Pokémon (Not-So) Griefing Thread - Scarlet and Violet Released with 10 Million Copies in First 3 Days in Buggy States

[Squawking Macaw]

This might sound really corny, but I always get a sad feeling whenever I replay the DS era games. I know that deep down it is really unlikely for pokemon games to reach that quality again. The amount of content, well balanced difficulty, and overall heart and soul poured into gens 4 and 5 will never be reached at least in the near future. Like I don't even think the 3DS or even the Switch era is (completely) horrible. Like even if after Legends ZA pokemon enters another golden age on the switch 2, we still had to go through overall mid GF poured out the last decade.

I'm the opposite, I'm glad that I'll always have the DS games to return to, no matter how bad the future games get. I guess I've accepted that Pokemon will never be as good as it used to be. I see many people (both in this thread and out) getting outraged at the state of the series and I understand them, but I can't be bothered to get worked up over it, something I liked as a kid and still have a fondness for isn't for me anymore, sucks, but what can you do? The Switch games outsold every game except for Red and Blue, Game Freak has no financial incentive to cater to DSfags like me.

I realize by typing this out that my mentality is pessimistic as fuck, but the good thing about being a pessimist is that you don't constantly get your hopes up only to have them crushed when the new game is revealed to be a bug-ridden mess with painted-on balconies. I still keep up with Pokemon news, but it's less "I sure hope this new game isn't a steaming pile of garbage" and more "lol what dumb shit did they come up with this time?"

 

[Anonitolia]

>Animal Crossing knockoff
>Mega Kalos starters
>Two mega Raichu in fucking DLC before the game is out
uhhhh give me time i'm gonna compile this but also wtf

Alright here we go

Spoiler: Kalos starters

These guys got TWO SECONDS in the trailer and no real demonstrations of their designs. I headed to the Japanese site and sure enough, there were proper renders already up.

Chesnaught KICKS ASS, it's actually really fucking good and way better than the shitty leaks. I think I'll mellow on it as time goes on, but given the current state of things it got really lucky with its design. Delphox is pretty good too; I appreciate the heavier emphasis on mage stuff, even if the brooms are kind of dumb, while Greninja really got screwed over. Very little change to the design and the giant shuriken looks dumb. About time, I guess, lol.

Apparently their mega stones are going to be available as seasonal rewards?? Which is a bit concerning. I hope they're actually in the game through other means and not event-exclusive. Anyways, for whatever reason, their Mega stones are also the first we've gotten official renderings of:



They're not half bad. I do find it interesting that they're taking more from the Mega designs than the base ones (I don't think any previous Mega stones did this; correct me if I'm wrong, but their palettes went strictly off of the base forms), and I can't remember if the others also had the actual stone change so drastically in color. It doesn't matter too much to me, personally. Marbles come in plenty of colors, and this is a nice way to distinguish the new Megas from the old.

EDIT: wtf


You cannot get them in normal gameplay, at all. There's the catch. What the actual fuck lmao? Who thought this was a good idea?

Here's the distribution schedule, for anyone genuinely interested. I guess if you're not playing at launch you just get screwed out of Mega Greninja until a redistribution. Fun.


Also, Mega Chesnaught apparently has a big MACE made up of its shields that was just not shown off in the render for some reason. Don't know why they left that detail out; it's awesome.
Here are some miscellaneous screenshots of the other two so that you can see more than just their renders...

Spoiler: Misc. Z-A stuff

HOME compatibility coming in 2026.


Look at all those asterisks!


If I'm reading this correctly (through the translation):

• Z-A mon can't go to any games older than Z-A
• If you bring Pokémon from older games into Z-A, they won't be able to go to older games either
• There are plans to link Champions to Z-A, so have fun trying to use a Mega Kalos starter without this game lol.

Take this with a grain of salt. All of this info is coming from the official Japanese site, and I don't know Japanese, so it's all filtered through translation that I can't verify the accuracy of. I might check back and update this once the English stuff goes up, just for the sake of clarity.

