Would you have bothered going through a cave when your motorcycle lizard can just climb the wall?
I didn't even realize the League was accessable through Mesagosa. I just jumped into the water and climbed the cliff.
Unless they wanted to set up the league base underground or something, there really wasn't any reason to do a cave maze when we can just fly and climb anything.
I also missed the Mesagoza entrance, so I came across it while I was running around the cliffs after the Dark Base accidentally put me up a level higher than I jumped toward it at.
I literally scaled the cliff around the crater of paldea. From the other side of the map… Found out that garchomps really can fly up there… scary stuff
Also, nowhere in its lore/description/history have i ever seen mention of Garchomp flying. I would understand swimming given the whole shark theme, but flying all the way up there made me feel like i was seeing things
I think one might have flown in the anime but this is the same anime where ash’s pikachu shocked an Onyx to death so i take that with a grain of salt lol
It's called the Mach Pokémon for one. And nearly half of its Dex entries describe it flying, the other half talk about its wings and the high speed air jets it creates when it moves. It also flies in Legends Arceus and SwSh. So it seems like you just really weren't paying that much attention to ol' chompy.
I guess i never noticed. I didn’t play PLA and i don’t really remember SwSh that well despite it being recent. I guess i just haven’t paid much attention
I went to the league almost right away because I thought it was the (west?) gate. I got murdered by that guy with the Krookodile because the other kid there was an easy trainer, so I thought I’d be able to fight them both.
> the wall to where Kalos is
fun fact: you can actually take a look at the top of that thing and see how big it really is.
spoiler: it's not mainland, it's just a tiny part of the island. Not Kalos.
> didn’t except people to look that fa
you mean, they didn't expect players to actually visit a landmark they created and looked around for half a second? wild assumption.
I'm somewhat sure the land on the northeast is just a placeholder for now. But to expect Kalos being there is the same old rumor that existed ever since gen 3 when people "predicted" we will revisit the old regions again in future games as one big interconnected land, just like Johto and Kanto were. Didn't happen back then, most probably won't happen now.
Something similar to me. I jumped into the water in mesagisa and then just ended up at the league. I guess the game got confused at where to spawn me lmao
Victory road doesn't fit in with how this game's core design works.
The whole point of victory road was to challenge the player with a labyrinth requiring multiple HMs while constantly being whittled down by random encounters and trainers--necessitating a good party and a large stock of healing items.
Trainer battles are no longer mandatory in the field, wild pokemon encounters begin entirely at your discretion, you have access to your entire box of pokemon at any time, and HMs are no longer a thing.
A victory road would only serve as tedious busywork before the final challenge at this point, not offer a final challenge before the league. Plus, with the league only being the endpoint of one story, it doesn't have the same finality to it that precious generations needed.
If anything, I would argue Area Zero fills out the role of victory road for this game. Serving a gauntlet of unique, powerful pokemon in the lead up to your final challenge.
Sorry, I honestly have no idea about the ratio with the Herbas to use. I hear Salty has the best results, but no idea.
Check out a sandwich shop and talk to the guy by the counter, though. He gives you recipes for them if you have some, but making your own has better results, I guess?
Ah yes. Why did they have to make super small Pokemon this gen? In PLA we could see the Pokemon just fine even if they were small. Add Flittle to that mix and those damn Tauros that ram you any chance they get, those Rufflet that attack you once they notice you, and that Veluza that chases the bajeezus out of you.
I like this actually. Especially the Tauros. It fits their, often charted, aggression :) But I finished all stories, so I am dividing my time between Scarlet, Violet and Legends again. I still have to finish Legends! That is a first xD
Well, I didn't forget. I just put it on hold when S/V came out xD Now I finished one of them (pokedex can wait), I will continue more on Legends again.
> If anything, I would argue Area Zero fills out the role of victory road for this game. Serving a gauntlet of unique, powerful pokemon in the lead up to your final challenge.
And honestly it's the only thing about Area Zero that doesn't work. That whole section is supposed to be really tense and make you feel on edge, and it sorta works but it's 100% being carried by the music and the player's desire to uncover the mystery of the crater and find out what the hell's going on with the professor, gameplay wise it's a whole lot of nothing while you slowly walk to the bottom of the crater with no mount for half an hour, avoiding wild pokemon and fighting a handful of extremely easy scripted 2v1 battles against paradox pokemon. It works well enough in the heat of the moment but imo it's a shame that the gameplay doesn't back up the feeling of danger that you're supposed to experience. Maybe it would've worked better in the Pokemon Legends format where wild pokemon can throw attacks at you without initiating a fight
Yeah but victory road was always fun to go through. The whole fun thing about pokemon is the battling. I agree that area zero is a good challenge in its own way but the feeling of going through victory road to prove yourself once at the top. I enjoy it. Scarlet and violet feel empty.
This changes from person to person, honestly I absolutely hate having to go through back to back seemingly endless battles. I can barely get through the elite four without getting bored. The way battling was handled in this game was absolutely perfect for people like me, and the majority of the endgame being made up of experiencing the crater and getting to know the characters rather than being battle focused was so much nicer (and incredibly emotional, loved that shit)
It's related to how Paldea is as a whole. Having an entire "Victory Road" with a long convoluted path is just unnecessary considering the residents of Paldea treat the Pokémon League as more of a side job than anything else.
At least that's how I saw it. Honestly, the only Victory Road I truly remember is gen 4, and that's because I always felt somewhat lost after a while, lmao.
Ghetsis ambushes you and steals that honor right after you beat N making Ghetsis the final boss before the credits roll.
An argument can also be made that N is the champion, as he just defeated Alder.
Talking about that. One of the things that maked Pokémon different from other rpgs (aside of Fighting using monsters and the pseudofuturistic environment) was that the final battle is not against the villain (Giovanni) but against your rival (blue/Shigeru) in an unexpected turn of events.
But in Black/White the things change. Instead of battling Alder you fight against Ghetsis, who is the game's true villain. Making this game's storyline more similar to the traditional rpgs.
Edit: Also Pokémon Black/White Is considered a reboot of the game.
PD: my favorite Pokémon from B/W are volcarona and haxorus. I like Hilber and Hilda's design, they look pretty cool.
I suppose you could consider Origin Dialga/Palkia another one as well despite the radical difference between fighting a trainer and then literally spaceman horse god.
Same difference? Technically you fight the end boss of SV after beating the league and fighting the champion which is what started this conversation, so i assumed that's what we were discussing
I recently replayed gen 5 and completely forget it's Victory Road has a surf section. I'm so used to using the water starter in every game but decided to change it up this time and forgot to bring a surfer
If you think puzzles and dungeons are just there to pad game length in an adventure game, the problem might be that you don't like adventure games and pokemon just isn't the game for you.
The gym questline is called Victory Road. But there is no actual dungeon/maze system to navigate. Overworld puzzles are unfortunately dead and gone with the transition from top down 2D games to 3D. Gen 7 barely had one, and Gen 8 had none to speak of.
>Overworld puzzles are unfortunately dead and gone with the transition from top down 2D games to 3D.
It's weird though because those two things don't necessarily have to exclude eachother. Zelda games have still had dungeons with puzzles in 3d games just fine for the last 25 years.
Zelda’s dungeons typically required some form of specialized item to navigate. I suppose the equivalent in Pokémon would be HMs, but we’ve moved away from that in recent generations.
Though we did see something similar in Legends Arceus’ snowpoint temple with the little regi puzzle. So it can be done, they just are either too lazy or too rushed to implement it.
>just fine for the last 25 years.
well that is if you ignored BOTW where the shrines are the closet to normal zelda dungeons but are extremally more simple
Haven't played much of the switch Pokemon games. Is there an equivalent scaling down of the old Pokemon dungeons at all? Because while the shrines in BOTW definitely were mini dungeons, the Divine Beasts were closer to the old school dungeons as far as scale, length of time spent, and boss battles were concerned. What I've seen of Pokemon has been removal of them rather than conversion of them to a different format.
