Although The Pokemon Company kept silent for a long time before releasing Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's third trailer, it came with plenty of useful bits of information about all the new features in the game. This includes the Terastal phenomenon, the battle gimmick for Gen 9 that allows Pokemon to change their existing types to a specific Tera type, creating interesting strategic options both offensively and defensively for the duration of the battle. Another important feature is that players will be able to ride Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's box Legendaries, which allows them to travel across the Paldea region through the land, air, and water.
Even though Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's third trailer did reveal three new pocket monsters coming with Gen 9, which brought the total of known Pokemon to 11, this is still a very low amount of new critters to showcase since February. The Paldean Pokedex also doesn't yet include many critters as a whole, counting both new and returning Pokemon, which means that many things are going to remain a mystery leading into the coming months. This is particularly problematic for a specific subset of Pokemon fans who like to plan their teams ahead of time, as the only bits of information about Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's new Pokemon come from alleged leaks and rumors.
Why Game Freak Should Reveal More New Monsters for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet
While it's understandable that Game Freak doesn't want to reveal too much about the games before release, having a clear picture of what sort of Pokemon the new region will have to offer is crucial for building hype in some cases. Such is the case of those fans who love to spend time theory-crafting their team composition in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet as well as any other mainline game in the franchise, especially once everything is completely new.
Revealing only 11 new critters in over five months is not enough for anyone to start thinking about what sort of Pokemon they will include in their team, especially since players know nothing about possible evolutions and pre-evolutions for these Pokemon. For example, according to some leaks, Pawmi is rumored to evolve twice and become the first ever Electric/Fighting-type Pokemon in the series, which could be alluring when it comes to planning a team. However, this has not been confirmed yet, and the truth could be very different.
Although leakers may have revealed the type combos for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's starters and evolutions, their designs, moves, and Abilities still remain a secret, meaning that players can't yet commit to a choice that's well-informed. Beyond that, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are supposedly adding some cross-generational evolutions that have only been talked about by leakers, which makes it even harder to come up with a lineup of critters that uses reprised ones instead of new Paldean Pokemon. Then there are going to be regional variants in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, as the new Paldean Wooper proves, and they too remain unaccounted for.
Generally speaking, crafting teams ahead of release is something a good chunk of the Pokemon community enjoys doing, to the point that many fans started sharing their team compositions for Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl leading to their launch date. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet shouldn't take that away from fans; Game Freak should strongly consider revealing more new and old Pokemon that are part of the Gen 9 Pokedex within the next month or two. Overall, it may seem unimportant to some, but theory-crafting teams is and always has been part of the excitement for the release of a new Pokemon game, and Game Freak needs to cater to that.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet launch on November 18, exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.