If there’s one thing we always hope for with a brand-new Pokémon generation, it’s a sense of childlike wonder. Of course, it’s not always a guarantee, especially with a formula that has been followed consistently for the last 26 years, but we always start a new generation with our fingers crossed that we'll be charmed out of the gate by the new creatures to collect and a whole new region to explore. And if anything has come close to recapturing the real magic we felt when we discovered our first Pokémon world in Red & Blue, it’s Pokémon Scarlet & Violet's vast and open Paldea region. It’s been a while since we’ve felt like a kid stepping out of our Pokémon house and just looking at the world and savouring the taste of adventure. Despite some pretty significant technical stumbles, this introduction to Generation 9 nails that, even if it’s not the new Pokémon revolution that Legends: Arceus felt like.
Scarlet & Violet’s promise of being the main series’ first open-world game isn’t a false one. Every inch of Paldea is ours for the taking, and we’re ready for adventure just like the little kids who booted up their Game Boys for the first time and took their first steps in Kanto. Adventure awaits, and it’s right on our doorstep. Except things don’t start that way.
You’re a kid who has just moved to the Paldea region (sound familiar?), but instead of setting off on a brand new Pokémon journey, you leave home with your new neighbour and friend Nemona to join the Naranja or Uva Academy, a prestigious Pokémon school in the Paldea region. On the way to the Academy, you bump into a mysterious and powerful Pokémon (Koraidon or Miraidon, depending on your version) who protects and accompanies you. And, after meeting the teachers and students at the academy, you’re soon sent on a ‘Treasure Hunt’ to find your own personal treasure out there in Paldea.
It takes a while to get to this ‘treasure hunt’, though; Scarlet & Violet’s opening hours drag, leading up to the big moment of freedom. This feels particularly bizarre after Sword & Shield managed to streamline tutorials a little bit, and with limited traversal abilities at the start, we had to really push through to make it to the Academy. But it’s worth it just for how much the world opens up to you.
Your only goals are to complete three main objectives – beat all of the Gyms, find the Mystica Herbs, and take down Team Star. The location of all of these are marked on your map, and you can do them in whatever order you want. That’s right – no more structured approach; if you want to go to the most northerly region of Paldea first, then you darn well can. The only thing you “need” to do is to beat all three main paths to unlock one final part of the game.
One of the most surprising aspects of Scarlet & Violet is the stories. Each of the three paths has its own narrative that ties into either the characters, the Academy, or Paldea itself, and all knit together into a wholesome package. There are some genuinely tender moments, and many of the characters have personalities that are conveyed well, both through cutscenes and story moments. Your rivals, and other NPCs, are more involved than ever, and this is also a Pokémon game that isn’t afraid to surprise you. There’s certainly nothing spectacular, and it's still weird that there's no voice acting, though we want to give special mention to the box art stars Koraidon and Miraidon – they have moments of vulnerability and (if you can believe it) adorableness as they look worried or even nuzzle up to characters. They’re some of the best legendaries in the series ever.
Of the three paths, ‘Victory Road’ will be the most familiar to veteran Pokémon Trainers. Collecting eight gym badges is pretty much the Pokémon rite-of-passage, and it’s mostly the same here, except instead of making your way through a gym puzzle, you’ll need to participate in a Gym Trial before taking on the leader. These can range from rolling an oversized olive around a maze to taking part in a stream and battling Pokémon trainers, and it helps change up the formula a tiny bit, and we found most of them pretty fun.
You can also do the gyms in whatever order you want, meaning that, in some ways, the game’s difficulty is in your hands. If you want your first gym leader to be the one with the level 30 Pokémon, then you can absolutely do that, but with the caveat that you will eventually have to do that level 15 gym, and it’ll be even more of a piece of cake. In a game where the 'recommended' order isn't much of a challenge, it was a nice surprise when we stumbled into a higher-level gym and actually had to put up a bit of a fight to secure victory. The gym fights themselves may lack the stadium-level spectacle of Sword & Shield, but it makes sense, given the variety of tasks you’re taking on.
Scarlet & Violet’s other two routes offer a little bit more variety in terms of your standard Pokémon gameplay. ‘Path of Legends’ sees you take on Titan Pokémon to find the Herba Mystica. Of the three paths, this was the most disappointing to us, and certainly a step down from Legends: Arceus’ Alpha Pokémon battles. All you have to do is find each of the Titan Pokémon, fight them once, chase them, and fight them again. Because all of these are new Pokémon, it feels pretty momentous when you find them, but they go down easily. Fortunately, this route might just have the best story of the three, which had us tearing up at times – the first time we have done so in a Pokémon game since Black & White.
Starfall Street, then, is the biggest change from previous Pokémon games, and it utilises the game’s brand new ‘Let’s Go’ mechanic. With the first three Pokémon in your team, you have to defeat a number of Pokémon within the team’s base in 10 minutes by sending your Pokémon out into the overworld to chip away at the opposing team. It becomes more of a hunt and, if you don’t have a type advantage or a decent Pokémon, it can also be a roll of the dice. The only way you can heal is by using vending machines, and if all three of your Pokémon’s health is reduced to zero, you fail and have to try again. Succeed, and you get to take on the base’s leader, who charges out on the most audacious Pokémon car you’ve ever seen. Essentially, though, all three routes are just different ways of dressing up the series standard of collecting badges and fighting stronger trainers, which is what we've been doing in Pokémon for yonks now.
However, we’re glad that you’re not locked into any one of these routes at any time, and you can pick and choose just when to take on what. You might decide to do all of the gyms first or vary it up and jump between the objectives, but it never feels checklist-y in the way some open-world games do. Instead, you’re left to find things by happenstance even with every location and objective marked on the map. We definitely popped a waymarker down so we had a good idea of where we wanted to end up, but we wandered off the beaten path way too many times.
And that’s the biggest joy of Scarlet & Violet – Paldea is your personal Pokémon playground. It’s a huge canvas where you can do whatever you want and go wherever you want. It’s not segmented into separate zones like in Pokémon Legends: Arceus and only one area is gated by story, so you really can just go anywhere... once you have the ability to get there. To get these abilities, you’ll need to upgrade your trusty companion bike Pokémon Koraido/Miraidon, which will happen naturally as you progress through the game. Otherwise, the world is in the palm of your hand, and there are secrets (hidden items, rarer Pokémon, and more) that you also uncover as your living, breathing Pokémon bike gets better.
We were also swept up in Paldea’s gorgeous tunes and rhythms, with Undertale’s Toby Fox taking on even more arrangements and melodies after showing his chops in Sword & Shield’s fantastic Tower battle music. His work is instantly recognisable to fans, from funky, jazzy tunes to electric, fast-paced melodies. There are also multiple variants of the battle themes and overworld music to fit the location or whether you’re riding your mount or not.
There are some fairly varied segments of Paldea that you can dive into every nook and cranny of: a big, sprawling desert; a mountainous tundra; a lake that looks like it can swallow you up; even a bamboo thicket. There's plenty to explore, then, although that's not to say it's perfect. As much as we loved wandering around the open world, there were no real landmarks or spectacles in the region. We were hoping for something significant, like an oversized tree, a crater, or even a unique rock face or carving. Paldea will likely be remembered for its size and scope, but if the bamboo forest is the most memorable location (outside of places we're not permitted to discuss), then this Spanish-inspired locale loses a bit of its lustre.
And here’s where we need to address what has consistently been the biggest sticking point of Scarlet & Violet up to its release: performance. Some trailers haven’t been the smoothest, to say the least, and our hands-on preview with the game raised questions as to how Paldea would look and run on Switch in the final product.