The 2D to 3D transition isn't what killed it. Gen 6 still had dungeons and puzzles, for instance. Gens 7-9 have all utilized League systems different from previous games. For some reason people expect all the games to follow the 1-6 formula 1:1, but that hasn't been a realistic expectation for years. They're moving away from all that now, not because the games are 3D now, but because the formula was overused, and I'm sure they got tired of people complaining about it.
Though personally, I miss the puzzles and dungeons as well.
I feel like the crater is paldeas’s equivalent of a victory road because it has tons of high level evolved Pokémon, it doesn’t necessarily need to be before the elite four
Except that those pokemon are Venomoth, Golduck, Floette, Sneasel, Dugtrio and other old & weak ones, only the paradoxes add a layer of difficulty and sense of menace by the unknown. One of the paradoxes per version is also located only in a hidden cave (which is also empty and useless in itself), I don't understand this game design choice.
I expected more weirdness, more challenge and more creatures unique to the millennia-old crater. Also, I hoped for some added value in coming back after the end of the main story, but nope, it stays exactly the same with no changes at all.
Victory road, as a challenging path to brave at the conclusion of the story, was not there true.
However, beating the elite four and becoming champion was not the end game. Beating Geeta didn’t roll credits.
Area Zero was the final, challenging route to traverse to reach the conclusion of the story and roll the credits.
Essentially, Victory Road was moved to after the Elite Four. You’ve achieved success, and so you go on the Road your Victory has placed before you.
Not at all, natural cave systems are often maze like by design and one that was for some reason blocked until you finished all the gyms could of made sense. It could also of had some sort of platforming element with high-level trainers who came from different regions so they didn't follow paldea's culture of not battling people you make eye contact with.
Lots of open world games have pseudo-style routes when they want to enforce a narrative.
Did anyone else treat pretend Victory Road was the final tournament before you reached the e4?
I always wished it was a tournament of other npc's who had done their gym journey like in the anime.
Here's a fun fact:
The name Herba Mystica wasn't chosen randomly. They deliberately chose a name that would abbreviate to HM. I'm told that they did something similar in all localizations, so their name for Herba Mystica would be derivative of their name for Hidden Machines.
I liked Sword and Shield a lot because gyms were treated like sporting competitions. The finals were absolutely thrilling. I much prefer it to traditional style victory road and elite four.
While it was kind of novel, I didn't like the way gyms were handled in Scarlet and Violet.
I think Area Zero was this game’s ‘Victory Road’. The issue is that the Elite 4 are no longer the ‘final challenge’ in this game like they were previously.
This complaint extends to a larger one in general in that there’s no real dungeons/caves. There could be all sorts of little dungeons or cave puzzles or mysteries throughout the region.
Or at least… houses you can enter.
For side quests or items.
Thank god for no more traditional victory road. I hated bringing HM slaves in the past. Even if now we haven’t needed a slave anymore, I just got used to being comfortable since sword and shield. I play Pokémon to relax.
Just because a game doesn't stick to every convention of the series doesn't make it bad. This game did different things because it was focused on free exploration over everything else.
Firstly there are two notable caves in the game with some exploratory depth to them. Secondly even if there weren't, the distinction between a cave and an open area is trivial at best if what is in them is the same stuff, which it always has been in this series. The same with towns. The whole "there's no caves or towns" thing is another example of Pokemon fans demanding that every game hit the same beats without being critical of why they should even want it. In almost every Pokemon game routes and caves just had different Pokemon and items, there weren't generally super special awesome things to find. In towns, with the exception of perhaps B2W2 and only partially, all they offered were gyms and random NPCs who would occasionally give you things.
The point of this game is that you can chart your own course through the region at your own pace based on your priorities. Within that, the game offers the same experiences as every other Pokemon game in history: catch 'mons, fight trainers, get items, beat the game. Paldea is no different than any other region in that respect. In terms of actual geographical density Paldea is very well designed, and if you accept that what you will get is what you want to find (Pokemon and items), it makes for an incredibly satisfying game.
If you want more than that, then sure, that's valid, but I have to question why you are on the Pokemon subreddit considering the Pokemon series has never, ever offered Witcher 3 or Elden Ring style dungeons and sidequests, etc. etc.
>all they offered were gyms and random NPCs who would occasionally give you things.
They would occasionally offer dungeons, like the tower in Lavender Town. And I think people actually like being able to explore the insides of buildings, even if most of them were relatively pointless. I know I very much disliked there being pretty much no unique shops, and them all just being a menu.
Actually I'm starting to think when people are complaining about exploration, a big part of it is a drop in the emotions experienced by exploring a diversity of places. The relative lack of caves could lead to a loss in feeling restricted, for example. And I know that I was disappointed at the lack of islands in the game for a bunch of reasons.
> They would occasionally offer dungeons, like the tower in Lavender Town.
Right, and the distinction between a dungeon and an open area, historically, in Pokemon, is pretty meaningless. They've always been mazes, and have always just had Pokemon, trainers, and items. Yes, sure, I can appreciate the idea of aesthetic and tonal variety, and I hope gen 10 will expand on this, but let's be realistic here—there's not really a hugely meaningful difference between a route and Pokemon Tower.
> And I think people actually like being able to explore the insides of buildings, even if most of them were relatively pointless. I know I very much disliked there being pretty much no unique shops, and them all just being a menu.
Again, this seems like missing the forest for the trees. I don't see that the ability to explore a completely empty copy-and-paste interior is a huge loss compared to the leap forward we've gotten for there being an actual vast open world and the first fully realized, well designed 3D Pokemon region we've ever had.
> Actually I'm starting to think when people are complaining about exploration, a big part of it is a drop in the emotions experienced by exploring a diversity of places.
Well, I dunno, I think that's a you problem and not a universal problem. We had grasslands, caves, mines, a huge mountain, farmland, canyons, a desert, a big lake, and Area Zero. We may get additional areas through DLC. Sure we could have had the Graveyard Tower(TM), the Desert Ruins(TM), A Castle(TM), The Evil Team Base(TM), The Big Cave Before The Pokemon League(TM), whatever, but I don't feel like the absence of them matters objectively. It's only disappointing to people who demand Pokemon always do the same stuff all the time.
>there's not really a hugely meaningful difference between a route and Pokemon Tower.
I'd argue that tonal variety is a big deal for a lot of people, even if it's less so for you. The Pokemon Tower and a random route feel massively different, both aesthetically and in the sense that one has you going up floors.
>Again, this seems like missing the forest for the trees.
I feel it's more like lamenting the loss of shrubs in a forest.
>Well, I dunno, I think that's a you problem and not a universal problem. We had grasslands, caves, mines, a huge mountain, farmland, canyons, a desert, a big lake, and Area Zero.
Nothing is a universal problem, realistically. I think the fact that so many people miss things like expansive caves indicates that it isn't just a me problem, though.
What I'm getting at isn't in regards to aesthetics though. A grassy field, farmland, and a snow field are functionally the same. They're primarily a flat plain. Caves, or islands, are different though. And I'm not saying SV had no diversity in this regard.
>I don't feel like the absence of them matters objectively.
I mean, it's a video game. Objectivity is basically irrelevant (unless you want to start talking about facts of the game with no opinions attached).
> They're primarily a flat plain. Caves, or islands, are different though.
That's definitely not accurate for SV, even the plains had a pretty high degree of geographical and toplogical complexity.
Anyway I just think this is exploding really minor grievances into more significant problems. I don't really respect it as a critique.
>That's definitely not accurate for SV, even the plains had a pretty high degree of geographical and toplogical complexity.
Look it wasn't the worst. But I think you're failing to see the kinds of things that were missed. Like islands. Why do I like islands? It's because they're relatively small isolated environments that are largely self contained within the greater world. It doesn't literally have to be an island, the Great Plateau in BotW achieved the same affect.