EDIT: My reading was exactly correct:

If you transfer Pokémon from previous generations into Z-A, they can never return to that previous generation. I'm assuming this has to do with Switch 2 shenanigans, but I'm not sure? I'd say it's moreso Legends shenanigans than Switch 2 shenanigans, but Arceus didn't have this problem. I truly have no clue why this is the case, and I'm honestly thinking it might just be the battling system instead. Dunno. We'll see on release, I guess.

Finally, this Nintendo Direct trailer was apparently Z-A's last before release:

Which explains the montage. There will probably be a few more trailers after the fact unveiling the Megas of the starter trio, like how Legends Arceus waited a few weeks before showing off the final evolutions of the Hisui trio, but otherwise I guess that's it before October.

Spoiler: Paid DLC announced before release KEK

Yeah, you read that right. Do you want to know how they announced this DLC?

With a trailer, of course! And what did that trailer entail?

TWO MEGA RAICHU, WITH THE SOME OF THEWORST DESIGNS I HAVE EVER SEEN.

Am I exaggerating? No, not really! I genuinely cannot think of worse executions for these two designs, it's kind of impressive. What do people like about Raichu?

• it's not as sharp as Pikachu
• it's got a warmer palette and sleeker form with less cubic bits
• it's not Pikachu, so they don't get to see it everywhere they fucking go and get sick of it
• the ears are unique
• the patterns are interesting (stripes on the back? boots on the hands and feet? cool)

What do these Megas do?
ERASE ALL OF THAT TO RANDOMLY SLAP ON PIKACHU BITS SO THAT THEY LOOK LIKE THE LETTERS THEY'RE BASED OFF OF

These are genuinely so horribly uncreative and incoherent that they look like AI creations. I wouldn't be surprised if Gamefreak just threw Raichu into some Grok-like model they've got in-house and it spat these two designs out. They are so horribly robotic and unfitting that I truly cannot imagine human hands putting them together and feeling satisfied with the results. If Gamefreak really wanted you to feel the pain Megas are in when they evolve, congrats, I guess, they did their jobs. These poor things look like they're suffering endlessly and I begrudge their creators for forcing such abominations to exist in the first place.

Spoiler: EDIT

They don't even change their typings. They're still just mono-Electric, so X's arms got super bloated up for absolutely nothing

As always, Mega Y reigns supreme over X, but I still find it hysterical that these two are so phenomenally shit. They honestly make every other Mega look better by comparison, and I'm not convinced that wasn't their intention with these.

If /vp/ is to be believed, there are at least 16 new megas shown off just in the DLC teaser:

This isn't even all of them, btw. The trailer goes on to show at least 3 other stones later on.

No indication that this DLC ever leaves the Lumiose map, just some throwaway talk of "dimensional distortions" like in ORAS:

Granted, given that this DLC just got announced and we're talking about story content, I doubt they'd have been much clearer even if we were closer to release.

If you're crazy enough to buy this DLC, btw, you also get this horribly garish outfit:


And some pokeballs if you really care and buy the thing before they inevitably announce Gen 10 next February.


You wanna know the final kick in the teeth?

THIS DLC IS THIRTY DOLLARS


ENJOY YOUR HUNDRED-DOLLAR TECH DEMO, LOSERS

Spoiler: uhhh animal crossing minecraft knockoff game for babies idk

I cannot stress enough how infantile this trailer is, the music was driving me crazy all throughout the initial reveal:

Anyways, snobbish irritation aside, this is some shovelware-looking knockoff of New Horizons. It's got little to no info out about it, at all-- as far as I can tell, it doesn't even have an official site. The press release just links to a news article.
It's described as a life-simulation game, which is cool and all, but it is so stylistically mismatched that I think it actually hurts the appeal. All the Pokémon models are those awfully outdated XY upscales, completely unaltered, being plopped into a world of bargain-bin LGPE tall-grass sprites and Minecraft terrain. Look at this:


It's just gross, the kind of stuff you'd see in a shitty mod. It reminds me very strongly of Pixelmon, in fact:

To the point where I'm wondering if this is pretext to a lawsuit. Honestly, with how litigious TPC has been lately, I can see it happening.

