Pokémon Scarlet and Violetrecently dropped a new trailer promoting the soon-to-release games, and though most of the footage shows stuff we’ve already seen before, a short snippet around the 2:30-minute mark teased what are clearly alternate forms of the Gen-2 fan-favoritePokémon, Donphan. The trailer showed two sketches, one of each form, as well as brief close-ups of each of their bodies. Though no further details were given here, anews poston the official Scarlet & Violet Website relays some more information.
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Each sketch, and consequently each form, will be part of either the Scarlet or Violet version of the game. The sketches are found in the so-called Scarlet Book and Violet Book respectively, and they are “records from an expedition… written long, long ago.” The expedition supposedly reached an uncharted area of the Paldea region, but it’s unknown if the reports from it are even real. The book is always carried by Arven, a previously revealed fellow student that will seemingly be quite relevant to the story.
The books are stated to be filled with sketches and pictures of unidentified creatures whose biology remains a mystery. We do, luckily, get some details on the Donphan forms. The Scarlet Donphan is known as Great Tusk; its book describes how it attacked the expedition team, “mortally wounding one of the explorers.” The Violet Donphan is known as Iron Treads; its book says that it curls its body and rolls to attack, leaving a scorched trail in the dirt.
These Donphan forms confirm what has long been assumed and rumored, that there will be version-exclusive alternate Pokémon forms, whose variations will be based on the ‘ancient and future’ styles of Scarlet and Violet, respectively. This can be particularly noted with Iron Treads, who has pixelated eyes for a face.
Labeled by leakers as ‘Paradox Pokémon’, they will have their own name and PokeDex number, similar to the new Convergent species (seeWiglett), and unlike the traditional regional variants we’ve grown accustomed to. It’s unclear how many ‘Paradox Pokémon’ there will be in total, nor how the player can encounter them in-game. Leakers have claimed, however, that Donphan is a rare exception, and most ‘Paradox Pokémon’ will only get one variant, meaning they’ll be present in either Scarlet or Violet, not both.
Pokémon Scarlet & Violet will launch on November 18 exclusively for theNintendo Switch.
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