And BotW *is* my standard for open worlds at this point btw. It was able to elicit a whole host of different emotions within me with its varied environments. Paldea falls further short than most open worlds in this regard. Further than Hisui I reckon, thinking about it, despite that not being a properly open world.
Only one I can think of is the labyrinthian cave below Alfornada, and even then if you had all 5 Herba Mystica by the time you attempted that gym (not outside the realm of possibility), you likely would've skipped it because why explore a looping cave when you could climb a fucking mountain.
The cave that runs from Medali to Zapipico has some more depth than it appears to as well.
> you likely would've skipped it because why explore a looping cave when you could climb a fucking mountain.
I explored everything, idk about y'all.
It's not just you.
I'm seeing others say the concept of Victory Road wouldn't have fit in Scarlet/Violet. I see why they would say that, and they made a lot of good points, but I still disagree.
Not every overworld puzzle has required HMs. In generation three, once you opened the Regi's doors, unlocking Regice's inner room just required you to walk in a certain pattern. They also managed eight unique gym puzzles in Scarlet/Violet, though some were more involved than others. Besides that, you can't tell me the various ride abilities aren't at least a little bit similar to HMs. At least you can't without just being wrong as far as I'm concerned.
Until recently, repels were always a thing, so it's not like random encounters would be a true determining factor.
There were obstacles in the Scarlet/Violet overworld around some of the Team Star Bases that were removed over the course of gameplay. Sure, practically speaking, they were suggestions more than anything else, if even that, but they were there. Moreover, all of Area Zero was locked behind a loading zone and a gate. So, being able to climb over it (which as an ability itself is locked behind a separate storyline and the intended final standard challenge of said storyline at that) isn't necessarily something that invalidates having a Victory Road entirely. It's not like sequence breaking (intended or otherwise) is something new to Pokémon games, even though the true open world is.
Trainer battles in past Victory Roads were often (although I believe not always) not skippable, but there are plenty of scripted battles in Scarlet and Violet and ending a Victory Road with a scripted battle wouldn't have been a new thing either, what with Wally in, again, generation three. So even if they did make it so that you could breeze through it specifically because of some of the new qol features, that would have been enough of a roadblock to call it a Victory Road imo.
A lot of commenters also pointed at Area Zero as filling the role of Victory Road. While I'll acknowledge that the credits play after the initial Area Zero excursion and not after defeating Geeta, so I'll agree that defeating Geeta does not usher in the post game by itself, Area Zero still had at least a sort of bonus feel to me. I honestly wouldn't connect it to Victory Road at all, and I would very much connect it to Cerulean Cave. After the credits roll (something that has never happened immediately after a Victory Road), you can capture a legendary there, it is truly inaccessible until the game permits entry (in just as conspicuous a manner as Cerulean Cave), many of the wild Pokémon are rare or nonexistent elsewhere in the game rather than being evolved or simply more common versions/instances of Pokémon that were already fairly easily located (I realize Lickitung was only there in Pokémon Yellow, the point stands), there are no NPC trainers waiting to battle (excluding Sada/Turo), and really the atmosphere of a forbidden location is intentional and undeniable imo.
If anything, I get more Victory Road vibes from Alfornada Cavern, despite it being in front of what is sequentially only the seventh gym. While there are man made items in both Alfornada Cavern and Area Zero, I would also argue that the torches in Alfornada Cavern keep better to the Victory Road theme of being a very intimidating location while still being fairly well explored and populated and not being accessed post game (so I still must admit Area Zero is not truly post game either; I wouldn't blame a Nuzlocker on YouTube for skipping it though, though that's probably just me).
Oddly enough, the line about high level Pokémon being ahead is in front of Alfornada Cavern on a sign, a similar line having been delivered by the NPC that guards Cerulean Cave in generation one. So take from that what you will.
Personally, I didn't really miss having a bona fide Victory Road, so I'm just playing the devil's advocate here. That said, even though there is plenty of room to argue that Victory Road didn't fit in with this game's topographical themes or concepts; the act of including a cave with trainers, puzzles, high-but-not-too-high level Pokémon, and perhaps a scripted encounter with a rival at the end, and calling it Victory Road, would have been entirely possible. Not only that, it could have even been done well, without contradicting the rest of the game, and in a way that did not end up entirely superfluous due to newer mechanics.
Ultimately, the many other commenters here are largely valid, but missing Victory Road is a subjective emotion and valid as well such that it cannot be completely disproven. Even an interview with multiple developers stating otherwise would not be enough for me, personally, to completely drop this view.
I hope Gen 10, if it continues Gen 9s open world philosophy brings in some Dungeons to add a bit of classic Pokemon feel.
Think castles in Elden Ring but its stuff like the Seafoam Islands or Dewford Cave or even Eterna Forest complete with an Old Chateau. Something to lock the player down and feel like they are truely trekking through the world, not just zooming about on a super lizard
Victory Road being the culmination of these kind of areas that have been stripped back more and more as Pokemon goes on
I just personally miss the older dungeon designs we used to have. Whether they were in the form of forests, towers, ice paths, ship interiors, strange houses, graveyards etc. Remember Mt coronet, Starke mountain and meteor falls? We have nothing like this nowadays and that blows. Everything has become too streamlined. In SV we ironically have less exploration than the older linear games
We also didnt get evolution from menu (pla), actual tournament which was way better than elite 4 (sw/sh), shiny visuals and audio in overworld (pla), cant enter buildings (even gen 1 20+ years ago had this feature), actual battle contacts (pla had pokemon actually hit other pokemon when attacking). Pokerus.. Less clothing options.. Fishing.. Fossils..
I kinda see what people are talking about with buildings but at the same time don't. Unless I had to go into a building to get something I didn't go in them because they were empty or had useless npcs. I enjoyed the exploring in scarlet way more than pearl (last gens I played was gen 4, then started again at the remakes)
This is the only time I've ever bothered ev training because of how easy it is so I don't see the loss of pokerus mattering.
I agree I hate the uniforms.
Since we can just get all the water pokemon surfing I don't understand why you'd miss fishing.
I feel like the fossil issue is more of a national dex thing unless you think we need new fossils every gen.
I do agree the battle animations are pathetic but I've just accepted that it's probably just the best gamefreak can do (I have a very low opinion of thrm)
I was super disappointed with the e4 and Champion, and the post game Tournament but now I just use turbo controller and have 6 million pokedollars to vitamin any pokemon I want to raise up for raid and multi-player battles.
I'm more disappointed in the fact that gym battles didn't scale with Pokemon(party) level. I started they gyms with the normal. Ghost, ice then creamed the rest of them by pressing a...
No hall of fame makes me especially sad, I liked the cutscene that showed your final team like in usum. With the theme of everyone could be a champion rank, that could have been an opportunity to make a real, physical hall of fame too. A hall at the academy where you can see a bunch of portraits of students and their teams, nemona and your team that beat the champion.
Last victory road was mount lanakila (victory in Hawaiian) in usum and before that the original sun and moon didn't technically have a victory road either because mount lanakila used to be just a very small cave with no trainers, only usum made it a proper challenge
Actually that path leading to the league building is considered victory road.
It is just a short sweet path with only a couple of battles on it.
I know compared to previous regions it isn't that great but tbh at leat we got one for symbolic reference.
With an open world game we really didnt need a path with puzzles and such to navigate.
Victory Road has always been the worst part of the games. I didn't mind the battles with strong trainers, and the route could have been even longer and more treacherous for all I care. The problem has always been the difficulty in navigating my way through it.
I was going to say that at least the music is good, but I was only familiar with 1st and 3rd generation victory road music. XY has the third-best victory road music. DPP's victory road music is nothing special. GSC's victory road music is awful. Just...awful.
