From February 1996 to today, Pokemon has reigned as an insanely popular series with many TV shows, movies, trading cards, stuffed animals, games, and more. The next installment of Pokemon games will be released on November 18th of this year, with Pokemon Violet and Scarlet marking the ninth generation of Pokemon games. Pokemon Arceus, released earlier this year, wasn’t met with as much appreciation as the usual Pokemon games are, since Arceus introduced a new semi-open-world style, receiving a lot of criticism. However, fans are hopeful that the dev team, Game Freak, will pull through for Violet and Scarlet.

The new games take a bold direction in a variety of ways.  They have different professors for each version, co-op mode, Terra Types, three main storylines, TM crafting, and more. The three main storylines available seem to have fans celebrating the most, as you decide how much of the story you’ll partake in. If you simply want to travel the new region of Paldea and “catch ’em all,” you can absolutely do that! If you want to take on every storyline and attempt to win each of the 18 available badges, go ahead! If you’re just a sucker for the old style of games and want to take down the main eight gyms and become the regional champion, go for it! Pokemon Violet and Scarlet are truly open worlds, and practically the entire region is available to you from the very beginning.

As most fans know, the main Pokemon games are released in pairs with minor differences between versions. This usually means different gym leaders and version-exclusive Pokemon, but Violet and Scarlet are changing things up for the first time with a different professor depending on which version you own. Pokemon Violet is home to Professor Turo while Scarlet has Professor Sada, both of which do not follow the tradition of professors being named after plants. This leads fans to believe that they are not the true professors of the game, but secret villains instead. It is all speculation, however, and the only way to truly know is to play the games yourself or watch many of the playthroughs that will be coming out very soon.

For those who will enjoy the games purely from a battling standpoint, Terra Types might be your best friend in the upcoming games. Terra Types are a new regional anomaly in the Pokemon world, similar to Sword and Sheild’s Dynamaxing. Like Dynamaxing, players will receive an object from their professor that allows them to transform their Pokemon into their Terra Type, turning the Pokemon into one of eighteen random types. The object is known as a Terra Orb. Terra Types not only negates any super-effective moves against your Pokemon’s base typing but doubles the damage of any move that matches their Terra Type. Fans, however, are concerned at the added challenge of Terra Orbs, that they need to be recharged between every use at Pokecenters. It is unknown if and how this stipulation will be balanced, but Game Freak hopefully has something up their sleeve.

All in all, the Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are incredibly promising for new and veteran fans. Game Freak is taking the franchise in a brand new direction, and it’s intriguing to look to the future and see what could possibly be coming next.