Video Game / Pokémon Scarlet and Violet

aka: Pokemon Scarlet

Welcome to the open world of Pokémon.

"You will journey together...learn new things together...share each other's thoughts and feelings...and find something you might always treasure!"

— Director Clavell

Pokémon Scarlet and Violet are the first pair of Generation IX games in the main Pokémon series, released on Nintendo Switch on November 18, 2022. They feature an open world, building on the foundation set by Pokémon Legends: Arceus. The games take place in the Paldea region, based on Spain and Portugal.

The player has just moved to Paldea with their mother and enrolls in a Cool School (Naranja Academy in Scarlet or Uva Academy in Violet). As part of the academy's curriculum, the player is tasked to go on a Treasure Hunt, where they trek through the region in search of their greatest treasure. During their quest, they meet three people who need help achieving certain goals:

• Victory Road: Nemona — your Friendly Rival — wants you to follow in her footsteps and become a Champion-ranked Pokémon Trainer by completing the League Challenge. This is the classic "fight eight Gym Leaders, then the Elite Four and Champion" story like is present in most Pokémon games.

• Path of Legends: Arven — a troubled Academy student — wants your help researching and locating five mysterious "Titan Pokémon" across Paldea. Each Titan is rumored to guard one of the five Herba Mystica, known as incredible ingredients for making food.

• ★ Starfall Street ★: Cassiopeia — a shadowy hacker — tasks you with completing "Operation Starfall", a plan to forcefully disband a delinquent gang called Team Star. To do this, you must invade each of the five Star Bases dotted around Paldea, which are usually blockading key routes, and defeat the gang leaders.

Meanwhile, the player stumbles upon the wounded Legendary Pokémon Koraidon (Scarlet)/Miraidon (Violet) and earns its trust. Assigned by a Pokémon Professor to look after it while it recovers, you set off on the Treasure Hunt, oblivious to the mysteries that surround the Great Crater of Paldea at the region's heart...

The game encourages an open-world dynamic by letting the player do any of the three quests in any order they wish to complete them — so unlike most games in the series, you can become the League Champion before defeating the evil team, for example. Although, if you stumble into a Beef Gate, you're gonna have a bad time.

On February 27, 2023, it was announced that the game would be receiving Expansion DLC like Pokémon Sword and Shield. The DLC, called The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero, is divided into two stories: The Teal Mask, which was released on September 13, 2023, and The Indigo Disk, which was released on December 14, 2023, with each having their own stories, new Legendary Pokémon, and other new Pokémon to obtain. On December 20, 2023, an additional epilogue was announced, released on January 11, 2024.

• Part 1: The Teal Mask: You are chosen to visit the distant nature land of Kitakami as part of a joint school trip with Blueberry Academy. There, you meet up with Carmine and her younger brother Kieran, both of who hail from Kitakami. During your stay there, you learn about the legend of the ogre Ogerpon who was cast away to Oni Mountain by the Loyal Three. However, not all is what it seems to be, as there is more about the legend than meets the eye...

• Part 2: The Indigo Disk: Following the events of The Teal Mask, as part of an exchange student program, you are cordially invited by Director Cyrano to visit the highly-advanced and battle-centric Blueberry Academy, based in the waters of the Unova region. There, you undertake a challenge against the academy's own Elite Four while exploring the academy's Terarium, a massive underwater facility that houses many wild Pokémon in four separate environments. Meanwhile, reports that Area Zero may become a threat in the future come soon, with the mysterious Terapagos being the source of such danger...

• Epilogue: Mochi Mayhem: Worlds collide after the events of The Indigo Disk when Carmine and Kieran return to Kitakami and invite you, as well as Nemona, Arven, and Penny. The first meeting goes south however when, one by one, the inhabitants of Mossui Town start behaving strangely...

Elements from this video game are explored in Pokémon Horizons: The Series, including the Paldea Region and its starter mons. Separately, similar to Pokémon: Twilight Wings and Pokémon: Hisuian Snow, the series got a web series created by Wit Studio called Pokémon: Paldean Winds, the first episode of which was released on September 6th, 2023.

---

These games contain examples of:

A-D

• 11th-Hour Superpower: During the Path of Legends, the professor's Koraidon/Miraidon regains its traversal abilities (such as swimming and wall-climbing), but not its ability to battle. Come the climactic showdown at the Zero Lab, and the berserk Paradise Protection Protocol's lockdown leaving them as your only option, they not only reawaken their battle form, but barely endure a devastating attack from the Protocol's Koraidon/Miraidon and Dragon-type Terastallize afterward to devastatingly augmented results, defeating the machine's final attempt to defend itself in only a couple of attacks.
  • Used against the player by Terapagos during the final battle of The Indigo Disk. Kieran attempts to Terastallize it to defeat the player character, but it becomes so overwhelmingly powerful that it breaks a Master Ball and proceeds to attack the player group, forcing you to use everything you have to defeat it in battle.
• 20 Bear Asses:
  • Wild Pokémon drop various materials when caught or defeated, which are normally used for making TMs.
  • Getting the Auspicious Armor in Scarlet and Malicious Armor in Violet, both of which are required to evolve Charcadet (to Armarouge with Auspicious Armor or Ceruledge with Malicious Armor), requires gathering 10 Bronzor Fragments/Sinistea Chips by defeating wild Bronzor/Sinistea and then trading them to an NPC.
  • To evolve Gimmighoul, you need Gimmighoul Coins collected by either interacting with roaming Gimmighoul or battling Chest Form Gimmighoul. It takes 999 coins to evolve a single Gimmighoul. While the issue is mitigated due to the facts that Gimmighoul (both roaming and Chest Form) periodically respawn at various locations where they can be found and it's possible to find more than one of them at once, the most likely amount the player will manage to procure Gimmighoul Coins from at a time is in the single digits (1-5). Have fun.
  • At Blueberry Academy's Terarium, to gain Blueberry Points (BP), you need to constantly fulfill task after task which involve from sneaking up on a Pokémon to defeating several Pokémon through auto-battle. If some tasks seem a bit annoying to complete, they can be refreshed with BPs to get a new random one. And after every 10th task is complete, a bonus task that provides far more BPs can be completed (which can also be refreshed, though the necessary BPs to refresh are high).
• Ability Required to Proceed: Mostly averted; locations important to the main storyline (gyms, Team Star bases, and Titan Pokémon) can be accessed by foot all the way from Mesagoza, although the False Dragon Titan cannot be accessed until you give your Raidon the ability to swim.
• Absurdly Powerful Student Council: In The Indigo Disk, the League Club operates as a student council, with its Elite Four members (one of them actually being the president of the student council) occupying designated plazas for their use in the Terarium. Whoever becomes the club's Champion can then create rules for the club and enforce them without opposition from either the Elite Four itself or the school faculty.
• Academy of Adventure:
  • The main story involves the player character enrolling in an academy (Naranja Academy for Scarlet, Uva Academy for Violet) as they go about their Pokémon journey, including taking part in an independent study project known as the Treasure Hunt, which has three separate branches: Victory Road (defeating the eight Gym Leaders and becoming a Champion), ★ Starfall Street ★ (taking down Team Star), and Path of Legends (helping Arven obtain Herba Mystica from the five Titan Pokémon).
  • The Indigo Disk DLC adds Blueberry Academy, which the player character attends as an exchange student. It has its own battling league with its own Elite Four and Champion, and a whole Terrarium to explore filled with wild Pokémon.
• Added Alliterative Appeal: The final battle of the base game puts the player against the Paradise Protection Protocol.
• Adults Are Useless:
  • In the main game, the former teachers and staff at Naranja/Uva Academy did nothing about the bullying Team Star's leaders went through, and when they banded together to fight back against their bullies, the deputy of then-Director Harrington deleted all records of the bullying happening, which likely contributed to Team Star getting a negative reputation after their former bullies started transferring to different schools. As a result, Harrington fired the deputy and resigned alongside the entire teaching staff; the current teachers have all been teaching for only a year and a half when the player arrives. By contrast, Clavell does his best to avert this trope, going undercover to figure out why Team Star acts the way they do so that he can help them, and the current Naranja/Uva Academy teaching staff are at least shown to have tried to avert this by being Cool Teachers to the students in varying ways.
  • In The Indigo Disk, the school faculty isn't any better at handling the stuff that occurs in the League Club. After Kieran comes back home and proceeds to beat the BB League and become its Champion, he starts putting strict rules in place which can't be overturned by even the Elite Four members (they used to be Champion-less due to Drayton always refusing the Champion role to avoid having to work too much, allowing all four of them to divide duties among themselves), causing the club to undergo unnecessary drama just to appease his Sanity Slippage, and while one NPC notes the negative change in the League Club but feels powerless to do anything about it, at no point does anyone make an active effort to try to stop his ruling. When he's ousted by the player and his rules are tossed away, some professors comment that the students look much happier than before because of it.
  • During the final boss of The Indigo Disk, Kieran, Carmine, the player, and Professor Briar are all present. Take a guess which character doesn't participate in the battle despite everyone else chipping in.
• A.I. Breaker: Tera Raid Pokémon with devastating status moves don't really know how to deal with Gholdengo's Good as Gold, which negates targeted status moves that would affect Gholdengo. If the raid Pokémon doesn't have a super effective attacking move to use, it will generally sit there uselessly spamming status moves, giving the player ample time to set up for an astronomically powerful Make It Rain or similar attack.
• Americasia: Paldea is based on the Iberian Peninsula (Spain, Portugal and Andorra), but it manages to incorporate a significant number of eastern influences as well. Ramen and sushi restaurants are fairly common sights, the mayonnaise ingredient specifically resembles Kewpie brand mayonnaise found in Japan, the Treasures of Ruin are based on the four Chinese perils, and some of the other new Pokémon introduced include Tatsugiri (which resembles sushi), Ogerpon (an Oni), and the Loyal Three (Okidogi, Munkidori and Fezandipiti), which are based on the story of Momotarō (though to be fair, Ogerpon and the Loyal Three aren't from Paldea, but hail from Kitakami, a DLC-exclusive Japanese-inspired land, instead).
• Amazing Technicolor Battlefield: The battle with AI Sada/Turo takes place in a room largely composed of iridescent Tera Crystals, though they all turn red/purple (depending on the version you're playing) when the Paradise Protection Protocol takes over for Round 2.
• Ambiguous Robots: The Paradox Pokémon in Violet all appear to resemble current day Pokémon like Delibird and Hariyama, but are sleek and robotic in design. It's unclear whether they're actually robots or cyborgs, as despite all appearing to be metallic, only one is actually part Steel in Iron Treads. Every Future Paradox is just as susceptible to status conditions and being caught like their present-day counterparts. The official website mentions Miraidon having "internal organs", and in the game Professor Turo refers to it having a genetic makeup similar to Cyclizar, so it’s possible they're at least partially organic.
• Ambiguous Situation: In The Teal Mask, it's never explicitly explained how the Loyal Three were resurrected; they just suddenly burst out of the ground, alive.
• Anti-Frustration Features: Apart from the franchise' previously implemented features that makes gameplay easier, Scarlet and Violet introduces a few more:
  • You won't receive a time penalty when an NPC ally faints in a Tera Raid, unlike Pokémon Sword and Shield. Incredibly helpful, since the time limit can be pretty strict (especially on higher-ranked Raids) and the NPC Trainers' AI often still falls into the Artificial Stupidity category.
  • Any sort of field effect that would make a Pokémon disappear won't kick in on Shinies; Shiny Sandygast won't melt in the rain; Shiny Hoppip, Igglybuff, or similarly light Pokémon won't blow away in strong winds; and any Shiny Pokémon exclusive to a certain time of day won't disappear when the time changes over. Auto-Battle also doesn't let your Pokémon attack Shiny Pokémon, so if you have a Pokémon out and it's ignoring one wild Pokémon in particular, it's probably a Shiny.
  • You can now get egg moves without hatching an egg via usage of the new Mirror Herb item. Just have an empty move set on the Pokémon holding the Mirror Herb, set up a picnic with said Pokémon and the Pokémon with the egg move you want in your party, and let a minute pass. The Pokémon holding the Mirror Herb now has the egg move. This is the only way to get certain egg moves for Pokémon that aren't in the same Egg Group as the one that already knows the move (i.e. Tinkatink gets Ice Hammer as an Egg Move, but Crabominable, the only Pokémon that can learn it legitimately as a level up move, is not in the same Egg Group).
  • The top bread is not needed to get the full effect of the sandwiches, meaning if you made your sandwich ingredients piled up and you believe that the top bread could topple it and ruin the desired effects, you may toss it aside and the sandwich will still give you your desired effect. You can even do this at Crispin's trial, though he will comment on it if you do.
  • While on foot the player character will balk at the edge of a cliff, making it harder for them to accidentally fall. They can still go over the edge and be rescued by their Rotom phone keeping them from hitting the ground too fast - after most of the fall, so it's not a slow process - which then briefly gives the option to return to the place they fell from, in case it really was an accident. Area Zero is a huge open world area without paths and must be navigated initially on foot, but going over cliffs tends to cause the world to fade out and back in near the stations where you have to go - even if you're in the cavern and fall into the mysterious depths past the lab.
  • If you've gotten 999 Gimmighoul Coins and have already used them to evolve Gimmighoul into Gholdengo, a man you can talk to in Medali will have any coins you would've gotten from Chest Form Gimmighoul you've defeated after reaching the limit.
  • In The Indigo Disk:
    • After clearing The Indigo Disk's story, talking to Briar will allow you to use your Tera Orb without needing to recharge it, saving countless trips to the Pokémon Center or the self-healing stations for Tera Orb recharging.
    • Hisuian Qwilfish's evolution method into Overqwil has been changed to where it no longer needs to use Barb Barrage in Strong Style (due to that mechanic being Legends: Arceus-exclusive). Instead, it just needs to be leveled up while knowing Barb Barrage to trigger the evolution. This is not only to make completing the Blueberry Pokédex easier, but also allows a player to get an Overqwil without having to transfer between the two games. Stantler, however, did not get this treatment, so you will still need to transfer between the two games if you want to use a Wyrdeer.
    • While you can't obtain Black Augurite to directly evolve Scyther into Kleavor, you can catch wild Kleavor in the Terrarium's Canyon Biome to fill your Pokédex.
• Anti-Grinding: In addition to the now-standard "overleveled Pokémon gains less exp" rule, this game provides additional anti-grinding methods, this time using the gym badges as an incentive for you to beat gyms in order instead of power-leveling to endgame level right from the start.
  • Any Pokémon you catch or receive from trade above a certain level limit (20 if you haven't got any badge) tend to disobey you.
  • There is a hidden variable which reduces your chances to catch overleveled Pokémon.
  • Regardless of the actual level of Pokémon you battle, the game treats it as though you only face Pokémon of up to the level limit determined by your badges. This makes grinding via battling high-level Pokémon impractical, as the exp you gain is only equal to what you would gain from a lower-leveled Pokémon.
  • While you can use Exp candies to quickly level up your Pokémon, higher tier candies only start showing up in higher-level Tera raids, which again only become available once you obtain enough badges.
• Applied Phlebotinum: Tera Crystals aren't just capable of changing your Pokémon's type. If the professor's experiments are any indication, they can also be used to power a highly sophisticated artificial intelligence and a time machine. They also allow Ogerpon to Terastallize on its own and change its Tera Type based on what mask it's wearing, with the mask serving as the Tera Jewel on its head.
• April Fools' Day: A Mystery Gift code distribution was done around this day, involving a Lechonk with a Flying Tera-type.
• Arc Symbol: Hexagons are all over the place, and are hinted to have something to do with the Terastal Phenomenon. The crystals produced by Terastallization are hexagonal prisms, the Tera Orb resembles a Poké Ball with a hexagon in place of a button, the Tera Jewels that crown Terastallized Pokémon all have a hexagonal gem with what resembles eyes on it at the front of their base, and the symbol selected to Terastallize a Pokémon is a hexagon with lines extending outward from each corner, which is also Paldea's Origin Mark. They even show up in minor, but unusual places such as being the frames of Jacq's glasses. The Scarlet or Violet Book depict Terapagos, the Pokémon that may be what enables Terastallization, with a shell covered in hexagonal scales, though it does not make a physical appearance in the base game.
• Arc Words: "Treasure" and relating questions to it becomes a titular theme of the game as the story involves the characters, the Player Character included, find what it is that they consider a "Treasure".
• Art Evolution:
  • This entry features overall shift from the cel-shaded art style that had defined the mainline 3D entries up to this point to a somewhat more detailed and realistic approach.
  • The models of many Pokémon have more detailed textures, as opposed to the flat coloring and shading of the 3D models used in previous main series games. For example, Seviper's body now has visible scales, while Lucario has gained a fluffy fur texture and a metallic sheen for its shoulders and spikes. Both mascots have different textures on their skin and feathers.
  • The character models of the human characters have moved away from being direct translations of the 2D artwork, now appearing similar to the humans in spin-off titles such as Detective Pikachu and New Pokémon Snap.
• Artificial Stupidity:
  • Besides the usual instances of this in the series, such as wild Pokémon reliably using ineffective moves, there is one good instance of this in the second battle with Nemona. She'll Terastallize her Pawmi to introduce the Tera mechanic to the player, but it's entirely possible the player has captured a Diglett or Wooper by this point. If one of those is sent out, Nemona the master of type matchups will use Thundershock over and over despite it doing nothing, because that's literally its only move.
  • Major battles will always end with the opponent Terastallizing their last Pokémon, even if it'd be more advantageous not to because doing so opens them up to a super-effective hit they weren't previously vulnerable to.
• Artistic License – Medicine: The Spicy Herba Mystica is said to boost one's metabolism by flushing out toxins, and producing a lot of sweat. This is recycling the myth that sweat gets rid of toxins, when in actuality, its only purpose is to control body temperature. Furthermore, a "toxin" is just whatever the body has an excess amount of, which it already gets rid of naturally through excrement.
• Ascended Extra: The recurring Pokémon Schools in past titles were small optional areas with info for newcomers that veteran players would probably ignore altogether. The resident school in Paldea is the prestigious Naranja/Uva Academy, which is a plot-centric location staffed by a Cast of Snowflakes rather than generic NPCs.
• Ascended Meme: A popular tactic for players making custom giant sandwiches was to drop the top piece of bread far away from the plate, which prevents one from jostling the ingredients off the bun and creating a sandwich with different meal powers. In the "Indigo Disk", doing this for Crispin's sandwich during his Elite Trial will have him comment on this, wondering if it's a Paldean tradition to not have the top half of bread on sandwiches.
• Award-Bait Song: Like Pokémon X and Y, a "happy ending" song with lyrics plays during the credits — except this time, instead of only having subtitled lyrics on screen, it's the fully vocalized "Celestial" by Ed Sheeran.
• Awesome Anachronistic Apparel: The Professors both wear clothing that would be more at home in other time periods (a cavewoman-style outfit for Sada and a futuristic jumpsuit for Turo). It's a subtle hint to how they wanted to populate the world with Pokémon from the distant past/future.
• Awesome, but Impractical: The move Revelation Dance is a Normal-type move that changes its type to match the primary type of the user. It also changes type when the user Terastalizes to match their Tera Type, and at 90 base power, it is more powerful than Tera Blast. Unfortunately, this move is also stuck as the Secret Art of the very mediocre Oricorio, meaning you're probably better off using a better Pokémon with Tera Blast than trying to slot Oricorio on your team.
• Back Stab: Carrying over from Legends Arceus is the ability to ambush wild Pokémon when their back is turned by hitting them with a Poké Ball. When successful, the wild Pokémon will be stunned and unable to act for the first turn of the encounter, and the chance of successfully catching it also increases.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • Going off of the trailers, the player may know that Koraidon/Miraidon has the ability to dash, jump high, swim, glide, and crawl on walls. Looking at the Titan Pokémon you need to defeat to unlock those abilities, many of them seem to line up with their own movement patterns... only for none of them to match up.
    • The cliff face-crawling Stony Cliff Titan doesn't give you the ability to crawl on walls, but the ability to dash.
    • The flying Open Sky Titan doesn't give you the ability to glide, but the ability to swim.
    • The quick tunneling Lurking Steel Titan doesn't give you the ability to dash, but the ability to jump higher.
    • The rampaging Quaking Earth Titan doesn't give you the ability to dash either, but the ability to glide.
    • The lake-bound False Dragon Titan doesn't give you the ability to swim, but the ability to climb walls.
  • Throughout the trek through the final dungeon, it isn't a stretch to assume the professor, or whomever is really speaking with the heroes throughout the journey, is tricking the kids into setting them free and helping unleash some terrible disaster, given the professor's odd, mechanical dialogue and the various things revealed throughout the journey. However, once you make it to the Zero Lab and the Professor AI can properly explain things, it turns out that the AI is benevolent, and only opposes the player in the end because their programming forces them to, a threat that the AI properly informs the player of before they commit to the finale. Moreover, while there is a terrible disaster, the threat of the Paradox Pokémon escaping the Area Zero and overrunning the ecosystem, its cause was set into motion long ago, and the heroes were actually called to stop the disaster before it comes to pass.
• Bait-and-Switch Boss: The False Dragon Titan. At first, it looks like you'll be facing the Tatsugiri that keeps saying "Tai-tan..." only for it to get eaten by a Titan-sized Dondozo. After you beat it, you and Arven are free to get its Herba Mystica. And then you get blindsided by the Tatsugiri that was eaten, ironically making it the true False Dragon Titan and the only one of the pair you can catch if you revisit the area.
• Beef Gate: The open-world nature of the game means the game will not directly restrict where you can go, although this also means it doesn't stop you from straying into intended late-game areas and then getting crushed by wild Pokémon many levels higher than yours. The obedience system in these games also stop you from catching a high-level Pokémon to use as a Disc-One Nuke because you need a certain number of badges to make them easier to catch and obey you even if you do luck out and catch one. Alfornada Cavern is probably the most notable instance of this, as it's home to level 40-something wild Pokémon whereas the ones in the area that leads to it are around level 16, and an NPC outside the cavern even warns you about how strong the Pokémon in the cave are. This is why Poké Dolls can be easily found in the overworld — so you can guarantee escape if you accidentally stumble upon a high-level Pokémon.
• Blow You Away: The game introduces the closest thing it can to a "Wind type", as it now categorizes certain moves as "wind-based moves" that activate certain abilities (much like sound-based moves in earlier generations). A full list of wind-based moves as of Generation IX (that are usable, since Silver Wind and Ominous Wind aren't in the game) can be found here.