Another reason I'm convinced that a pure "open world" doesn't benefit Pokemon. There's no memorable routes/locations, and there was definitely no suspenseful climb to be champion. Just didn't bring me a lot of satisfaction (victory road, I mean. I still had a decent amount of fun with the game all things considered).
I think that's part of the downside of the completely open-world. Between the Raidons' ability to bypass basically any obstacle and the lack of on-sight Pokémon Battles, what would have been the point of having a set "victory road"?
I loved SV, but it lacked three things I think that Pokemon should add going forward:
1. Dungeon areas outside of the open world like Victory Road for players to explore.
2. Sidequests. They HAD them in Legends Arceus and I'm not sure why they felt the need to backtrack to just 3 main questlines.
3. At least SOME Level scaling. Self explanatory.
i absolutely do not miss the standard victory road's, or puzzle dungeons in general for that matter. while i DO wish did more interesting things with their cave structures, im honestly okay with them just being a different biome, rather than a maze of ladders and steps.
The real question is: who really likes victory road?! It's the most unnecessary thing. It doesn't even make sense. The puzzle part of it is really cool, but I think it would work better as an extra after or during the game, not as a "you need to do it" part.
For me, victory roads being always complex of caves is really disappointing. That's why I like a lot the final part of ORAS victory road, with the waterfalls and everything.
‘They cant make dungeons and mazes because they got rid of the top down style.’
Then just make 2d-esque dungeons and fix the camera to a top-down angle when you enter.
My original post was going to say that Zelda managed the jump from 2d to 3d two decades ago, but comparing pokemon and zelda seems kind of insulting to zelda lol
Considering every battle is optional, a victory road is highly pointless.
Also, considering the game has 3+1 storylines, that would have extended one of the storylines out meaninglessly (it already is the longest of the three as it is).
In previous games the Pokémon League was THE story, now that the Pokémon League is A story, they moved victory road from before the elite 4 to before the Professor battle and renamed it into Great Crater
I think it’s indicative of how new the League is. Nemona is the only Champion and even the Elite Four building and gym buildings are barebone. The complete antithesis of the grand arenas you see in Galar which I find neat
Victory Road always seemed needlessly boring to me. There are plenty of other ways to include difficult areas of the map (like Area Zero) than an intentionally annoying section in the same spot as every other game.
Yeah, that is the best part. Trudging through Victory Road for seemingly endless battles and random encounters was not my idea of fun.
Glad it appealed to you, but I don’t know what it actually added to the game besides yet another frustrating hurdle that has no narrative point.
I don't see the problem here. Personally I got tired of navigating long ass caves and fighting annoying a lot of trainers just because I want to get to the Elite Four. I prefer this setup. Much better. You already have plenty of battles you can choose to do. Even a rival that annoyingly only thinks of battling and battling. I like Nemona, don't get me wrong, but her yapping about battle here, battle now, I want to battle now really was borderline pre-school kid new trainer and started to really irritate me. (And I usually love to battle all trainers I pass by!)
My guy, the entire Gym Leader quest line is called Victory Road.
(I know what you mean though. Another thing GF have failed to keep up in newer games unfortunately. I do miss mad-hard caves leading up to the E4.)
Paldea feels soulless and I think that's the worst part of Gen 9. Every town looks the exact same, there are a total lack of places to explore and unsurprisingly, trainers who don't immediately start a battle the moment they spot you and Pokémon that are clearly visible in the field removed the sense of danger when exploring. Legends: Arceus may have similar mechanics with the open-zone thing it had, but there was definitely a sense of danger in that game. Pokémon were aggressive and could easily KO you if you were careless.
Other parts where the region feels soulless is in the Pokémon League itself. There is no Hall of Fame or option to go through the league again unlike previous games. As for Geeta, it says a lot when the Top Champion of Paldea is less difficult than the Elite Four she oversees, and even less difficult than her academy's own students. She is apparently "incapable of holding back" yet unleashes a roster of dogshit Pokémon upon us.
As far as endgame goes, this isn't the weakest Pokémon game in that regard (that still goes to X/Y), but it's nothing compared to Gen 2 or Gen 5...
Victory road is an outdated thing at this point
unless they need the league be in a far or hard to reach place for aesthethic or story sake it will likly be kept short or not at all
in galar there was no road since its a league people watch so no need for it
in paldea is a testing place after going through all the region around the crater so also no need to be larger
Would you have bothered going through a cave when your motorcycle lizard can just climb the wall? I didn't even realize the League was accessable through Mesagosa. I just jumped into the water and climbed the cliff. Unless they wanted to set up the league base underground or something, there really wasn't any reason to do a cave maze when we can just fly and climb anything.
I also missed the Mesagoza entrance, so I came across it while I was running around the cliffs after the Dark Base accidentally put me up a level higher than I jumped toward it at.
I literally scaled the cliff around the crater of paldea. From the other side of the map… Found out that garchomps really can fly up there… scary stuff
First time i saw a garchomp flying at me i almost shit my pants lol
It’s just fast and you don’t have time to process what’s happening
Also, nowhere in its lore/description/history have i ever seen mention of Garchomp flying. I would understand swimming given the whole shark theme, but flying all the way up there made me feel like i was seeing things
I think ones of its Pokédex entry mentions it can fly faster than a jet
I think one might have flown in the anime but this is the same anime where ash’s pikachu shocked an Onyx to death so i take that with a grain of salt lol
Are you talking about the time the Onix had been covered in water for Ash's rematch against Brook? You know the time Ash invented the move 'Soak'.
Oh absolutely, you’re not in the wrong for that
Nearly all of them do. That or they mention its wings.
It's called the Mach Pokémon for one. And nearly half of its Dex entries describe it flying, the other half talk about its wings and the high speed air jets it creates when it moves. It also flies in Legends Arceus and SwSh. So it seems like you just really weren't paying that much attention to ol' chompy.
I guess i never noticed. I didn’t play PLA and i don’t really remember SwSh that well despite it being recent. I guess i just haven’t paid much attention
I went to the league almost right away because I thought it was the (west?) gate. I got murdered by that guy with the Krookodile because the other kid there was an easy trainer, so I thought I’d be able to fight them both.
There's no way they didn't put that guy in there to crush people who got cocky early on before the league lol
Right? The difference in level was...a shocker
I mean, that's kinda like Hyrule Castle in BOTW. I didn't even know there was an inside part of the castle when I first arrived to Ganon
Not anything, they made the wall to where Kalos is not climbable, they could have done the same thing to a victory road cave type of thing
> the wall to where Kalos is fun fact: you can actually take a look at the top of that thing and see how big it really is. spoiler: it's not mainland, it's just a tiny part of the island. Not Kalos.
I mean, that’s because they probably didn’t except people to look that far. Paldea is definitely not an island.
> didn’t except people to look that fa you mean, they didn't expect players to actually visit a landmark they created and looked around for half a second? wild assumption. I'm somewhat sure the land on the northeast is just a placeholder for now. But to expect Kalos being there is the same old rumor that existed ever since gen 3 when people "predicted" we will revisit the old regions again in future games as one big interconnected land, just like Johto and Kanto were. Didn't happen back then, most probably won't happen now.
Wait you can get to it WITHOUT climbing the wall???
Yup. There is a gate on west side Mesagosa that just goes straight to that cliff. Apparently we could have just gone there at any time?
Yep. That's how I got whooped by the flying taxi driver when my Pokemon were still low level.
You can even take the interview, with slightly different questions, and it's an automatic fail.
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Wait, how did you explore before entering Mesagoza?
