an actual bank in the game with an ATM that we can't use you can also find this Bank in Mesa goza but it's a lot easier to spot on lavincia the bank isn't the only inaccessible interesting building there's also a post office marked in yellow just like the mailboxes in Los Platos and The Courier Service marked in red and finally there is a large real estate firm which has not one but five buildings five completely empty buildings but hey at least there's some nuggets on top of the main one and a couple more useful items on the roofs of the other and given the large amount of businesses in lavencia most of the town is packed with business people some of them really enjoy the little Park area on the south side where you can find an NPC that gives you the ribbon for having maxed out effort values on a Pokemon there is one more notable NPC in lavencia and that's this girl who will trade you her Haunter for a pink urchin this is a very easy trait to achieve since you can grab some ice cream near the entrance of lavencio to boost electric type encounters and then just take the nearest exit down to the beach to find yourself a Pinkerton the best part is that her Haunter does not have an Everstone so you get yourself a Gengar without having to trade with a friend there's also a new theme starting with this town where an NPC is discussing the origin of its name for lavencia It's a combination of 11 Leviathan and Levin which means to transform for the butter didn't think I'd be learning the SAT vocab words but here we are overall I love the amount of lore there was about lavencia but there just isn't that much to do in this town it's another case similar to cartando where the main attraction can't be interacted with so I gotta give this one a c Zappa Pico on the other side of the mines you can find the small town of zapapico named after a word for pickaxe this towns every which way is full of rock type Pokemon even though it's got no rock type gym or any gym for that matter they have a battle chord that's supposedly used by miners after work but we never get to use it and there's this guy who talks about how nice it is to be able to sit on a bench the thing is we can't sit on benches in this game in terms of useful NPCs there's this one chilling by the fountain that will give you an item to evolve your shark Cadet the item depends on which version of the game you have there's also this little kid who will tell you how fancy is really good against poison types which is a useful hint if you get stuck fighting a certain poison type trainer nearby the only thing remotely relevant to the overall world is this guy mentioning some traveling nurse that saved him from passing out in the mines they just refers to this lady that set up in the middle of the route and I guess these two ladies talking about seeing a Pokemon in the minds that's a tall as a mountain and as long as a river is likely referring to the lurking steel Titan which also happens to be the only Titan whose existence is confirmed by NPCs that aren't also right next to it sadly due to the complete lack of lore and activities Zappa Pico gets to join masagosa in d-rank kaskarafa the city of water is the third large city in paudia it's built up on a cliff face so it's separated into three tiers with convenient elevators to get you between each floor apparently these were fairly new additions and before that the locals would have to take cyclazar up and down the cliffs kinda wish that was still an option since I'd rather do that than wait for the elevator we also learned that kofu is largely responsible for this City's success not only does he own a restaurant with a bunch of unique dishes but he's also the one who suggested that the town be painted white and blue which in turn Drew loads of tourists everyone in town really seems to love him and not just because he's the gym leader inside the gym building we learned that his gym test is considered Ultra Ball tier which I imagine is supposed to be very difficult chances are that the wallet delivery thing we got to do was not the actual gym test but sadly we never get to see or hear anything about what the real test is so we'll just imagine there was something harder there is an NPC who basically confirms the Terra civilization is a paudia exclusive phenomenon so it's likely going to be a generational gimmick that will get replaced by the next thing in gen 10. there are two useful NPCs in kaskarafa first is the Friendship Checker by the Fallon which will give you the best friend ribbon if you got a Max friendship Pokemon I do not the other is this girl who's also by The Fountain and will trade you her normal Whooper for a pound Whooper this is the only way to get a regular Whooper out of the big three cities in paudia this one has the most lore and the best Aesthetics so I gotta give it a b Porto maranata this down is named after marinating and just like kaskarafa Kahu is very popular here the main attraction in Puerto maranata is the marketplace where there's auctions for all sorts of materials I did this one for 34 lemonades and then compared it to the price of actual lemonades only to find that I basically just saved 1 000 polka dollars that's like five pokeballs anyways would you like a lemonade there is a battle court right next to the market and apparently people used to straight up have fights with each other but now use the battle chords to settle their differences like civilized trainers outside of the market you can find a warehouse this palafin cutout that shows off its hero form and a secret Beach often decided that most people don't visit and there's a bunch of Pokemon spawning here so I don't even know if I count this as the city anymore Puerto maranada also has these cute little mosaics of water type Pokemon and its own Lighthouse since it is a port town and all the only thing missing from Puerto maranata isn't Every Which Way except there is one it's just part of the marketplace area instead of its own building sadly the only thing to do here is grab auction items for your legendaries most of which aren't even in the game yet and maybe a couple cool pokeballs if you're lucky enough for them to show up that they D tier madali this town is named after the word