Having now played the full game with a day one patch applied, we have to say Scarlet & Violet can look and feel rough when you’re exploring the open world. Legends: Arceus had its fair share of issues and an inconsistent frame rate, but there are multiple times when the blurry visuals and low frame rate threatened to rip us out of the experience here. It’s particularly distracting whenever you’re riding Koraidon/Miraidon, speeding off into the distance as the visuals struggle to run at a consistent frame rate, and the scope and beauty of Paldea is lost in a mess of foggy visuals, both docked and in handheld mode. The frame rate of Pokémon and other moving elements in the world reduces the further you move away from them — a common technique used to improve overall refresh rate, but more noticeable here given the relative simplicity of the environment compared to the smaller, bustling worlds in Kirby and the Forgotten Land, for example.
When you’re inside buildings and in battles, the game can look pretty good. You can see streaks of hair in characters, the stitches and threads in your clothes, and even the shiny slippery-ness of Wiglett and the texture of a Mareep’s wool. In battles, characters and Pokémon look relatively crisp and clean for the most part, and they all burst with personality through their stances and interactions – though many battle animations are still incredibly stiff and look like an afterthought. Pokémon models sometimes disappear in thin air, or appear and drop from above you too. There are times Scarlet & Violet almost look like a real step forward visually for Pokémon, but it then loses itself in a mire of pixelated textures and technical issues, especially if it’s raining or snowing.
Game Freak isn't famous for its performance prowess, and while the frame rate and other issues will certainly irritate some players, for us the developer gets away with it (just) thanks to the things it does get right with the open-world approach and myriad other details here. The game's wavering performance did nothing to diminish the excitement of discovering all of the new Pokémon that Scarlet & Violet has to offer. As in Legends: Arceus, wild Pokémon appear in the overworld, so you can spot them as they huddle up in grassy fields or dip in one of the ponds. Flying Pokémon swoop down from the sky, while some bugs dangle from trees – other ‘mons will chase after you. Even the act of filling up your Pokédex, which looks like a rack of elaborate Pokémon magazines complete with characterful photos of each Pocket Monster, is a delight. And the thrill of having tiny little Fidough or a monstrous Farigiraf approach you with murderous – or cuddly – intent still doesn’t feel old after Legends: Arceus earlier this year.
Otherwise, battling and catching Pokémon is no different compared to previous mainline games. Fight your Pokémon in turn-based battles, catch them if you want, etc. In addition, trainer battles are now optional, which works because we usually didn’t want to be distracted from just riding around in the wild — you're able to initiate fights by just talking to the trainers. We’re lamenting the loss of Legends: Arceus’ ability to catch Pokémon by simply throwing Pokéballs at them, but we love the addition of something we touched on earlier: 'Let’s Go'.
By tapping the ‘R’ button, you can direct the Pokémon at the front of your team to attack wild ‘mons for a short period of time. It’s much snappier than entering a battle and is excellent for when you specifically don’t watch to catch ‘em all over and over. You can start to feel like a bit of a monster for knocking out all of these wild creatures minding their own business, or feel guilty as your Pokémon’s health drops low and they start to feel tired, complete with a pitiful noise that pierces your heart. You can also just send them off to pick up an item when you’re feeling particularly lazy and just want to cruise along on your slick Poké bike. It’s a fabulous mechanic for building up materials to create TMs (more on that in a moment) or levelling weaker Pokémon fast while you soak in the world even more.
There's so much more to talk about. Paldea’s unique mechanic – Terastalization – might have had us raising our eyebrows before release, and visually it might lack the grandeur of Dynamax Pokémon, but it adds much more strategy to combat than we were expecting for something that just pops a pretty hat on your Pokémon. Terastallizing in battle causes the Pokémon to become that Tera type – so a Pikachu with a Water Tera type will go from being Electric to Water. This also means that if the Pokémon uses a move that matches its Tera type, it’ll be even more powerful. Used in the right situations and with the right Tera types, this can be devilish, and we were shocked by how much we enjoyed being battered in raids by those moves.
Speaking of moves, we were initially worried about the TM Machine — yes, a 'Technical Machine Machine', a new crafting mechanic in Scarlet & Violet — and returning to the idea of one-use-only TMs. However, the abundance of materials and the fact you can find TMs lying around in the world meant that TMs never felt like an issue. It’s a little bit annoying that you won’t know what materials you need to create your TM until you own them, every single Pokémon drops them. These machines are at every Pokémon Center in Paldea, too, which are abundant. Basically, it’s rarely something you ever need to grind for – unless you have no idea what you’re after, but then it’s back to the magic of digging around Paldea.
TMs aren’t the only thing you can make, and Pokémon’s culinary step forward from Galar’s curries is sandwiches. You can set up a picnic out in the overworld, interact with your Pokémon (including giving them baths), play ball, and make tasty bocadillos in a cute, if awkward, little minigame. You can follow set recipes or try and make some unique flavours. Depending on the ingredients you use to construct your succulent sub, you’ll get different benefits, such as boosting experience for one type of Pokémon, or increasing the drop rate of items from a particular type, and even Tera raid boosts. There are tons of these to experiment with, so even our wonkiest sandwich felt like it helped us fill our bags and our Pokémon up a little bit.
One part of the game we weren't able to test prior to launch was multiplayer, although we were able to sample it briefly during our initial preview. You can invite friends to join you in your travels, although how much mileage you get from it will be down to how you choose to use it — beyond the traditional trading and battling of years past, you're not given a whole lot of guidance. Having said that, if you just want someone to join you for a ride-along, the game doesn't place any major restrictions on you.
It’s safe to say there’s a lot to take in with Paldea, then. Even if you’re thorough and make it to the end, you’ll still be finding items, trainers, Pokémon, and little vistas throughout the region. It’s familiar and fresh at the same time, and even though its three-path approach doesn’t stray too far from the formula, this feels like a big step in the right direction for Pokémon. After Legends: Arceus and Scarlet & Violet, we think open-world Pokémon should be here to stay.
Conclusion
There are still plenty more ways we’d like to see the Pokémon franchise evolve, but Pokémon Scarlet & Violet has us excited about the series' future. We really hope Game Freak can figure out how to smooth out the series’ ongoing performance issues on Switch because they'll certainly rub some players the wrong way — and they’re going to become a serious detriment over time. Scarlet & Violet is most fun and exciting when you're just exploring the world, and while there are many small new details and improvements to the Pokémon formula, it still plays it safe in a few areas. Regardless, things point toward a promising future for Gen 9 and beyond. It’s a smaller step than many may have hoped for, especially considering what Pokémon Legends: Arceus did, but it's definitely one in the right direction.
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Comments 319
The problem with this pokemon game isn't GameFreak themselves. It's the fact that the Switch isn't powerful enough. We need a Switch Pro ASAP!
Even Pokemon Sword and Shield, which is one of the worst games I've played on the Switch, managed to get an 8/10 here so not sure this score bodes too well. I was never very optimistic about this one from the start though and even less so since the leaks dropped. I'm still going to give it a go for myself though but only because I found a cheap copy so I'll be able to resell it afterwards for profit if I can be bothered anyway.
@broskiplays
Breath of the Wild looks better and was a Wii U port and 5 and a half years old.
It's a developer issue.
@broskiplays No, it's very much a Game Freak/Pokemon Company problem. Even with better technology, they still won't manage to utilise it well. Plenty of developers have shown that the Switch is capable of much better than this.