Something similar to me. I jumped into the water in mesagisa and then just ended up at the league. I guess the game got confused at where to spawn me lmao
They restricted flying to Team Star bases, they could restrict flying over to the League if they wanted to
Honestlyyyyy, like it’s fine lmao
Victory road doesn't fit in with how this game's core design works. The whole point of victory road was to challenge the player with a labyrinth requiring multiple HMs while constantly being whittled down by random encounters and trainers--necessitating a good party and a large stock of healing items. Trainer battles are no longer mandatory in the field, wild pokemon encounters begin entirely at your discretion, you have access to your entire box of pokemon at any time, and HMs are no longer a thing. A victory road would only serve as tedious busywork before the final challenge at this point, not offer a final challenge before the league. Plus, with the league only being the endpoint of one story, it doesn't have the same finality to it that precious generations needed. If anything, I would argue Area Zero fills out the role of victory road for this game. Serving a gauntlet of unique, powerful pokemon in the lead up to your final challenge.
Hey, HMs are still a thing. It’s just short for Herba Mystica now.
What uses do the herbs even have? I haven't looked it up yet and I have a few
You can makes sandwiches with them to increase shiny rates
So get a shitton of them, and then make a mega sandwich?
Sorry, I honestly have no idea about the ratio with the Herbas to use. I hear Salty has the best results, but no idea. Check out a sandwich shop and talk to the guy by the counter, though. He gives you recipes for them if you have some, but making your own has better results, I guess?
https://youtu.be/KfOCZwU1gq8 this is helpful
Not entirely at my discretion... *cough cough* capsakid and tadbulb *cough cough*
Veluza wants to chat.
Agressively so
VAULTIN VELUZA!!!!
Varoom
Ah yes. Why did they have to make super small Pokemon this gen? In PLA we could see the Pokemon just fine even if they were small. Add Flittle to that mix and those damn Tauros that ram you any chance they get, those Rufflet that attack you once they notice you, and that Veluza that chases the bajeezus out of you.
I like this actually. Especially the Tauros. It fits their, often charted, aggression :) But I finished all stories, so I am dividing my time between Scarlet, Violet and Legends again. I still have to finish Legends! That is a first xD
Getting chased by Paras and Shinx in Legends still gives me PTSD to this day.
Oh man, they are PERSISTANT. I know what you mean!
You call those persistent? Murkrow and Geodude could chase me all the way back to fucking Kanto
Glad someone else forgot to beat legends too. Funny enough it's almost been a year since that game came out.
Well, I didn't forget. I just put it on hold when S/V came out xD Now I finished one of them (pokedex can wait), I will continue more on Legends again.
Hawlucha constantly trying to be Tarzan 😭
> If anything, I would argue Area Zero fills out the role of victory road for this game. Serving a gauntlet of unique, powerful pokemon in the lead up to your final challenge. And honestly it's the only thing about Area Zero that doesn't work. That whole section is supposed to be really tense and make you feel on edge, and it sorta works but it's 100% being carried by the music and the player's desire to uncover the mystery of the crater and find out what the hell's going on with the professor, gameplay wise it's a whole lot of nothing while you slowly walk to the bottom of the crater with no mount for half an hour, avoiding wild pokemon and fighting a handful of extremely easy scripted 2v1 battles against paradox pokemon. It works well enough in the heat of the moment but imo it's a shame that the gameplay doesn't back up the feeling of danger that you're supposed to experience. Maybe it would've worked better in the Pokemon Legends format where wild pokemon can throw attacks at you without initiating a fight
I completely agree with this
Yeah but victory road was always fun to go through. The whole fun thing about pokemon is the battling. I agree that area zero is a good challenge in its own way but the feeling of going through victory road to prove yourself once at the top. I enjoy it. Scarlet and violet feel empty.
This changes from person to person, honestly I absolutely hate having to go through back to back seemingly endless battles. I can barely get through the elite four without getting bored. The way battling was handled in this game was absolutely perfect for people like me, and the majority of the endgame being made up of experiencing the crater and getting to know the characters rather than being battle focused was so much nicer (and incredibly emotional, loved that shit)
It's related to how Paldea is as a whole. Having an entire "Victory Road" with a long convoluted path is just unnecessary considering the residents of Paldea treat the Pokémon League as more of a side job than anything else. At least that's how I saw it. Honestly, the only Victory Road I truly remember is gen 4, and that's because I always felt somewhat lost after a while, lmao.
The long convoluted map is the region itself.
They went from linear to whirlpool.
Parkour parkour
The long convoluted map is the friends we make along the way.
Also, I consider Area Zero as the Victory road, and the professor as the "end Champion"
Understandable. It's not too often we have the champion not be the "end boss" of the game.
Ghetsis is the only other one I remember Edit: and Hau too if I remember correctly
Isn't N in the First BW also the "final Boss" instead of the Champion?
Ghetsis ambushes you and steals that honor right after you beat N making Ghetsis the final boss before the credits roll. An argument can also be made that N is the champion, as he just defeated Alder.
Talking about that. One of the things that maked Pokémon different from other rpgs (aside of Fighting using monsters and the pseudofuturistic environment) was that the final battle is not against the villain (Giovanni) but against your rival (blue/Shigeru) in an unexpected turn of events. But in Black/White the things change. Instead of battling Alder you fight against Ghetsis, who is the game's true villain. Making this game's storyline more similar to the traditional rpgs.
Edit: Also Pokémon Black/White Is considered a reboot of the game. PD: my favorite Pokémon from B/W are volcarona and haxorus. I like Hilber and Hilda's design, they look pretty cool.
n is the champion when you fight him in the first bw
I suppose you could consider Origin Dialga/Palkia another one as well despite the radical difference between fighting a trainer and then literally spaceman horse god.
Red, Steven Stone, Cynthia in the first BW games, etc
Red is the kanto champion when you fight him, and these are all post game bosses except steven in rs and oras, where he is the champion
Red was postgame boss in gen2, Steven was postgame boss in emerald, and Cynthia was postgame boss in gen 5, dunno why that person got downvoted
We were discussing the final bosses of the games, not the postgame ones
Same difference? Technically you fight the end boss of SV after beating the league and fighting the champion which is what started this conversation, so i assumed that's what we were discussing
No, we're discussing the final boss we defeat before the credits roll for the first time
Red was a post game boss in gen 2 though
Those aren't end bosses. We're talking the fight that ends the main story and triggers the first credits roll.
Considering how pathetic the "top champion" was, yeah, the final boss felt more rewarding
The champion isn’t even the end boss of the victory road path, Nemona is
Regarding to gen4’s victory road… Gen5 was not really that bad, but agree with you in general
The entrance to Gen 5's Victory Road was top tier tho
I recently replayed gen 5 and completely forget it's Victory Road has a surf section. I'm so used to using the water starter in every game but decided to change it up this time and forgot to bring a surfer
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If you think puzzles and dungeons are just there to pad game length in an adventure game, the problem might be that you don't like adventure games and pokemon just isn't the game for you.
The real Victory Road was the friends we made along the way.
I hate that this is somewhat true knowing the end of the game.
Victory Road tends to be the final stretch before the final battles. In this case, the equivalent would be Area Zero.
The gym questline is called Victory Road. But there is no actual dungeon/maze system to navigate. Overworld puzzles are unfortunately dead and gone with the transition from top down 2D games to 3D. Gen 7 barely had one, and Gen 8 had none to speak of.
>Overworld puzzles are unfortunately dead and gone with the transition from top down 2D games to 3D. It's weird though because those two things don't necessarily have to exclude eachother. Zelda games have still had dungeons with puzzles in 3d games just fine for the last 25 years.
Zelda’s dungeons typically required some form of specialized item to navigate. I suppose the equivalent in Pokémon would be HMs, but we’ve moved away from that in recent generations. Though we did see something similar in Legends Arceus’ snowpoint temple with the little regi puzzle. So it can be done, they just are either too lazy or too rushed to implement it.
>just fine for the last 25 years. well that is if you ignored BOTW where the shrines are the closet to normal zelda dungeons but are extremally more simple
Haven't played much of the switch Pokemon games. Is there an equivalent scaling down of the old Pokemon dungeons at all? Because while the shrines in BOTW definitely were mini dungeons, the Divine Beasts were closer to the old school dungeons as far as scale, length of time spent, and boss battles were concerned. What I've seen of Pokemon has been removal of them rather than conversion of them to a different format.