• Book Ends: Not a strict example, but not veering far from it: the first wild Pokémon encounters in Poco Path start with a traditional dedicated battle theme, which gets sidelined shortly afterwards in favor of various Variable Mixes. The traditional theme can be heard again much, much later into the game, if one decides to wander right outside of the game's final area, climbing up the walls of the Great Crater of Paldea without going/falling in, where no music plays at all. Encountering a wild Pokémon in this area triggers the same traditional battle theme.
• Born Winner: Titan Pokémon have 30 IVs in every stat, even when captured after reverting to normal size. Note, IVs max out at 31, meaning all of theirs are nearly maxed out. While no longer giant, they're also the largest possible size for their species normally.
• Boss-Altering Consequence: Like all other main-line games, your choice of starter affects some fights:
  • Nemona's team will consist of the starter that has a weakness to yours (Fuecoco < Quaxly < Sprigatito < Fuecoco). Her endgame team will consist of Lycanroc (Day), Goodra, Dudunsparce, Orthworm, and Pawmot. Her final Pokémon will be either Skeledirge, Quaquaval, or Meowscarada.
  • Director Clavell's team at the end of the Team Star questline will always consist of Oranguru, Abomasnow, and Polteageist. The remaining three members of his team depend on which starter you chose as he will have the one with a type advantage to yours. They could be Gyarados, Amoongus, or Houndoom, with each type match being replaced by Quaquaval, Mewoscarada, or Skeledirge respectively.
• Boss Subtitles:
  • Following on the steps of Pokémon Legends: Arceus, the five bosses of the Path of Legends story quest have their name displayed alongside a title on top of their health bar (e.g., "Klawf, the Stony Cliff Titan"). This applies to the Final Boss as well: "Koraidon/Miraidon, the Guardian of Paradise".
  • This is present in the event-exclusive 7-star Tera Raids too, where the Mightiest Mark-holding foe Pokémon will be named "[Pokémon name] the Unrivaled".
  • In The Teal Mask, both the Loyal Three and Ogerpon have similar titles, with Ogerpon getting four of them, one for each Mask form.
  • In The Indigo Disk, Terapagos gets two, "The Indigo Disk" for its normal form and "The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero" for its Stellar Form.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Anyone, be it Pokémon or human, that eats Pecharunt's Mochi will become brainwashed into serving it such as the "Loyal" three who were originally unimpressive before gaining Pecharunt's chains and becoming stronger and later the near entirety of Mossui town except for the nurse with Nemona, Arven, Penny, and Carmine all constantly saying "Mochi!" while dancing and attacking the player and Kieran in the "Mochi Mayhem" epilogue with Nemona Fighting from the Inside. Thankfully, it ends up undone once the player catches Pecharunt.
• Branch-and-Bottleneck Plot Structure: The game's storylines act as such. After completing the prologue, starting the Treasure Hunt, and being cut loose into Paldea, the game splits into four distinct story branches - "Victory Road", "Starfall Street", "Path of Legends", and the first DLC story, The Teal Mask. Completing the first three unlocks the final story, "The Way Home". Completing that and The Teal Mask unlocks the second DLC story, The Indigo Disk. Completing that along with the postgame quests for Nemona, Arven, and Penny unlocks the epilogue, Mochi Mayhem.
• Breaking Old Trends:
  • The game's announcement trailer is the first time that a region's starter Pokémon had their designs revealed without their names, with those being announced afterwards separately on social media. It is also the first time since Pokémon X and Y that the starters were revealed with only their 2D artwork, as opposed to their in-game models.
  • This is the first time that the protagonists have different colors of starting outfits depending on what version you play. The outfit worn in Scarlet is vibrant and orange-ish, while the Violet outfit is darker and purplish. These are also the first games in the series where the protagonists have the same outfit model regardless of gender.
  • Professors Sada and Turo aren't named after plants like the professors from previous games, instead having names related to "past" and "future". This is also the first game where the local professor the player associates with is different between the two versions.
  • Though the first two generations had some degree of nonlinearity at certain points in their storylines, this is the first to allow gyms to be done in any order. Also, rather than being a position only held by one character, Champion in this game is instead a rank awarded to anyone who pass a test known as the Champion Assessment.
  • While the Player Character dealing with the region's evil team has always been placed alongside the gym challenge (which is called Victory Road in this generation) in the main storyline, this is the first generation where it's a core story in its own right with the ★ Starfall Street ★ storyline. In addition, the Path of Legends storyline takes cues from Pokémon Legends: Arceus' storyline, but is now juxtaposed alongside the main gym challenge as well.
  • In addition to the paths being treated as separately important storylines, this is also the first mainline Pokémon game to have the battle against the Elite Four and Champion not be the final major event in your game, and the Pokémon League being your final location. Instead, it's only one of the three paths you must play through, and all three paths have to be completed before you can unlock the true final story and boss "The Way Home" á la Sonic Adventure 2.
  • In most mainline Pokémon games, your region's Professor and their laboratory are typically among the first locations you end up visiting to start your journey, and oftentimes are unrelated to the bigger conflicts that come along later in the story. In here, your region's professor's laboratory is one of the last levels in the game, with said professor being a major source of conflict that drives the story in the background.
  • Pawmi is the first Pikachu Expy since Pikachu itself to evolve.
  • Earlier generations introduced party Pokémon following their trainer in the overworld, but the "Let's Go!" feature of these games is the first that allows them to fight wild Pokémon in auto battles with little to no input from the trainer.
  • This is the first odd-numbered generation to introduce evolutions of old Pokémon, something usually only done in even-numbered generations. ^note Hoenn’s Wynaut and Azurill were pre-evolutions.
  • This is the first generation where NPC trainers won't challenge you to battles as soon as they spot you. Instead, you have to walk up and challenge them. NPCs will also have text icons appear over their head when you get close, so unlike previous generations, you can tell in advance which ones will challenge you to a battle and which ones only want to talk. Trainers that are considerably stronger than others in the area will have black text icons to warn you before challenging them.
  • This is the first generation where you can run away from Trainer battles. The game treats this as a loss, where you lose some money and end up in the last Pokémon Center you visited, but considering the open world means you can run into very strong Trainers you may have no hope of defeating, this is a good time-saver.
  • There is no longer a Day Care or other dedicated location to leave Pokémon to breed and produce Eggs; instead, they are produced by compatible Pokémon in the active party during picnics.
  • Previous generations always had a Big Bad that leads a villainous team to serve as Climax Boss for each game's story, and you're usually introduced to the Big Bad towards the middle of the game. Here, there aren't really any truly villainous characters. The Team Star story would be the closest analogue, and is just one of three different storylines available. Team Star's Big Bad isn't shown until the end of said storyline, and while Team Star antagonizes you, they're actually Good All Along and were only formed to combat the bullying problem at the academy, hardly making them villainous at all. Even the Final Boss of the game, AI Sada/Turo, is quite benevolent and assists the player, and you only have to fight them because they can't go against their programming and are forced to fight you.
  • There is no fishing in this game, unlike the rest of the games in the series. Since Pokémon can be encountered in the overworld, any Pokémon that would have been a fishing encounter can just be found swimming around in the water.
  • There are no Gentleman^note Assuming one does not consider the Monsieur class from X and Y to be a separate Trainer class, Fisher, Lass, or Swimmer trainers for the first time in the main series.
  • Shadow Claw is no longer TM065, which it had been since Generation IV. It is now TM061, with Air Slash now taking its place as TM065.
  • Some of the old item get jingles, like the TM get jingle, have been replaced with quicker jingles, likely due to the fact that you can pick up items in quick succession in the overworld now.
  • This is the first Generation where the Fire-Type starter's final form isn't bipedal (Skeledirge being a four-legged crocodile-like creature)^note Although the Pokédex and Pokémon Home do classify Typhlosion as a quadruped (and it always runs on all fours), it still maintains a bipedal stance in its default pose.
  • This is the first Generation since Gen IV where new evolutions of previous Pokémon were introduced that come from the immediately preceding Generation instead of an older one, with two Pokémon from Gen VIII getting new evolutions: Dipplin, a third evolved form of Applin (alongside Flapple and Appletun) that resembles a candied apple^note This also makes Applin only the third Pokémon with three (or more) evolutionary branches, and the first since Gen II, alongside Eevee and Tyrogue., and Archaludon, the evolved form of Duraludon that resembles a suspension bridge. Additionally, in The Indigo Disk, Dipplin itself gets a new evolution in the form of Hydrapple, making it the first Pokémon to further evolve after choosing an evolutionary branch.^note The third if you count the Mr. Rime and Goodra lines, which split before a second evolution due to having regional forms.
  • With the addition of the first DLC region Kitakami, this is the first Generation since Gen II that allows players into a different region, and the first full stop to allow players to reach that second region before playing through the original region's endgame.
  • The Indigo Disk introduces a second set of Elite Four members, rather than every game in the series prior having just one set.
  • It's not unheard of for the Elite Four to have young trainers among more numerous adults as part of their lineup. However, in The Indigo Disk, Blueberry Academy's Elite Four is entirely made up of young students.
  • This is the first time since Ruby/Sapphire that the third legendary doesn't even make a physical appearance in the base game, only as some background info. Furthermore, while past third legendaries have at least some relationship with the cover legendaries, however minor or brief ^E.g.Necrozma hails from Ultra Space like Solgaleo and Lunala, and can fuse with either, while Eternatus the alien had a brief conflict with Zacian/Zamazenta in the game's distant past, Terapagos is so utterly divorced from Koraidon/Miraidon, with their most direct link being that the time machine used to summon the Raidons is powered by Tera Crystals. Lastly, Terapagos isn't a Dragon-type like all previous third legendaries (even Necrozma has a Dragon-type form).
• Break the Badass: The second Koraidon/Miraidon in Area Zero leaves your legendary so scared that they flee the crater at the beginning of the game, to the point that they refuse to come out of their ball during your first visit of the area due to the trauma they experienced. It's implied by Arven that this trauma was strong enough to be partially responsible for suppressing not only their battle capabilities but also their mobility skills, requiring the five Herba Mystica to get them back into shape.
• Brick Joke: In Mochi Mayhem, a scene shows the heroes at the community center looking for the TV remote. Once Pecharunt is captured and everyone snaps out of their brainwashing, Nemona asks if they ever found the remote.
• Brought Down to Badass: Each of the Titan Pokémon can be found wandering around the area they were previously defeated at as a static encounter, except they have lost their giant size and aura enhancement from the Herba Mystica. They are still at the max size a Pokémon of their species can normally achieve, and capable of being trained to be as strong as any other "normal" member of their kind. In fact, they're actually stronger than most members of their species as they will have near-perfect IVs in every stat.
• Brutal Bonus Level: The Indigo Disk DLC is not for the faint of heart. It has some of the toughest mandatory trainers in the entire franchise in almost exclusively double battles (which lend complicated strategies that can cripple an unprepared opponent): the trainers in the expansion (to say nothing of the BB Elite Four) all carry competitive Pokémon with very smart strategies and very astute AI, which they will use to completely disabuse you of the notion that you can just steamroll through with your maxed out team. That's right: it's very possible to lose to a team that's dozens of levels lower than yours in this if you don't prepare for it.
• But Thou Must!:
  • There are several dialogue options where the game won't proceed until the player gives the response that the game wants. Nemona flat-out says that she'll keep asking to be your rival for life until you say "yes" if you turn her down a couple of times after defeating Geeta and becoming a Champion.
  • The game is also completely full of the other flavor of "But Thou Must!". Almost every single choice you are given has absolutely no bearing on anything except the following dialogue at best, and sometimes it doesn't even do that. Immediately at the start of the game when given the three main quest lines, you are outright given the option to agree or refuse each person who offers, and no matter what they will always leave immediately and tell you to think about it either way. They then meet you outside of the school, give you the quest without asking, and then leave. Various guides were unsure if any of these choices led to alternate routes or game endings, but none of them matter at all except those which you must pick the one answer to progress.
  • In Teal Mask:
    • Your first battle with Kieran essentially starts this way, as Carmine will refuse to let you prepare beforehand.
      Carmine: Huh? What's that? I couldn't hear you. When you've cleared your throat of whatever that was and are ready to say yes, lemme know.
    • When Carmine asks the player to keep them seeing Ogerpon a secret from Kieran for his safety, the player is never given the option to defy her and tell the truth anyway, and the game even forces you to lie to him right to his face. It isn't until Kieran finds out on his own (and is understandably furious) that the player is able to come clean about it.
    • When you have your last fight with Kieran after he forces you to battle him for the right to make Ogerpon their companion after Ogerpon chooses to travel with the player instead of him, losing the battle will result in the player whiting-out like they would if they had lost to any other trainer, and once the player goes back up, the battle and its preceding cutscene play out from the beginning as though they never happened. The player must win against Kieran, no ifs, ands, or buts, to continue the story and no scenario where Kieran wins and gets to have Ogerpon as his companion is possible.
  • In Indigo Disk: After you and Kieran (fresh off a Jerkass Realization kickstarted by him inadvertently causing Terapagos to go on a rampage after losing his temper and capturing it in a Master Ball against its will when it started to approach you) finally wear down Terapagos, the standard Catch-Don't Catch prompt that shows up at the end of a Tera Raid battle appears. Nothing stops you from choosing "Don't Catch" to let Kieran catch Terapagos, but if you do, Kieran will shake his head and tell you that you need to be the one to catch Terapagos, not him, as feels that he forfeited the right to catch Terapagos after the inciting incident. You then go directly to the Pokéball selection screen to choose a ball to catch Terapagos with.
• Call a Hit Point a "Smeerp": The "barrier" that Tera Raid Battle bosses can use is never called as such — it being put up is referred to as "energy [beginning to] gather around" the boss, and it being broken is the boss "[breaking] its stance".
• Call-Back:
  • In Pokémon Gold and Silver, Professor Elm says that Master Balls are only given to Pokémon Professors, though most just give Master Balls to the player as a reward. Professor Sada/Turo use Master Balls directly in their research by sending them through time to capture past/future Pokémon and bring them to the present.
  • Perrin's entire "Teal Mask" storyline is a modern version of a Survey Report from Pokémon Legends: Arceus to fit in with the implication that Perrin is Adaman's descendant, featuring you wandering around an area collecting data on the local wildlife and is even named as such. The finale has you confront the Bloodmoon Ursaluna, complete with music from that game.
  • Within Blueberry Academy's Terrarium is a full-sized replica of Chargestone Cave.
  • After completing the Indigo Disk's story and helping Team Star with tutoring, Atticus will now appear at the auction house in Porto Marinada, selling replicas of clothing items seen from previous games, such as the shoes worn by Aether Foundation members.
• The Cameo: Hey, that's the silhouette of Kanto Champion-turned-Gym-Leader Blue on one of the ads on the Pokémon Centers.
• Cassandra Truth: It's mentioned during history classes that the Scarlet/Violet Book, a written record of the first successful expedition into the deepest parts of the Great Crater, was initially very popular but eventually became disregarded by most as a Lost World fantasy book or even conspiracy nonsense because the reports of bizarre unexplained phenomenon and monstrous unknown Pokémon were just too hard to believe. Come today, and it turns out most if not all the weird creatures and phenomena described in the book are actually real. It's implied that to some extent the belief that the book is a lie is one the Pokémon League and government in general endorse in an effort to avoid motivating unqualified people from entering Area Zero, both to keep normal people safe and to keep the Pokémon there mostly contained. Notably, what little information gets officially put out about the Paradox Pokémon the protagonist catch avoids any mention of Area Zero.
• Central Theme:
  • How much can our past influence us? How much can our future be unpredictable? And most importantly, what can you do now in the present to face your past for a better future?
  • Bullying and the harmful effects it has on people, especially in a school setting. While this is most prominent in the Operation: Starfall path, which reveals that Team Star was formed as a result of this, it also extends to Koraidon and Miraidon, who were attacked by another of its kind in a territorial dispute during their time in Area Zero. The battle was apparently so horrible that Koraidon/Miraidon refuses to start battling again even after it gets back all of its power. It takes until the tail end of the campaign for them to finally start fighting again. In the DLC, there's the story of Ogerpon and her master, which ended in tragedy as a result of the town's ostracism.
  • The importance of food is a major running theme. The various settlements of Paldea have Edible Theme Naming, at least three of the Gyms involve food (Katy and Kofu both have occupations that involve making food, and Larry's Gym Challenge involves you placing a specific order at his favorite restaurant), you get to awe at the Food Porn served at restaurants through the various towns, the mechanic "Meal Power" gives you different boosts depending on the food you eat, several Pokémon introduced in this gen are themed around food (e.g. the bread-themed Fidough line), one of the story paths involves helping Arven find special ingredients for his cooking, and the player bonds with the mascot Legendary by feeding it a sandwich. This theme recurs into the DLC, with newly introduced Pokémon based on food or beverages (Dipplin is a candied apple while Poltchageist/Sinistcha are matcha tea; notably, they're the ace Pokémon of main characters Kieran and Carmine), the BB League Elite 4's Crispin being a cook, Snacksworth's side quest involving treats that attract Legendary Pokémon, Pecharunt is another food-shaped Pokémon (a peach or a Pecha Berry) who controls humans and other Pokémon by feeding them poisonous mochi, and so on.
  • While the series as a whole has this, this game especially emphasizes the importance of bonds, not just with people and Pokémon, but between people and people. Each of the three main characters are isolated from their peers due to circumstance and social awkwardness. Their bonds with the protagonist allows them to truly bond with someone outside of their own Pokémon and grow as more than what they perceive themselves to be.