Anyways, yeah. Apparently this is supposed to be a life sim, but that's about it. This paragraph + the trailer is all of the news we have on this game.


It's got multiplayer, and it's aiming for a 2026 release on the Switch 2 (not even a dual release with the Switch 1, which honestly makes the graphics even more laughable), but that's it. Nada on price, pre-orders, actual release dates, etc. I'm expecting some kind of summer launch given the theme and timing, but it could be as late as next December frankly.


Anyways, here's some official art of the protagonists. It's not half bad.


And more screenshots to give a better feel for the game.


As for personal thoughts: it's alright? The graphics are so distractingly bad that they're genuinely detracting from the concept for me. I've wanted a Pokémon life sim for ages, but when this first came on-screen I thought it was the long-fabled "tile-based Mario Maker" every leaker since 2018 has sworn would happen. I couldn't think of any better excuse for visuals this bad, and I still can't. They're recycling assets from fucking LGPE, for God's sake.

The premise of being a Pokémon shaped like a human is pretty funny-- Ditto deserves the love, and I think this is a perfect middle-ground between the awkward human/trainer relationship and outright Mystery Dungeon. The designs for the protagonists are cute and off-kilter, the idea of learning new moves to pretty up terrain is a good one, and there's a lot to like here.

It's just wrapped in this atrocious packaging, covered in slime and mold and looking like it predates the goddamn Clintons, to the point where even the untouched family heirloom inside it looks grosser for being associated with it. That analogy got away from me, but the point is: this is pretty much a dream title of mine, and it's got quite a few appealing ideas, but this execution is terrible and makes me feel embarrassed for ever wanting a game even slightly like this lol.

Spoiler: bonus schizophrenic theorymaxxing

Alright ladies and gentlemen, what did you notice about that final trailer? Other than the obvious reveals... did you take a look at the party members in the players' teams?

Yes, I'm doing this again, but now that DLC has been confirmed I am serious, I think this might be happening. I think that every single Pokémon shown off in these parties will get itself some kind of Mega evolution or other attention-grabbing form, and I'll justify exactly why for each one in this follow-up bulletpoint list:

• MEOWSTIC - Kalos icon. Somewhat underused and forgotten Kalos mon that was a fan-favorite on release and still has a cult following today. One of the first Kalos mon to be revealed, Emma's former ace (and Espurr is monumentally important to her character), marketable. Gender differences don't matter, because assuming the leaks are correct, they're doing Pyroar and just keeping it the same for both genders.
• KROOKODILE - Huge focus on it in the trailers, for some reason. Fan-favorite Unova mon and one of Ash's most important team members in Best Wishes. Also tangentially related to Excadrill through Clay, and Excadrill is slated to get a Mega, so I'll be pretty surprised if it's just left in the dust.
• PANGORO - Another huge marketing mon from the Kalos era, and a major character in Z-A seems to have a Pangoro on his team (big security guard guy). I doubt they'd want to keep Lopunny his ace forever, so I can see Pangoro getting some extra love to give him something less girly for use in side media.
• AEGISLASH - I'm actually very apprehensive about this due to Stance Change... but Z-A doesn't have abilities, so fuck it why not? Give Aegislash some love. It was Wikstrom's ace and also somewhat prominent during XY, so it'd make some sense.
• DEDENNE - Gamefreak seems to be on a roll with powering-up Pika-clones lately, so why not? Plus, they keep pairing Dedenne with other mega mon. I'm still paranoid about that GO event, too. It was literally the only Pokémon in that event's entire roster not to evolve or have some kind of unique form change to its name. There is no way they just threw a fucking Dedenne in there for no reason. That has to mean something. It can't have just been a one-off. IT CAN'T HAVE JUST BEEN--