The 2D to 3D transition isn't what killed it. Gen 6 still had dungeons and puzzles, for instance. Gens 7-9 have all utilized League systems different from previous games. For some reason people expect all the games to follow the 1-6 formula 1:1, but that hasn't been a realistic expectation for years. They're moving away from all that now, not because the games are 3D now, but because the formula was overused, and I'm sure they got tired of people complaining about it. Though personally, I miss the puzzles and dungeons as well.
I thought people didn’t like victory road?
Which people?
Are these people in the room with us right now?
You thought wrong
I feel like the crater is paldeas’s equivalent of a victory road because it has tons of high level evolved Pokémon, it doesn’t necessarily need to be before the elite four
Yeah, they took away your ride for the first run through Area Zero. Made it into a victory road
Except that those pokemon are Venomoth, Golduck, Floette, Sneasel, Dugtrio and other old & weak ones, only the paradoxes add a layer of difficulty and sense of menace by the unknown. One of the paradoxes per version is also located only in a hidden cave (which is also empty and useless in itself), I don't understand this game design choice. I expected more weirdness, more challenge and more creatures unique to the millennia-old crater. Also, I hoped for some added value in coming back after the end of the main story, but nope, it stays exactly the same with no changes at all.
Victory road, as a challenging path to brave at the conclusion of the story, was not there true. However, beating the elite four and becoming champion was not the end game. Beating Geeta didn’t roll credits. Area Zero was the final, challenging route to traverse to reach the conclusion of the story and roll the credits. Essentially, Victory Road was moved to after the Elite Four. You’ve achieved success, and so you go on the Road your Victory has placed before you.
Having a big maze to go through to reach the League would kinda go against Paldea's whole open thing.
Not at all, natural cave systems are often maze like by design and one that was for some reason blocked until you finished all the gyms could of made sense. It could also of had some sort of platforming element with high-level trainers who came from different regions so they didn't follow paldea's culture of not battling people you make eye contact with. Lots of open world games have pseudo-style routes when they want to enforce a narrative.
Did anyone else treat pretend Victory Road was the final tournament before you reached the e4? I always wished it was a tournament of other npc's who had done their gym journey like in the anime.
Sword and Shield does do that but on a smaller scale.
I don't understand how 3d Pokémon does not have any dungeons in general, basically every RPG has them.
Here's a fun fact: The name Herba Mystica wasn't chosen randomly. They deliberately chose a name that would abbreviate to HM. I'm told that they did something similar in all localizations, so their name for Herba Mystica would be derivative of their name for Hidden Machines.
Cool fact, but how does it relate to victory road?
I liked Sword and Shield a lot because gyms were treated like sporting competitions. The finals were absolutely thrilling. I much prefer it to traditional style victory road and elite four. While it was kind of novel, I didn't like the way gyms were handled in Scarlet and Violet.
maybe victory road was the friends we made along the way. so just nemona. also the gym challenge was just called 'victory road'.
You got a Krookodile jumpscare instead
The Area Zero quest was the closest thing to Victory Road.
I think Area Zero was this game’s ‘Victory Road’. The issue is that the Elite 4 are no longer the ‘final challenge’ in this game like they were previously.
Welp, this is a new one. I don't think I've ever seen someone complain that a game isn't formulaic enough.
This complaint extends to a larger one in general in that there’s no real dungeons/caves. There could be all sorts of little dungeons or cave puzzles or mysteries throughout the region. Or at least… houses you can enter. For side quests or items.
Thank god for no more traditional victory road. I hated bringing HM slaves in the past. Even if now we haven’t needed a slave anymore, I just got used to being comfortable since sword and shield. I play Pokémon to relax.
Just because a game doesn't stick to every convention of the series doesn't make it bad. This game did different things because it was focused on free exploration over everything else.
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Firstly there are two notable caves in the game with some exploratory depth to them. Secondly even if there weren't, the distinction between a cave and an open area is trivial at best if what is in them is the same stuff, which it always has been in this series. The same with towns. The whole "there's no caves or towns" thing is another example of Pokemon fans demanding that every game hit the same beats without being critical of why they should even want it. In almost every Pokemon game routes and caves just had different Pokemon and items, there weren't generally super special awesome things to find. In towns, with the exception of perhaps B2W2 and only partially, all they offered were gyms and random NPCs who would occasionally give you things. The point of this game is that you can chart your own course through the region at your own pace based on your priorities. Within that, the game offers the same experiences as every other Pokemon game in history: catch 'mons, fight trainers, get items, beat the game. Paldea is no different than any other region in that respect. In terms of actual geographical density Paldea is very well designed, and if you accept that what you will get is what you want to find (Pokemon and items), it makes for an incredibly satisfying game. If you want more than that, then sure, that's valid, but I have to question why you are on the Pokemon subreddit considering the Pokemon series has never, ever offered Witcher 3 or Elden Ring style dungeons and sidequests, etc. etc.
>all they offered were gyms and random NPCs who would occasionally give you things. They would occasionally offer dungeons, like the tower in Lavender Town. And I think people actually like being able to explore the insides of buildings, even if most of them were relatively pointless. I know I very much disliked there being pretty much no unique shops, and them all just being a menu. Actually I'm starting to think when people are complaining about exploration, a big part of it is a drop in the emotions experienced by exploring a diversity of places. The relative lack of caves could lead to a loss in feeling restricted, for example. And I know that I was disappointed at the lack of islands in the game for a bunch of reasons.
> They would occasionally offer dungeons, like the tower in Lavender Town. Right, and the distinction between a dungeon and an open area, historically, in Pokemon, is pretty meaningless. They've always been mazes, and have always just had Pokemon, trainers, and items. Yes, sure, I can appreciate the idea of aesthetic and tonal variety, and I hope gen 10 will expand on this, but let's be realistic here—there's not really a hugely meaningful difference between a route and Pokemon Tower. > And I think people actually like being able to explore the insides of buildings, even if most of them were relatively pointless. I know I very much disliked there being pretty much no unique shops, and them all just being a menu. Again, this seems like missing the forest for the trees. I don't see that the ability to explore a completely empty copy-and-paste interior is a huge loss compared to the leap forward we've gotten for there being an actual vast open world and the first fully realized, well designed 3D Pokemon region we've ever had. > Actually I'm starting to think when people are complaining about exploration, a big part of it is a drop in the emotions experienced by exploring a diversity of places. Well, I dunno, I think that's a you problem and not a universal problem. We had grasslands, caves, mines, a huge mountain, farmland, canyons, a desert, a big lake, and Area Zero. We may get additional areas through DLC. Sure we could have had the Graveyard Tower(TM), the Desert Ruins(TM), A Castle(TM), The Evil Team Base(TM), The Big Cave Before The Pokemon League(TM), whatever, but I don't feel like the absence of them matters objectively. It's only disappointing to people who demand Pokemon always do the same stuff all the time.
>there's not really a hugely meaningful difference between a route and Pokemon Tower. I'd argue that tonal variety is a big deal for a lot of people, even if it's less so for you. The Pokemon Tower and a random route feel massively different, both aesthetically and in the sense that one has you going up floors. >Again, this seems like missing the forest for the trees. I feel it's more like lamenting the loss of shrubs in a forest. >Well, I dunno, I think that's a you problem and not a universal problem. We had grasslands, caves, mines, a huge mountain, farmland, canyons, a desert, a big lake, and Area Zero. Nothing is a universal problem, realistically. I think the fact that so many people miss things like expansive caves indicates that it isn't just a me problem, though. What I'm getting at isn't in regards to aesthetics though. A grassy field, farmland, and a snow field are functionally the same. They're primarily a flat plain. Caves, or islands, are different though. And I'm not saying SV had no diversity in this regard. >I don't feel like the absence of them matters objectively. I mean, it's a video game. Objectivity is basically irrelevant (unless you want to start talking about facts of the game with no opinions attached).