  • Much of The Teal Mask DLC involving Carmine has a heavy emphasis on xenophobia. Carmine initially dismisses you and the other students from Paldea as "outsiders", and her behavior towards you is also reflected in the story of the Ogre (which she fervently believes and admonishes her brother for believing otherwise). She slowly begins to change her mind, but doesn't openly want to admit it, however both her attitude towards outsiders and her demeanor change after learning that the story of the Ogre is bogus, and it was the Ogre who was the victim of the story. Even moreso, the story itself heavily focuses on the people of that time being xenophobic towards a wanderer and his Pokémon that they didn't know for no immediately discernible reason. They idolized a group of bandits and spun the narrative of them being the heroes out of a misunderstanding of them, and their fear of Ogerpon. By the end of the DLC's narrative, Carmine is a significantly more respectful person who feels genuine pity towards Ogerpon, and respect towards the player.
  • The antagonists and unwitting instigators of doom in this game all have a theme of obsession and/or coveting that which clearly does not belong to them, and how it hurts not just them but everyone else. Arven's parent was obsessed with creating their own fantastic vision of "paradise", ultimately getting killed by the Paradox Pokémon they summoned and potentially dooming Paldea if not for the protagonist's intervention. The Loyal Three desired Ogerpon's masks enough to steal them, presumably wounding Ogerpon's friend and ruining its reputation for multiple generations, angering it enough to kill them. Kieran's obsession with Ogerpon, which morphs into an obsession with defeating the player, turns him into a mentally unstable jerk who alienates the rest of the League Club and terrifies his sister. His attitude toward Pokémon takes a dark turn as well, with him seeing Ogerpon and Terapagos as things he's entitled to own and bringing Ogerpon to his Blueberry Championship battle has him purely focus on recklessly taking her out, which isn’t strategically sound if the player knows how to counter or exploit this. Briar's obsession with proving her ancestor was right blinds her to Kieran's dark mental state. When her desire to study Terapagos crosses with Kieran's desire to use it to defeat the player, it results in the Legendary Pokémon going berserk and threatening the lives of the expedition team.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • At the start of the game, Arven hands you the Poké Ball that belongs to Koraidon/Miraidon's original owner, allowing it to travel with you. At the end of the game, the Paradise Protection Protocol locks every Poké Ball that isn't registered under the game's respective professor, preventing you, Nemona, Arven, or Penny from stopping them...until you realize that the Poké Ball that Arven gave you so long ago actually belongs to said professor, allowing you to bring Koraidon/Miraidon into the fight to stop the opposing Koraidon/Miraidon and save the day. This is reflected by the gameplay; Koraidon/Miraidon will appear in your party screen whenever you change Pokémon in battles, but that final fight is the only time that you can send them out from the Ride Pokémon slot.
  • In Indigo Disk, after defeating Kieran at the Championship Match, you're rewarded a Master Ball, as it's an extra reward for becoming the BB League Champion. Since Kieran became a Champion before you did so, he also got his own Master Ball, which he uses to catch Terapagos to ensure you don't get the chance yourself.
  • In Teal Mask, Carmine tells you of a local Kitakami legend where you can see the departed at the Crystal Pool (a nearby signboard echoes her statement). Visiting the pool after catching Terapagos results in you meeting Prof. Sada/Turo, who are known to have been long dead by the start of the game, although the ones you meet are their timeline/time-displaced selves.
• Chekhov's Gunman: In The Teal Mask, Koraidon/Miraidon pops out of its ball when the Player is conversing with Kieran, hinting at further involvement between the two. In the finale of The Indigo Disk, Koraidon/Miraidon is sent out to take a blast from a presumably angry Stellar-form Terapagos for Kieran, potentially saving the boy’s life.
• Colourful Theme Naming: The games are called Scarlet and Violet, much like how earlier generations used colours in their titles. This even extends to the DLCs, named "Teal Mask" and "Indigo Disk".
• Company Cross References: The bizarre Scarlet Pokédex description of Iron Jugulis (from an In-Universe paranormal magazine article) claims that it's the offspring of a Hydreigion who fell in love with a robot. This is similar to the backstory of Pulseman, where the titular hero was born from the relationship of a man and a female computer program.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Pokémon fought in Tera Raids are not restricted to the usual 4-move limit. They may also have access to any moves that they could theoretically learn, including TM and egg moves, yet should you catch them, they will only have moves learned naturally like any other wild Pokémon.
  • Taken to its logical conclusion with the high level Kilowattrel raids; this particular raid grants the boss use of Rain Dance as a fifth move, despite the fact that Kilowattrel can't learn the move at all. This gives it a significant buff to its Thunder and Hurricane moves, which become 100% accurate when it's raining.
• Conditioned to Be Weak: When the player first meets Miraidon/Koraidon, they're rather weak and incapable of fighting. Whilst the player gradually helps them get their abilities back, this doesn't include their ability to fight, suggesting that a mental block is a reason for this. The end of the game confirms this to be the case thanks to the result of an attack from a more vicious Miraidon/Koraidon, which severely traumatized them — once they overcome their trauma, they become able to fight again.
• Confusion Fu: This can be invoked with Terastallization, if the Pokémon's Terastal type is completely different from their regular typing. When employed by the Gym Leaders, they subvert this: initially sending out a Pokémon that isn't part of their Poor, Predictable Rock type team, before using Terastallization to change it back to the type they specialize in. The only exception to this is Larry, who Terastallizes his Staraptor in his Gym Battle, his post-game rematch, and his rematches in The Indigo Disk, which is already part Normal-type.
• Console Cameo:
  • Continuing a series tradition, a Nintendo home console (the OLED model of the Nintendo Switch in this case) can be seen in the player's bedroom. In any case, the Joy-Con controllers attached will even be the same colors as the ones you're currently using!
  • In Penny's dorm room, there are magazines with a Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo DS, and Game Boy on the covers.
• Continuity Nod: There are a few within Naranja/Uva Academy, as well as elsewhere:
  • In the History classroom board, there's a picture of Professor Laventon and the Poké Ball model that was used in Hisui.
  • One of the books you can read in the library is "Galar: A History", the book Sonia was working on over the course of Pokémon Sword and Shield, and the excerpt you read details Bede's destruction of the Stow-on-Side mural and the reveal of the statues behind it from her perspective.
  • When Raifort relates the tale of the Treasures of Ruin, those who long ago sealed the monsters are referred to as "Pokémon wielders," the same term used for Volo in Pokémon Legends: Arceus and presumably the term used for any powerful user of Pokémon before the modern concept of a "trainer" became popularized.
  • Upon her defeat, Gym Leader Iono compares the player character's performance to the flashiness of a 10,000,000-volt Thunderbolt, a Pikachu-specific Z-move from Pokémon Sun and Moon.
  • Mega Evolution is referenced, albeit not by name, in descriptions of Roaring Moon, as a phenomenon that occurs in another region.
  • Business logos on various apparel you can buy make a return, and in addition to many new ones, there are some that return from Pokémon Sword and Shield; in particular, the Boltund-inspired Densoku brand on one of the player character's initial hat choices, among other things.
  • In Mesagoza, a child will comment on how they've heard other regions only have one trainer ranked as Champion at a time.
  • Among the works on display throughout Artazon are the Meditative Seat, Heterarchial Loop, and the Paradoxical Popper, which previously appeared as Secret Base decorations in Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.
  • Some of the endgame Pokémon make references to past entries in the series:
    • Iron Thorns is a reference to the Mecha-Tyranitar from the Pokéstar Studios in Pokémon Black 2 and White 2, as well, as a Shout-Out to Mechagodzilla.
    • Roaring Moon bears some resemblance to Mega Salamence, which is even called the "blood-soaked crescent" in one of its Pokédex entries.
    • Iron Valiant's entry in the Occulture magazine says that it may have been made by a mad scientist to create the most powerful psychic Pokémon, which resembles Mewtwo's backstory of being created by a mad scientist to be the most powerful Pokémon in the world.
  • One of the in-game trades is a trainer trading her Haunter to you in exchange for a Pinchurchin, referencing an in-game trade back in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. However, unlike the Troll NPC who gave her Haunter an Everstone to prevent it from evolving, this Haunter isn't and will evolve into Gengar afterwards.
  • The Poké Maniac Trainers wear Pokéstar Studios shirts, the location having been introduced in Pokémon Black 2 and White 2.
  • The Indigo Disk DLC is set in Unova, and has a number of references to that region:
    • When he arrives there after beating the game, Larry will comment that he wants to get the Unovan Regional Speciality of Casteliacones.
    • The "Monochrome" room design for the League Club is, appropriately enough, black and white. The whiteboard doodles get replaced with drawings of various Gen V Pokémon, there's a model ferris wheel based on the one you can ride at Nimbasa City, and a number of framed portraits depicting Unovan Pokémon and Unovan locations (namely, Black City, White Forest, and Skyarrow Bridge) are placed on the walls.
    • The "Futuristic" theme for the League Club features references to Pokéstar Studios movies from Pokémon Black 2 and White 2. Mecha-Tyranitar from "Big Monster" is featured on a poster. The control console shows the Mysterious UFO from "Invaders", plus there's a shelf lined with helmets worn by the hero(ine) of the same movie.
• Contractual Boss Immunity: Tera Raid bosses are immune to certain moves (particularly One-Hit KO), takes minimal damage from Percent Damage Attack, and once they put up their barrier also become immune to non-damaging status reduction^note For example, you cannot use Intimidate nor Feather Dance to lower the boss's attack stat. However, you can use Chilling Water to lower its attack..
• Convenient Weakness Placement: Due to the nature of the open world, and with gyms doable in any order, this can be invoked by the player as most of the dex becomes accessible once the tutorial concludes.
• Cooking Mechanics: The player has the ability to go picnicking in the overworld, and during this they can experience a minigame that allows them to prepare sandwiches for themselves and their Pokémon to eat, granting them specific powers depending on the ingredients used. The minigame consists of the player dragging and dropping ingredients onto the sandwich, making sure the whole thing doesn't topple over in the process.
• Cool Bike: Miraidon is able to channel energy into its rings to turn itself into a hoverbike as one of its Modes.
• Cool Car: Each Team Star squad has their own Starmobile, which are large vehicles powered by the Pokémon Revavroom. Functionally, they're a combination of a glam rock stage and a station wagon that hover above the ground, and each leader battles you from atop one. What's more, when the leader runs out of normal Pokémon to use against you, they'll have you face the Starmobile itself; each one having its own typing and signature move at its disposal.
• Co-Op Multiplayer: The games feature cooperative gameplay with up to four players, both online and using local wireless. Players can run around in the overworld together, or participate in Tera raids.
• Crazy-Prepared: The professors when they were still alive. First, the time machine was locked by their books, something only their AI duplicates would think to try. Then, the machine was allowed to override their credentials should they be used for the emergency shutdown and battle the intruders using the AI professors as proxies. Then, should the battle be lost, the machine's Paradise Protection Protocol locks any Poké Ball that isn't theirs and sics their Legendary on you! One thing they didn't account for was you using the Legendary you got from them.
• Crystal Landscape: Area Zero has a giant cave that houses enormous crystals along with Paradox Pokémon. This is also where Tera Crystals (used for Teratalization) originated from.
• Crystalline Creature: The new transformation ability is the ability to Terastallize Pokémon, a process which covers them in a crystalline skin and a massive crown-like structure representing their Terastal Type, gives them a potential change in their typing, and provides an even more powerful STAB bonus if their Terastal Type matches their original Type.
• Cuteness Proximity: The club representative in the reveal trailer for Greavard is initially startled by its sudden appearance. Once she calms down, she's quickly struck dumb at the sight of a tiny sheepdog Pokémon with a candle on its head.
  Club Representative: Oh my goodness! It's so CUTE!
• Cutting Off the Branches: The Indigo Disk implies this for possible Area Zero exploration. When the player takes Briar, Carmine, and Kieran into Area Zero, the only previous visit they can reference is the one that happened during the climax of the base game regardless of how many times they've been there since, albeit they're also never stated to have not returned there later (and may want to keep it a secret as they weren't supposed to go there at all). Furthermore, the player loses their previous authorization to enter the Zero Lab during The Indigo Disk due to disuse; while the lab can be revisited freely before the second mandatory Area Zero visit, there's no real reason to return because the singular item within can be picked up during the first visit.
• Cyber Green: The text boxes for all characters communicating via the Rotom Phone are black with bright green text and green scanlines, like an old-fashioned computer monitor.
• Darker and Edgier: Downplayed. For most of the game, it's the usual standard lighthearted Pokémon affair. However, some moments of the story can lean into less than family-friendly affair. Themes such as bullying and their effects, abandonment and loss, and personal trauma can come up frequently. Most notably, the Paradox Pokémon in Area Zero are treated as legitimately dangerous beasts, unlike how Pokémon are normally portrayed, and one of them was explicitly mentioned as having killed a human in there.
• Dead All Along: In the climax of the game, Sada and Turo are revealed to have died long before the events of the game. The professor you have been talking to throughout the game is actually an AI recreated in their image.
• Decomposite Character: Sada and Turo are nominally the Pokémon Professor of the game, but due to plot reasons, they are practically unable to perform the usual role associated with the title. As a result, the role has been split between them (actual holders of the title and the parents of one of your Friendly Rivals), Jacq (who developed and manages your progress on the Pokédex), and Clavell (the old mentor type who introduces the world of Pokémon, gives you your starter, and trains the one that's not picked). Interestingly, following Jacq's story reveals all of them used to work together in the same lab before Jacq and Clavell joined the Academy.
• Decon-Recon Switch: Paradox Pokémon deconstruct the usual friendly demeanor and willingness to work with humans most Pokémon are shown to have. The Paradox Pokémon in Area Zero will often try to attack the player and their companions while venturing further down into it, and many notes left behind really play up just how dangerous they actually are. One of the Paradox Pokémon is explicitly stated to have killed a human prior to the events of the game, and your box art Legendary is heavily implied to be the exception to the rule. It then gets reconstructed in the post-game where you are able to catch Paradox Pokémon and have them listen to you with no issues; though by that point, the player is pretty much stated to have become the strongest champion in all of Paldea.
• Defeat Means Playable: All five of the Titan Pokémon return to their normal size and can be found and caught near where you defeated them during the Path of Legends storyline. They have a guaranteed 30 IVs in each stat, are the maximum size for their species, and have a special mark indicating they were a former Titan.
• Demoted to Extra: The mechanic of regional forms and counterparts introduced in Generation VII and expanded even as recently as Pokémon Legends: Arceus has been significantly downplayed in Scarlet and Violet, with only three species being Paldean forms/counterparts (Wooper, Clodsire, and the forms of Paldean Tauros). Another phenomenon of similar counterparts, convergent evolution, is introduced, but is similarly minimal in the dex's roster, consisting of two two-stage families.
• Dénouement Episode: Mochi Mayhem acts as this for The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero and the game as a whole.
• Discard and Draw:
  • Hail, both the move and the weather condition, were removed entirely, replaced with the Snowscape move and the Snowstorm weather condition for the purposes of Ability and move triggers. Instead of Hail's passive damage to non-Ice-type Pokémon, Snowstorm gives Ice-types a Defense boost while active.
  • In the League Battle Club, several trainers have one Pokémon replaced with another. For instance, Dendra replaces her Falinks with a Hitmontop and Miriam replaces her Sawsbuck with a Meganium.
• Disc-One Nuke: See the series page here.
• Double-Meaning Title: The Indigo Disk is both an epithet for Terapagos, as used in the first battle against him, but it's also the name of a key item that allows story progress. Additionally, Blueberry Academy is a giant, blue disk-shaped facility that's the main setting of the DLC.
• Downloadable Content: Much like Sword/Shield, Scarlet/Violet features an Expansion Pass that expands on the game's available content and allows players to travel beyond the Paldea region. Collectively known as The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero, the DLC is split into two halves:
  • The Teal Mask is set against the background of a Japanese-style summer festival and features the protagonist traveling to a region known as Kitakami as part of a school trip. The plot focuses on the Legendary Pokémon Ogerpon, a Pokémon that hides its face with a teal mask, as well as a trio of Pokémon known as Okidogi, Munkidori, and Fezandipiti.
  • The Indigo Disk has the protagonist joining the ranks of Blueberry Academy, an offshore facility and sister school to Naranja/Uva Academy, as part of an exchange program. This story focuses on the Legendary Pokémon Terapagos, a mysterious Pokémon that bears the 18 Pokémon Types in crystals embedded on its shell and vaguely resembles a Pokémon spoken of in the Scarlet/Violet Book.
• Dramatic Irony: While walking around Area Zero, when Arven explains how his parent hid with the Raidon in Area Zero to keep it a secret, he states he felt like he'd lost his parent because of the Raidon. He means if the Raidon hadn't gone berserk against some wild Pokémon and gotten spotted, Sada/Turo would've stayed in Arven's life. Later, we learn the Raidon is also the reason he lost his parent in a more permanent sense: they pulled a Heroic Sacrifice to protect it from the other Raidon.
• Duel Boss: The final battle against the Paradise Protection Protocol has it send out the game's cover legendary out against you, while locking your party members' Poké Balls, forcing you to send out the Koraidon/Miraidon you've been travelling with the entire game. Also functions as a Hopeless Boss Fight, as AI Sada/Turo's legendary is stronger than yours, with yours being capable of nothing more than Scratch Damage against it. That is, until you gain the ability to Terastallize...
• Duels Decide Everything: An aspect of the series that's examined in some of the storylines:
  • Justified in Starfall Street as Team Star is not a criminal enterprise but a gang of schoolkids operating on a code of honor.
  • Subverted in The Way Home, after defeating the AI professor in a fight, the Paradise Protection Protocol locks all Poké Balls not registered to the Professor and sics the aggressive Legendary on the protagonists.
  • Deconstructed in The Teal Mask. Kieran knows he's morally in the wrong by dueling the protagonist for the right to be Ogerpon's trainer but he can't let his dream go without a fight. When he loses, he doesn't re-evaluate his behavior but concludes he must be stronger, seemingly going off the deep end in doing so. This continues in The Indigo Disk: Kieran, seeing the newly-awakened Terapagos turn toward you, bypasses any potential duel and just catches it with a Master Ball. This comes back to bite him, and the rest of the Underdepths exploration team, immediately.
• Dutch Angle:
  • The camera suddenly tilts to the right, stops, then continues tilting slowly to accentuate the creepiness of the professor's voice suddenly glitching out and repeating the last four words they said.
  • Carmine's first appearance in Mochi Mayhem is accentuated by the view suddenly tilting clockwise while zooming in to her now-purple eyes before she suddenly breaks into the chicken dance while shouting "Mochi" over and over.