medley since it is a mix of people and things it's a hub down for paudia there's people coming and going from every part of the region and you see almost every type of restaurant in the area there's even a bunch of NPCs outside trying to promote their restaurant the only problem is that these are repeats of the restaurant on the other side of the street which makes it feel like it's not so much of a medley and more of a copy paste of Mesa goza's Restaurant scene as a hopdown it does have its own Warehouse as well as a cyclizarre station like in all of the other towns but this one comes with a little orange juice dispenser there's also a real estate building likely owned by the same company as the one in lavencia in terms of cool locations we do see this ancient Amphitheater which was also part of the gym test and then there's the treasure Eatery here you can order a unique menu item from the waiter up front and in the back you can ask the chef to change your Pokemon stereotype if you give her 50 shards for that desired type apparently she's only willing to do so if you're able to defeat Larry in battle so most trainers don't have access to these services but then again most trainers don't have access to a Terra orb so it's not that big of a deal this Chef single-handedly makes madali one of the most useful towns in the entire game although the rest of the town is pretty normal and doesn't contribute much to the world's lore it gets a c for Chef montanevera this icy cold city has two things that everyone agrees on it's really cold and there's a great music scene sadly unless you visit during the gym test the stage is completely empty and the town is silent there's Snowman and candles and Ice types but not much more one trainer near the gym mentions the time the teacher used to be the gym leader here but she retired a year and a half ago so now her younger sister Ryan is the gym leader the sushi High Roller restaurant has a completely different menu without any pictures for some reason and last but not least there is is one very useful NPC in this town the hyper trainer guy who will max out the IVs of your level 50 or higher Pokemon for a bottle cap so once again a single MPC saves this town from an abysmally low grade it gets a passing C glacido this place can barely be called a town considering it's just a Pokemon Center a battle arena and the gym building but glassito is home to the snow slope run which seems to be a pretty popular sport in paudia you can play this as many times as you like sliding down the hill when trying to hit all the flags because if you don't you get a 5 Second penalty added to your timer I'm a bit curious to see what the best possible times are for these and since there's at least something to do glossido gets a d also I know this part isn't remotely close to glasito but if you go all the way up North you reach the lighthouse in the team Starbase where you can talk to the few NPCs about how they kind of want to leave team star but more importantly it made me realize something about the lighthouses they're not all pointing in the cardinal directions nor do they change their position with the wind instead all four of these lighthouses Point towards the nearest cursed Pokemon well at least their general direction which I thought was a neat little detail anyways that leaves us with alfornata they make pottery here as you can tell by the ovens and pretty plates all over town we see similar plates in our house back in Cabo Poco it's a nice callback they've also got their own mosaics of Pokemon but instead of random water types like in Puerto maranata these are the original Sprites used in the first two Pokemon games the main battle chord is right under the observatory but they do have a second battle chord that's being used to host the ESP training by dundra you can participate in this activity whenever you want and it does get progressively faster as you go now you might be wondering why you'd ever subject yourself to this kind of training and the answer is because you get berries that help you remove EVS from your Pokemon so if you'd like to retrain any storyline Pokemon for competitive these berries will come in handy despite being a pretty small town alfornada has a nice aesthetic and an easy way to farm useful berries it's also got a very straight path through the town making it one of the best places to go and hatch your eggs I think think it is a well-earned bee overall most of the towns in paudia felt very Bland and empty I think this might be in part because of the president said by previous open world games on the switch games like breath of the wild and to some degree Legends Arceus however those games had mostly empty settings since one of them is set in a post-apocalyptic setting and the other is in a land that is just being settled but both of those games as well as many others though their somewhat empty worlds with things like side quests that help develop the lore and characters you see which is something scarlet and violet failed to do although based on some of the text I do get the feeling that these features were planned but then scrapped either due to creative choice or lack of time so instead we're left with some very unique and creative looking towns that have almost no lore to them almost nothing to do except visit one NPC for a ribbon or Stat change no real reason to care I want to care and I hope you do too part of me is really tempted to turn this into a series where I go and explore every town in different games and see what works out when what does it I'm curious to see how games like say Xenoblade handle Town design as well as to see if older Pokemon games were really any better or maybe it's just Nostalgia goggles telling me that this game took a step in the wrong direction if you're curious too please consider leaving a like and subscribing maybe even drop a suggestion in the comments for which game you'd like to see me analyze in a future video I do read all of them so I look forward to seeing what you have to say anyways thanks for watching and I hope to see you in the next one

Channel: Vasko Games

Views: 76,089

Keywords: Splatoon

Id: MAZQcOpcDrc

Length: 24min 46sec (1486 seconds)

Published: Fri May 05 2023