@broskiplays lol no. There are many games on the Switch that are much bigger in scale that run smoothly and look prettier than SV. I agree that this isn't GameFreak's fault. This is 100% a time constraint issue.
@broskiplays no this is just unoptimised let’s be real here, there’s far more demanding games on switch that can run better than this. game freak will start making games that should have been on switch in about 2 console generations.
Also 7/10 is pretty surprising to me considering SWSH got an 8, and I’m a guy who actually quite liked those games. It sounds like a lot of the issues are also present in arceus too, but that got a 9? Are the issues really that much worse?
Said to myself that I'll get it if it gets outstanding reviews because I do want me another banger pokemon game but I guess games like SoulSilver are a one done deal.
Wow, a 7? I read the whole review and it seemed to be building up to an 8 (9 if they were feeling generous).
Either way, I knew going into this game that performance and visuals weren’t going to be great, so I’ve already tempered my expectations. I’m still super excited to hop in and see what it has to offer.
@broskiplays I can understand the need for a more powerful Switch. But a Pokemon game is definitely not a good example.
Wow, this is disappointing. I was really hoping this would score a lot better. Even so, I’ll probably end up being obsessed with it after I get my hands on it.
...Can we get an expansion to New Pokemon Snap or something instead?...
...Anyways yeah, I think I'm done with Pokemon. Sword/Shield was just...boring and the DLC/expansions or whatever were just the same, and underwhelming. As for Legends Arceus, yeah, it was fun for a few hours...but, again...it became boring. I'm not wasting my money anymore...
Also yeah, Arceus's framerate/resolution is terrible....and this is coming from a guy who is rarely bothered by resolutions and framerates.
@broskiplays I mean, look at splatoon, and literally every other first party, So gamefreaks fault definitely.
Not getting it day one but will pick it up some point, I’m happy toby worked on more of the music for this as well, and I can’t wait to hear it!
@broskiplays lol not really. Just look at Xenoblade 3 and The Witcher 3.
My copy arrived yesterday and what I played so far seemed very mediocre to me. I would still say that the LetsGo and Arceus Games are the better Pokemon entrys. I love that the rival isnt a joke anymore and that the UI is so clean and tidy, but everything else feels rather meh-ish.
It’s easy to moan about the Switch hardware being out dated. It is, and I will never understand how some people are gleeful every time a rumoured Switch Pro announcement fails to happen. I just don’t get that attitude. You don’t want an upgraded model? Don’t buy one.
However, regardless of all that, GF are really struggling with the Switch. You can’t say it’s entirely due to them making a game that’s too ambitious for the hardware. It’s really no more demanding than Breath of the Wild and that game runs like a dream compared to this.
It will still sell amazingly, and GF will never feel the pressure to get better at optimisation.
@Dizzymario Different reviewers different performance standards.
@JudaiMasters Nintendo should make the Pokemon game series from gen 10 and onward. Gamefreak should stop with creating Pokemon games and focus on their own stuff.
i dont doubt the games can be fun but the franchise feels like it just goes through the motions. i cant blame a yearly series for its slow evolution but its just unimpressive when a franchise as big as pokemon constantly cuts as many corners as it can. as least the fans will never go hungy
This looks like an absolute technical trainwreck, full of every piece of open-world jank you could imagine...and I absolutely cannot wait to play it. Absolutely ecstatic to finally venture through Paldea with Scovi the Fuecoco come the weekend!
Also I can already see the mob forming from both sides with that score.
@Peach64 BOTW has been developed by Nintendo, they for some reason always manage to make smooth experiences on the switch despite other devs not even able to. Nintendo probably has some sort of optimization that no other developer has which makes their games run better than others for sure.
Not only is it technically bad, for the first time ever I'd say that even the character designs are bad, something which Pokemon usually always excelled at. The customization options are also extremely lacking and there's less actual options for clothes than in previous games. All in all this new Pokemon game is an aesthetic disaster if you ask me. Maybe I'll play it some day, but my eyes definitely aren't drawn to this and what I've read in this review doesn't make me wanna try it either.
@Froid12 that one still had framepacing issues though and was clearly downgraded like hell. Look at the Steam Deck, it plays Witcher 3 without any issue.
@Dizzymario Those unoptimized games are played at their lowest resolution, i bet if Nintendo made the Pokemon games, that they would be a lot more polished because Nintendo always manage to do the unthinkable for their games on Switch.
@BenAV Then make Nintendo the main developer of Pokemon games. I bet Gamefreak would be happy to oblige.
Well, my impression so far is 6 / 10.
A little bit eh after watching some gameplay on YouTube.
Not day one as my hype with Pokemon Violet is still low.
I want to get Yokai Watch 4++ and Yokai Watch Academy Y on PS4 first. The games look more appealing than Pokemon Violet.
Also... No Sawk included in the game.
Sigh...
@broskiplays I highly doubt they'd be happy to oblige to giving up their one big IP to someone else.
@steely_pete how can you even get to a conclusion like that when the game isnt even out? Dude, i've heard from people who played the game already that there are stores which let you purchase tons of clothing and customization options. So don't judge a book before you've read it.
Game freak being Game freak. I really hope they fix the technical issues with patches because I really loved Arceus and I like the direction the mainline series is taking. No buy for me, unless the they fix some of the techincal ussues.
@BenAV Gamefreak has always shown to the outside world that they want to venture away from Pokemon but the Pokemon Company always seem to rely on them. Just look at their other games, Drill Dozer and Haruknights just to name a few. It's better for the franchise and game series as a whole if Nintendo takes over the development.
I thought it would be a 3/10. Sonic looks better and is more fun and it got a 4/10 so I'm scratching my head here.
@Snatcher Again Splatoon is developed by Nintendo, the company who literally know how to Switch works and who are familiar with the hardware inside and outside.
@Baler it's Pokemon, if they gave a Pokemon game a 3/10. People would riot, it's still the biggest media franchise in history, just look at IGN back when they gave a 6/10 to Pokemon Alpha Sapphire for having too much water.. People all over the internet made that reviewer a laughing stock.
The review sounds positive. Especially the part about recapturing the magic. The atmosphere and magic is very important to me.
Simply traversing and feeling the world will be a joy.
Christmas time will be treasure hunting time, with these games and Dragon Quest Treasures.
Dragon Quest XI s, breath of the wild, xenoblade 3 run greatly on Switch. Even Shin Megami Tensei V runs better, which was clearly too ambitious for the hardware.
@broskiplays yeah people still talk about that 😄
Three essentially full-scale Pokémon games in 12 months remains absolute nonsense. I get that we'll see the usual "fastest ever selling Pokémon title" news stories next Monday regardless, but this feels like peak Pokémon. Kids will eventually get bored of the churn too. Everyone involved in these decisions always had the option of taking longer over a single, more focused game.
@broskiplays I don't think it's fair to compare a game on the SteamDeck lol. What I mean it's that I'm pretty sure that the Switch version of The Witcher 3 is still more stable. The Witcher 3 world have a LOT more of texture. The world of Scarlet and Violet is just huge road with the strict minimum of texture. Also, because it's an open world, they sacrifice the feature to enter into house (in town) for the majority of them. 😅
@broskiplays
Really? Because as far as I know you can't actually change out of your school uniform, just have different variants per season. Yes I'm aware that you can customize hats etc.
I hope they go back to pixelated pokemon games from gen 10 onwards.
This company is not suited to create a 3d game every year and the pixelated games were beautiful.