E-G

• Edible Theme Naming: Every major setting in Paldea is named after food/kitchen terminology; e.g., the first town you visit, "Los Platos", is Spanish for "The Plates". The academies, in particular, not only are named after orange (Naranja) and grape (Uva) respectively, but even show the fruits on their monuments. This applies to the DLC-exclusive Blueberry Academy, as well.
• Elaborate University High: Naranja/Uva Academy is the oldest school in the Paldea Region and the website states that it "boasts a history that few other schools do". It also takes the "University High" part a bit more literally, as age is not an issue when it comes to enrolment; you can see adults taking classes at the Academy as well. Many schools in Spain (one of Paldea's counterparts) provide both secondary and post-secondary education on the same campus, so this does have some real-world basis.
• Eldritch Location: The final dungeon, Area Zero, inside the Great Crater of Paldea. It's closed off to the public, and the past Paldean Empire constantly tried and failed to get to the bottom. Inside are high-level Pokémon, many of which do not belong in this time period alongside crystal deposits all over that become more common the lower you go. It doesn't even seem to be affected by time, as various Pokémon and Pokémon forms exclusive to certain times of day can be seen together here. On top of that, it's heavily implied that something lives at the very bottom that made those crystal deposits and is responsible for Terastallization. In Indigo Disk, you go far, far deeper underneath Area Zero to find that "something." You encounter Pokémon with the new Stellar Tera Type, which changes the usual rules of Terastallization.
• Elite School Means Elite Brain: Of a Pokémon battling capability variety. Blueberry Academy is known as a "super elite" school for Pokémon trainers, with the top students there being so capable that they can battle on a similar level to Elite 4 or even Champions from other regions.
• The Empire: Not in the present, but 2000 years prior there was the Empire of Paldea, which was headed by a tyrant who sought the treasures of the Area Zero to conquer neighboring countries. They failed, and after centuries joined with the rest of the neighboring nations to form what would become the modern Paldea.
• End of an Age: The Paldean Empire wanted to venture out to Area Zero in hopes that they could plunder the places that had treasure, and over time put so many resources into the failed efforts that it gradually lead to their collapse.
• Everybody Hates Mathematics: Your first math class opens with Ms. Tyme asking everyone if they like math. The responses are... mixed. She acknowledges that not everyone enjoys the subject and appreciates that they at least answered honestly.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Due to the Team Star squads' predilection for establishing their bases in natural hollows, one might try to enter by leaping from the cliffs above (except for Ruchbah Squad, where there are a couple of big boulders on the boundary that they haven't fenced off). When you do so, a cutscene plays where the Grunt manning the gate berates you for attempting to sneak in & admonishes you to "ring the bell and storm the base like a decent person!"
• Evolving Title Screen: It's subtle, but after completing the game, the audio changes from ambient sounds of the school to the classic Pokémon theme, the Scarlet/Violet book and Poké Ball are no longer on the desk, and a previously closed window in the background is now open on the title screen. Similar to Legends: Arceus before it, completing the Pokédex will also add cheering and music to the screen as well. After completing The Indigo Disk and seeing the final scene at the Crystal Pool, the title screen changes to sunset with the Scarlet/Violet Book back on the desk, the music now slow and somber.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture:
  • The Paldea region is directly based on the Iberian Peninsula, mostly Spain with some Portuguese elements. The Paldean Empire sought treasure to an extreme degree and led to its downfall; a major factor in the fall of the Spanish Empire was throwing so much money away on conquests and colonisation that it collapsed.
  • It's implied that Paldea has a sizeable amount of Galarian immigrants and visitors^note Your mum speaks with British-isms and recently moved; Penny is explicitly Galarian and dialogue discussing it notes that there are a number of Galarian students, injecting a bit of Gibraltar into things, as well as keeping up with the stereotype that Brits eventually move to Spain.
  • The land of Kitakami is based on part of the Tohoku region of Japan, particularly Iwate Prefecture, and its name is shared with a real life city in Tohoku.
  • Blueberry Academy and the Terarium don't correspond to any particular real-world location, but it is established that they're just offshore from Unova, a region based on New York City and northern New Jersey that we've seen before.
• Fantasy Counterpart Map: The map of Paldea looks like the Iberian peninsula to reflect its cultural basis. Oddly, the northeastern-most part of the map, which would presumably connect Paldea to southern Kalos (the Pokémon world equivalent to Spain's neighbor France) is blocked off by impassible mountains, which reflects the Pyrenees.
• Find the Cure!: The Path of Legends storyline is revealed to be this after defeating the second Titan Pokémon. Arven shows the protagonist his ailing Mabosstiff, whose illness can't be cured by Pokémon Centers or Potions, and he aims to find all the Herba Mystica because they're the only medicine that can heal his Pokémon.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing:
  • After defeating the Great Tusk/Iron Treads with Arven, Penny points out that ancient/future Pokémon wandering around Paldea is a major problem and wonders why the professor isn't keeping them under control. Turns out her concerns are shared by AI Sada/Turo. On top of being liable to break free or go berserk, time-displaced Pokémon threaten the ecological balance of the region. Sada/Turo aren't keeping them under control because A) they're dead and B) they wanted the Paradox Pokémon to live freely in modern Paldea, ecological consequences be damned.
  • Just before you enter the lower levels of Zero Base, and by extension, the final battle of the story, you can read Professor Sada/Turo's notes where they discuss a Poké Ball ID system they invented, but the details are left sparse. During the final battle, that system is used to lock everyone's Pokémon inside their Poké Balls, necessitating the use of Koraidon/Miraidon, who was originally the professor's Pokémon, and therefore not affected by the lock.
• Food Porn: All of the menu options at the various restaurants are depicted with beautiful artwork. The player can invoke this while making sandwiches, too, arranging their creations in a manner similar to this trope.
• Foregone Victory: You can't lose the battle against the Paradise Protection Protocol's Koraidon/Miraidon. You get tips mid-battle on how to win "legitimately", but even if you completely ignore them, your Pokémon in this fight will always "tough out" any attacks that would otherwise knock it out, and will eventually attack (and auto-win) on its own if you waste too much time.
• Foreshadowing:
  • After asking why you're doing the Gym challenge, Hassel mentions that all paths lead to the Great Crater of Paldea. Indeed, accessing the crater involves completing all three main storylines.
  • Look closely at Larry's design, and you'll notice a cloud pattern on his tie. This hints not only towards his ace Pokémon (the part Flying-type Staraptor), but also his type of choice as a member of the Elite Four.
  • If you check the books at the Academy, you can find a Student Registry which has most of its pages torn out for some reason. "★ Starfall Street ★" reveals that there was a massive cover-up by the previous faculty regarding the bullying incidents and Team Star accidentally getting framed as the bullies, so the missing pages were likely done by a former teacher.
  • When you arrive at Casseroya Lake, Arven comments on how it would be easier to find the Titan Pokémon if it was saying "I'm a Titan!" When you find the Titan Tastugiri, it says "Taitan!" when you interact with it.
  • Some of Sada/Turo's dialogue with the player may seem "off," giving the sense that they may be "going through the motions," so to speak. This foreshadows that they are actually an AI.
  • Sada and Turo's introduction themes make heavy use of robotic sound effects, which may not sound out of place for the future-themed Turo but definitely sound out of place for the past-themed Sada. Then the twist is revealed that they are actually an AI.
  • Arven's final team is foreshadowed by the Pokémon he uses against the Titans.
  • If you scrounge the library at the academy, you may find a few Occulture magazines mentioning about strange beasts that slightly resemble actual Pokémon known to the general public. This foreshadows what you may find in Area Zero: Paradox Pokémon that share some characteristics with normal Pokémon found outside but are inherently different.
  • During most of the game, you only interact with Professor Sada/Turo through phone calls. You don't meet them in-person, and are never even told where exactly they are. This is because they literally can't leave Area Zero, a place that's off-limits to most people.
  • In The Teal Mask, when talking to you about Kitakami's Crystal Pool, Carmine mentions a rumor that you can speak with deceased people there. After completing the DLC's story, going back there ends up triggering a cutscene that sees the real Professor Sada/Turo get temporarily pulled from the past/an alternate timeline to speak with you.
  • In The Indigo Disk, you get a Master Ball as a reward for becoming Champion. The guy you just dethroned, Kieran, also got a Master Ball. As soon as he lays eyes on Terapagos, he puts it to good use.
• Forest of Perpetual Autumn: Socarrat Trail is a pathway near Casseroya Lake marked by gold-orange hued grass and leaves. Adding to the theme, it's one of two places in Paldea where you can catch Deerling and Sawsbuck in their Autumn Form.
• Four Is Death:
  • Area Zero has four Research Stations in addition to the Zero Lab, each containing the controls for one of the locks to the main lab. The player’s group will find the first three largely intact, but the fourth and final station is in shambles. It's later revealed that this was where the second Koraidon/Miraidon went on a rampage and unintentionally killed the original Professor (it had been aiming at the other Koraidon/Miraidon).
  • The resident minor Legendary group, the Treasures of Ruin, is a foursome of Dark-typed Pokémon who, according to the myth, are ancient artifacts who came to life after absorbing humanity's ill feelings and brought destruction to an old kingdom. Each of them possesses a signature Ability that lowers a specific stat of all other Pokémon on the field of battle by 25% (i.e., a quarter).
• Four Lines, All Waiting: There are various plotlines that the player can pursue at the start of the game, each one providing different benefits:
  • Victory Road, which focuses on the classic eight Gyms and road to becoming a Champion. Obtaining gym badges makes catching stronger Pokémon easier, and they'll obey you as long as you caught them below your current badge level cap as well as unlocking more powerful items for purchase in the shops.
  • ★ Starfall Street ★, which deals with taking down Team Star and their bosses. Progressing through this story earns you TM recipes, TM Materials, and LP (League Points, the currency needed to make TMs)
  • Path of Legends, in which the player helps Arven obtain the "Herba Mystica", mystical herbs that can be used as ingredients and are protected by gigantic Titan Pokémon. Making your way through this story upgrades Koraidon/Miraidon's traversal abilities.
  • Upon completing all of the above you unlock "The Way Home", in which you, Arven, Nemona and Penny explore the Great Crater of Paldea. Completing this unlocks the postgame, your Box Legendary's battle form, a 2nd box legendary, and the ability to catch the rest of the Paradox Pokémon.
  • The Teal Mask, which introduces you to Carmine, Kieran, and Briar, who become more important in The Indigo Disk, canonically runs concurrent with the first three storylines. Completing this story mostly grants you Kitakami-specific legendaries (particularly Ogerpon) and the Ogre Oustin minigame which rewards several Kitakami-specific items, but otherwise it's there as background info and prequel to The Indigo Disk.
• Fractured Fairy Tale: The narrative of The Teal Mask is heavily inspired by the tale of Momotarō, a story about a young boy born from a bamboo shoot who one day leaves and finds himself the company of a monkey, a dog, and a pheasant. The three eventually slay an evil ogre that tormented the land, and the signs around Kitikami loosely retell this story with an unnamed hero, an ogre, and Okidogi (the dog), Munkidori (the monkey), and Fezendipiti (The Pheasant). The story then gets entirely turned on its head when it's revealed that Ogerpon is actually Not Evil, Just Misunderstood. In fact, Ogerpon is the victim of the story, and it turns out the trio of "heroes" are nothing more than lowly bandits who came to steal the prized masks belonging to Ogerpon and her friend. They attack the cave, and her friend is nowhere to be found afterwards. Having lost her friend and their beloved masks, Ogerpon attacks the bandits in a rage. The villagers, believing the trio were heroes trying to take the masks away from some strange Pokémon monster, sympathized with the wrong party. In the end, after the bandits are defeated again, the village humbly apologize to Ogerpon directly for the generations of isolation and mislabeling they gave her.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: When the pre-battle text is glitching before the fight with the Paradise Protection Protocol, it briefly reads "AI Sada/Turo has no intention of fighting any more!".
• Frustrated Overhead Scribble: During the mission into the Great Crater, Arven often has scribbles appearing in speech bubbles over his head, as a way of showing his exasperation toward Nemona's antics.
• Fun with Acronyms:
  • The Herba Mystica's name being in Gratuitous Spanish makes sense since Paldea is the Fantasy Counterpart Culture of the Iberian Peninsula, but it also works as a pun: since getting one also unlocks a new ability for your mount, letting you visit places that you couldn't before, it means the Herba Mystica is this game's equivalent to HMs.
  • Tulip, the Psychic-type Gym Leader, tasks the player to participate in Dendra's Emotional Spectrum Practice as part of her Gym Challenge. Abbreviated, the Emotional Spectrum Practice is ESP.
• Game-Breaking Bug:
  • The 1.2.0. version of the games had some players reporting that their save data was deleted after downloading the DLC. Some players also lost their data after catching a few Vivillon after they had transferred a postcard from Pokémon GO.
  • Version 1.2.1. introduces a crash that only happens if you Sequence Break and register your game's box Legendary in the Pokedex before you're supposed to do so. To be more specific, obtaining a Koraidon/Miraidon early will cause the game to crash if you scroll over your last three party slots in the menu where you switch in the Legendary against the AI professor's Koraidon/Miraidon for the last battle of the main story. This was fixed in Version 2.0.2.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • The game is not joking when it mentions that Paradox Pokémon are legitimately dangerous creatures. Despite being based on Pokémon from current times, all of them have base stat totals of 570 or higher, equivalent to lower rank Legendaries and Ultra Beasts.
  • It's mentioned that Jacq created the Pokédex app for all Rotom Phone users to download and update, and the entries for the Paradox Pokémon are very sparse and draw most information from magazines and the Scarlet/Violet book rather than the player's personal observations. Since Director Clavell stated that he's willing to look over the player violating school rules by entering the Great Crater of Paldea as long as none of their feats or heroics ever reach the public, that also extends to the Pokédex since that's also public record.
  • Shortly before the final story battle, Professor Sada/Turo's dialogue looks very glitchy, with a strange font and occasional numbers in place of letters. This is because they've been taken over by the Paradise Protocol, and they can't handle the excess power.
  • In the Final Boss fight, the Paradise Protection Protocol locks every Pokéball not registered to the professor. The one Pokémon on the player's team that is exempt from this is Koraidon/Miraidon, as they initially belonged to the professor.
  • It's made explicit that your Koraidon/Miraidon is weaker than the one the professor currently has, as prior to the events of the game it was beaten to an inch of its life by it. This isn't just a story element when you have to use it against it in the final battle; on top of being 4 levels higher, the Koraidon/Miraidon in Area Zero actually does have better IVs than yours does (maximum in both attack stats and Speed), and a nature that boosts its respective attacking stat at the expense of the one it doesn't need (Adamant for Koraidon, Modest for Miraidon).
  • During the Duel Boss at the end of the game, there's a good chance that your Koraidon/Miraidon will be hanging on by a thread by the time you're prompted to Terastallize. Turns out all that adventuring with you naturally forged a strong bond, and surviving a knockout blow like that is one of the perks of having high friendship in-game.
  • The other Koraidon/Miraidon will always use Taunt on the first turn of the battle proper. This individual has been shown to be an abusive bully to your Koraidon/Miraidon, hence it "taunting" the Pokémon it badly beat earlier.
  • Arven mentions that his last visit to Area Zero involved him escaping the place via Flying Taxi, even though the place is off-limits to the public, because they'll always pick you up if you have a good enough sob story. Sure enough, the game allows you to call a Taxi to leave while inside of it.
  • Due to the connection between Area Zero and the Terastal phenomenon, the Tera Orb remains permanently charged (and thus, always usable) while the player is exploring it. After completing The Indigo Disk, the Tera Orb can be used anywhere without any limit due to all the Terastal energy it gets exposed to during the battle with Terapagos.
  • When essentially playing as your Pokémon via the Synchro Machine, you of course no longer have access to the various gadgets your human body has. So the mini-map you have via your Rotom Phone ceases to be accessible.
• Gameplay Automation: Any Pokémon in your party can enter "Let's Go" mode, in which they automatically battle nearby Pokémon on the map until exhausted or recalled. The outcome is simulated, based on typing and stats. The Pokémon you use gets a decent amount of experience, while the rest of the team gets half that amount. Wild Pokémon will not be caught, and shiny Pokémon will not be fought at all; however, rare spawns will be battled and dispensed with, so it must be used with caution.
• Gameplay Protagonist, Story Protagonist: The Player Character acts as a supporting protagonist to their three friends Nemona, Arven and Penny as they go through their respective story routes. Arven in particular gains importance in the final part of the game due to his familial ties to Professor Sada/Turo.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: All over the place across the groups that make up the games' cast, though some characters appear multiple times in different groups:
  • The faculty of Naranja/Uva Academy: five men (Director Clavell, Jacq, Salvatore, Saguaro, Hassel) and five women (Tyme, Dendra, Raifort, Miriam, and the board's chairwoman Ms. Geeta).
  • The Gym Leaders of Paldea: four men (Brassius, Kofu, Larry, Grusha) and four women (Katy, Iono, Tulip, Ryme).
  • The Elite Four, not counting the Top Champion: two males (Larry and Hassel) and two females (Rika and Poppy).
  • Team Star's leaders: three boys (Giacomo, Atticus, Ortega) and three girls (Mela, Eri, Penny).
  • Finally, the main character's own group of friends in the endgame, but only if the male player character is chosen: two boys (Arven and Florian) and two girls (Nemona and Penny). If Juliana is chosen instead, Arven will be The One Guy.
  • The second part of the DLC, The Indigo Disk, introduces the BB League's Elite Four: two boys (Crispin and Drayton) and two girls (Lacey and Amarys).
• Genre Shift: As Penny lampshades, Mochi Mayhem goes into horror movie territory due to everyone in the town acting weird after eating Pecharunt's brainwashing mochi.
• Giant Enemy Crab: One of the Titan Pokémon fought in the Path of Legends questline is a massive Klawf, a crablike Pokémon debuting in the games.
• Global Currency Exception: Scarlet and Violet has League Points or LP, which is used to pay for TMs alongside materials obtained from defeating wild Pokémon, and has a 1:1 conversion rate with the usual Pokédollars/Yen. It can also be obtained from interacting with Tera Raid dens, with the amount given depending on the rating of the Den. In The Indigo Disk, completing quests in the Terarium awards Blueberry Points (or the more familiar BP), which is used to pay for almost all of Blueberry Academy's services and requests.
• The Greatest Story Never Told:
  • After the player's heroics in Area Zero by preventing a region-wide disaster, Clavell notes that while the heroes did violate school rules by going into the Great Crater of Paldea, he's willing to completely overlook that and notes that it can't be made public.
  • Downplayed in The Indigo Disk. Briar writes a book based on the characters' trek to the Area Zero Underdepths, but Geeta has her change or omit a few details to keep some things secret.
• Group Picture Ending:
  • Both games, before the credits roll, ends with a shot of the player, Nemona, Penny, Arven, and the cover Legendary all together.
  • This also happens with Carmine and Kieran at the end of The Indigo Disk, only with two pictures: one from the Kitakami mask festival, and one at Blueberry Academy.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Arven, Penny, and Nemona join you at various points of the game, both as travel companions and as battle partners.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • As is par for the course for a new Pokémon generation, some new evolution mechanics are particularly obtuse.
    • Pawmo, Rellor, and Bramblin all evolve upon being leveled up after being walking alongside their trainer for at least 1,000 steps using Let's Go and then leveling up, much more tedious to do if you have all 3 in the party as you can only do one at a time. Not helping matters is that there's no way to see how many steps your Pokémon have accumulated, making it more tedious than it needs to be due to not knowing if your Pokémon has reached 1,000 steps or not. The only hint for Pawmo's evolution is an optional Trainer who declares herself as a Pawmi line fan, and talking to her afterwards has her vaguely mention that something happens if you take Pawmo out in Let's Go mode for a while.
    • Primeape evolves into Annihilape after using the new move Rage Fist 20 times and then leveling up. Jacq hints at this in one of the biology class sessions, but he gets cut off by the bell after only getting far enough to mention that the evolution has something to do with a move.
    • Finizen can only evolve into Palafin when two players are in the same world via Union Circle.
    • Bisharp can only evolve by defeating three other Bisharp holding the Leader's Crest, which specifically must be leading a pack of Pawniard. This is considered to be one of the more difficult to acquire evolutions in the game as not all Bisharps will carry Leader's Crest even if they're surrounded by their Pawniard minions.
    • Pokémon will not evolve if they level up via auto-battle. This is explained once in-game, in a single box of dialogue during one of the optional classes at the Academy that only becomes available in the mid-to-late game. This led many players to wonder if it was a bug that their Pokémon would not evolve even after reaching the proper level.
  • If you want to breed non-Paldean variants of certain Pokémon, merely pairing them with a Ditto or compatible Pokémon will instead give you their Paldean variants. Instead, you need to first give the non-Paldean parent an Everstone before picnic, which the game doesn't tell you.
  • Sandwich ingredients each have their own properties that contribute to what Meal Powers come out of the finished sandwich. For example, bacon, lettuce, and tomato will make it more likely that the sandwich influences Pokémon spawn rates; mayonaise, tofu, and rice will make the target of that influence more likely to be Normal type. Given the staggering number of possible ingredient combinations, the cost of ingredients over time, the hidden nature of the ingredient properties, and the difficulty of making larger sandwiches, it's practically impossible to figure out what sandwich will give what meal powers unless you stick close to a known recipe.
  • In The Indigo Disk, finding Meloetta is this. You get a few hints in the classrooms in Blueberry Academy, but they don't give you the full picture for the method to encounter it. You need to head to a specific spot in the Coastal Biome, marked by a circle of swirling leaves. Then you have to spin clockwise (in the same manner as evolving Milcery) for 10 seconds, then immediately get out your camera and switch to the sepia filter. If done correctly, Meloetta will appear nearby and begin singing, and can then be spoken to engage it in battle.
  • Most of the Starters in the "Indigo Disk" are easy enough to find by running and flying around a given biome until they show up, as most can spawn over a notable section of the map. There are two exceptions to this, however, Torchic and Cyndaquil. Each are only found in a different, single, small cave in the Polar Biome. It'd be one thing if you were guaranteed to find them when entering the required cave, but there is a chance none will spawn when you enter, meaning you will continue to search the biome with little chance of returning to that one small spot any time soon to check again.
• Harder Than Hard: Tera Raid Dens have different difficulty levels, symbolized by a star system ranging from 1 to 5. The more story progress you earn, the higher chance you get of spawning higher difficulty dens with better Pokémon and prizes. Only unlocked after the Academy Ace Tournament quest in the post-game, however, are six star dens, represented by black crystals with red energy, which are much harder and have highly coveted rewards as a result. It goes even further with seven star dens, although those are currently event-only, but promise to be even harder than six star dens in exchange for very rare Pokémon with a unique mark if you catch it. The difficulty is accomplished by the Pokémon not only being high level but having HP many times greater than is otherwise possible, in addition to them being able to create special barriers that further reduce damage, a dangerous combination given the raids have a time limit that results in an automatic loss if exceeded.
• Hard Mode Perks: Not only do higher-level Tera Raids give you better spoils (with some items outright unobtainable from easier raids), Pokémon you catch from harder raids are guaranteed to have perfect IV on more stats than those you catch from easier raids, with those from 7-star Raids guaranteed to have perfect IV on all six of their stats. In addition, Pokémon from harder raids are more likely to have hidden ability (which normally you can only gain by using Ability Patch, itself a Rare Random Drop from 6 or 7-star raids), with all 6 and 7-star Tera Raid bosses always having their Hidden Ability if one is avaliable.
• High-Tech Hexagons: Area Zero's four Research Stations, Zero Gate, & the Zero Lab are made out of hexagonal buildings.
• Hint System: The Pokémon Center nurses can suggest destinations to visit if you aren’t sure where to go. The issue is that they simply point out the nearest story destination with zero regard for what you have and haven't done yet, making it likely that they'll suggest going somewhere that has significantly higher levels than what you have or can't be accessed at all due to lacking the proper abilities yet^note Such as facing the False Dragon Titan before you have access to the cover legend's swimming ability.
• Hoist by Their Own Petard: The Protocol, after its Ancient/Future Pokémon are defeated, locks all Poké Balls not registered to the professor. Fortunately, your ever-present Korai/Miraidon is the professor's, and enters battle form to face the Protocol's.
• Hold the Line: At the end of "Mochi Mayhem", Kieran holds the line against the brainwashed villagers of Kitakami so you can trash Nemona and then Pecharunt.
• Hold Your Hippogriffs:
  • Once you learn how to ride on Koraidon/Miraidon, Nemona tells you that "Paldea's your Cloyster"^note the world is your oyster.
  • Hassel says "All paths lead to the Great Crater of Paldea^note all roads lead to Rome, as they say" to the player after they get the Gym Badge in Artazon.
• Horse of a Different Color: Koraidon and Miraidon have the appearance of motorcycles, and they act the part as well, being able to be ridden on and transform into different Builds/Forms to facilitate land, water, and air travel. Cyclizar likewise is a popular ride Pokémon in the Paldea region, and several towns have "bike stands" where travelers can leave theirs. As it turns out, these two facts are related. Koraidon and Miraidon are, respectively, species from the past and future that originated and descended from Cyclizar.

