Pokemon Violet First Thoughts vol. 3

doubled-back to explore the Western side of the map, and... this shit don't scale. Why don't the levels scale. At least for the gym leaders, it would be so easy to implement. But now I'm realizing I was probably supposed to come here first? Oh well, it's an opportunity to swap out my main team and raise up a B-team. The way exp works, it's really not worth shitting on level 12s with your level 25.

Also, I discovered that you can jump up steep slopes, as long as you go backwards. Skyrim horse physics, everyone! I assume I'll get some Rock Climb ability later, but for now this will do. Honestly, it made exploration even more fun.

The un-fun part, though, is how many goddamn tiny-ass Pokemon there are in this game. Can't hardly see the little pricks when I'm hauling ass across the countryside in my 1,200 pound Poke-motorcycle, but if one tiny Smolive gets in my way, instead of squashing the bitch flat, Miraidon comes screeching to a halt so we can engage in battle. I should be able to run them over and just gain exp, like when you send your Pokemon out on auto-battle.

Another thing starting to bug me is how, whenever there's an NPC standing next to a Pokemon, even if you look directly at the person, half the time the game will go "oh, you want to talk to their Pokemon? Ok, here we go!" *Pokemon squeaks, slowly turns around to face you, then chirps again* Wow thank you so much for your input, truly illuminating, now can you please shut up and let me talk to your trainer? I need to hear them tell me some bullshit about how cool sandwiches are or something.

But getting back to the levels, I also discovered a way to get to a secret cave and gym where everyone's 15 levels higher than me. So I'll come back later. It's mildly thrilling to realize you stepped into the wrong neighborhood and you're out of your league in an RPG like this, but at the same time... is it really fun? You either go "oops, my mistake" and turn around, or grind like hell to make up the difference, thus ruining the power curve for the rest of the game. Dashing around to grab high-end items before you're supposed to is cool, though.