• ARIADOS - It's one of my favorites and Gamefreak hates me personally. Half-joking aside, it's really fucking bad. The poor thing has a horrible moveset, even worse stats, and basically no presence whatsoever in battle. Gamefreak is giving Johto a lot of attention lately, too, and Ariados is one of very few Johto mon with nothing to its name... so maybe it's got a Beedrill treatment in store for it? I hope any Mega design it gets is comparable in quality. (I adore Mega Beedrill.) I'd prefer a proper evolution, of course, but at this point even getting a spotlight is going to give Ariados more attention than it's had since HGSS.
• DIGGERSBY - Unpopular and underwhelming early-route mon with a unique typing. We already saw Diggersby with a Mega gauge in earlier trailers, even if we now know that might not be dependent on the mon you're using (and instead just whether you have a Mega in the party at all), so I'm gonna cling to this as a possibility. Diggersby deserves better, after all.
• ARBOK - Major character's ace that's already gotten a lot of attention in marketing. No-brainer, like Pangoro.
• TALONFLAME - Another symbol of Kalos that's been horribly cucked since the Gale Wings nerf. Lots of emphasis on it in marketing, both in XY and Z-A, as well as a fan-favorite for years now. Would make for great competition with Pidgeot and help expand on Talonflame's peregrine falcon inspiration (which only really came into play in its final stage). I can easily imagine some kind of "fastest Pokémon ever" with goggles, jet-like wings, and an unrivaled speed record.
• ROSERADE - Sinnoh is horribly underrepresented in the speculative Mega roster, and Roserade is a staple of Sinnoh teams. It's also quite heavily associated with Kalos, at least as Roselia, thanks to the flowery swordsman stuff. Definitely seems possible.
• WATCHOG - Notoriously unpopular, but absolutely swarmed with love in Z-A marketing. Given that this game seems to be targeting very unpopular Pokémon specifically for Megas (Barbaracle, Chesnaught, and Emboar come to mind immediately, and depending on how mean you want to be you could also count Dragonite, Victreebel, Clefable, and Pyroar), it'd fit. Also, it'd be funny, and I think the construction-worker themes with the vest would fit perfectly within a city like Lumiose.
• AROMATISSE - Another notoriously unpopular mon that's been neglected for years. Even Slurpuff got more love, being plastered all over Alolan and Galarian storefronts, but Aromatisse is literally only remembered for being such a disappointment. Also, as stated previously, it's one of my Kalos favorites and Gamefreak hates me personally. It might happen.
• VIVILLON - Another Kalos symbol, and could make for good GO shilling if they keep that shitty system they used for patterns in Scarlet/Violet. Alternatively: an easy way to rehash Alcremie's Gigantamax concept by shoving all its different patterns into one giant set of wings. And maybe #666 funny marketing shenanigans. Dunno. Not super certain about this one.

All of these Pokémon, consistently, show up in every single trailer. They are only placed alongside Pokémon with Mega evolutions, have multiple solid reasons as to why they might be good candidates for Mega evolution, and I struggle to believe Gamefreak is just showing off the Lumiose dex because there are so many other Pokémon they could have used. Just going off of Serebii's confirmed dex, there's no reason that they couldn't have been using Eeveelutions, Hippowdon, the monkey trio, Garbodor, Heliolisk, etc. more often in these trailers. But, instead, it's this small handful of guys over and over and over again. Seriously: skim through the parties of the players in all of these trailers, and you'll see the same few candidates over and over again. There is some variation: I know Hippowdon does show up in one of the earlier trailers, and Florges is also somewhat prominent around the same time, but for the most part the players have parties made up of this small handful of Pokemon exclusively. I think there's good reason for that, and Gamefreak is trying to associate all of these guys with Megas before they actually come out to make people aware of them in advance.

Plus, if we take a look at some Mega stones from the DLC reveal trailer... I can really easily connect some dots here.
- Matches Arbok's palette almost exactly, save for the pattern-centric yellow.
- Aromatisse's pink and purple with a streak of beigish/whitish that looks somewhat like a mix of its mask and its inner-ear color.

This is obviously still rabid speculation: there's no guarantee these Mega stones have anything to do with specifically DLC megas, nor is there any confirmation that they aren't just existing Mega stones (admittedly, I haven't checked yet), and we just saw that the new Mega stones are going off of the palette of the new Mega designs as opposed to their base forms. We even see this again with the new Raichu stones, with X on the left and Y on the right:

So this could all be bupkus.

