Back To (Pokemon) School

I am going to continue to have beef with these cutscenes, I can tell. The tutorial section for Pokemon Scarlet is so much longer than the Gen 4/5 games I'm used to. You don't need to stop every five minutes to show me how enthusiastic presumptive League Champion Nemona is! Just teach me to catch a Pokemon and get out of my way! As it is, every ten minutes of tripping over new Pokemon is interspersed with five minutes of watching Nemona babble on. I liked her when we met, but this is going to start wearing thin, I can tell.

Anyways, several rounds of cutscenes later, I have my three main quests:

• Victory Road, your standard gym badges, with Nemona
• Path of Titans, the BotW-esque giant Pokemon challenge, with the Skwovet asshole (his name is Arven, apparently)
• Operation Starfall, which deals with the evil team of this generation, Team Star, featuring the mysterious phone hacker Cassiopeia

.... only the evil team isn't that evil, really.  They're more like a bunch of high school delinquents stuck in a MLM scheme. Like, the teams in Pokemon are always a bit cartoonish but at least the ones from the past generations felt malevolent, you know? I just kind of feel bad for these kids, and I don't think it's just because I'm fifteen years older now.

Even so, their quest does seem like the most interesting one. I'm getting a little fed up with Nemona, and I'm not helping Arven with shit, so Cassie it is. I'm taking on Team Star first, and one of the nearest bases is Fire-type! Perfect place for me and Quaxly to get started. Except that's out the east gate, which means Arven thinks I'm helping him. Don't get your hopes up, bub.