After completing their playthrough of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, a player gave some feedback concerning a missed opportunity the games had with one of its main rivals, Nemona. The player posted their take on Reddit, and other players chimed in to discuss what Pokemon Scarlet and Violet could have done better as far as Nemona is concerned.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet were recently updated to version 1.1.0 to address a few game glitches. Namely, glitches concerning music not playing correctly during specific battles in the Victory Road story arc, and other glitches related to Pokemon duplication. Version 1.1.0 also brought the first Ranked Battle season for the ninth generation of Pokemon games, with prizes to earn for those that want to compete.
Speaking of battling, a Redditor by the name of CitizenDane27 noted that Nemona teaches the player how to Terastallize early on in the game, and uses the battle gimmick in each subsequent encounter on the starter Pokemon that is weak to the player's own. However, this weakness extends through the entirety of the Victory Road story arc, from beginning to end. One of the encounters with Nemona happens in Medali after the player earns the Gym Badge, the same town that allows for Tera-types to be changed. This process is done by talking to a chef after defeating Gym Leader Larry. If the player has 50 Tera Shards of a single type in their inventory, the chef will make a corresponding meal that changes the Tera-type of one Pokemon. As pointed out by CitizenDane27, the game clearly stated that Tera-types can be changed and that the battle with Nemona in Medali could have been the game's chance to teach the player how to do so.
CitizenDane27 further explained that the game could have allowed Nemona to change her starter Pokemon's Tera-type to either the secondary typing of its final evolution or to a type that is strong against the player's starter. For example, if the player chose Fuecoco for their playthrough and evolved it to Skeledirge, Nemona would have Meowscarada as her ace Pokemon. In this scenario, Nemona could change Meowscarada's Tera-type from Grass-type to either Dark-type or Water-type, both of which are hard counters to Skeledirge's Fire/Ghost dual-type. This would force players to adapt new strategies accordingly.
However, some glaring performance issues remain in the games, despite the new version update. As players continued to express their issues with Pokemon Scarlet and Violet after the update, Nintendo and Pokemon issued an apology and pledged to continue working on improvements to the games. When these improvements will be released remains to be seen.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are available now for Nintendo Switch.