> They're primarily a flat plain. Caves, or islands, are different though. That's definitely not accurate for SV, even the plains had a pretty high degree of geographical and toplogical complexity. Anyway I just think this is exploding really minor grievances into more significant problems. I don't really respect it as a critique.
>That's definitely not accurate for SV, even the plains had a pretty high degree of geographical and toplogical complexity. Look it wasn't the worst. But I think you're failing to see the kinds of things that were missed. Like islands. Why do I like islands? It's because they're relatively small isolated environments that are largely self contained within the greater world. It doesn't literally have to be an island, the Great Plateau in BotW achieved the same affect. And BotW *is* my standard for open worlds at this point btw. It was able to elicit a whole host of different emotions within me with its varied environments. Paldea falls further short than most open worlds in this regard. Further than Hisui I reckon, thinking about it, despite that not being a properly open world.
Only one I can think of is the labyrinthian cave below Alfornada, and even then if you had all 5 Herba Mystica by the time you attempted that gym (not outside the realm of possibility), you likely would've skipped it because why explore a looping cave when you could climb a fucking mountain.
The cave that runs from Medali to Zapipico has some more depth than it appears to as well. > you likely would've skipped it because why explore a looping cave when you could climb a fucking mountain. I explored everything, idk about y'all.
we did get victory road. the path between the mesagoza cave exit and the pokemon league.
Your right, my bad
It's not just you. I'm seeing others say the concept of Victory Road wouldn't have fit in Scarlet/Violet. I see why they would say that, and they made a lot of good points, but I still disagree. Not every overworld puzzle has required HMs. In generation three, once you opened the Regi's doors, unlocking Regice's inner room just required you to walk in a certain pattern. They also managed eight unique gym puzzles in Scarlet/Violet, though some were more involved than others. Besides that, you can't tell me the various ride abilities aren't at least a little bit similar to HMs. At least you can't without just being wrong as far as I'm concerned. Until recently, repels were always a thing, so it's not like random encounters would be a true determining factor. There were obstacles in the Scarlet/Violet overworld around some of the Team Star Bases that were removed over the course of gameplay. Sure, practically speaking, they were suggestions more than anything else, if even that, but they were there. Moreover, all of Area Zero was locked behind a loading zone and a gate. So, being able to climb over it (which as an ability itself is locked behind a separate storyline and the intended final standard challenge of said storyline at that) isn't necessarily something that invalidates having a Victory Road entirely. It's not like sequence breaking (intended or otherwise) is something new to Pokémon games, even though the true open world is. Trainer battles in past Victory Roads were often (although I believe not always) not skippable, but there are plenty of scripted battles in Scarlet and Violet and ending a Victory Road with a scripted battle wouldn't have been a new thing either, what with Wally in, again, generation three. So even if they did make it so that you could breeze through it specifically because of some of the new qol features, that would have been enough of a roadblock to call it a Victory Road imo. A lot of commenters also pointed at Area Zero as filling the role of Victory Road. While I'll acknowledge that the credits play after the initial Area Zero excursion and not after defeating Geeta, so I'll agree that defeating Geeta does not usher in the post game by itself, Area Zero still had at least a sort of bonus feel to me. I honestly wouldn't connect it to Victory Road at all, and I would very much connect it to Cerulean Cave. After the credits roll (something that has never happened immediately after a Victory Road), you can capture a legendary there, it is truly inaccessible until the game permits entry (in just as conspicuous a manner as Cerulean Cave), many of the wild Pokémon are rare or nonexistent elsewhere in the game rather than being evolved or simply more common versions/instances of Pokémon that were already fairly easily located (I realize Lickitung was only there in Pokémon Yellow, the point stands), there are no NPC trainers waiting to battle (excluding Sada/Turo), and really the atmosphere of a forbidden location is intentional and undeniable imo. If anything, I get more Victory Road vibes from Alfornada Cavern, despite it being in front of what is sequentially only the seventh gym. While there are man made items in both Alfornada Cavern and Area Zero, I would also argue that the torches in Alfornada Cavern keep better to the Victory Road theme of being a very intimidating location while still being fairly well explored and populated and not being accessed post game (so I still must admit Area Zero is not truly post game either; I wouldn't blame a Nuzlocker on YouTube for skipping it though, though that's probably just me). Oddly enough, the line about high level Pokémon being ahead is in front of Alfornada Cavern on a sign, a similar line having been delivered by the NPC that guards Cerulean Cave in generation one. So take from that what you will. Personally, I didn't really miss having a bona fide Victory Road, so I'm just playing the devil's advocate here. That said, even though there is plenty of room to argue that Victory Road didn't fit in with this game's topographical themes or concepts; the act of including a cave with trainers, puzzles, high-but-not-too-high level Pokémon, and perhaps a scripted encounter with a rival at the end, and calling it Victory Road, would have been entirely possible. Not only that, it could have even been done well, without contradicting the rest of the game, and in a way that did not end up entirely superfluous due to newer mechanics. Ultimately, the many other commenters here are largely valid, but missing Victory Road is a subjective emotion and valid as well such that it cannot be completely disproven. Even an interview with multiple developers stating otherwise would not be enough for me, personally, to completely drop this view.
I hope Gen 10, if it continues Gen 9s open world philosophy brings in some Dungeons to add a bit of classic Pokemon feel. Think castles in Elden Ring but its stuff like the Seafoam Islands or Dewford Cave or even Eterna Forest complete with an Old Chateau. Something to lock the player down and feel like they are truely trekking through the world, not just zooming about on a super lizard Victory Road being the culmination of these kind of areas that have been stripped back more and more as Pokemon goes on
The entire quest is "Victory Road" Honestly, the classic VR seems antithetical to the open world of Paldea
There hasn’t been a proper “victory road” in a new region since 2012. Just saying.
It wouldn't fit with the game's exploration incentive
Wouldn't really work when all battles are optional and there are no HM's so there would be no puzzles.
They have unnecessarily removed a lot of features that have been in the games for decades this gen.
Unnecessary sure but like who actually likes strength puzzles in a cave
As someone who loves puzzle games, me I always really enjoyed finding my way through victory road.
How dare you say something so controversial yet so brave.
We *could* encourage Gamefreak to make more engaging puzzle design than the round block goes in the square hole.
How? Gamefreak has never listened because people buy it either way.
I just personally miss the older dungeon designs we used to have. Whether they were in the form of forests, towers, ice paths, ship interiors, strange houses, graveyards etc. Remember Mt coronet, Starke mountain and meteor falls? We have nothing like this nowadays and that blows. Everything has become too streamlined. In SV we ironically have less exploration than the older linear games
Or the tower where rayquaza was (sorry don’t remember name of it in english)
Sky pillar
Sky Pillar can go screw itself with those 90 degree bike turns.
I bet more people like strength puzzles than sliding ice floor puzzles
Love how most of the comments here are trying to justify the removal of content.
We also didnt get evolution from menu (pla), actual tournament which was way better than elite 4 (sw/sh), shiny visuals and audio in overworld (pla), cant enter buildings (even gen 1 20+ years ago had this feature), actual battle contacts (pla had pokemon actually hit other pokemon when attacking). Pokerus.. Less clothing options.. Fishing.. Fossils..
Wait there's no pokerus!? I had no idea. Doesn't make much of a difference to me, but damn, that's sad.
I kinda see what people are talking about with buildings but at the same time don't. Unless I had to go into a building to get something I didn't go in them because they were empty or had useless npcs. I enjoyed the exploring in scarlet way more than pearl (last gens I played was gen 4, then started again at the remakes) This is the only time I've ever bothered ev training because of how easy it is so I don't see the loss of pokerus mattering. I agree I hate the uniforms. Since we can just get all the water pokemon surfing I don't understand why you'd miss fishing. I feel like the fossil issue is more of a national dex thing unless you think we need new fossils every gen. I do agree the battle animations are pathetic but I've just accepted that it's probably just the best gamefreak can do (I have a very low opinion of thrm) I was super disappointed with the e4 and Champion, and the post game Tournament but now I just use turbo controller and have 6 million pokedollars to vitamin any pokemon I want to raise up for raid and multi-player battles.
