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Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are launching tomorrow, and even if the entire game was leaked ahead of time thanks to early copies circulating around as well as ROMs and information from datamining, many players are excited to get their hands on Gen 9. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's final trailer revealed Paradox Pokemon officially, which had already been leaked by then, but this gave players an idea of what to expect in terms of version exclusives, themes, and major differences between these groups of pocket monsters. While the source of inspiration for Paradox Pokemon may have been something else entirely, there is a parallel that can be drawn between them and Pokemon Sun, Moon, Ultra Sun, and Ultra Moon's Ultra Beasts.
The Ultra Beasts from the first and second waves of Gen 7 Pokemon games were a strange occurrence that The Pokemon Company didn't repeat in Gen 8, and maybe their outlandish design didn't help their already difficult case. In fact, some Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon fans were baffled by the addition of Ultra Beasts because not all of them even look like Pokemon, to begin with, whereas others fit much more effortlessly in the series. However, there's a chance that Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's new Paradox Pokemon, of which Donphan sort of is the official mascot due to it having a different form in both Gen 9 games, were actually inspired by the same vision that brought Ultra Beasts to the franchise.
How Ultra Beasts Compare to Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's Paradox Pokemon
Today marks the fifth anniversary of Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, and it's worth taking a look back at the Ultra Beasts in order to better understand what the process for creating unique Pokemon might be. Even though Ultra Beasts did make an appearance in the base Gen 7 games, they were expanded upon with Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon due to the addition of new species and a focus on the Ultra Wormholes that the base games didn't really have.
The Gen 7 sequels even had a mini-game called Ultra Warp Ride that players could use to reach different locations of the Ultra Space, find Ultra Beasts, and find rare Pokemon not commonly available in the Alola region. While this is not true for Gen 9, at least according to the leaks, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's Paradox Pokemon do resemble Ultra Beasts in multiple ways. For starters, these are all Pokemon that seem to not truly belong to the canonical Pokemon universe, and instead, they come from the multiverse or from other means.
In terms of stats, Ultra Beasts are largely similar to Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's leaked Paradox Pokemon, as they tend to all have a base stat total equal to 570, with a few exceptions. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's Paradox Salamence is an exception to this rule, for example, as it is the most powerful of Pokemon Scarlet's Paradox pocket monsters, with a base stat total of 590. It's worth noting that the same doesn't apply to Ultra Beasts, where they actually have one specimen with a lower base stat total equal to 540 in the form of Naganadel.
Similar to the Ultra Beasts, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's leaked Paradox Pokemon all share the same Ability, which in the case of Gen 9 differs between the version exclusives for each game. In fact, all Ultra Beasts share the Beast Boost Ability, which increases their main stat after defeating an opposing Pokemon, whereas Paradox critters have Protosynthesis in Scarlet and Quark Drive in Violet, increasing their main stat if they are in harsh sunlight or electric terrain, respectively. Overall, there's a fair chance that many of the core design philosophies that went into the Ultra Beasts also went into Paradox Pokemon, and that poses questions about what to expect from future titles.
PokemonScarlet and Violet release on November 18 for Nintendo Switch.
