Over the last year and change, life has been incredibly difficult- at times incomprehensible. I’ve found myself getting distant from the things I love, watching the sparks of love and emotion fizzle out before they can ever reignite. Pokémon, in spite of itself, has avoided this. I open Violet and run around Paldea aimlessly and feel a wanderlust like no other- the messy map geometry doesn’t stop me from feeling a childlike sense of wonder at all the novel little sights that make the game so beautiful to me. Everything feels so lived in; the game feels like a well-loved world lovingly crafted by developers who want you to understand what it means to feel like you are at home no matter where you go so long as you allow it.
Violet is obviously not a perfect game, but I don’t care. There’s such a wonderful atmosphere to everything here, and my gripes with the game— the art direction being lacking, the performance issues, and the amount of really long craggy cliff faces that lead nowhere but still aren’t out of bounds (seriously why are those there)— it all doesn’t matter. The joie de vivre of my adventure in Violet is nearly unmatched by any other Pokémon title. These games are very special to me, and it seems like they will continue to be, no matter how much they fight themselves and hold themselves back.