@broskiplays how come Witcher and other third party’s look good? Game freak can figure it out. They have three game on the switch up to this point,
@steely_pete I massively agree on this. To give SWSH credit for one thing, I thought it had some incredible character designs like your rivals, the gym leaders, Leon, and even regular trainers whereas SV’s designs do absolutely nothing for me and all look mediocre. That’s not even to mention the fact you have to wear the horrible looking uniform throughout SV which is a massive step down from SWSH’s incredible customisation
@BenAV Suit yourself, for me and my son, Sword & Shield have been one of the most enjoyable Pokemon games so far.
We have to see if the day 1 patch will fix some of the performance issues tomorrow. Don't know if the reviewers had access to this patch already or tested without it.
@steely_pete I think the gym leaders look fine, the trainer still looks so off to me tho, so I agree.
I am content with my decision to skip these entries.
@Froid12 true, thank god the gameplay of Scarlet and Violet is actually the best it's ever been. Once they got those frame issues sorted out. It might become the best Pokemon game of all time. So yeah definitely hyped to get my copy + the online sounds like it can make the longevity of the game even longer.
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@Snatcher The Witcher looks good because it is downgraded on almost every front. I feel that some of these "magical" ports are literally the most downgraded games i've ever seen. yes okay they play without any issues. But you have to atleast balance the resolution with the performance. I've heard that Pokemon S/V play much better in handheld mode due to the resolution being lower. So i guess it has to do with the hardware. Also i am curious how this game will run when it is actually being played on an emulator on PC. Because BOTW is capable of running in 60 FPS on Cemu. So if Pokemon S/V are capable to do 60 fps on emulation front. Then we know the answer to the issues.
@Friendly if they were going back to pixelated versions, i think GF will have quite some backlash from people telling them they are behind the times and that kind of stuff. I feel that Pokemon right now is going in the right direction with the open world premise. They just have to optimize and bugfix a lot more often. I hope that TPC will give them more time in the future.
Time for another 50 " we need a switch 2!!!11" comments. Just GF being lazy plain and simple. When you make billions selling everything from stickers to $200 stuffed animals, you don't need to worry about the games being up to par because people will still buy it.
@SteamEngenius It's the name that makes it sell so well. Just look at the FIFA franchise. The legacy editions always sell well on Switch despite being awful stripped down versions.
@broskiplays Botw already runs and looks good already tho.
They need some attempt at art direction for the world instead of Google Earth meets Wii Sports Golf.
My wife wants to play this with me and that’s the only reason I’m buying this game. I wanted to bite with my wallet but I guess once again I’m part of the problem.
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Removed - offensive remarks; user is banned
It's really a first when Pokemon games are actually too technically ambitious for the hardware they run on. Sure there was some issues on the 3DS games in battles where there were 3 or more on screen but now the games are trying to outdo the hardware they are on.
It's quite odd seeing as the games started off always being more functional visually than anything and never aimed to push the hardware and now they push the hardware a bit too much at the same time as not looking spectacular. Saying that I am still getting a copy because I'll still get enjoyment out of coming across the new Pokemon for the first time.
Sad that the game has such bad performance issues because it otherwise sounds quite good, if not great.
Looks like the improved performance in the Japanese trailers just...didn't make it into the final game 🤔
@broskiplays definitely still partly on gamefreak. Plenty of games out there with I’d say much better looking visuals that run great. Along with this gamefreak is probably far larger than the companies doing those ports. However I’d love to see a switch pro upgrade for the games that struggle.
@Friendly that would be really cool to see even for just a side spinoff title
My copy comes in tomorrow, but a friend of mine already got his.
Game is FUN, really.
But how the heck did they manage to make the textures EVEN WORSE and the framerate WORSE than in Legend of Arceus, which already is not the most pretty looking or best running game. (I mean Breath of the Wild still looks miles better and that was originally a Wii U game)
I actually wish even more they just stick to Sword and Shield design, not only because of better looking Pokémon models but mostly because the smaller size of Wilde Area made it more fun than the ton of emptyness we got in the current games and Arceus.
Such a shame.
Btw when you are in the big city the issues don't strike you yet as much in the first place in S&V, the moment you get into the wildness that is when the issues start.
Anybody know if random trade is making a comeback? that was such a great feature of Sword & Shield I'd love to see it make a comeback
With such a popular franchise of bestsellers like this, they'll sure keep working on it to optimize performance through updates. That's what happens when your game's not ready but you have to release it that day no matter what
I hate this practice but it's not been new for quite some time, unfortunately. We're living the era of buying unfinished releases
Anyway, while they stick to the open world formula and try to add new gimmicks, I'm in!
@Zenszulu on the 3DS they did push the hardware a littlebit too much.
But on the Switch it is more poor optimisation and not enough time spend to create the game the way it should be (I mean Breath of the Wild looks better hands down, a nearly 6 years old Wii U game that is also open world)
I would dare to say it is them not being competent enough to push the system further, and not the system not being able to handle it.
Because we got so many Switch games that look and run better than this, so in my opinion it is a Gamefreak issue and not a Switch issue.
this can get a second opinion but not sonic frontiers...?
There are 2 directions Nintendo should push Pokémon in:
1. Do another Legends spin-off but give it to Monolith to do. XC3 is staggeringly huge and has zero technical issues.
2. Get someone to do a proper cel-shaded Pokémon where we play as Ash., anime voice acting included.
Getting the feeling people didn't actually read the review. Because it sounded like a positive experience overall. Seeing the bulletpoints and score afterwards can make it seem like it was pretty criticized but it sounds like a good time
... With that being said, having played Monster Hunter Stories 2 and Shin Megami on the switch, Pokemon has absolutely NO excuse for the performance issues they have.
It's a shame that they've bitten off more than they could chew.
Typically, when a second generation launches on the same hardware, it tends to improve upon the original. Gen V looked mostly like Gen IV, but improved upon the IV in virtually every conceivable way and ran a hell of a lot better too.
Sun/Moon were better looking and more ambitious than X/Y.
Sword/Shield was hardly a technical powerhouse, but they looked nice and played well. Game Freak should have reserved their lofty ambitions for the next generation of hardware rather than releasing such an underwhelming début into open world gameplay.
The silver lining to this is that, rather than DLC, we get another remake and/or Legends game next year, as opposed to additional content for a game that's already struggling with its base content (and there's absolutely no certainty that any number of patches is going to fix them).
I feel Alex's pain. I was afraid that the end product wouldn't differ much from the earlier version he played. We're living in 2022 and GameFreak can't even produce a game that will run smoothly on the Switch, while many other developers manage to perform wonders with the given hardware. It only proves to me that they didn't take their time to smoothen the experience in an effort to get this new game released in time before the holidays. I really hope patching will help the performance issues.
I'll be diving into the game myself this weekend with my SO and hope our experience will be enjoyable. I think it will be, but performance issues can get annoying really fast.
So basically it’s a really good game but it’s held back by technical issues. Alright then.
@broskiplays Xenoblade says otherwise.
Hopefully they can patch this up to alleviate the problems a bit.
IGN’s review in progress is scathing of the technical problems too.
My copy is ordered and I’ll spend 100’s of hours playing VGC which better run well.
I’d love if the next Pokémon game was back to 2D, B&W style. Incorporating past regions while still having raids and VGC. That’d be amazing!
I’m gonna wait for the dlc/third game and hope for patches. A little disappointed that they didn’t implement some sort of level scaling for the gyms. Even if it was a capped range.
Kind of buffling that the games look and run worse with every new game coming to the Switch. The Let's Go games looked beautiful with pretty much no performance issues yet here we are ... I guess that's what people get for wanting their open world experience in every franchise.
