Unleashing the Unexpected: Discover the Unparalleled Challenges of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet

Highlights

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet offer an open-world design, allowing players to explore the Paldea region in a non-linear fashion with three different story routes.

The absence of level scaling in the games results in an uneven difficulty, where players may come across non-player characters that are significantly stronger or weaker compared to their team. The ability to freely explore Paldea can lead to either over-leveling or being under-leveled, which in turn affects the overall challenge presented in the game.

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet revolutionize the gaming experience with their innovative open-world design, allowing players to explore the Paldea region in a non-linear manner. The games provide three distinct story routes, intricately intertwined with the supporting characters of Scarlet and Violet. Unlike previous titles, players have the freedom to decide how they gain experience, as the games offer minimal guidance in this regard. While Miraidon and Koraidon's need to traverse different terrains is highlighted in Arven's Herba Mystica storyline, the games present fewer limitations on who players can challenge at any stage of their journey.

Many consider the newer generations of Pokemon games to be more accessible compared to their predecessors. This perception is further reinforced by features such as displaying type effectiveness during battles and sharing EXP across the player's entire team. However, fan reception towards these accessibility features has been mixed. When combined with the open-world freedom of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, these features have raised certain difficulties. Due to the absence of level scaling, players may encounter both challenging and easy moments throughout their gameplay experience.

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's Open-World Freedom Can Create Both Challenge and Ease in Difficulty

By allowing players to freely explore Paldea, they could encounter non-player characters (NPCs) with much higher levels than their own team. This is why Scarlet and Violet eliminated the line-of-sight feature in Pokemon battles, giving players the option to either bypass or actively seek out more challenging experiences. However, it sometimes became difficult to predict the difficulty level of opponents, which also affected the Gyms in the game. Without a clearly defined path to follow, players could find themselves under-leveled compared to their expectations.

To partly address this issue, players had to progress through Arven's storyline in order to unlock access to specific locations. However, the overall freedom given to players meant that they could also become over-leveled. Exploring Paldea involved spending a lot of time battling wild Pokemon, and since players could postpone the main plot points at their leisure, they had the potential to become far stronger before continuing with the story. This became evident if players missed important early locations such as a Gym or the Team Star base.

If players choose Nemona's storyline as their final route, they may find themselves significantly over-leveled when facing Champion Geeta. This could be seen as disappointing compared to previous titles, as Geeta lacks the formidable nature of Sword and Shield's Champion, Leon. These moments make Scarlet and Violet feel too easy during crucial moments in the game.

Consequently, the difficulty levels in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet can vary, allowing players to overcome challenges with minimal or significant effort. This raises the question of how The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero will present its own challenges. Since players will likely have access to their teams from the base game, the two-part DLC will need to introduce more challenging obstacles. One possibility could be the implementation of level caps, at least for The Indigo Disk, to create a more balanced playing field.

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are available now for the Nintendo Switch.