I-P

• I Hate Past Me: Not really hate, but the AI Sada/Turo are incredulous at how determined the original professors were to sustain the Zero Lab time machine's operating cycle, saying they were indifferent to the risks of a containment breach in Area Zero destroying Paldea's ecology.
• Improbable Falling Save: No matter how far the player character falls, they'll be saved by the Rotom Phone at the last moment and be completely unharmed.
• Interface Spoiler:
  • Minor case. Holding ZL and looking at field Pokémon shows their name and whether or not the player has caught that particular species. This has the side effect of seeing right through the disguise of a Ditto, Zorua or Zoroark, all of which take the shape of other species as an illusion that normally doesn’t drop until a battle is initiated.
  • A more traditional case can come up in Tera Raids and Union Circle sessions, as players are likely to know about Koraidon and Miraidon's signature moves and abilities as well as the Treasures of Ruin and the other Paradox Pokémon through them.
  • During The Teal Mask DLC, the interface gives away the fact that the Pokémon who dropped the titular mask is called Ogerpon before the player has a chance to actually learn the name.
• Introduced Species Calamity: Professor Sada/Turo threatened Paldea with one when they were alive. By pulling in Pokémon from another time period, they were putting Paldea's natural ecosystem, and by extension the world's ecosystem at risk. Not even getting mauled by a copy of the box Legendary was enough to stop them, as they tasked their AI duplicate to continue in their stead, even if it was against the AI's will.
• In-Universe Game Clock: While some game mechanics are tied to real-world time such as the daily Tera Raids and Mass Outbreaks, the games use an in-game clock for their day/night cycle like Pokémon Legends: Arceus. One full cycle lasts 72 minutes: 3 for morning, 33 for day, 3 for evening, and 33 for night. This affects the kinds of spawns you encounter and when you can evolve certain Pokémon. However, unlike in PLA, you can't fast-forward time to the next morning, day, or night. Additionally, it's perpetually daytime in the early game until the Treasure Hunt begins.
• Irony: You can battle a student searching for the "Ruin Us" Pokémon but has no idea where to find them. Icerend Shrine is right below the cliff she's overlooking, almost literally right under her nose.
• Item Crafting: TMs are once again one-use, but can now be crafted using materials obtained from Pokémon battles or found as dropped materials (said materials ranging from claws, nails, teeth and hair, to body fluids or elemental energies). Obtaining a TM separately from crafting provides the player with the recipe to craft more of that TM. How exactly Pokémon parts are made into Technical Machines goes unexplored, but it is quite a revelation in and of itself that this is what these items that have been in the games from the beginning are made of.
• It's Up to You: Ultimately, most changes that occur during the story are the responsibility of the new kid in school (your character). You beat the gym leaders and become Nemona's Worthy Opponent, you help take down the titans and help Arven heal his Mabosstiff, you defeat the likes of Team Star and help Clavell reveal the truth behind their "evil", and, most importantly, you defeat an entire security system protecting an extremely dangerous time machine and the beasts spawned from it.
• Joke Item: Beast Balls can be acquired in this game, but since there are no Ultra Beasts to catch, they're simply far less effective Poké Balls outside of Raid Battles (Where all Balls have a 100% catch rate), meaning the only reason you'd choose to use one is for the Ball effect and/or as a Self-Imposed Challenge.
• King Mook: Titan Pokémon are massive versions of Pokémon who serve as the bosses of the "Path of Legends" storyline. They are fought in two phases and get powered up for the second one.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: The existence of the Paradox Pokémon. Months after release the Pokémon Company no longer bothered trying to hide it.
• Late to the Tragedy: By the time the player character and friends arrive in Area Zero, the entire research team that worked there, Arven's mother/father included, have left or are dead. Nobody who worked on this project is left except for an AI explicitly designed to carry on the project, but decides to help you shut it down instead.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • An NPC in Alfornada comments on the Pokémon mosaics on the observatory which are the traditional party sprites from the Game Boy era titles, saying they remind them of an old video game.
  • When the main character and their companions learn that unlocking the Zero Lab requires deactivating four locks in four separate locations, Nemona says the sequence sounds "video-gamey" without technically breaking the fourth wall.
  • When Arven explains how he rarely saw his mother/father due to their research, Penny asks if it's "time for the backstory reveal."
  • Later, after hearing about your box legendary's origins, Penny comments that "These plot twists really tug at the heartstrings, don't they?"
  • The Pokédex entry for West Sea Shellos in Scarlet states that there are more of them now than there were in the past. Scarlet and Violet are the first non-Sinnoh based games where you can catch both forms of Shellos in the same game, with the previous two generations having heavily favored its East Sea variant.
• Leitmotif:
  • Each of the game's four cardinal provinces has its own distinct leitmotif which is present in all tracks pertaining to that region, though some more subtle than others.
  • The music for the Raid Battles and the music used in Area Zero is mixed together and used as the battle theme for the first round against the AI Professor, which makes sense given the Pokémon from the Raid Battles come from Area Zero.
  • The theme that plays during your last story battle against Kieran in The Indigo Disk contains snippets that are not found in all his previous battle themes. These snippets actually belong to the boss right after him, Terapagos, whose battle theme also incorporates some Tera Raid theme on account of being the source of Terastal phenomenon.
• Long Song, Short Scene: Poco Path and the Inlet Grotto are the only areas to feature traditional wild encounter music; all other areas use Variable Mixed variants of their respective overworld themes instead. Unfortunately, Inlet Grotto is Paldea's resident Noob Cave and Poco Path the short path before it, so you'll likely only ever hear the first few bars of their encounter theme as you catch your first couple Com Mons (and perhaps briefly later on as you stumble upon some Com Mon by accident and immediately leave or OHKO it). Averted if you play Battle Stadium and you select this song ("Wild Pokémon"), or you have the song set to Random and it happens to be the one that plays, as PvP matches take much longer due to involving multiple Pokémon per side.
• Loophole Abuse: The simplified battles in "Let's Go" mode ignore any ability nullifying a weakness, like Paldean Wooper's Water Absorb or Orthworm's Earth Eater. This is best shown when using a Ground-Type Pokémon against an Orthworm: just quit the normal battle and send out the Ground-Type in "Let's Go" model; the super-effective sound will play and Orthworm will faint. This also works even when a Pokémon doesn't know any offensive moves at all, so even a Pokémon like Magikarp can win autobattles even if it only knows Splash at the time.
• Lost in Translation: The academics who granted the player their first Pokémon were given the title of "sensei" (Doctor or Teacher) in the original Japanese, which was translated as Professor. But with this game taking place at an actual school, this leads to the peculiar situation of the Professor (Sada or Turo depending on version) to be the only major academic not to teach at the academy.
• Lost World: Area Zero is this. Found within the Great Crater of Paldea (which formed 2 million years ago in the past), very little is known about it other than that it is exceedingly dangerous, and in fact so little is known about it because it's so dangerous. An Ancient Empire bankrupted itself funding expeditions into Area Zero over centuries, with it being said none of the explorers ever succeeding in reaching its depths. In the modern day, what little is known about Area Zero is compiled in the Scarlet Book or Violet Book, depending on which version you play; an account of the first successful research trip to the depths two hundred years prior. Among the myriad of wonders present in Area Zero are the Herba Mystica that can heal Pokémon from death's door that even Pokémon Centers are unable to help, the crystals that Tera Orbs are made from, and many exceedingly powerful and dangerous Pokémon. However, perhaps the most mysterious of all are the Paradox Pokémon, Pokémon seemingly from the distant past or future. What makes them so incredibly mysterious is that not all of them are present in the crater as a result of the professor's experiments with time travel, as the Scarlet/Violet Book contains records of all known Paradox Pokémon and the book records events from some two centuries before their experiments.
• Lucky Charms Title:
  • One of the game's three main campaigns, which has you battle against Team Star, is titled "★ Starfall Street ★".
  • Iono is known in Paldea as the エレキトリカル★ストリーマー (lit. "Electrical ★ Streamer") in Japanese, which is translated into English as "The Supercharged Streamer" (without the star).
• Macabre Moth Motif: Adding to its eerie atmosphere, Area Zero features nearly every fully-evolved moth-based Pokémon up to that point.^note Venomoth, Masquerain (Japanese name: Amemoth), Frosmoth, Volcarona, and Volcarona's time-shifted counterparts (Slither Wing and Iron Moth, depending on the version). The only absent fully-evolved moth-based Pokémon are Dustox, Wormadam, and Mothim, who don't appear in the game.
• Match Cut:
  • The trailer cuts from the Nintendo Switch in the player's bedroom in-game to a real one in the live-action footage, both of which are docked and have white JoyCons.
  • The trailer called "Jump into a Paldean Journey" does this twice: dissolving from the Starmobile's carburetor to the back of the Technical Machine Machine, then again as part of a tracking shot from the windmill in Artazon to the side of a barbershop/salon.
• Magikarp Power: The Trope Namer returns yet again, but it's got a new aquatic rival in town: Finizen. At first glance, it's an adorable but weak dolphin Pokémon whose strongest move is Dive for eighteen levels, but once you get it to Level 38 while standing in the Union Circle with another player, it evolves into Palafin, who... looks exactly like Finizen except for a heart-shaped mark on its chest that sometimes glows. Once it switches out, however...
• Meaningful Name:
  • The professors are named Sada and Turo, which are short for the Spanish words "pasada" (past) and "futuro" (future), tying into the games' theme of past and future.
  • The main legendaries are named Koraidon and Miraidon, containing the Japanese words "korai" (from time immemorial, ancient), and "mirai" (future), representing the past/future theme of the game. And the second half of their name is just a phonetic "ride-on", since that's what you'll be doing for most of the game.
• Mechanical Horse: The Violet-exclusive Miraidon is a Horse of a Different Color with a metallic body and LED eyes.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: The Stellar Tera Type. Unlike normal Terastallization, where the Pokémon functionally changes its typing and gains both the offensive and defensive capabilities of its Tera Type (with a bonus to Same-Type Attack Bonus if it Terastallizes to a type that it already possesses), Stellar functionally retains the Pokémon's typing but grants Same-Type Attack Bonus on every move once per move type per battle (except in Tera Raids, where the power boost is permanent). Tera Blast when used as Stellar Type also changes to a 100 Power move that is Super-Effective against other Terastallized Pokémon but reduces the user's Attack and Sp. Attack by 50% upon use.
• Mon Tech: Tera Orbs are Poké Ball-like orbs that can cause a Trainer's Pokémon to Terastallize.
• Morton's Fork: Some Tera Raids can become this when the raid boss' Tera type is weak to types that are in turn weak against the boss' original typing: Either you capitalize on STAB and type advantage to quickly finish the raid but risk your Pokémon being KO-ed by super effective attacks the boss definitely has, or forgo STAB and/or type advantage to avoid getting hit by super effective attacks but end up doing too little damage before you time out. A stand-out example is the 7-star Poison-Tera Greninja: Poison is weak to Ground and Psychic, but those two types are respectively weak against Water and Dark, Greninja's original typing, and indeed this Greninja has Hydro Pump and Night Slash to punish those who use Ground and/or Psychic Pokémon.
• Musical Nod: The wild Pokémon and Trainer battle themes in Blueberry Academy are arrangements of the respective themes from Pokémon Black and White (fittingly enough as the academy is located in Unova.) The overworld theme for the Terarium's Coastal Biome also includes a section referencing the Driftveil City theme.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The crown for the Ghost-type Terastallization is modeled after the old generic ghost sprite from the original Pokémon Red and Blue.
  • The feature that lets your Pokémon walk around with you on the overworld is called "Let's Go".
  • The Pika-Vee phone case you can get as an Old Save Bonus shows a battle between Pikachu and Eevee in their Pokémon Yellow sprites.
  • The tower in Alfornada has mosaics depicting the generic Pokémon sprites from Red & Blue.
  • In one of your biology classes, Jacq asks you how you can increase your chances of catching a Pokémon. One of your potential responses is to give the Pokémon a berry, which you can do in Pokémon GO.
  • Another Pokémon GO reference is in the shape of the giant sign atop Pokémon Centers, which is very reminiscent of a PokéStop.
  • Yet another GO reference is Gimmighoul. In order to evolve one, you need to use a certain number of items you can only get by defeating others of its kind, much like Candy.
  • History teacher Raifort using a Gengar and Scream Tail being an ancient Jigglypuff may remind anime watchers of an episode where the two Pokémon had a significant impact in the past.
  • The Blueberry Academy's Terarium from the DLC campaign The Indigo Disk is an artificial, below-the-surface conservation area for Pokémon split into four biomes. This brings to mind the Pre Gym from Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon XD, only underwater instead of underground and much, much larger.
  • In the Canyon Biome there's an area on the map that is a near complete replica of the Nature Preserve from Pokémon Black and White 2. You can even find a special Tera Haxorus there like how you can encounter a shiny Haxorus in the previous game.
  • Drayton refers to the player as "Champ in the making", the catchphrase of the Gym guides from the earlier titles.
  • Blueberry Pokédex entries:
    • The picture for Cyndaquil's Blueberry Dex entry shows it in battle with a Skarmory.
    • Blaziken, Metagross, and Plusle's (Alongside a Minun) Blueberry Dex entries have them doing the exact same pose as their official artwork.
    • Rellor's Dex picture has it doing the same pose it does in the 1000 Pokémon video.
    • Metang's Dex picture has it doing a mirror version of the pose it strikes in the Alola Pokédex.
  • The diplomas awarded for completing the Kitakami and Blueberry Pokédexes feature illustrations of Ogerpon and Terapagos (respectively) drawn in the same watercolour style used for the original Game Boy titles' official art before Art Evolution kicked in.
• Nature vs. Technology: The Paradox Pokémon featured in each game have a unifying theme. The Scarlet exclusives feature prehistoric, ancient variations of modern-day Pokémon, while the Violet exclusives feature futuristic, almost robotic variations of modern-day Pokémon. The designs of the professor in the game also represent this: Violet's Turo wears a futuristic bodysuit, while Scarlet's Sada wears what resembles the clothes of early humans.
• Nerf:
  • After the overwhelming presence that Zacian had in the Generation VIII metagame, it got hit with a double nerf: its regular form lost 10 points in Attack, with Crowned form losing another 10 (for a total of 20), while also having Intrepid Sword nerfed to only work once per a whole match. Unfortunately, Zamazenta had to follow in suit with the stat and Ability nerfs (with Crowned form losing 5 in both Defense stats instead of further 10 Attack).
  • Cresselia lost 10 points in each of her defensive stats.
  • Battle Bond Greninja loses its ability to turn into Ash-Greninja, with Battle Bond instead raising its Attack, Special Attack, and Speed by one stage once per battle. While the boosts actually make it faster and stronger than Ash-Greninja, switching out makes it lose the boosts immediately since it's no longer treated as a form change. Additionally, Water Shuriken lost its power and three hit minimum buffs.
  • Protean and Libero now work only once for each time the user enters the battle.
  • Wicked Blow, Glacial Lance, and Grassy Glide notably have their power reduced by 5, 10, and 15 points, respectively. Grassy Glide was reduced by a further 5 points in patch 2.0.1.
  • Several moves have had their availability significantly restricted compared to previous games. Most notably, Scald, Toxic, and Knock Off, all popular and powerful moves, did not have a TM in the base game and could only be learned by the handful of Pokémon through level up or as egg moves. They eventually got their TMs back in The Teal Mask, but much fewer Pokémon can learn Toxic and Scald than before, with Toxic being mostly restricted to Poison-types or non-Poison-types that are still associated with Poison, and limiting Scald to mostly Water-type Pokémon that can learn Fire-type moves and Water-types with mystical abilities or themes. Knock Off as a TMs was also now unable to be learned by a number of Pokémon that had access to it before, though the reduction was much less than for Scald and Toxic.
  • All recovery moves that recover fixed amount of health have their base PP reduced to 5.
  • A day one patch hit the Treasures of Ruin quartet with a minor nerf, dropping their base stat totals by 10 points each.^note Specifically, Ting-Lu lost 10 points in HP and 5 in Defense, while gaining 5 in Special Attack; Chien-Pao lost 10 points in Attack; Wo-Chien lost 5 points each in Attack and Special Attack; and Chi-Yu lost 10 points in Special Attack. Notably, this is the first time a Pokémon has ever had its stats changed via a game patch.
  • Regieleki's Transistor now only boosts its attacking stat when using Electric-type attacks by 30% instead of 50%.
  • As of patch 3.0.1., Smeargle attempting to use the move Transform in a wild battle will cause the move to fail. This is an Obvious Rule Patch to work around a bug that allowed players to repeatedly steal items from a wild Smeargle that transformed into another Pokémon that's holding an item, effectively duplicating that item.
• Never Trust a Trailer: The official website claims that Nemona uses Lechonk and Smoliv, but she never uses them in the games.
• Non-Uniform Uniform:
  • While the protagonist can't customize their school uniform besides choosing between the Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter set, they can wear any shoes, socks, gloves, hat, and glasses as they see fit, even if they buy it somewhere. This is handwaved by having the school rule say that as long as the student wear the proper shirt and pants, they can choose whatever else they want to wear.
  • Nemona wears leggings under her shorts and has an arm brace, while Arven wears pants with the Autumn uniform compared to the long shorts most characters wear with it. Both of them have unique shoes and bags and skip over the school hat.
  • In The Indigo Disk, all of the BB League Elite Four have some kind of uniform modification to varying degrees. Namely, these are Cripsin's chef's uniform/apron, Amarys' iron boots, Lacey's pink cardigan, and Drayton's jacket and Dragon trainer's cape.
• Nothing Is Scarier: Area Zero. The place is crawling with Paradox Pokémon, but they're not even remotely the scary part. The real horror lies in the fact that an eldritch legendary Pokémon crashed into the Paldea region 2 million years ago, which was described by the book written by Heath, and we don't even see this thing face to face. We know what it's capable of, but the main source of information on it has been dead for around two hundred years. All we know in the present is that it's somewhere in Area Zero and that it has hexagonal plates.
• Notice This: The game marks pickable items in the overworld with things depending on what the item is:
  • Yellow pokéball with yellow pillar of light contains only TM.
  • Red pokéball with red pillar of light usually contains recovery items or Pokéballs.
  • Small twinkle on the ground can be various things: Berries, Shop Fodder, sellable trinkets etc.
• Not Quite the Right Thing: In The Teal Mask, Carmine elects to keep the fact that you and her encountered Ogerpon secret in order to spare Kieran's feelings, worrying he'd be heartbroken at having missed a chance to meet his idol. Unfortunately, Kieran overhears them discussing Ogerpon and concludes that they are excluding him out of spite and contempt, starting his downward spiral.
• Nutritional Nightmare: One NPC says the dishes in Blueberry Academy's cafeteria are all Director Cyrano's personal favorites but describes them as being nutritionally unbalanced. All of them are excessive meals like an overflowing ice cream shake or a tray full of french fries, but the "academy special" is a lunch tray that includes a bowl of karaage ramen, fries smothered in sauce, a flan pudding inside a donut, and jelly beans. Borders on Fast-Food Nation given Unova being based on New York City and New Jersey.
• Object-Tracking Shot: After the introduction to the world of Pokémon at the start of the game, we get to see a panning shot of Koraidon/Miraidon as it flies on a crash course around the various locales of Paldea, alternating from its first-person perspective and a camera following it. After coming out of Area Zero and getting a birds-eye view of the southern half of the region, it dips into the east province and flies with a herd of Paldean Tauros, zooms past the windmill in Artazon, startles a flock of Flamigo in the marshes of the south province, and rips past Mesagoza before falling into the sea near the Poco Path lighthouse.
• Older Is Better:
  • Either played straight or inverted, depending on which version you play. Scarlet features ancient ancestors of present day Pokémon. Violet features futuristic descendants of present-day Pokémon. In either case, they're generally massively more powerful than their present-day counterparts.
  • Raifort is a firm believer in this, regardless of version. She vastly prefers ancient history and complains when she has to cover more recent events in a later lecture.
• Old Save Bonus:
  • Your player character can get a custom phone case for their phone if their system has save data for Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu! and Eevee!, Pokémon Sword and Shield, Pokémon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl, or Pokémon Legends: Arceus. The NPC who gives you them frames it as looking through your "past lives".
  • Connecting to Pokémon GO allows you to receive Postcards you obtain from Gifts in that game, which changes the pattern on wild Vivillon found in Paldea. In turn, Pokémon GO players are able to catch Roaming Form Gimmighoul by connecting to Scarlet/Violet.
• Only Shop in Town: With the exception of largest city Mesagoza, which has three Delibird Presents, two Chansey Supplies, and repeating similar restaurants, as well as the two Delibird Presents locations in Cascarrafa, every town has exactly one store by any one name, and as such that store is the only place you can get those specific items.
• Opening the Sandbox: The games are a full Wide-Open Sandbox, but traversal is made more difficult by various terrain features. Completing parts of the Path of Legends quest increases the power of Koraidon/Miraidon, allowing for a dash, two levels of jumping, swimming, climbing, and gliding. A smaller version also happens at the beginning, when the player is stuck in the first area of the southern province of Paldea until they reach the Academy in Mesagoza and start up the Treasure Hunt.
• Overly Generous Time Limit:
  • All of the Star Barrage fights that take place before fighting the Team Star Bosses require you to knock out 30 Pokémon within 10 minutes. What makes this rather trivial is that you can only fight using the new Let's Go! feature to auto battle all of the Pokémon the grunts send out, which take only a matter of seconds for each mon. Even a new player learning the ropes of the mechanic will take at most 3-4 minutes to knock out 30 Pokémon, and both the amount of Pokémon and time allotted are the same across all bases, even the much higher leveled ones.
  • You get 10 minutes to make a sandwich, but as long as you don't try anything funny, they all take about a minute to make.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Director Clavell as Clive, played deliberately for laughs. A master of subterfuge he ain't. You are regularly given dialogue options where you see through the disguise.
• Patchwork Map: The four biomes in Blueberry Academy's Terarium are starkly distinct from one another, and they are separated only by narrow walls which makes the differences easily visible.
• Peninsula of Power Leveling: See the series' page here.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Invoked by name in size evaluations of Pokémon substantially smaller than average for their species, as size has no influence on the stats of a Pokémon species. Downplayed in that their max power is not higher than what larger individuals of the species can potentially have.
• Pokémon Speak: Lampshaded in the "Indigo Disk" during Amarys' Elite Trial which involves flying your Koraidon/Miraidon through Magnemite Rings. Amarys doesn't recognise the time-displaced dragon motorcycle, so she just refers to them as "Agias" after the sound they make.
• Post-Final Boss: The final battle of the game follows the battle against AI Sada/Turo, as they control another copy of the game's cover Legendary, and you have to use your own that you've been riding around with the whole game. The battle — which is actually impossible to lose — is pretty much there to show off your cover Legendary having finally regained its strength to battle again and stop the Paradise Protection Protocol.
• Power-Up Food: Unlike the Curry in Sword and Shield, which was only for healing and raising Friendship, the Sandwiches in this game actually grant bonuses for 30 minutes of real time. These can range from increasing the encounter rate or catch chance of specific Pokémon types, increasing the chances of getting a Pokémon Egg from a Picnic and accelerating the hatch rate, and even increasing the odds of encountering Shiny Pokémon.
• Power-Up Letdown: Terastallizing a Pokémon can make their moves relatively powerful. However, depending on what you evolved them from, it's a very high possibility they could inherit a Tera Type that isn't relevant to their movepool, for instance, the Eeveelutions or Azumarill getting a Normal Tera type when they could benefit more from another type.
• Pre-existing Encounters: Wild Pokémon are visible on the overworld before they are battled, instead of being encountered via Random Encounters.
• Prehistoric Monster: The Paradox Pokémon in Scarlet resemble current day Pokémon like Misdreavus and Amoonguss, but are far larger and more feral in appearance, and are speculated to be the ancestors of existing Pokémon.
• Protective Charm: A new item is introduced called the Clear Amulet. It protects the holder from stat debuffs by enemy moves or abilities.
• Pun: The town of Artazon is filled with statues and other forms of art, and is home to the artisan Gym Leader, Brassius.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: During the first postgame quest with Penny checking in on the other Team Star members, she reacts like this when Giacomo tries hyping up the students like an MC.
  Penny: What. On. Earth.