This will be the first time that I won't jump into a new Pokemon generation at launch. Everything I have seen so far looks like a straight up downgrade compared to Sword and Shield, especially when it comes to character design and trainer customization. I will get the improved version / version with DLC down the road. It's pretty obvious that developing Legend Arceus and SV simultaneously hurt both games.
Edit: Not sure if this has been a thing for a while but I really like the "second opinion" part of the review because it highlights that reviews are just opinion pieces in the end. People seem to have a hard time grasping that concept.
@Dom_31 Rule of thumb: Websites focused on Nintendo products would rather trick you into buying stuff rather than discourage you. If NL is saying (with added second opinion) that the performance of a flagship title is bad, it's really bad.
So basically this sounds like a good game that’s mainly only hindered by graphics and performance. This review still sounds pretty positive in spite of that, though I expect other reviews will be much harsher. Whatever, I think I’ll still bite. I’m not that hung up over graphics and I’m encouraged by the gameplay impressions. I’ve actually grown more hopeful by the sound of the story.
I'm happy for people that do end up enjoying these games but I think I'm done with Pokémon for now. My main excitement right now is Fire Emblem Engage which I really do hope we see more of in the next few weeks or soon.
@Joker1234
The DLC will be called Fire Emblem Marry.
Nintendo fans need to come to terms with the fact that the Switch is really showing it's age and we could really use some more powerful hardware. A lot of developers seem to be struggling with it these days.
If this game was a xbox exclusive and the name was not Pokemon but...xboxmon....people would not so interested....no magic...all generic...no buy..so many LOL here...and LOL there...no 7/10 but 3/10.
This year has been one of change for me. I got a new home, changed from android to iphone (still can’t get used to it), went to the gym for the first time ever, and it’s definitely the year where I decided to not buy a main Pokemon game; and this review justifies that. GF should pay more attention to optimize their own games. They have thousands of employees and a (r@p ton of money to make that investment. If they gave up, outsource the game to a more passionate studio.
Sometimes..the impression it gives is that only Nintendo has access to all the development tools on its consoles. It's like Nintendo doesn't give access to all the tools to other studios. It's just an impression. But an impression that grows every day.
Gamefreak is under pressure to create a new gen Pokémon every 3 years. No wonder their games lack polish.
Can't help feeling Legends should have released in this window now, and Violet/Scarlet in November 2023.
Why have they gone so hard with Pokemon and released games that would have benefitted from more time?
Clearly a lot of factors we're not aware of, but this has backfired on Nintendo.
There must be a Donkey Kong game and a 2D Mario, surely? Why hold these back to release another average Pokemon game instead? Is it really because of new hardware on the horizon? If it is, why not save this Pokemon game too - we've had so many already?
Legends launching early in the year was the error for me. That should have been pushed back to November and this should have waited for 2023.
Super disappointed but absolutely not surprised. The Pokemon games have simply not been able to keep up with the change in technology and always feel a generation (or three) behind.
Do the franchise justice and let Monolith Soft have a go.
Metacritic is at 78 at the moment with 36 reviews. Probably change when more reviews are coming in.
@nocdaes Because the 3 year cycle of new Anime, Cards, Toys, etc. That always put's Gamefreak in the position they only have 3 years between the generations to make a new game.
Time for a Switch successor?
@Tober OK, good point. Pretty sad that it's the anime and merch dictating the games but appreciate Pokemon is a massive and in mamy ways unique brand.
Legends is the problem then. It was already crazy having it release so close to Pearl, but it looks like it's tripped them up here too.
Scarlet/Violet is the most pre-ordered Pokemon game in series history.
https://www.oricon.co.jp/news/2257288/full/
Unless word-of-mouth over performance issues are historically bad, this will almost certainly be the direction the franchise takes from here-on out.
@Dom_31 here you go, my friend https://www.polygon.com/platform/amp/interviews/2019/10/24/20929597/game-freak-explains-the-1000-staff-missing-creatures-and-leek-size-of-pokemon-sword-and-shield
the gamecube could run this better.
did anyone play Xenoblade x on the Wii U? graphics were incredible. BOTW on switch was a Wii U port.
stop giving game freak a pass for incompetence
I wish I could play Pokémon in HD-2D lol.
But anyways, if the anime is ending, Game Freak theoretically might have more time for another mainline games development. Hey GF, take more time for gen 10.
@broskiplays I dunno, if BOTW and Xenoblade Chronicles 3 can give us decent open worlds, then Pokemon certainly can
With the consistent decline of GF’s overall attention to quality, it’s becoming clear that this company’s employees are burning out on the franchise. Let them make something else.
I miss the old days where it was standard to break down reviews by categories. Ok so this game looks like crap and runs worse. That sucks, and it's going to keep a lot of people from enjoying it. But ... how good is the gameplay independent of these issues?
I think the video dose an ok job of getting across some key points in that regard, but when the review itself points out that two reviewers had completely different experiences based on how important the tech issues and graphics are, a number and a few bullet points really gives me absolutely no idea what to expect.
@broskiplays lol plenty of games that look even better than Pokémon run at 30 FPS. This is 100% on the developers and the pace in which TPC cranks out new games.
This sounds like a step backwards from Arceus. Disappointing. I was hoping the series would improve upon the Arceus formula going forward.
Lazy developer trying to cash in. They should be working closer with nintendo to get the best out of the switch. We've seen what's possible. While they will most likely get record sales so won't improve when it comes to the next game.
Outside of the core does anyone really care how this runs or for that matter reviews, pretty sure it will get some sort of patch if it is indeed as bad as some are saying, and no doubt will sell it's usual millions and push sales of Switch hardware over the holiday period.
There is a simple choice here, if you don't like it do not buy it, vote with your wallets.
I heard another reviewer say the game would be great if not for the performance issues. Hopefully there will be patches and updates, but Gamefreak really should do better.
Having said that I’m sorry but I’m still going to buy the game.
@broskiplays This is absolutely no fault of the Switch hardware. This game could look much better and run much better- at the very least with the visuals this has hitting a constant 30FPS at least shouldn’t be a problem for Switch at all. Look at games like DQXI or BotW which was a bloody launch title.
If this isn’t a reflection of the talent of the staff on hand at GameFreak then it’s almost certainly a result of them not being allowed enough time to meet their ambitions. They should have started to outsource Pokémon mainline/remakes/spin off RPGs and advised those studios while they give themselves the time to really do their own games justice. I get that Pokémon is a machine that can’t stop and the games have to release in sync with the rest of the series media but that doesn’t mean the quality of the games has to suffer as a result.
@Friendly
Exactly my thoughts; three games where everyone complains about performance should signal to Game Freak that they're trying too hard. I get that every big game developer wants to create these epic experiences, but I think that's an illusion: games with much less ambitious designs do perfectly well. Game Freak should scale back to 2D for a few games, maybe see if they can replicate the in-world battles in that format.
As to ScarVi itself: still getting it, because there's only one other game in the whole of gamedom I care about right now and it doesn't have a release date. I need something to do.
@larryisaman,
Totally agree, but why we are surprised by all this is beyond me, GameFreak are used to making games that are not 3D open world titles, they need some help in my opinion, or a more powerful console to develop for, which would give them more margin for error.
This score doesn’t feel right somehow. BD SP got a 9. Sw Sh got an 8 and legends Arceus got a 9. The review reads like a 9 that’s held back by frame rate issues.
Got to love when people call 7 a horrible review score.