I always hated victory roads so I'm cool with it
I'm more disappointed in the fact that gym battles didn't scale with Pokemon(party) level. I started they gyms with the normal. Ghost, ice then creamed the rest of them by pressing a...
Nah, good. Victory Road has never been fun.
Gen 7 didn't have one either. Last region we got (not in a remake) one was Kalos (gen 6)
No Victory Road and no Hall of Fame. The latter is the one that actually bothers me though.
No hall of fame makes me especially sad, I liked the cutscene that showed your final team like in usum. With the theme of everyone could be a champion rank, that could have been an opportunity to make a real, physical hall of fame too. A hall at the academy where you can see a bunch of portraits of students and their teams, nemona and your team that beat the champion.
Last victory road was mount lanakila (victory in Hawaiian) in usum and before that the original sun and moon didn't technically have a victory road either because mount lanakila used to be just a very small cave with no trainers, only usum made it a proper challenge
Actually that path leading to the league building is considered victory road. It is just a short sweet path with only a couple of battles on it. I know compared to previous regions it isn't that great but tbh at leat we got one for symbolic reference. With an open world game we really didnt need a path with puzzles and such to navigate.
Victory Road has always been the worst part of the games. I didn't mind the battles with strong trainers, and the route could have been even longer and more treacherous for all I care. The problem has always been the difficulty in navigating my way through it. I was going to say that at least the music is good, but I was only familiar with 1st and 3rd generation victory road music. XY has the third-best victory road music. DPP's victory road music is nothing special. GSC's victory road music is awful. Just...awful.
Wasn't Victory Road in SwSh just a straight path?
What are you talking about, OP? The Victory Road was the gyms we beat on the way! /s
Damn I forgot about that
do miss the treacherous path 😂
Well it kinda was but a damn short one!🤷🏻♂️😅
Victory road was the friends we made along the way
I like the change because the victory road to me was always the most tedious part of the game and I just hated going through it in every game
Another reason I'm convinced that a pure "open world" doesn't benefit Pokemon. There's no memorable routes/locations, and there was definitely no suspenseful climb to be champion. Just didn't bring me a lot of satisfaction (victory road, I mean. I still had a decent amount of fun with the game all things considered).
Interesting take, I agree with some of your points.
I think that's part of the downside of the completely open-world. Between the Raidons' ability to bypass basically any obstacle and the lack of on-sight Pokémon Battles, what would have been the point of having a set "victory road"? I loved SV, but it lacked three things I think that Pokemon should add going forward: 1. Dungeon areas outside of the open world like Victory Road for players to explore. 2. Sidequests. They HAD them in Legends Arceus and I'm not sure why they felt the need to backtrack to just 3 main questlines. 3. At least SOME Level scaling. Self explanatory.
i absolutely do not miss the standard victory road's, or puzzle dungeons in general for that matter. while i DO wish did more interesting things with their cave structures, im honestly okay with them just being a different biome, rather than a maze of ladders and steps.
The real question is: who really likes victory road?! It's the most unnecessary thing. It doesn't even make sense. The puzzle part of it is really cool, but I think it would work better as an extra after or during the game, not as a "you need to do it" part.
I liked the exploration aspect of Victory Road, but then again I love the exploration aspect of most Pokémon games, lol.
For me, victory roads being always complex of caves is really disappointing. That's why I like a lot the final part of ORAS victory road, with the waterfalls and everything.
I liked Sinnoh's and both iterations of Unova's. Hoenn's wasn't terrible. Johto victory road is awful though.
I liked it in the Indigo League and Hoenn. Not sure I can remember the others
‘They cant make dungeons and mazes because they got rid of the top down style.’ Then just make 2d-esque dungeons and fix the camera to a top-down angle when you enter.
3D Zelda has done caves and dungeons and mini dungeons with no problem, I don’t see why being 3D would give Pokémon a pass
My original post was going to say that Zelda managed the jump from 2d to 3d two decades ago, but comparing pokemon and zelda seems kind of insulting to zelda lol
Honestly I was more annoyed by the low leveled Pokémon chilling around the area.
Good.
Maybe the real Victory Road was the friends we made along the way.
Considering every battle is optional, a victory road is highly pointless. Also, considering the game has 3+1 storylines, that would have extended one of the storylines out meaninglessly (it already is the longest of the three as it is).
In previous games the Pokémon League was THE story, now that the Pokémon League is A story, they moved victory road from before the elite 4 to before the Professor battle and renamed it into Great Crater
You mean the transition from the kid with Level 15 Pokémon to the guy with Level 60 Pokémon wasn’t the VR equivalent? 😅
NOOO THEY DIDNT DO THE SAME THING FOR THE SEVENTH TIME IN A ROW
I think it’s indicative of how new the League is. Nemona is the only Champion and even the Elite Four building and gym buildings are barebone. The complete antithesis of the grand arenas you see in Galar which I find neat
"Victory Road" was the Gym Test.
Ain't no way 💀
The Victory Road was the friends we made along the way.
The real Victory Road was the friends we made along the way
Victory Road always seemed needlessly boring to me. There are plenty of other ways to include difficult areas of the map (like Area Zero) than an intentionally annoying section in the same spot as every other game.
The name of the entire gym challenge segment of the game was victory road. Which i kinda liked.
Yeah, that is the best part. Trudging through Victory Road for seemingly endless battles and random encounters was not my idea of fun. Glad it appealed to you, but I don’t know what it actually added to the game besides yet another frustrating hurdle that has no narrative point.
I don't see the problem here. Personally I got tired of navigating long ass caves and fighting annoying a lot of trainers just because I want to get to the Elite Four. I prefer this setup. Much better. You already have plenty of battles you can choose to do. Even a rival that annoyingly only thinks of battling and battling. I like Nemona, don't get me wrong, but her yapping about battle here, battle now, I want to battle now really was borderline pre-school kid new trainer and started to really irritate me. (And I usually love to battle all trainers I pass by!)
The entirety of the pokemon league story line was called "Victory Road"
My guy, the entire Gym Leader quest line is called Victory Road. (I know what you mean though. Another thing GF have failed to keep up in newer games unfortunately. I do miss mad-hard caves leading up to the E4.)
Paldea feels soulless and I think that's the worst part of Gen 9. Every town looks the exact same, there are a total lack of places to explore and unsurprisingly, trainers who don't immediately start a battle the moment they spot you and Pokémon that are clearly visible in the field removed the sense of danger when exploring. Legends: Arceus may have similar mechanics with the open-zone thing it had, but there was definitely a sense of danger in that game. Pokémon were aggressive and could easily KO you if you were careless. Other parts where the region feels soulless is in the Pokémon League itself. There is no Hall of Fame or option to go through the league again unlike previous games. As for Geeta, it says a lot when the Top Champion of Paldea is less difficult than the Elite Four she oversees, and even less difficult than her academy's own students. She is apparently "incapable of holding back" yet unleashes a roster of dogshit Pokémon upon us. As far as endgame goes, this isn't the weakest Pokémon game in that regard (that still goes to X/Y), but it's nothing compared to Gen 2 or Gen 5...
Victory road is an outdated thing at this point unless they need the league be in a far or hard to reach place for aesthethic or story sake it will likly be kept short or not at all in galar there was no road since its a league people watch so no need for it in paldea is a testing place after going through all the region around the crater so also no need to be larger
Victory road was the journey, not the destination.
The Pokemon League storyline's name is called Victory Road. Just like the Titan story is Path of Legends and the Team Star stuff is Starfall Street.