Day 2 of Scarlet Violet Week

Today, I'm going over Team Star, a new evil group introduced within Pokemon Scarlet & Violet.

I won't deny, I did not like Team Star all that much...

To put it simply, Team Star was founded in order for a group of victims to stand up to their bullies. Once Team Star successfully stood up to their Bullies, Team Star BECAME the bullies. Their leader wanted to disband the Team once they became the bad guys, but the other Team Star members went against her wishes and continued the group without their leader anyways. The Leader turned herself in, got nearly two years of suspension, and while she was gone Team Star grew out of control to the point the Academy is threatening to expel them from school. When the leader comes back from suspension, she enlists the player in order to help her disband Team Star. That's where the Starfall Street Plotline starts in Scarlet & Violet.

Now that I've written down the plot, it makes much more sense😅 I still don't like Team Star and their Leader anyways...

So here's a ranking of Team Star's Members worst to best

6. Eri

Eri was a let down. We got little to nothing about Eri when she was defeated in battle. She got emotional and ran away. We did thankfully get some exposition out of a close friend of Eri's where we learn that this friend used to bully Eri. When said bully became the victim, Eri stood by her and they've been inseparable since. It takes ALOT of courage and bravery to shake off the past. Besides that really, Eri is a pro-wrestler and the strongest of Team Star. To me, Eri stood out the least of Team Star and contributes the least as well. She definitely fell flat compared to everyone else in quite literally this entire game.

5. Penny

It was obvious from the player's first interaction with Penny that she had SOMETHING to do with Team Star. The game made no attempt to hide it either as the person who hires the Player to disband Team Star was a tech-savy person who went by a feminine code name of Cassiopea. Surely enough, Penny is a tech wizard with a talent for hacking who just so happens to work for Cassiopea. Yeah, I connected the dots a little too easily... Penny being the Leader of Team Star was seen from a mile away and the game tried extremely hard to hide it despite it being one of the most obvious things in the universe. I thought Penny was a cute character who reminded me all so heavily of Futaba from Persona 5. Penny's battle on the otherhand was extremely disappointing... I figured she was gonna have an Eevee or Eeveelution on her team considering she loves Eevees and has an adorable Eevee backpack but I wasn't expecting her to have an entire team of Eeveelutions. The second I figured out she was gonna have an entire team of Eeveelutions it took all the fun out of her fight as I knew what Pokemon was gonna be on the team. Part of the fun of Pokemon battles is that you never know what Pokemon the opponent has up their sleeve. Based on Penny's clothing alone, I 100% knew she would have an eeveelution on her team but I thought she would have a Plusle, Minun or Magnezone based on her clothing and color theme. I further thought Penny would have someone in the Porygon family due to her love for technology and coding as Porygon are cybernetic code Pokemon. It was stated multiple times that Penny was from Galar, why don't you give her a Galar Pokemon? Orbeetle would've been a perfect choice since it's a Galarian Pokemon, is high tech and fits her color scheme.
Ugh... Pokemon did Penny so dirty. I WISH bare minimum, her Pokemon team was different.

4. Mela

Mela was the first member of Team Star that Pokemon advertised for Scarlet and Violet. Her design is awesome! As expected, Mela is a hot headed chick with a short temper and they did great with what they did with her. We learn after Mela's battle that Mela cares deeply for her Team and abandoned a Pokemon at the Academy upon joining Team Star. I found it odd that the story kept bringing up how Mela used to train Charcadets, and very well too might i add! She trained Charcadet's well enough that she evolved most of them and it aint easy to evolve Charcadets let me tell you! Surely enough, we were later given a scene where Mela reunites with one of the Charcadet's she had trained before abandoning school. In the end, I WISH Mela had a Charcadet, Ceruledge or Armarouge on her Team Star lineup BUT with what Pokemon she did have on her team, Mela gave me the hardest battle out of the rest of Team Star.

3. Ortega

Ortega, despite how young and cute he is, is the one who built the foundation of Team Star. He's a gifted young man with the brains of a genius as he's an engineer. He's the one who built the starmobiles as well as the one who geniusly came up with the idea to incorporate Revavrooms Into them as to make their cars both work AND be weapons in their own right. Ortega is the one in the group who comes from a wealthy family, often relying too much on his families riches to pull himself out of a rough spot. He is known to have a horrible temper despite how cutesy and sophisticated he dresses. Besides that, we surprisingly didn't get much out of Ortega character wise besides his gifted smarts and short temper. Design wise, I like him the most out of Team Star but character wise there isn't much there. He is one of the better Fairy trainers we've gotten from the series yet.

2. Giacomo

He is literally just Guzma but with different clothes. Giacomo is characterized as a leader, he is able to get everyone's attention and remain the man of focus. It is highly suggested that Giacomo is also an especially smart and responsible individual as he was the Student Body President back when he was still in school. However, Giacomo was also characterized as a control freak or tyrant due to how his rules are so strict they can be overbearing. In fact, it was his strict rules as class president that led to Giacomo being bullied in the first place and help In founding Team Star as one of their core members. I can respect Giacomo as Team Star wanted Giacomo to help come up with rules and codes under the Team Star name but Giacomo repeatedly turned down the requests as he's learned from his mistakes as a president. It takes a true character to embrace their mistakes let alone learn from them. Giacomo came off as the glue who kept Team Star together for he was always encouraging and remained as a sit in leader for the group while their true leader was away.

1. Atticus

Atticus is the man responsible for the costumes and uniforms of Team Star. He talks very wisely and uses a very specific dialect that HEAVILY reminds me of Uncle Iroh from Avatar. How he would compare things to a leaf in the wind or how you could be seen as a hero in one person's eye and an enemy the next. Atticus is very down to earth in this regard and comes off as a diffuser/peacekeeper. What I came to like about Atticus is clearly, the wise way he speaks and thinks. He claims to follow the morals of Ninjas and that's why he likes to think he's one with nature and the order of things. It works for Atticus especially well and I didn't expect to like him as much as I did. I literally cannot think of a single thing I dislike about Atticus, except maybe I would've liked to see him without his face covering.

Who's your favorite Member of Team Star?