With several decades and nine generations of games, the Pokemon series has developed many of its own traditions, but its future generations are now at a crossroads after Pokemon Scarlet and Violet reworked one such trope with in-game trades. Pokemon has always aimed to intuitively teach its players how its various mechanics and features work, such as when Black and White intensified its battle music when the player's Pokemon were at low health or how Sun and Moon added a vignette-like effect when near a trainer's field of vision. But more often than not, Pokemon will use the Pokemon themselves in order to educate players.
For instance, when Gold and Silver added new mechanics like Pokemon's day-night cycle and friendship, many new Pokemon evolutions reflected these, best showcased with Eevee only evolving into Espeon and Umbreon at high friendship during the day or night respectively. Trading was a similar mechanic that has always existed as a core part of Pokemon's gameplay. As such, certain Pokemon have remained virtually unobtainable unless evolved via trading, but Pokemon games have remained inconsistent in teaching players about this with the trope of in-game trades. Now that Scarlet and Violet have reintroduced this tradition, however, the pressure is on Gen 10 to make a similar decision.
Pokemon's History of In-Game Trade Evolutions
While every Pokemon game has featured multiple in-game trades, there have only been a handful of generations where some of these include a Pokemon that evolves when traded. More specifically, only Yellow and Blue from Gen 1 include trades for Haunter, Graveler, and Machoke, while Gen 6 had both an Alolan Graveler and Phantump as trade options. This was an ideal way to teach players that Pokemon can evolve from trading, as well as offer one or at most two Pokemon that would have otherwise been inaccessible, all while it still leaves several more to be traded and in doing so incentivizes players to trade among themselves.
But it is unusual that Pokemon hasn't implemented this strategy across all its generations, even though games such as Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee or Sword and Shield provided in-game trades that taught players about the regional forms of Pokemon. Stranger still, following the recent Gen 4 remakes of Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, it coincidentally is an outlier as it frustratingly offered a Haunter trade that wouldn't evolve due to its Everstone. However, following Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's own in-game trades, there's a chance future Pokemon games could maintain this particular tradition moving forward.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's In-Game Trades Sets the Standard
Scarlet and Violet have already proven that Game Freak considered how best to guide players about its mechanics and features, as they too feature in-game trades for Paldean and Johtonian Wooper as well as linking Palafin's evolution to the new Union Circle. In line with this and perhaps even prompted by the Haunter-Everstone rug pull of Gen 4, Scarlet and Violet feature an in-game trade for its own Haunter that does evolve once received. As a result, Scarlet and Violet have so far ensured that players are taught that certain unobtainable Pokemon, whether it's a regional form or an evolution, can be acquired through trading.
So while there are already many Pokemon with regional forms and trade-based evolutions, either with or without a held item, with many more likely to come in future generations, Pokemon will need to ensure that players are made aware of this. Just as recent games have gone to considerable effort to make regional forms accessible, such as Sword and Shield adding multiple in-game trades with its Isle of Armor DLC, then this should also be reflected in trade evolutions. Gen 10 and beyond therefore needs to decide whether to keep the standard Scarlet and Violet set or, more accurately, whether it will disappoint players with another Everstone trade.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are available now for Nintendo Switch.