HOWEVER, these Mega stones being shown alongside the others (and the fact that Hoopa opened a portal to these, and Hoopa is specifically tied to the DLC's exclusive content) make me think that they are specifically shilling DLC Megas here. It's especially notable because none of these stones look like existing XY stones, and the new Kalos starter stones don't appear at all.

SO IT IS MAYBE POSSIBLE PERHAPS POSSIBLY.

I swear I'm not crazy.
Promise.

Spoiler: EDIT WITH MORE SPECULATION

/vp/ collage of the shown stones in that trailer!

I'm having a hard time not seeing the sixth stone as Pyroar's and the fifth as Victreebel's, so maybe ignore my comment about this only showing off DLC-exclusive Megas. Maybe. Obviously no confirmation of anything yet. Honestly, at this point, I'm just enjoying being the embodiment of this image. It's genuinely enjoyable.

"But," you say, "if I'm not crazy... what exactly is my reason for doing all of this?"

Just kidding I hate myself

In summary:

 

[anliteralidiot]

You can see art of the mega Raichu in the dlc promo...

Hoopa also involved, neat.
But something being named "dimension" being advertised with pikachus... Makes me worried.

 

[Kerry]

I don't really care for the Delphox or Greninja designs. I would have much rather had Delphox get like a Mismagius style hat and a bigger stick. Greninja was already fine as it was, i don't really know how they could have "improved" the design.

 

[Squawking Macaw]

So let me get this straight, they release not one but TWO Mega Raichus, and they're BOTH gaytarded Raichu-Pikachu fusions? And they're announced as paid DLC before the game has even released?

ROFLMAO

What did I say? What did I literally just say?

"lol what dumb shit did they come up with this time?"

 

[Catgirl Tyranid]

View attachment 7906030View attachment 7906031
So let me get this straight, they release not one but TWO Mega Raichus, and they're BOTH gaytarded Raichu-Pikachu fusions? And they're announced as paid DLC before the game has even released?

ROFLMAO

What did I say? What did I literally just say?

LMAO, THAT'S SO BAD! This is something I'd expect to be scrawled in a Chris-chan comic!

 

[Anonitolia]

Losing my mind over the new stones in the trailer. All of them seem familiar, but not familiar enough to pin down exact palettes. It's made even harder by the fact that Mega stones go off of the Mega design's color palette, not the base form's, so if it's some drastic change like Mega Audino then it's impossible to pinpoint exactly who's getting what.

Anyways, who do you farmers think these stones could be for? I've already given some of my thoughts in my GIANT SCHIZOPHRENIC SPERGOUT post where I make Charlie Day look sane, so I'm curious as to your thoughts.


For reference, all of the old Mega stones and their associated Mega designs:

Pretty much none of the stones shown in the DLC trailer match up with these. I think they're all new.

 

[Lone Star]

I'm honestly surprised Raichu got this treatment. There always seemed to be an incentive for players to not evolve their Pikachu, with Alolan Raichu being the only real exception. Pikachu had its own Z-Move and was one of few Pokémon to have a Gigantamax without being fully evolved with Meowth as well (and Eevee but it makes way more sense to do that than to give a form to every single Eeeveelution).

But yeah, paid DLC announcement before the game even comes out is just atrocious.

 

[Catgirl Tyranid]

I'm honestly surprised Raichu got this treatment. There always seemed to be an incentive for players to not evolve their Pikachu, with Alolan Raichu being the only real exception. Pikachu had its own Z-Move and was one of few Pokémon to have a Gigantamax without being fully evolved with Meowth as well (and Eevee but it makes way more sense to do that than to give a form to every single Eeeveelution).

But yeah, paid DLC announcement before the game even comes out is just atrocious.

Gotta go down that Gen 1 list and keep the pandering fresh.

Too bad no Mega Jynx that reverts its colors to blackface now that woke is dead.

