As Scorbuddy and I sit around a campfire on our quest to, once again, "Catch ‘em All," we can’t help but think back on what an experience this has been.
It all began in Postwick one very fine afternoon. We were introduced to a colorful cast of characters and to a region that was vibrant and felt alive (or so it seemed at first). We became inseparable right from the start. We didn’t bother to catch any other Pokémon throughout the journey because, frankly, we didn’t need them. This made our journey much more interesting. Most trainers went around with several Pokémon, up to 6, and most of them would use evolved versions of said creatures. But not us. We were different, and we were absolutely ok with that.
Thanks to my previous experience in this type of journey, I was able to raise Scorbuddy well. When the time came for Scorbuddy to evolve, we somehow knew that this was not the course to take. It’s hard to explain; let’s just say we had an understanding that Scorbuddy would remain as he was for the rest of the journey.
As the adventure began, we were blasting through the competition without much trouble. At least, that was the case initially… until we arrived at the Wild Area. Our past journeys did not have such a large environment filled with wild Pokémon of such varying strengths. We soon came to realize that we had to be picky with the battles we engaged in. We had a few losses along the way, but we persevered, learning from these experiences, becoming a stronger duo after each battle.
Throughout the journey, the characters we came across with remained interesting, keeping us engaged on the events taking place (particularly the Gym Leaders, which didn’t use to have this much personality previously, at least in our opinion). Unfortunately, we can’t really say the same for the towns and cities that we visited along the way. Most of them felt dry, generic, "cookie cutter" type locations without much to do in them other than obtain the Gym Badges that we needed to complete our journey. This seemed particularly unfortunate because we had not been in such a vibrant, living/breathing region before, but as pretty as it was, it just felt boring and predictable from halfway along our journey and onward. We were expecting caves filled with enemies, deep forests with lots of mazes, and buildings or facilities with several traps, environmental puzzles, or similar distractions from the typical "point A to point B" approach to traveling. Sadly, these types of locations were few and far between, and were sorely lacking in complexity. Perhaps even worse, we didn’t come across any optional locations through our travels; "sidebars", as it were. At least the music that we were treated to along the way was nothing short of amazing, and the Gym Battles that we took part in had interesting twists and ended up being some of our most memorable moments throughout the adventure.
Speaking of memorable moments, Scorbuddy’s favorites are all the times he "went big" through this new phenomenon called Dynamaxing. At certain events and locations, Pokémon could grow humongous, not only increasing in size but also in strength and abilities (and sometimes with changes in appearance, at least from what we saw of other Pokémon). This was a really cool new thing to try, and it was a lot of fun to engage in such battles in the Wild Area against a variety of strong Pokémon (truth be told, we fought all of our battles either on our own or with strangers, but we chose not to engage in these battles alongside friends until the first phase of our journey was completed). Oh, and you didn’t hear this from me… but Scorbuddy loved showing off by defeating Dynamaxed Pokémon while in his base form.
Other memorable moments include the time we spent at Pokémon Camps. In essence, we could set camp at any location in the Wild Area to wind down. I usually spent the time throwing a ball around with Scorbuddy (he absolutely loved every second of it, as did I). This was a very cool, albeit optional, thing to do. We also had a few "daycent" curry meals; neat little diversion, but we didn’t get too into it (I guess the sub-par cooking skills run in the family).
As our journey went on, the difficulty ramped up, even though we spent several hours training in the Wild Area. That being said, we know this was the case only because of our unique approach to this challenge. From what we have heard from other trainers in this journey, the "difficulty" was in par with previous adventures (as in, almost non-existent). We were glad to be doing things our way. We battled against a large variety of Pokémon; sure, not "all" the ones we know and love, but we were fine with that (and we didn’t really want to engage in a discussion regarding why not "everyone is here"). With that said, most, if not all, of the new creatures we discovered were very interesting and of a large variety of types, sizes, and strengths; we really look forward to getting to know them better in the second part of our travels.
The last portions of our journey definitely were the most challenging. We even lost to other strong trainers, although just twice. But perhaps the biggest "loss" was the events that kept unfolding essentially right in the middle of our final battles. It was certainly unexpected, and we honestly can’t quite decide if we enjoyed the strong change of pace or if it smeared our overall enjoyment of the adventure. But Scorbuddy and I pushed through everything and everyone, and at long last, "we" became the new Champions of the Galar Region. Honestly, though… I give all the credit to Scorbuddy. He was the perfect partner, doing all the hard work based on my advice. I just cheered him on through every step of the way; he is the one that made the magic happen.
And thus, as we finish this curry, we remember our initial adventures very fondly, but we also look forward to a very bright future. This was only the beginning; we have tons of Pokémon to catch, and some additional adventures to complete (we even heard that some other "Sergio" out there will be picking up a shield and embarking on an adventure of his own). But no matter what comes our way, Scorbuddy and I will be ready.
For now, that’s all we’ve got.
Here’s to you, Scorbuddy the Great Friend.
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