Sorry, Nemona. You set me loose in Paldea’s equivalent of Route 2 and I got distracted by a giant selection of Pokemon and hundreds of items lying around, so there’s literally no chance of me getting to the academy on time for class. On the bright side, whenever I do make it to the academy you’ll probably be able to use your stronger team in the following battle.

When i started a cutscene while being chased by a Bombirdier trying to battle me, I didn't expect it to follow me into a cutscene. I thought that seeing it hovering in front of the sign that we were reading as if nothing was out of the ordinary was funny enough, despite the seriousness of the cutscene, but then this happened.

I love that wild Pokemon will often gather to watch you fight another, but it’s especially funny when Lechonk is one of them. Seeing them react to the fights by sweating nervously and hiding their eyes behind their ears when most other Pokemon seem interested and excited by the battles always makes me laugh.

Do I think that removing these ominous black stakes all around Paldea will possibly release some dangerous Pokemon upon the world? Yes.

Am I still doing it for Pokedex completion? Also yes.

So I picked up Pokemon Scarlet for the first time in a while, having been distracted by other stuff for a while, and had to spend a while refamiliarizing myself with the controls. Fortunately for me, I had loaded into an area that was low level compared to my team. Unfortunately for all the wild Pokemon around me, I ended up accidentally sending out my Veluza out on a battling spree while sending her out trying to find the menu button and subsequently spamming the “go battle” button in desperation to find the button which would stop her from mercilessly bullying the lower-level Pokemon. 

So I briefly returned to the academy since I kind of rushed through in my haste to go catch more Pokemon, and out of curiosity took the classes offered so far. 

When I took the math courses, I did so hesitantly, given that I had little love for the subject in real life, and wasn’t exactly good at it either. It was only to see what exactly it was, and I knew any math questions it’d have would be really easy.

So when the teacher asked me how many pokeballs costing $20 a budget of $200 would get me, I confidently answered ten. You can imagine my surprise when she told me I was wrong. For a good long moment I was filled with dread about just how bad my math skills were, until she mentioned that counting the free premier ball you got with each set of ten pokeballs you bought you could afford eleven. 

Me, every time I’ve defeated a Titan Pokemon: Okay, but am I absolutely positive it can’t be caught?

If you turned off autosave, make sure you remember to save often, because I forgot to and lost quite a bit of progress when the game crashed.

I encountered the NPC who hands you phone cases based on previous games you’ve played on the Switch the other night while hatching some surprise eggs, and it was kind of surprisingly heartwarming. The idea that all the characters we played as were reincarnations of each other... Even if it was just a reason to give us Rotom phone cases based off of previous games to reward at least trying out old Pokemon games, it’s kind of nice to think of our characters being connected, getting to go on eternal adventures seeing new Pokemon, meeting new people, and exploring new places.  

While letting your Pokemon play with the ball during picnics in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet has nowhere near the level of chaos as Sword and Shield’s camps where Pokemon could and would practically snatch it out of the grasps of their teammates, it still is nice to see them all chasing the toy together, even if I jumped more than I ought’ve when my starter Pokemon kicked the ball straight toward the screen. 

So I just learned that you can ask your Pokemon for advice when it’s trying to learn a move. These games just keep coming out with new features that I really could’ve used as a kid, and I like that. 

This game keeps trying to sell me food, and it’s making me hungry.

Last time I played Pokemon Scarlet, I got the wall-climb ability, but didn’t really get the chance to play around with it much. Trying it out now with Koraidon’s climbing animation, I can’t help but be reminded of those frogs that just jump onto the outer walls of buildings and just cling there.

I do appreciate that Pokemon Scarlet and Violet uses the dialogue boxes to hint whenever a trainer is stronger than most in the area. I missed the hint the first time I ran into one because if they actually told you that in the game I either missed the NPC who said it or forgot about it entirely, but once I learned that lesson I never forgot it.

I do wish, however, that there was some way of telling when you’re a more reasonable level to challenge these trainers, since taking cues from the wild Pokemon surrounding them doesn’t help. 

On the one hand, I’m loving the tons of items that are laying around practically every three feet. I’ve never felt more comfortable using up revives and experience candies because there seems to be a neverending supply of them.

On the other, I have enough problems moving toward my intended destination in open world games already without getting distracted by trails of breadcrumbs leading in pretty much every other direction. 

So I learned the hard way not to go swimming off of waterfalls (at least at the moment). And here I was thinking I’d found an easy way from Montenevera to Casseroya Lake.