Pokemon Scarlet and Violet was released just yesterday. If you’re a fan, you may have heard of the announcement back in late September that Ed Sheeran released a song, Celestial, in collaboration with The Pokemon Company. This means that not only are there pocket monsters in the music video of the song, the song itself also plays during the end credits of the game. If that’s not your thing, there is now a mod, for the game simply called “Remove Sheeran” that removes the song.
Instead, the person who made the mod says that they’ve replaced the song in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet with one by Wada Kouji. If you don’t know who that was, all you need to know is that he contributed to most of the opening songs in the Digimon TV series including a rearranged Butter-Fly just before his passing in 2016. And indeed, this is the song that is used in the mod to replace Celestial. Though it’s unclear which rendition is being used, one would assume it’s the original, considering the modder CrescentCrossbow calls it a “timeless classic”.
Not that there’s anything particularly wrong with Celestial by Ed Sheeran. In fact, for those who are fans of his songs, the inclusion is probably a substantial reason to pick up either Pokemon Scarlet or Violet. Though speaking personally as someone who neither likes nor dislikes the singer, the song sounds… just like all his other songs. His signature style permeates the track, but there’s nothing about it that serves to tie it in with the world’s most popular franchise.
The music video itself has mostly Ditto-esque sketch renditions of the pocket monsters, as well as a self-insert replacing TV series protagonist Ash with himself in one of the most memorable scenes in the first movie that features Mewtwo. Put all these together and the connection between Celestial and Pokemon is a reach at best, and forcefully shoe-horned at worst.
At any rate, the Ed Sheeran song Celestial serves as the end credits song for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. And if you don’t like that, there’s a mod simply called “Remove Sheeran” that replaces it with Butter-Fly of Digimon fame. Granted, because this is a mod, this is not something that you can use with a clean Nintendo Switch. What you do with that information is your call to make.
(Source: CrescentCrossbow / GameBanana)
