Among these missing details are who will be the new villainous Pokemon team and how will they factor into the game’s story. Previous iterations have ranged from Team Rocket’s straightforward criminality all the way to the misguided Team Yell supporting Marnie, but Game Freak has yet to confirm who Gen 9’s new team will be. However, whatever design or angle it goes with, in order to fit with Pokemon Scarlet and Violet’s new open world, Game Freak should take after The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and its Yiga Clan.
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A Threat Out In The Open
Breath of the Wild broke a lot of new ground, including the Yiga Clan, a group of enemies created for the game. Though The Legend of Zelda has had its share of villains and minions, the Yiga Clan posed an omnipresent though not insurmountable threat. While they were formidable enough as a group to give Link a run for his rupees, one-to-one they weren’t so dangerous; overall their personalities were a blend between clear-cut menace with just enough camp for any player to realize they weren’t all that tough.
One of the distinct design choices relating to the Yiga Clan which made them stick within the player’s mind was the fact that they could be encountered anywhere in Hyrule. Disguised as fellow travelers, they would goad players into interacting with them all before revealing themselves to be foot soldiers or blademasters and attacking Link. In these isolated fights, it was not difficult for the player to get the upper hand and defeat them, but in an open world, it broke up the solitude just enough by providing some surprise action.
To date, Pokemon has always provided scripted events and forced players into the paths of its villainous teams. For a linear game, this would suffice easily, but if Scarlet and Violet is to be open-world with no linear structure as claimed, then it will need to rework how it will apply these teams into its story. Following the Yiga model is one excellent option, where the player can encounter disguised, villainous Pokemon team members pretending to be normal trainers or passers-by, only to then reveal themselves and prompt a battle.
More Dedicated Team Hideouts
If Game Freak is going to do away with guiding players through events or cutscenes that directly put them in confrontation with Pokemon teams, then it must incentivize players to go out of their way to encounter and battle them. Game Freak could handle this by designing specific places where they can be found. Earlier Pokemon titles have done this, from Team Galactic’s headquarters even to Team Yell’s overrun of Spikemuth, so Scarlet and Violet should follow suit.
In order to encourage players to find team members or hideouts of their own volition, it could again take inspiration from the Yiga Clan. While not needed in order to complete the game, should the player seek out Divine Beast Vah Naboris and meet with the Gerudo people, they can start a quest where they must infiltrate the Yiga hideout and defeat its leader. A Pokemon game could reflect this with similar hideouts, and could even provide options of brute force or stealth to take down the hideout, depending on the player’s choice and skill.
Additionally, by reworking how the team operates and paralleling the Yiga Clan, Game Freak could actually help create a Pokemon team that feels more like a genuine threat and an opponent that deserves to be defeated. Recent Pokemon teams such as Team Yell or Team Skull did pose an obstacle to players, but they were never the outright villains of their respective Pokemon games. This may be the one divergence Game Freak takes from the Yiga model, dependent on who exactly will be Scarlet and Violet’s new antagonist.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet is set to release on November 18, exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.
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