rejuvenation prologue spoilers
gamers i'm gonna be honest. i do not like the new prologue
it kinda solidifies a concern i had since v13.5, which was that the game feels like its becoming less and less welcoming to new players? i know that shouldn't affect me, but the old prologue being short and sweet wasn't a bad thing at all. now the prologue is stuffed with references to future events that feel kind of unnecessary or even kinda ruin some things that worked in older versions? (like the anastasia twist, which was more of a "you put the pieces together over time" twist that i liked. here, you see nastasia on the boat immediately after this and gotta deal with her deoxys again so... whats the point?)
the marianette and anastasia stuff felt less like it fleshed out the prologue and made the game more interesting, and more like they're there for returning players to point at and go "oh my god its a reference to the future!!" and i cant help but wonder that if i had gotten into the game with this version, i think i'd just be confused and overwhelmed. hell, i AM confused and overwhelmed, wtf is happening
cw for animal death for this next bit
and ngl i found the herdier scene to be in really really poor taste. disclaimer, i might be acting harsher than most about this point because herdier is a pokemon with very personal baggage to me, so that could be clouding my judgement. but madame x killing herdier felt completely unnecessary and tasteless.
i liked her original introduction where she breaks into the house, intimidates maria, and gives her that cryptic warning about not forgetting. it signals that she's trouble, but her intentions are strange and unclear. which matches with her later appearances, where she does absolutely evil things, but she has these little moments where shes willing to talk to and work with the player for some reason. its mysterious and intriguing and it really had me thinking about her for a long time.
but now it comes off as "oh we need to signal that she's evil so we're gonna make a new pokemon oc for her to kill". and just shocking for the sake of being shocking i guess?
like, the original scene didn't need her to kill a dog. she makes her mark just fine. its just upsetting for no good reason. hell, why didnt she kill wattrel if she HAD to kill something? thats at least a character that had been built up throughout the prologue. hershey literally just slept, had no actual scenes until madame x came and stabbed it
dont get me wrong, i'm not opposed to pokemon dying in these games, its par for the course even. one of the plotlines that really showed me how good rejuv was was the volcanion boss. but the volcanion boss had a point to it, hershey just... feels meanspirited. i dont know what the points supposed to be beyond "madame x is evil", which is a point we already get from her first proper introduction in the main story when she [REDACTED]