Good review to read, and very much appreciate the honesty regarding performance issues. Seen others who don't even bother with it. Was the same with the preview a few weeks ago.
@johnvboy To be fair, GameFreak seems barely used to do actual 3D games in general. Specially since going to HD with the Switch. SWSH wasn't a technical marvel either (that only had better framerate because it had a much more limited scope) and Arceus had it's own technical issues too.
And this has more to do with actual optimization than the Switch hardware. Xenoblade 3 released this year and doesn't have nearly as much technical issues as Pokemon, despite also having a big world to explore. It was also made in three years seeing the timeline.
I do think this game has one massive improvement over Sword&Shield: you aren't locked behind gyms to go everywhere.
Also there's more "everywhere": I was quite disappointed by how little terrain there was to explore in Sw&Sh.
Seems like a NLife 9/10 tier title that has significant technical problems that reduce the score. I’m curious how I’ll feel about it, given that. After all, Sonic Frontiers is an 8/10 to me, even with its jank. Still looking forward to tomorrow and putting all other games on hold for a bit.
@jowe_gw,
Totally agree, which is why I said they needed help or a more powerful Switch, I played Arceus and it seemed fine to me for the most part, who knows perhaps this will get a patch.
@somnambulance,
I think it will be an 8 from me as well, never been too hung up on technical issues.
7 sounds about right.
@Jeronan Yep.. as a casual gamer, I really don't get the hate for Sword & Shield. I love its wonderful customization options, player design esp Gloria, gym battles and even that gimmicky Dynamax form. Sword/Shield was the reason why I got Switch in the first place.. I'm so excited to play it when I saw the gameplay.
Honestly, does sound like a fair review.
The critic reviews I've read, and comments by people who played the game early, are mostly positive about most aspects of the game, but then point out that the game does suffer from some serious performance issues.
Which is a shame really. I have a feeling user comments are going to be broken down to, those who can cope with the problems and stay positively overall anyway, those who can't cope with the performance issues and it has to be a bad game for them, and those in-between these two sides.
I don't know what side I'd end up on, but I'll keep my pre-order risk and hope I can have fun with the game. I probably can look past it, but will find out!
Can't understand why TPC couldn't fix the biggest issues, Switch hardware maybe part of it, but when Breath of The Wild runs fine, I can't see why they couldn't find a way to fix it. Maybe there is hope a patch of some kind can improve on it, even if it's not the day one patch, but who knows.
I know Breath of The Wild runs very different, without Pokemon everywhere that you interact with and start battling. But it does have enemies everywhere in an action combat setting, and NPC's walkimg about and towns that are just fine when compared to Pokemon Scarlet.
@broskiplays We can't use a Switch Pro if the DAMN CONTROLLERS dont f*!.ing work
@JudaiMasters I think it’s a human resources issue. Game Freak had their staff split between Arceus and this game and they have way fewer employees than Monolithsoft. They should have far more capital so that’s kinda crazy. But they are also not under Nintendo’s umbrella
A Pokemon game that plays more or less like a Pokemon game, exactly what real Pokemon fans want. I can't wait.
I do think it rather bold of the Pokemon Co. to embrace ass graphics in the modern era. Takes some balls.
Just let Bandai/Namco take a shot at this. Their Pokemon Snap game was just a tease of what a true open world Pokemon could look like. There's no reason that game could look so pristine and run smoothly where these games look and run like garbage.
I assumed I would still want to play Arceus more than this, and it sound like my assumption was correct. See you in another two years Game Flop.
Im not into pokemon buy i have buy every game since the let's go ones, (my kids introduction to the franchise) he's never been bother by technical issues.
@broskiplays
"Nintendo should make the Pokemon game series from gen 10 and onward. Gamefreak should stop with creating Pokemon games and focus on their own stuff."
With Game Freak being equal shareholders with Nintendo for The Pokémon Company, there is a very good reason why Nintendo hasn't been making many Pokémon games. Nintendo is there for the marketing, the branding, the international publishing, and exclusivity. The games themselves are not for them to touch, though Nintendo has a high enough stake in the company to make executive decisions, but only with the higher-ups.
@rawzeku
I think people unconsciously cut any rating scale off at the half-way point, so a "5" here becomes "0" in their mind. That would make a "7" into a "2".
I've played games that this site reviewed at "7", and "fun game, but has performance issues" if often an apt description of them.
Sounds like more time in the oven was needed and it feels like a beta test for the future of Pokemon mainline open world. Patches should surely come?
I'm still getting the game.
Cheers for the review.
@roboshort Pokemon games have never looked great, it isn't just this one game so I doubt it's a staffing issue. They just know that people will buy them so no need to put lot of money into how they look.
Expected more but this is my first pokemon game in 5 years so still very excited
Don't really care for performance issues if the overall game is better than Sword and Shield. That's all that matters to me. Can't wait for it.
Man I have no idea how this got a worse score than Sword and Shield on here. Plus if the game showed promise for the future, then Sonic Frontiers should of gotten a higher score as well. Review scores don't really affect if I'm gonna get a game completely, but pointing out fallacies is a storied past time for me lol
@Dark-Luigi Sword/Shield is a pretty low bar. I am going to need the game to be better than Gold/Silver (HeartGold/SoulSilver) and I am guessing that it's not.
I think GF needs to step up. They need to grow if they plan to keep releasing games every year.
Unfortunately the sales prove that even a turd with the Pokemon logo on it will sell well. So why should they put effort in making them?
@Anti-Matter I just got Yokai Watch 1 and 2 (bony spirits, I believe the English title is, of the version I got) on 3ds physical, less than 10€ each. Looking forward to find out what I have been overlooking all this time. Been skipping Pokemon for ages now. I have Yellow, Gold, and Silver on my 3DS, and the most recent one I played that wasn't a re-release, was Y, black before that. Yokai seems a lot more interesting, both in its darker themes and its humour.
@Crono1973,
The main market is no all that bothered with the look and performance, they just want to play the games and enjoy them, doubt they look into things all that much, still a little upsetting for those who do, I just bear in mind who these games are marketed at, and have fun with them for what they are, and try not to obsess over it.
@johnvboy Well what they have become are open world, not really my genre.
Oh no 🙈
I was so worried about these reported performance hiccups.
Sigh… my game is already shipped and on the way so we’ll see how much I feel like giving in when it arrives. I might return it and just go buy brilliant diamond/SP at a discount since I’ve never played any iteration of that gen.
Hmm might opt for persona 5 then. And hang tight on this until there's a sale. Not disappointed by any means, but no need to go in day 1.
It's gotten to a point were it's just embarrasing. GameFreak should take inmediate actions to stop this to happen again or just stop developing tha main Pokemon games altogether.
@Type_Trubbish I didn't see a response your comment. Yes, Reddit says it's in the game. I think they call it Wonder Trade. I think it was offically confirmed a while ago as well.
@KindofaBigDeal
Breath of the Wild has muddy textures and technical issues. People are just blinded by the fun
Sooo all the fun "achievement" hunting sort of (yk, catching Pokemon while they're eating fruit or something) are gone again and we're back to just standard slow turn-based gameplay?
I'm always hoping that Pokemon will be fun again and Arceus really was (apart from, again, being really easy most of the time) but this is just going one step backwards in my eyes .
Hmm.. now I'm undecided. I don't buy every Pokemon game, only ones I think I'll like a lot. Given the mixed reviews, I would love a demo of this one. The review description isn't that bad nor is 7/10, but there are so many Pokemon games that my standards are kind of high.