 

[Danann]

Too bad no Mega Jynx that reverts its colors to blackface now that woke is dead.

That XY pre-release material did show that Mega Jynx was gonna be planned and had a design that was trying not to be niggerfied... (Explains why its cry ended up in HOME)

But it was removed due to "negative reactions from Western auidences", which seems to translate to them shocked that people wanted Jynx more or less erased from history at this point.

 

[Love Machine]

A shiny Koraidon & Miraidon event is coming.
Distribution (by serial code) will be held at your local video game store.
Runs from September 26 until October 15 (unused codes expire October 23).
View attachment 7904318 (twitter/archive)
Only redeemable in Scarlet & Violet. It seems that you get the cross-version legendary.

See this link for further restrictions—or, wait for an English version to get published and hopefully clear up some of the ambiguity.

I hate having to walk into FUCKING gamestop for these. But man are these the best shiny legendaries in a while

 

[Celebrate Nite]

But it was removed due to "negative reactions from Western auidences", which seems to translate to them shocked that people wanted Jynx more or less erased from history at this point.

>hey, you know that pokemon that's based off of that japanese Ganguro style from the 80's and 90's?
<REMOVE IT BECAUSE DATS RAYCIST!!!
i hate western pokemon fans so fucking much.

 

[Catgirl Tyranid]

That XY pre-release material did show that Mega Jynx was gonna be planned and had a design that was trying not to be niggerfied... (Explains why its cry ended up in HOME)
View attachment 7907084
But it was removed due to "negative reactions from Western auidences", which seems to translate to them shocked that people wanted Jynx more or less erased from history at this point.

Elsa Jynx was not what I was expecting LMAO

 

[Timaeus Testified]

Glad I'm not the only one who thinks Game Freak/Nintendo a bit greedy for charging $30 for what sounds like a "bonus chapter" to the main story. Y'know, something that used to be free in previous Pokemon games.

I really have to harp on that Pokopia crap though: I've put dozens of hours into both Pixelmon and Cobblemon (the latter actually making the effort to make models that look like they belong in Minecraft) and this Pokopia game looks like crap by comparison. But the supreme irony is Game Freak's choice in name for this game. In case you forgot, Pocket Pair made a game before their smash hit of PalWorld called Craftopia.

What did Game Freak mean by this?

 

[The Cum Beast]

But it was removed due to "negative reactions from Western auidences", which seems to translate to them shocked that people wanted Jynx more or less erased from history at this point.

i would've been fine with a mega jynx tbh, cuz even if a lot of megas were given to fan favorites like starters, there were also a lot of the mons who were weak or unpopular pokemon like beedrill or mawile that received megas

 

[Catgirl Tyranid]

i would've been fine with a mega jynx tbh, cuz even if a lot of megas were given to fan favorites like starters, there were also a lot of the mons who were weak or unpopular pokemon like beedrill or mawile that received megas

Are you unaware of the black face controversy...? That's the reason Jynx is purple now and they don't do a damn thing with it anymore.

 

[The Ultimate Ramotith]

I am hoping that a mod adds Mega Jynx one day.
Given the current state, I feel that only a Kiwi or someone allied with BasedMods would be up to tha task.

 

[chimpSculpture]

Jynx is a stupid design who cares if they don't give it a mega.

 

[Grayback]

Jynx is a stupid design who cares if they don't give it a mega.

I really don't like the idea that certain Pokémon could just get completely abandoned by the franchise—as Jynx sort of has been.
If there's an existing Pokémon design that's dumb or ugly (and I can think of a few), I want to see it get salvaged somehow, like with a new evolution or a mega or a regional variant or a story spotlight or something.

Ignoring a Pokémon, essentially writing it out of existence, bothers me in some weird way that I can't quite describe, even if I didn't like or didn't even care about the Pokémon personally. It feels like some kind of weird lie or betrayal.

 

[Oliver Onions]

Nintendo want to patent the core concept of Pokemon while ironically revealing a new Pokemon spin-off that's a naked rip-off of Minecraft.

The absolute (poke)balls on these motherfuckers.