Q-Z

• Redemption Demotion: After you catch a Tera Raid Pokémon, it becomes a normal Pokémon with normal stat and 4 moves unlike their boss self. There's also a specific case with 6-star Tera Raids: Whereas the Pokémon you get from other Tera Raids have the same level as when you fight them (e.g. 7-star Tera Raid boss is level 100 both when you fight it and when you catch it), 6-star Tera Raid boss is level 90 when you fight it, but becomes level 75 when you catch it.
• Red Herring: One of the first things Koraidon/Miraidon does after meeting the player and temporarily restoring its power is break a rock blocking their path. While eating Herba Mystica restores its powers later, such as gliding or swimming, breaking rocks is not one of them.
• Repetitive Audio Glitch: At launch, the Elite Four battle themes could suffer a massive glitch which left them stuck looping on the intro theme. Some people have even reported that Geeta's theme suffered a similar glitch which would only loop the intro part of the theme as well. This was fixed with the v.1.1 update.
• Repetitive Name:
  • The TM Machine. Since TM stands for Technical Machine, the TM Machine would be Technical Machine Machine, and is even referred to as such when you're introduced to it. Justified because the TM Machine is a machine that makes Technical Machines.
  • Dunsparce's new evolution is named Dudunsparce.
• Reverse Escort Mission: A variation near the beginning of the game. After feeding Koraidon/Miraidon a sandwich to briefly rejuvenate their battle prowess, you follow behind them through a cave connecting the beach and Poco Path. They'll destroy a boulder in the way, scare off a pack of Houndour and save the player from a much stronger Houndoom, but the player can engage with wild Pokémon along the way and it won't do anything to help them there.
• Ruins for Ruins' Sake: Paldea is absolutely littered with the remains of small, stone structures with no immediately clear purpose due to their wear and decay. Various Pokémon like Ghost-types, Falinks, the Tinkaton family, and Gimmighoul populate them and can be most easily be found here. There's also a bunch of tall stone watchtowers with the Chest Form of Gimmighoul often waiting at the top. The history classes the player can take tell of the Paldean Empire that originally populated the region 2,000 years ago, making them likely responsible for these structures, but their purpose and original design are ultimately left inconclusive.
• Sadistic Choice: Played for Laughs at the expense of the Team Star grunt who's forced to do the choosing. After taking down one Team Star grunt in the player's very first encounter with Team Star, Nemona appears and, once she learns what had led to the confrontation, gives a Tera Orb to the playable protagonist and suggests using it in the battle against the remaining Team Star grunt to learn how Terastallizing works. When the grunt protests about being used as a training dummy, Nemona threatens him by basically saying it's either the playable protagonist or Nemona herself that he'd have to battle against. The grunt, knowing that he stands no chance against a Champion-ranked Pokémon trainer that Nemona is, challenges the playable protagonist... and gets beaten anyway.
  Team Star grunt: Wait, what? You want this kid to practice whaling on us with his/her Tera Pokémon, is that it?
  Nemona: Got a problem? You wanna battle me instead?
• Schizophrenic Difficulty:
  • Due to the game's open world nature, every objective having set levels, the placement of said objectives and the game only telling you what objectives are nearby rather than which ones are closest to your level when asked for help, a lot of first time players can experience this if they don't look up the intended order to fight every Gym Leader, Team Star Base and Titan ahead of time. While the descriptions of the different Team Star and Gym Leaders usually give some indication of their level by mentioning how difficult/easy they are, the descriptions can be somewhat vague and no such hints are given for the Titans. The best you can gauge while guessing blindly is that wild and trained Pokémon levels increase the farther away you go from Mesagoza, up to around mid-50s in the farthest reaches of the region.
  • Wild terastalized Pokémon are even worse. The only thing certain is that they have higher levels than regular wild Pokémon in the same area, but the level differences range from "countable with one hand" to "endgame levels in an early/midgame area". For example, a wild level 50 Electric-Tera Jolteon can be found in a West Province area where regular Pokémon are only level 20-something, and an area near Glaceado Mountain with wild Pokémon in their mid-30s is home to a level 75 Ice-Tera Lucario - higher than even the levels in The Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
• Schmuck Bait: The Elite Four battles are preceded by an interview which kicks the player out of the building if they fail certain questions. The final question is "Do you like Pokémon?", and answering "No" is an instant fail. Unlike the other insta-fail questions, this is one that players would have to intentionally choose: The default response is "Yes," so mashing through the text would still be correct and one would have to actively select "No", and while most other incorrect answers could be excused as a memory lapse, the message that Pokémon enrich the lives of humans is so ingrained into the franchise that it's unlikely the player would genuinely believe the opposite is the right answer. It's pretty much only there to waste time if chosen and see some alternate dialogue from the interviewer.
• School Bullying Is Harmless: Averted. It turns out that Team Star was born as result of a bunch of students who retaliated against their bullies, because the teachers and previous principal were either ignorant of the situation or tried to cover it up. Unfortunately, when they confronted their bullies, they are mistaken as the bullies themselves by other students, sparking rumors at the academy and being worsened by said staff erasing records of the incident instead of fixing it..
• School of No Studying: Downplayed, as the protagonist does study traditionally for some time (in a cutscene) before getting sent on an independent study assignment to kick off the main plot. However, when you attend lessons during gameplay, the teachers act as though you've never been in their class before, giving off the impression of this trope.
• School Uniforms are the New Black: Your only shirt/legwear options are just different seasonal variations of the school uniform. Justified, as the Treasure Hunt is technically a school project/outing.
• Scissors Cuts Rock: Invoked by the BB League Elite Four. When ordered by their in-lore strength, each member specializes in the type that should have been super effective against the type wielded by the member above them.^{In order}Crispin's Fire-type is normally super effective against Amarys' Steel, which is normally is super effective against Lacey's Fairy, which is normally super effective against Drayton's Dragon, however, the aforementioned name order is from the weakest to the strongest Elite Four
• Seeing Through Another's Eyes: Of a technological rather than psychic variation. The Indigo Disk expansion introduces the Synchro Machine, a device that allows a trainer to synchronize their mind and feelings with their Pokémon, essentially letting them move about in their Pokémon's body and see from their perspective. The trainer is left to stand in one place, their eyes closed in concentration.
• Seemingly Hopeless Boss Fight: After the first battle at the Zero Lab, the Paradise Protection Protocol locks any Poké Ball that isn't the Professor's and sics the game's box Legendary on you. When you find yourself in the following battle, you're unable to do anything because you have no usable Pokémon. After a few turns, it comes up that the Poké Ball of your Legendary is still usable because it belonged to the Professor. The Koraidon/Miraidon not only regains its battle form, but Dragon-type Terastallizes, allowing you to win the battle.
• Sequel Hook:
  • In one of the research stations within Area Zero, there are notes detailing a Pokémon with a hexagonal shell being responsible for Terastallization, the name being censored. No such Pokémon exists in previous generations or in Scarlet and Violet’s base game, serving as a hint towards the existence of Terapagos and The Indigo Disc DLC.
  • The player can read the Scarlet/Violet book in the school's library, which not only mentions a Pokémon similar to the one described above (with the entire page being for some reason nigh-unreadable), but also another one that resembles a Fusion Dance between the Legendary Beasts (in Scarlet)/Swords of Justice sans Keldeo (in Violet) and is explicitly stated to have been "imagined" by the artist rather than actually seen. None of these are encountered in the base game. In a post-game scene, Arven even directly brings up an issue regarding the book: if the Paradox Pokémon were brought to modern Paldea by the Professor's time machine ten years ago or so, then why were they already around when the book was written 200 years ago? A lot of the book is dedicated to hooks for a sequel/DLC. It was announced during Pokémon Day 2023 that the two Fusion Dances would be released during Raid Battles, called Walking Wake and Iron Leaves respectively. However, Walking Wake resembles a dinosaurian Suicune and Iron Leaves resembles a metallic Virizon unlike the books. During The Teal Mask, we are introduced to Heath's descendant, Briar, who happens to have the original transcript for the Scarlet/Violet book with her and shows the player an uninterrupted version of the page that was smudged and reveals that the Pokémon's name was Terapagos.
  • The local Legendaries known as the Treasures of Ruin stand out from the Spain/Portugal-inspired setting as they're based on the Four Perils complete with very Chinese-sounding names as well as the designs of the shrines they're sealed in. Raifort's fourth history lesson has her mention a Paldean fairy tale about a merchant from the East bringing four treasures to the king of Paldea, hinting at a future region based on China.
  • This comes naturally at the end of The Teal Mask DLC, which sets up some plot threads to be resolved in The Indigo Disk DLC. Briar, Carmine, and Kieran are called from the school trip early due to "developments in the Great Crater", and Kieran appears to have snapped due to his repeated losses to the player character.
• Sequence Breaking: There are a number of islands throughout the world, including in some of the earliest/lowest-leveled areas of the game, which have items and are meant to be returned to later once you can surf. However, by carefully targeting Pokémon in the water for battles which will move you to the land closest to them, you can get to these islands and acquire the items, many intended for the mid-late game, early. Snagging high-level/valuable items and/or TMs with stronger moves than are otherwise accessible early in the game can be quite the Disc-One Nuke.
• Shop Fodder: Defeating wild Pokémon nets you some materials, usually the Pokémon's body parts, that you can sell for LP or Pokédollars, or use up to make TMs. Paradox Pokémon in Area Zero are an exception; they drop nothing no matter how many of them you defeat, but as a compensation they give generous amount of Exp compared to most other wild Pokémon you find there.
• Shout-Out:
  • Iono names her hide-and-seek challenge "Where in Levincia is Mr. Walksabout?", then wonders if that name is okay to use.
  • The yellow and gold variants of the Cool Helmet resemble Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo's helmet.
  • There's a painting of a Greninja in Nemona's house done in the style of Joan Miró.
  • One of the Titan Pokémon is a giant Orthworm making holes in the desert. You even find it buried to the neck in the ground with its mouth open like the Sarlaac pit.
  • A book or DVD set in Penny's dorm has a visible Ultraman-esque figure on the side.
  • The endgame plot revolving the Great Crater of Paldea can be seen as a kid-friendly version of Made in Abyss, from Arven receiving a message from his long-lost parent currently deep within the crater, to the crater itself being filled with more and more hostile wildlife as Arven and his friends go down.
  • In Blueberry Academy's Terarium, a rock formation on the western edge of the Savannah Biome resembles Pride Rock, complete with a male Pyroar perched on its peak.
  • Blastoise swims by withdrawing its legs into its shell and firing water jets out of it in a similar manner to how Gamera flies.
• Shown Their Work:
  • The north side of Paldea features the Tagree Thicket, a forest of trees painted vibrant colors by the Grafaiai there. This is a reference to the real-world Oma forest in northern Spain, where an artist has painted onto trees in the area.
  • Mesagoza uses colorful mosaic designs in some of its architecture, such as at the heart of the city where a Pokémon arena is outlined using mosaic tile. This references the trencadís art style used in parts of Spain, most famously at Parc Güell in Barcelona.
  • Like with real-world Spain, Paldea used to have an empire. It created the "Great Age of Exploration", mirroring Spain causing the European Age of Exploration, only the Paldean Empire was trying to delve into Area Zero rather than span itself across the globe.
  • Blueberry Academy in Unova is 18 minutes ahead of Paldea, which translates into six hours in real time, which is the exact time difference between Spain and New York, which Paldea and Unova respectively are based on.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: In The Indigo Disk the strongest generic trainers are members of the League Club, who wear sleeveless vests.
• Socialization Bonus: Other than the usual version exclusive Pokémon, The Indigo Disk adds Team Blueberry Quests which can only be played in Union Circle mode. Said quests are needed to unlock the possibility to find and catch all of Snacksworth's Legendary Pokémon (the three exclusive to Team BBQs, plus all the other version's exclusives). Moreover, completing the Blueberry Pokédex requires the player to upgrade all the Terarium Biomes in order to spawn the previous generations' starter Pokémon; while this can be accomplished by a single player with a lot of patience, the high cost for these upgrades (3,000 BP per Biome, 12,000 BP in total) will definitely be more palatable to those players who have access to Team BBQs and their hefty payouts (400-600 BP each).
• Stable Time Loop: Invoked only to be defied and turned into a paradox. After completing the main story of The Indigo Disk, the player can travel to the Crystal Pool with Terapagos to activate an event bringing Sada/Turo from the past to the present. The player then gives them Briar's book, giving them the information they need to complete the time machine and the AI, inciting the events that take place before the game. You also tell them Koraidon's/Miraidon's name, which they will give to the "Winged King"/"Iron Serpent" when they catch it, making their name a bootstrap paradox. However, this interaction also involves the Professor giving up their childhood copy of the Scarlet/Violet Book in exchange, something that didn't happen in the past events of the game and seemingly precludes the possibility of Arven giving you that copy early in the game, implying an alternate timeline is involved.
• Stealth Pun: There are a few spaced throughout the game.
  • Fidough is a puppy Pokémon with a doughy texture. It's also a pure Fairy type, and its Violet PokéDex entry states its breath contains yeast. In other words, it's a pure-bread (purebred) dog.
  • The Bug type Gym Leader has a Teddiursa as her ace, which Terastallizes into the Bug type. It's a bugbear.
  • Penny, revealed to be Cassiopeia of Team Star and the one who created Operation Starfall tries to make amends by taking the fall for everything.
  • Koraidon and Miraidon gain new abilities, such as swimming or gliding, every time they eat one of the Herba Mystica. What's the initial for "Herba Mystica"? HM, as in Hidden Machine.
  • Larry is your average joe and a white-collared worker that has at least three different jobs. He's a sal-larry-man.
  • Skeledirge's signature move, Torch Song, has its fireball bird turn into a microphone that it sings into in order to attack. It's spitting fire by spitting fire^note  As in "to sing with passion".
• Superboss: The 7-star Tera Raids, while Temporary Online Content, provide for the hardest fights in the game (even moreso than the already Harder Than Hard 6-star raids) and can only be unlocked once said 6-star raids are made available. The game's first 7-star raid, for instance, available in December 2022, was against a Lv. 100 Charizard^note not normally available in Paldea that Terastallizes into a Dragon-type and comes packing extremely powerful coverage moves.
• Super Drowning Skills: Like in Pokémon Legends: Arceus, you can't swim in deep water until you unlock the ability to surf on Koraidon/Miraidon's back, but you're simply sent back to where you last stood instead of blacking out.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • You can become the Blueberry Academy Champion, which is all well-and-good Pokémon fare for protagonists... until Lacey points out that, because you are at Blueberry Academy on a Foreign Exchange Student program, this creates complications: namely that the position of Champion will suddenly open up with no immediate replacement after your program ends, and also that the Blueberry Elite Four's weakest member (Crispin) is getting pushed out, which they don't enjoy. Crispin ends up keeping his rank due to Kieran withdrawing himself completely from the club's rankings, and the rules get adjusted to allow the Champion to attend a different school.
  • The climax of base game's story revolves around turning off a time machine so its automatic process doesn't destroy Paldea's ecosystem. Turns out introducing invasive species—let alone time-displaced ones—to a harmonious environment can cause problems.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: When you meet Nemona at your second gym, she goes on about what an amazing coincidence it is that she met you at that gym.
  "I swear I'm not just sneaking ahead of you so I can lie in wait and go, 'Oh wow, weird, might as well battle now that you're here!'"
• Swapped Roles: During the Teal Mask DLC, both Carmine and Kieran undergo this during the story. Carmine starts off as rude and unwelcoming towards the player and acts as a bully towards her younger brother Kiran who tends to be more shy and also friendlier to the player. However, during your time with them Carmine starts warming up to the player and starts becoming much kinder and friendlier towards them, even admitting they are glad she met them at the end while Kieran starts becoming more colder and aloof after discovering they've been hiding secrets from him. Also constantly losing to him makes him more determined to become stronger to defeat you, showing a sinister smile on his face. By the beginning of Indigo Disk, Kieran has already blitzed through the BB League to become its Champion, stirring up a lot of drama in the process, and Carmine is clearly distressed and uncomfortable with how much her brother has changed recently.
• Tastes Better Than It Looks: The Herba Mystica sandwiches that Arven prepares throughout the Path of Legends storyline appear hazardous to consume; the bitter sandwich emanates a noxious aura and the spicy sandwich looks like it's on fire. Arven and your character don't seem to struggle that much with actually eating the things in the ensuing cutscene.
• Tears of Awe: Hassel has a tendency to ugly-cry when he's proud of someone, like when he's impressed by how well the player fought against him in a battle.
• Techno Wreckage: Area Zero's remains. Some of it is still perfectly fine, but many areas are completely ruined, and a lot of the remaining human-built structures are coated in large crystals.
• Temporary Online Content:
  • Inverted with Spewpa - all Spewpa in this game evolve into the formerly event-only Fancy Pattern Vivillon.
  • Played straight with Tera Raid bosses who possess the Mightiest Mark, as they are available only on very specific dates. That said, for players who don't care about the Mightiest Mark (since it's just a Cosmetic Award), the Pokémon species of those special bosses can be obtained another way any other time.
• Tempting Fate: At the Blueberry Academy cafeteria in The Indigo Disk, Kieran states that he doesn't lose to anyone after seeing the Player Character there, only to lose in his Pokémon battle against them.
• Thematic Sequel Logo Change:
  • The Japanese logo for Scarlet and Violet has the Terastallization symbol in the "Pokémon" portion, the game's primary mechanic. The logos for both the Japanese and international versions have the "Scarlet" lettering resemble Koraidon's scales, while the "Violet" lettering is pixelated like Miraidon's eyes, the two box legends.
  • The borders around the Scarlet and Violet logos proper are formed from Koraidon and Miraidon's heads respectively, with the upper inner portions being bordered by their wheels. The symbols on the outer border include that of Zero Base, the site of the game's climax, and the Tera Orb symbol, all of which are also the borders inside the Scarlet/Violet Book that details Heath's expedition to the Great Crater of Paldea 200 years before the story began.
  • The logos for The Teal Mask and The Indigo Disk have the middle words colored teal and indigo respectively to represent Ogerpon and Terapagos respectively.
• Theme Naming: Each of the major storylines are named after synonyms for roads, fitting with Hassel's comment of "All paths lead to the Great Crater of Paldea". The storyline dealing with the Pokémon Gyms and League is called "Victory Road", named after the titular path in previous Pokémon games that served as the final obstacle to the Pokémon League of their respective regions. The storyline focusing on the Titans and Herba Mystica is called "Path of Legends". The storyline that has you take down the bosses of Team Star is called "★ Starfall Street ★". After all three of these stories have been finished, a final fourth story line that wraps up all the mysteries of Koraidon/Miraidon is opened, called "The Way Home".
• Theme Table: Between the eight Gym Leaders^note Who cover Bug, Grass, Electric, Water, Normal, Ghost, Psychic, and Ice, the five Team Star bosses^note Who cover Dark, Fire, Poison, Fairy, and Fighting, and the five titans of the Path of Legends^note Which cover Rock, Flying, Steel, Ground, and Dragon, every one of the standard eighteen types of Pokémon is covered by a Boss Battle. And in case the Titan fights aren't to your liking, the Elite Four cover the same types in regular trainer battles, and Tyme, the current math teacher at Uva/Naranja academy and a former gym leader, specializes in Rock-types.
• Thememobile: Each Team Star boss drives a custom car called a Starmobile with a special Revavroom attached that has a unique type matching the boss's specialty as well as a different ability. Their Pokémon fight you from atop it, with their special Revavroom fighting you last and packing a Secret Art that weaponizes the whole vehicle. For example, Mela's Starmobile is decorated with flames and her Revavroom is pure Fire with the signature move Blazing Torque.
• Title Drop: After completing both parts of the DLC's story, Briar hands the player a copy of her new book about what they've discovered, titled "The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero".
• Trailers Always Spoil:
  • The Paradox Pokémon were a massive endgame twist that were kept hidden until the release of the game, and even then until the very end of the game itself, with the only representatives made public being the box Legendaries and the Quaking Earth Titan. In the Pokémon Presents for 2023, Walking Wake and Iron Leaves are directly referred to as Paradox Pokémon.