Amen to this Alex: "I just can't stop myself from being repeatedly saddened and disillusioned by the severe lack of polish present in this latest entry"
I received my copy Wednesday... and thought I was lucky... After a very long play session, I have not touched the game since. Comparable to the WWE 2K18 switch fiasco. What a mess... Score of 7 is too polite. Sad day for Pokemon fans. Please cancel your pre-orders if you can... :_(
Yeah, I"ll pass, probably for good.
I may be interested in a sequel to Arceus Legends. While that game was similarly undercooked, at least it did something new and is enjoyable at the base level.
Sacrificed half the dex and still can't get any polish or finesse.
@CMS_Glalie One of the worst. It'd probably be in my bottom ten out of the 400-500 games I've played on Switch so far.
@CMS_Glalie - Everyone has their opinion. Ease it with the hostility.
there is simply no excuse for Game Freak to cut corners. Pokemon is the most profitable brand on the planet. They should be expected to be better on performance and features
its a pokemon game. it doesnt need to have cutting edge graphics or perform well. should be a 9/10
I'm gonna pass on this one. Pokemon just isn't a series that gets me excited anymore even though I loved it as a kid. The fact that Gamefreak still hasn't added voice acting to a modern game and still can't make a Pokemon that runs well is baffling. Cool if people are excited for it, just not my cup of tea.
Pokemon needs more dev time and less versions. These games used to be auto-buy for me but I'm too old to spend 60 dollars on a game that can't even hit 30fps. Thanks for the honest review.
Between the continued performance issues and the option to break the intended flow of gym encounters (but no level scaling mechanic to accommodate this), I'll be giving this one a pass unfortunately.
Yeah sorry but if this region is as bland and uninspired as Arceus was then I think I’ll pass unfortunately. I’d be more excited for a new mystery dungeon or pokepark at this point.
@FX29 Exactly. How this game is pushed out by Nintendo is beyond me. This game looks so bad WITH the day one patch. I'm not spending 60 dollars and giving them a pass. We have to stop giving them the pass.
@Old_Man_Nintendo Yup, it's far from perfect. However it does look way better than this. At the same time, it was under development for a LOT longer, too. As much as I love Breath of the Wild, I would be 100% happy if the game only had half the content but didn't take absolute aeons to be developed.
@phartsy more dev time would mean pokemon would cease to be released anually. these games bring happiness to millions of children around the world. whats xmas without pokemon? again, this is pokemon and not some sophisticated game like xenoblade. children won't know the difference and adults still gonna have fun, whats not to like?
@Poco_Lypso Let's not embrace and reward mediocrity because it's familiar.
@Old_Man_Nintendo
And it still looks miles better than this game. As do many other titles on Switch.
No fun blindness required.
As someone who like swsh I’ll probably end up liking this as well.
(I should really finish both the swsh dlc, let’s go, and BDSP)
@phartsy I completely agree but there’s a big problem that stands in the way: Capitalism. As long as these games rack in the money, not much is going to change. Majority of people who buy these games would have to stop buying them but that won’t happen. When parents see Pokémon games, they don’t question the quality of the game at all. They just say “oh a Pokémon game I’m sure my kid will like it”. While Pokémon has never really been about the graphics, it’s still sad to see this. But it boils down to the big wigs making these guys pump out a new title every year. If they were given more time it would turn out better
Scarlet and Violet look more promising than Sword and Shield to me. I'll see how bad the tech issues are for myself on Friday.
I'll be waiting until Christmas. Hopefully a patch or 2 comes out by then to fix some of these technical issues
@drewber2635 Totally agree. If they give them time the game would sell even better because the word of mouth would pass like wildfire, but this kind of every year/few months survival of the Pokemon series is awful. I have completely left the series due to these poor games.
@Poco_Lypso Well, if they are okay with releasing crap games then that's on them ultimately but they are losing me as a fan for years. I'm sorry, but I'm not buying crap games for me or my kids and this game is crap.
@broskiplays Their own stuff is Pokémon. 🙄
this game will sell millions so why should the company make a effort for a game that runs smoothly on the switch..no incentive..
for games with so much hype only a 78 on metacritic that is bad...
@KindofaBigDeal
Go look at the ground in breath of the wild and report back to me
I'll see what it is like tomorrow when I go to pick up daughter dearest's copy. Although I'm still planning to get my own, it's just not high priority on my wishlist.
I've watched too many abridged anime.
We very time I see "team star," my brain auto corrects it to "team 4 star"
@MajinSoul I hated Sword/Shield so much that I keep forgetting that Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee even existed. I thought they did such a good job on them, and really had the Pokemon aesthetic mastered, but then they delivered the absolute train wreck of Sword/Shield. The only thing I genuinely liked about Sword/Shield was the clothes, which is not even remotely related to the core of the game.
@phartsy the quality of the games doesnt have any impact on sales. you will see this game will sell like any other pokemon game. They are setting the standard and customers acknowledge said standard with their wallets.
It’s sad seeing a bunch of adults bemoaning a franchise meant for children.
@Jireland92 the adults are the ones with the money to buy these games meant for children. So, yeah… they are in the right to moan them
@Old_Man_Nintendo
Yeah the ground aint great yet still better than what is on offer here.
BotW still looks good, this game looks like guff.
@Jireland92
Children have the right to technically accomplished games too.
Also this game series is in no way played only by kids and I think you know that.
@Savage_Joe no they aren’t. Because most of them are buying it for their kids. Most adults buying it probably aren’t going to be playing it, and kids will probably enjoy it regardless.
@jrt87 Pokemon is a series where every entry fixes something wrong with the previous one, but then breaks something else, that results in no net improvement. The first five generation did more fixing than breaking, and the next five did more breaking than fixing. They implement something genius, like online trading and super training(basically an easy way to manage the more abstract stats), but then make the game hold your hand throughout the story. Then the next entry, throws out those improvements, keeps the game holding your hand throughout the story, but creates some killer new designs for some Pokemon, clothing, and characters. Thus every Pokemon game in reality is a 7/10. "It's great, they did(insert cool thing here), but... why did they get rid of(insert past good ideas here), and replace them with(insert new half-baked ideas here)."
@Joeynator3000
That is a really bold claim to make saying you don't care about fps and resolution, PLA was absolutely fine if you don't are about them things, an even if you do, it really isn't that bad.
That was a hate I never understood for PLA, it's almost like people had to find to something to critique as that is now the cool thing to do (even since dexit) to Pokemon games.
@phartsy
Ah welcome to Mr Negative, you're back.
Clearly you never played PLA. That is all.
@KindofaBigDeal
Botw was cell shaded with muddy textures
@Silly_G what gave you the impression SV isn’t getting dlc? They’ve already found evidence of it in the files, so I wouldn’t hold your breath for a remake or a legends game
Getting mine from MyNintendo UK HOPEFULLY on Friday/Launch Day with a (pointless) Steelbook but it might add some resale value if I don't like 'Violet'.
Looks like were going to get a Day One Update from the looks how it's going... hmm...
@Old_Man_Nintendo
How very interesting.....it still looks much better than this game despite being a Wii U port and over 5 years old.
Now I am gonna get off this roundabout and bid you good day.
@Dizzymario : It's called speculation. And unused data in the game files isn't always indicative of content that will become officially available or acknowledged. cough Eternal flower Floette. cough
I think reviewers should be harsher on games that are technically poor to the point it ruins the functionality of a game.
