I’ve been thinking about open worlds a lot recently. I’m lost in Dragon Age: Inquisition’s soulless box-ticking open areas, and can’t help but unfavourably compare it to the natural storytelling of The Witcher 3’s Velen. I’m disappointed in the latest game in a series that I love, and that feeling reminds me of something else…
Ah yes, Pokemon Scarlet & Violet. I finished the games and even took the time to complete the Pokedex (if only to continue on my decades-long quest to catch ‘em all), but I didn’t enjoy doing it. The open world looked terrible, but worse than that, it was boring. There was no emergent storytelling, just open fields with nothing going on. This wasn’t the calm and quiet of Breath of the Wild, punctuated by gentle musical themes and interesting characters in need of aid, which led to innovative quests that tested the limits of your imagination and the game’s physics engine. This was just emptiness.
But it hasn’t always been that way. I was a Sword & Shield defender from the very start, and its Wild Area seemed like a brilliant first step towards an open-world Pokemon game. The DLC built on this, as did Pokemon Legends: Arceus. Why were their open-world areas more successful at achieving their goals than Scarlet & Violet’s?
Neither Sword & Shield nor Legends: Arceus were technically impressive. The Wild Area tanked Sword & Shield’s framerate, the pop-in was unbelievable, but the world was interesting. Legends: Arceus looked similarly terrible (especially when riding in Hisuian Braviary’s claws). So if it’s not a technical failing of Scarlet & Violet, what went wrong?
Sword & Shield told stories through its open world. First and foremost, there were interesting areas. The Stonehenge-inspired standing stones home to Rock-types, the dishevelled tower housing swathes of Ghosts, the Eeveelution area that granted you evolution stones and all the Eevees you could capture.
But better than these points of interest is the story it tells through the Pokemon that inhabit the region. There’s a Snorlax blocking the bridge that acts as both a level barrier and an opportunity to see a Pokemon in its natural habitat. Snorlax sleep on bridges; this is an established fact in Pokemon canon, but seeing it in 3D is another story. There’s nothing that comes to this referential storytelling in Scarlet & Violet.
From caves you can actually get lost in in The Crown Tundra, to tracking down the legendary Galarian birds, Sword & Shield’s open areas perfectly recapture the nostalgia of their 2D counterparts. Finding Terrakion in a cave is reminiscent of forgetting to teach your monsters Flash in Pokemon Emerald and chasing the birds across the region is a modernisation of hunting Suicune and Raikou in Gen 2. Compare it to the Loyal Three, The Teal Mask’s legendary trio, who stand motionless on their specific marks in Kitakami. They represent everything wrong with Gen 9’s open world.
Legends: Arceus had its forced story beats – shiny Ponyta etc. – but it also excels in other ways. It has the strand-like mechanic of finding other players’ lost baggage in the overworld and more of that environmental storytelling that Sword & Shield excelled in. The Magikarp at the bottom of the waterfall and Gyarados at the top, anyone?
It’s worth remembering that New Pokemon Snap was the master of environmental storytelling, making the Pokemon world truly feel alive in ways the main series games could only dream of.
Most importantly in Legends: Arceus, however, were Alpha Pokemon. These fearsome beasts were grossly overleveled and unbelievably aggressive. Venture too to a red-eyed beast and you’d be in for a fierce fight. These random encounters made the overworld interesting, and broke up any potential monotony involved in throwing balls at low-level monsters to upgrade their entries in your Pokedex.
In lieu of series mainstays like breeding or (much) battling, so the environmental storytelling made up for missing mechanics.
There’s nothing like this in Pokemon Scarlet & Violet. Not only are the wild encounters far more frustrating (how many times did I run into a miniscule Bug-type practically invisible on the OLED screen?), there’s nothing of interest to break up the routes between towns. It’s just grinding in a different biome. There’s no Snorlax on the bridge, no Magikarp leaping the waterfall to fulfil its dragon destiny.
Empty open worlds can work. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild handled its environmental design so well they released a sequel with practically the same map. Although many people would refute it, the Wild Area was good, too. Legends: Arceus has spawned a spin-off series that has Pokemon fans foaming at the mouth. While I’m excited for Pokemon Legends: Z-A to scale down a Pokemon game for once, the main series seems set on open worlds ad infinitum. If that’s the case, Game Freak needs to bring the storytelling back and put the monsters at the forefront.
All of the positives from Sword & Shield, Legends: Arceus, and even New Pokemon Snap involve one important thing: monsters. The monsters are the main characters of any Pokemon game – ask any fan for their ultimate party and they’ll reel off their favourite six without hesitation. The stories of global apocalypse Pokemon has told since its inception are secondary to the stories you tell with your partners. I’ll always remember that time my Jolteon survived on 1HP to deliver a vital Thunderbolt when I needed it most. I’ll always remember the first time my starter fainted. I’ll always remember the revelation of Sword & Shield’s Snorlax on the bridge.