  • In The Teal Mask, the story of the battle between the Loyal Three and Ogerpon states that the former gave their lives to stop the latter; however, the Loyal Three were one of the focal points of the DLC's promotional material, including shots of them outright battling the player in the present day. It ends up serving as the earliest hint that the legend isn't really an accurate depiction of events.
• Training Stage: The indoor battle court used at the Pokémon League building fits the look, with square glass tiles covering the floor, walls, and ceiling with a light turquoise backlit glow, giving the appearance of this trope's characteristic light-colored grid.
• Two Girls to a Team: Granted, you wouldn't know unless you caught them, but the Titan Pokémon consist of two female Pokémon (Klawf and Bombirdier), three male Pokémon (Orthworm, Dondozo and Tatsugiri) and one genderless Pokémon (Great Tusk/Iron Treads).
• Uncommon Time: The "East Province (Riding)" theme alternates between 5/4 and 6/4, except for the bridge, which is fully in 6/4.
• Underground Monkey:
  • Regional variants return, albeit more downplayed compared to the previous two generations with only a grand total of two Pokémon receiving regional variants:
    • Paldean Wooper is a Poison/Ground type that evolves into Clodsire instead of Quagsire like the Johtonian variant.
    • Tauros has a grand total of three variants with the normal one being a pure Fighting type, the Blaze Breed exclusive in Scarlet being a Fighting/Fire type, and the Aqua Breed exclusive in Violet being a Fighting/Water type.
  • Convergent evolutions are unrelated species of Pokémon that have developed similar appearances and names to previously discovered species:
    • Wiglett is a garden eel-like Pokémon that was initially thought to be a Paldean form of Diglett, before it was determined to be something else entirely. It evolves into Wugtrio, which resembles Dugtrio.
    • Toedscool and its evolution Toedscruel are based on woodear fungi, and the way they walk on their mycelium makes them the spitting images of the Tentacool line.
    • Poltchageist is based on a matcha tea caddy that, despite its name being similar to Polteageist, actually resembles Sinistea. It's said to be born from the regrets of a tea master who was obsessed with the perfect tea ceremony and ultimately drove everyone away because of it. While it does have the same swirl pattern as Sinistea, the swirl is not its weak point. While it's known to fill in any cracks it finds using its matcha, it can also drain people of their energy if they make contact with the matcha. As opposed to the other convergent evolutionary Pokémon, while Sinistea evolves into Polteageist, Poltchageist evolves into Sinistcha.
  • Paradox forms are believed to be the primal ancestors or robotic descendants of Pokémon from previous generations pulled into the present by either Professor Sada or Turo.
    • Great Tusk and Iron Treads are based on a mastodon and a set of tank treads respectively. They are the ancestor and descendant of Donphan. Great Tusk is a massive Pokémon with a vicious temperament that attacked an expedition team with its equally massive tusks while Iron Treads is speculated to be an otherworldly weapon that curls itself into a wheel and charges into its target. It also curls itself up like this to rock itself to sleep.
    • Scream Tail looks as if it is an ancient ancestor Jigglypuff that possesses a wild temperament and a feral appearance, most notably a long bushy tail from the top of its head.
    • Brute Bonnet looks almost identical to Amoonguss, hinting that the former is the ancestor of the latter, with its bonnet-like growth and saurian appearance being the two most distinguishing features.
    • Flutter Mane is an ancestor of Misdreavus with longer hair, red eyes, and spikes going down its head.
    • Slither Wing and Iron Moth are the ancestor and descendant respectively of Volcarona.
    • Sandy Shocks is an ancestor of Magneton that uses elongated magnets to walk rather than using electromagnetism to float. It derives its name from the iron sand stuck to its body.
    • Iron Bundle is a descendant of Delibird that attacks and moves about by expelling ice from an apparatus attached to where Delibird's tail would be.
    • Iron Hands is a descendant of Hariyama with a pair of electromagnetically floating hands.
    • Iron Jugulis is a descendant of Hydreigon.
    • Iron Thorns is a descendant of Tyranitar that has a more levelheaded and pacifistic nature compared to contemporary Tyranitar.
    • Roaring Moon is an ancestor of Salamence with a single feathered wing and a strong yet inexplicable resemblance to Salamence's Mega form.
    • Iron Valiant has not one but two descendants, that being Gardevoir and Gallade, taking attributes from both. It's said to cruelly cut down anything and anyone that stands against it with its shining blade.
    • Walking Wake is an ancestor of Suicune that resembles a theropod dinosaur. In the Scarlet Book, it looks like a mix between the Legendary Beasts that's quadrupedal and has Raikou's legs, Entei's face, and Suicune's crest. The Pokémon itself is bipedal and only draws from Suicune.
    • Raging Bolt is an ancestor of Raikou that resembles a Brontosaurus with its cloud-like mane wrapped around its head.
    • Iron Leaves is a descendant of Virizion. In the Violet Book, it looks like a mix between the Swords of Justice minus Keldeo that has Terrakion's legs, Cobalion's torso, and Virizion's head. The Pokémon itself only draws from Virizion.
    • Iron Crown is a descendant of Cobalion with slightly more jagged horns than its contemporary counterpart.
    • The game mascots, Koraidon and Miraidon, known as Winged King and Iron Serpent respectively, are the ancestor and descendant of Cyclizar. Koraidon is said to have split the land asunder with its bare fists while Miraidon is said to have turned it all to ash with its lightning.
• Uniqueness Decay:
  • In other regions, there is only one Pokémon League Champion, but in Paldea there are multiple "Champion-ranked trainers" and the one known as "Top Champion" isn't even the strongest (it seems to be more of an administrative role).
  • Various type matchups that were once unique now have new members:
    • Before, the only Poison/Ground-types were Nidoking and Nidoqueen. Now, there's Paldean Wooper and Clodsire.
    • Before, the only Normal/Grass-types were Deerling and Sawsbuck. Now, there's the Smoliv line.
    • Before, the only Dragon/Ice-type was Kyurem. Now, there's the Frigibax line.
    • Before, the only Rock/Poison-type was Nihilego. Now, there's Glimmet and Glimmora.
    • Before, the only Ghost/Steel-types were the Honedge line. Now, there's Gimmighoul's evolution Gholdengo.
    • Before, the only Pokémon that was Grass/Ghost-type specifically, with Grass being the primary type, was the standard variant of Decidueye. Now, there's Bramblin and Brambleghast.
    • Before, the only Ghost/Fighting-type was Marshadow. Now, there's the new evolution of Primeape, Annihilape.
    • Before, the only Normal/Dragon-type was Drampa. Now, there's Cyclizar.
    • Before, the only Grass/Ground-type was Torterra. Now, there's Toedscool and its evolution Toedscruel.
    • Before, the only Dark/Ice-types were the standard Sneasel line. Now, there's Chien-Pao.
    • Before, the only Ground/Dark-types were the Sandile line. Now, there's Ting-Lu.
    • Before, the only Dragon/Fighting-types were Hakamo-o and Kommo-o. Now, there's Koraidon.
    • Before, the only Poison/Fire-types were Salandit and Salazzle. Now, there's the future Paradox form of Volcarona, Iron Moth.
    • Before, the only Rock/Electric-types were the Alolan Geodude line. Now, there's the Paradox form of Tyranitar, Iron Thorns.
    • Before, the only Electric/Ground-type was the standard variant of Stunfisk. Now, there's the Paradox form of Magneton, Sandy Shocks.
    • Before, the only Ghost/Fairy-type was Mimikyu. Now, there's the Paradox form of Misdreavus, Flutter Mane.
    • Prior to The Teal Mask DLC, the only Grass/Water-types were the Lotad line, the only Grass/Rock-types were the Lileep line, and the only Grass/Fire-type was Scovillain. Now, there's Ogerpon, who can form change into each of them as well as being a pure Grass-type.
    • With the release of the DLC, there are now other Poison/Psychic and Poison/Fairy-types alongside the Galarian variants of Slowbro, Slowking, and Weezing respectively with Munkidori and Fezandipiti.
    • As of the Mochi Mayhem epilogue, the Gastly line are no longer the only Ghost/Poison types: Pecharunt is Poison/Ghost.
• Unishment: As a means of reprimanding the Team Star Bosses (minus Penny), Clavell tasks them with turning their old bases into training centers for students to cultivate their skills. Basically, their punishment for breaking school rules is to become Gym Leaders. Penny even lampshades how it's basically a win for everyone, until she learns firsthand how stressing it is to work under Geeta.
• Unreliable Narrator: The stories presented in The Teal Mask are rife with this trope:
  • The Kitakami tale about Ogerpon paints her as a monster who was defeated by the Loyal Three defending the village. As Kieran's grandpa's story says, she's actually an innocent Pokémon who lived happily with her ostracized human friend. They managed to blend with society thanks to Carmine and Kieran's mask maker ancestor helping them out with the four masks to hide their identities and become beloved by the people, but the masks caused them to be targeted by the Loyal Three - who were actually thieves - and led to the masks getting stolen an Ogerpon's friend ambiguously "disappearing" while Ogerpon was away. This caused Ogerpon to find their cave home ransaked, who then flew in a rage and fought the Loyal Three at the village for revenge, which ended up looking like the thieves were saviors to the people when Ogerpon finished them off and went away to the mountain to live in solitude.
  • The Indigo Disk sheds more light on Pecharunt, the actual villain of the whole thing, but its backstory doesn't match the present in some spots. Its story video says it used to live happily with an old couple, who later got brainwashed with its poisonous mochi so they'd love it much more to satisfy its own greed. They then asked it to get them Kitakami masks, and the story then develops as if Pecharunt was in a heroic journey with the Loyal Three (whom it corrupted into the thieves they are today) and had to steal Ogerpon's masks, notably painting the thieves' demise in a sympathetic light. Even then, it's unclear if the start of the story was supposed to be as happy as portrayed, given Pecharunt is known as the Subjugation Pokémon and it deliberately tried to enslave a whole town to do its bidding.
• Variable Mix: Each overworld theme has at least four variants crossfading between each other depending on what you're doing; a calm version while on foot, a more upbeat version while in certain towns, one or more energetic variants while riding your mount, and an even more energetic one during encounters with wild Pokémon (except in the Poco Path area and the mountains surrounding the Great Crater of Paldea, which use a more traditional encounter theme instead).
• Version-Exclusive Content:
  • The school uniform the player character and various NPCs wear is different based on the game you play. Scarlet players wear orange while Violet players wear purple.
  • Depending on the game, you interact with a different Professor. In Scarlet, you meet Professor Sada, and in Violet, you meet Professor Turo.
  • The school you attend differs depending on the version. Naranja Academy is attended in Scarlet and Uva Academy is attended in Violet, with their director Clavell having a differently colored suit based on the version you play.
  • You can get version-exclusive items to evolve Charcadet into Armarouge, a Fire/Psychic-type exclusive to Scarlet, and Ceruledge, a Fire/Ghost-type exclusive to Violet.
  • Arven has the Scarlet Book in Scarlet and the Violet Book in Violet. In each book is documentation and sketches of its own version-exclusive Pokémon, with Great Tusk described in the Scarlet Book and Iron Treads described in the Violet Book.
  • What type of Paradox Pokémon coming from the time machine created by the Professor in Area Zero depends on the version. Scarlet has Ancient Pokémon that are ancestors from the distant past, while Violet has Future Pokémon that are robotic descendants.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: Area Zero, deep within the 2 million year old Great Crater of Paldea, is home to some very dangerous Pokémon that seemingly don't even hail from the present day, either coming from an age long past or from the distant future. It serves as the final area of the game, where you must rescue Professor Sada or Turo from the depths.
• Video Game Caring Potential:
  • You can come back to the school anytime once you start the Treasure Hunt, and if you have done your classes, you have the chance to get to know the Staff of the Academy better as you take classes and interact with the staff, thus forming an Intergenerational Friendship with them.
  • After completing the Academy Ace Tournament for the first time, you can resolve the storylines for Nemona, Penny, and Arven. Doing so will have them be comfortable enough to let the player into their dorm rooms.
• Video Game Delegation Penalty: ZigZagged. Using the Let's Go! feature to knock out wild Pokémon will give much less EXP than usual, won't trigger evolutions that require leveling up, and they won't drop as many materials. However, doing so also won't give the Pokémon any EVs from the Pokémon they knock out, making for a decently efficient method of gathering EXP for a Pokémon without affecting their EV spread or resorting to Rare/EXP Candies.
• Violation of Common Sense: Contrary to what some players believe, the placement of a sandwich's top bun in the minigame has no effect on the powers it grants you. The smart move, therefore, is to drop the bun as far away as possible from the rest of the sandwich so it simply hits the plate and vanishes, as attempting to get the bun on top of the ingredients has a high chance of making the sandwich topple over, wasting precious food and decreasing the potency of the power-ups.
• Wake-Up Call Boss:
  • Katy, ostensibly the first Gym Leader you're supposed to challenge and the one easiest to find first, has three Pokémon of roughly equal levels (14, 14 and 15) while most prior first Gyms had one weak Lv 10-12 and a Lv 14 ace, and her "ace" is a Bug Tera Teddiursa that spams a boosted Fury Cutter, a move that gets stronger with every use. If you haven't leveled up or don't have an answer to Bug, she'll steamroll you.
  • Similarly, the ace of Brassius, the second intended gym leader, is a Grass Tera Sudowoodo with Rock Throw, a move that is super effective to four of Grass's weaknesses. If you thought you could steamroll him with a Fire type like you did Katy, you're in for a nasty surprise.
  • Iono, the third gym leader (assuming you're taking the correct route) can be a little tricky depending on how you prepare your team. Specializing in Electric types, two of her Pokémon are completely immune to Ground types...including her Tera Electric Mismagius, who emulates the Eelektross family from Unova in having no weaknesses thanks to its Levitate ability. While you won't be able to steamroll her team with a single Ground type move, her Pokémon fortunately don't have any coverage moves other than her Bellibolt. Even so, make sure you have a reliably strong team that isn't dependent on exploiting weaknesses before taking her on.
  • Iono repeats this during the post-game Gym Challenge. While she's not excessively powerful, she goes out of her way to become as frustrating as possible with stalling and mitigating strategies like using Magnet Rise to No-Sell the Ground types you likely brought to the fight, forcing players to adapt to the idea that, no, they can't just brute force their way through the final fights anymore.
  • The first fight with Lacey in the Indigo Disk DLC is a Double Battle leading with Plusle and Minun. Instead of the usual weak Plus/Minus gimmick though, she instead spams Discharge to trigger their own Lightningrod and Volt Absorb while also damaging you, and if you get through them she sends out Excadrill, a strong Ground-type (thereby also immune to Discharge). This is your first warning that the DLC will be a Brutal Bonus Level with competitive-level strategies on its opponents, which only get tougher from there (save for Tony in the Costal Biome who uses Luvdisc and Pikachu).
• Warm-Up Boss: Klawf, the Stony Cliff Titan, is the first and easiest of the Titan Pokémon. It doesn't do much except soak up hits and hit back reasonably hard, its Block move does basically nothing, and Arven's Shellder has high physical defense and can hit Klawf super-effectively, making it a perfect ally for the fight. While the later Titan Pokémon aren't necessarily hard, they have more unique properties and gimmicks to their fights, and Arven's Pokémon won't be able to carry you to victory as easily.
• Warp Whistle:
  • The Flying Taxis will take you to any Pokémon Center, shrine, watchtower, or Sight of Paldea that you've been to before from virtually anywhere on the map (as long as you're not inside a building).
  • The teleporters within Area Zero will take you between the Zero Gate and any of the Research Stations that you've already visited. Unlike the Flying Taxis, they can only be used from one of the teleporter sites.
• Wham Line:
  • After defeating Poppy, she's off to call in the next member of the Elite Four.
    Poppy: It's your turn, Mr. Larry!
  • This line from the Professor, confirming that they're not what they seem:
    "Deactivating sleep mode."
  • And immediately after the previous example- just in case you thought that the real Sada/Turo was simply elsewhere and would be encountered shortly- the speaker of the previous line is quick to set the record straight:
    "The real professor passed away during the incident that destroyed Research Station No. 4."
  • After seemingly defeating the Final Boss, Professor Sada/Turo proves how much of a No-Nonsense Nemesis they are from beyond the grave by doing something that no other Pokémon antagonist has ever done up to that point: completely stop the heroes from using their Pokémon.
    Locking all Poké Balls except those registered to Sada/Turo's ID.
• Wham Shot:
  • Arven summoning the reason behind finding the Herba Mystica and his jerkish attitude; his injured partner, Mabosstiff, lying on the ground.
  • When you meet up with Cassiopeia in the school fighting grounds, you instead meet up with Penny. And she smirks.
  • Early on in Area Zero, Penny notices a prehistoric Jigglypuff (Scream Tail)/robotic Delibird (Iron Bundle) and mistakes it for its present-day counterpart, giving an early indicator of what's roaming around Area Zero well beyond the mysterious Donphan-like Titan (Great Tusk/Iron Treads) fought earlier.
  • When you see the Professor asleep on their chair their eyes are wide open.
  • Terapagos destroying the Master Ball Kieran caught it in when Kieran tries to call it back after its Stellar Form starts going wild.
  • In an optional scene post-Indigo Disk, taking Terapagos to the Crystal Pool in Kitakami causes it to summon someone you probably never expected to see again...or, more accurately, someone you never expected to see alive:
    Prof. Sada/Turo: "Well now."
• Welcome to Corneria:
  • Some NPCs in the background may repeat their lines if the player hangs around them a lot.
  • When the player and their friends reach the fourth research station, Sada/Turo will repeat their lines. This is a hint that something is wrong.
• Whole-Plot Reference: Ogerpon's tale is a wholesale replica of the base game's Starfall Street: A victim of bullying (Team Star Bosses/Ogerpon) lashed out on the bullies (the academy bullies/The Loyal Three), but witnesses got things mixed up and the victim ended up being demonized as the bully until you and an ally (Clavell/Carmine and Kieran) help clear their name long after the incident.
• Wide-Open Sandbox: Building on the Wild Area and DLC locations from Pokémon Sword and Shield, and the segmented open world in Pokémon Legends: Arceus, Scarlet and Violet are the first true open world RPGs for the Pokémon franchise, to the point where Pokémon Gyms have no set order and can be fought in any order the player chooses. That said, if you go off of how the levels progress, there is an "intended" order that the gyms and other story beats are recommended to be completed in ^note The order, based on levels: Bug Gym, Rock Titan, Grass Gym, Flying Titan, Dark Team Star Base, Electric Gym, Fire Team Star Base, Steel Titan, Water Gym, Poison Team Star Base, Normal Gym, Ghost Gym, Ground Titan, Psychic Gym, Ice Gym, Fairy Team Star Base, Dragon Titan, Fighting Team Star Base.. The game also pushes you to complete at least the gyms first by tying Mart contents, wild catch rates, and obedience solely to number of gym badges, discounting any of the Titan or Star badges.
• Women Are Wiser: The BB League Elite Four displays this mentality. Amarys is stern to the point of almost robotic and Lacey is level-headed and rational, while Crispin is hot-headed and loves to battle, and Drayton is a lazy bum who can be manipulative when he wants to, and lastly we have Kieran who has gone off the deep end and becomes a tyrant to the League club.
• Wreaking Havok: A few game elements seem to exist purely to demonstrate the game's physics, which have otherwise not been a major highlight of a mainline Pokémon title. These include the Cortondo Gym Test, which involves kicking a giant olive through an obstacle course, and the sandwich making minigame, which involves dropping sandwich ingredients onto a bun and watching them bounce around (much to the player's annoyance).
• Written by the Winners: The Teal Mask shows that history is filled with liars. Ogerpon may have killed the "Loyal" Three for stealing her masks, but the villagers assumed she was attacking them and that the Three died protecting the village, causing her to go down in history as a villain.
• Wutai: The Teal Mask DLC is set in a Japanese-inspired region and the Legendary Pokémon are based off of Japanese folklore such as Momotaro.
• You Have Researched Breathing: One item you can get from your visit to Kitakami is a selfie stick, which enables a further-away point of view in your selfie Photo Mode. But your Rotom Phone is already capable of floating hands-free to position itself anywhere in 3D space around you, so the stick shouldn't be necessary for that (beyond the convenience of not having to tell the Rotom where to position itself).
• Zerg Rush: In the ★ Starfall Street ★ storyline, which has you battle against the delinquent Team Star, its grunts will hammer you with one Pokémon after another until you beat them within a set time frame.
• Zero-Effort Boss: You cannot lose the final fight against the AI Professor's Koraidon/Miraidon. If your Koraidon/Miraidon's HP would drop to 0, it will always tough it out with 1 HP. Your allies will try to coerce you to use certain moves in a certain order to counter your opponent's moves, but you're completely free to just press anything until the boss's HP reaches 0. If you take too long to terastallise your Koraidon/Miraidon once the game starts prompting you (e.g. continuing to use other moves, using items etc) the game will eventually just take control away from you, terastallise your Koraidon/Miraidon itself, and automatically use Tera Blast to finish the fight.

---

You make me feel
Like my troubled heart is a million miles away...
You make me feel
Like I'm drunk on stars and we're dancing out into space...
Celestial...
Celestial...

---