Pokemon Scarlet and Violet could be missing these Legends Arceus quality-of-life features

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet Miraidon
(Image credit: Game Freak)

There seem to be a couple of quality-of-life features from Pokemon Legends Arceus that won't make it into the next pair of games in the series, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet.

As pointed out by @CentroLeaks on Twitter, a leaked image seems to suggest two quality-of-life updates introduced in Pokemon Legends Arceus won't be in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet.

One leaked image seems to show a Pokemon's experience ticking up in an on-screen animation during battle, which is how the series was showing experience gains before Pokemon Legends Arceus switched things up and added a little pop-up screen that would appear after battles and therefore didn't interrupt gameplay.

The second image seems to suggest another return to a pre-Legends Arceus feature. The screen shows Quaxly along with an on-screen message notifying the player that "Quaxly wants to learn the move Wing Attack." This implies that you'll be prompted when a Pokemon can learn a new attack and will have to decide right then and there if you want to swap out another move for it or not. In Legends Arceus, new learnable moves were added more subtly and you would have to actively go in and add them to your Pokemon's move roster.

Considering Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are due to release in the same year as Pokemon Legends Arceus and, assuming there was some overlap in the games' development, it isn't a huge surprise to see some features from the latter missing in the former. Still, these seemingly missing features could be a big deal to folks who value a smooth, uninterrupted gameplay experience.

On the other hand, plenty of folks likely prefer the old way of doing things. Personally, I'm happy to hear I'll have to make a choice with new moves as I often forgot my Pokemon had new learnable moves in Legends Arcues. And as for the experience animation thing, I can only hope it isn't too much of a hindrance to the flow of battles.

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet launch on Switch on November 18.

In the meantime, here's how we ranked the best Pokemon games available now.

Jordan Gerblick

After scoring a degree in English from ASU, I worked as a copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG on the side. Now, as GamesRadar's west coast Staff Writer, I'm responsible for managing the site's western regional executive branch, AKA my apartment, and writing about whatever horror game I'm too afraid to finish.

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