How can the game score a 8 when you say it runs poorly in places.
that's like rating a car highly, even when the engine shows faults constantly or drives like trash.
we wonder why we have a patch-at-launch industry when reviews like this are basically endorsing broken games. there should be laws which prevent companies selling broken or half finished products. No other industry would allow this standard!
@Rosona I didn’t buy that crap because was also an incredibly rushed game that people make concessions for because it says Pokémon on the cover.
@Rosona ...Dude, the game felt like it turned into a DS game way too often...
@johnvboy No idea how I’ll rate it just yet, but I know I’m forgiving with technical performance stuff, or else I never would’ve liked Bethesda. Lol. I gave Sword/Shield an 8/10, the Gen 4 remakes a 7/10, and Arceus a 9.5/10. I’m sort of expecting I’ll review this one on the higher side because of my forgiveness for that for the sake of feeling childlike wonder, but who knows? At the very least, it’s simply gotta be better than the Gen 4 remakes.
Gamefreak really needs to hire some new developers. The old guard at the company clearly don't know what they're doing from a technical standpoint. A billion dollar franchise like Pokemon deserves better.
I feel like this series ran its course ten years ago. Time to retire. Lol
The performance should NOT be this bad this late in the console's lifespan. No excuse for lazy programming.
The games just came out so I won't be spoiled with anything until tomorrow. The only thing I will say is, I can wait any time until Generation X arrives, so please Game Freak, focus mainly on this game for the next years!
Ok, this sucks. I knew there would be problems with this game but I didn't think it would be as bad as said in the review. I think Gamefreak are being too ambitious at this point.
They need to make a game that is within their teams skill level or ya know, hire more people.
Anyway, I am still getting both so my opinion does not matter. I haven't had a new game in ages and no matter how bad Pokémon games are now, I always go back through them for years. Plus, I am buying both before the price skyrockets.
These games CANNOT be worse than DP/SP, so that's a start. I'm really hoping these games are as good as Sw/Sh. Since, I really enjoyed them. Hearing that most of the jank is in the overworld makes me sad, I really hope it doesn't take me out of the game too much.
The mechanics themselves are everything I wanted in a pokemon game so I am excited to try them out. The new dex also looks great from what I have seen. From this point on, I am really interested in the remake situation, I assume we are going to get B/W then B2/W2 but it's about time we had a johto remake.
To end this off, all I will say is Gamefreak, GIVE US POKÉMON: LET'S GO, JOHTO!
this is from ign
Aside from its phenomenal shift to a true open world, I’ve had one other major takeaway from my time with Pokémon Scarlet and Violet so far that is impossible to ignore: they are a technical mess. In fact, there really isn’t a moment in these games where I’d say they run well.
The framerate is all over the place, dipping agonizingly low even when only a few effects such as flowing water or weather are on screen. Character models only a few feet away pop in and out, sometimes rapidly, or chug along at stop motion animation speeds. Everything has a weird, shimmery blur to it, and shadows frequently disappear and reappear suddenly and illogically. Pokémon clip in and out of walls or floors at odd angles, or get stuck in them entirely – I spent an entire Gym Battle with one Pokemon halfway buried in the floor. The camera will occasionally clip through mountainsides and give a full view of a video gamey void, sometimes ruining cool moments (like, for instance, the evolution of my Wooper). Everything lags all the time, from battles to menus to cutscenes. Two of our guides writers have experienced hard game crashes. It is, by far, the worst-running Pokémon game I have ever played, and among the worst-running AAA games I’ve played on the Switch so far. And yes, this is with the day one patch.
I don't really care about tech problems, I still adore Pokemon. I love me a little jank.
It was either this or No Man's Sky for my next physical purchase. I was already leaning towards NMS while waiting for a review. Now that I've read it, I've officially fallen flat towards NMS.
Been playing since the first generation, skipped the sixth only because I joined the 3DS party late, and stopped after a disappointing eighth. Even with my lowered expectations I'm still disappointed with this generation. Oh, how the franchise has fallen.
I guess I'll wait and see if Generation 10 bucks this trend.
I'm normally not one who's too bothered by technical issues unless they make a game nigh unplayable, but if this has even more performance hiccups compared to Sw/Sh....I'm glad I decided to wait for the inevitable DLC (which will hopefully be on a cart; it was to my benefit to pick up Shield a year later) and future patches. I get that Pokemon is a juggernaut, but this just reeks of a time constraint rush. Which is a shame since this review indicates that there's a lot to like under the hood. Considering how many Pokemon games released in the last year, I think another year's delay wouldn't have hurt anything.
The only Pokemon game I foresee playing before long is Pokemon Legends: Arceus since it's on my Christmas list. I just played Shield about a year ago and played Brilliant Diamond in late spring, so I needed a cooling off period lol.
Never got into Pokémon or played the games but this franchise appears to be shrouded in complacency. Been hearing the same complaints about Game Freak for years and yet ppl just continue to buy them up. Perhaps some of the more critical reviews will shake things up at Game Freak but for a franchise of this magnitude this shouldn’t be acceptable. For a franchise that should be growing and evolving this seems to be heading towards a more regressive and stagnant approach. Too bad for those who are eargerly anticipating this release.
@johnvboy I’m not surprised by it, just disappointed that this is we’re at with Pokémon. Developing everything in house worked fine when they were developing for weak handhelds but it should have been apparent when they were given a quantum leap in tech over the 3DS with Switch that they’d need more time for their games if they wanted to be ambitious with them. Clearly they want to do as much they can with the mainline games but their hands are tied when they have to meet deadlines to keep in lockstep with the rest of the Pokémon cycle. They want their cake and to eat it too which, as far as the quality of the games go, isn’t working out.
They could have established new studios or contracted existing ones years ago to start working on games to be ready on a yearly cycle like Activision do with CoD. Instead it seems we’re going to forever get games that have lofty goals but are hamstrung by GF constantly trying to keep up with tight deadlines. Shame.
Let's go series looks better. Why not a Pokemon game with the same art direct as the remake of Zelda or octopath traveler ?
judging the team at gamefreak and calling them lazy isn’t it, it just shows a lack of understanding about how game development works. pressed for time, probably yes. but definitely not lazy.
@Jireland92 and that mentality is what enables GF, among others, to keep pushing these unoptimized messes because they will still sell anyways. This is not the ps1 and ps2 era where even the best hardware limited the games’ performance. People who won’t mind poor performance in games will still never do, but I won’t spend a dime on a game where the gameplay is noticeably affected most of the time because of poor frame rate, even if it was for my kids.
truthfully, the biggest downsides of this game are performance... and post game. Not really spoiling anything, but there's basically no post game at all, once you complete the main story with its 3 paths, and perhap complete the still smaller than gen 4 dex, you 100% the game, there's no real battle facilities and like by the end of it and even some of the late game mons you have nothing to do that you can still use them for besides the multiplayer and online battling... which still sucks cause 20 minute timer remains implemented exactly as in sword in shield. Its so empty that you can't even rebattle the e4, something every pokemon game allowed you to do. You can rebattle the gyms, but there's no long challenge just small individual battles. The new types of pokemon (you'll know which ones) that are late game story staples feel quickly forgotten because of this, you aint holding them in your party while breeding, you can't catch them until post game and they're not like some legendary encounters or anything, all the gyms and e4 are done, it feels like they were robbed of screen time unlike ultra beast which in sun/moon appeared earlier for your adventure and there was still uses for them like the tree.
This is absolutely a pathway to a good pokemon game in the future. SWSH was pathway to its demise of the franchise, this revives it for sure and the next gen can go so far learning from it but its sad to say we'd need to skip this generation for the quality pokemon experience we've been waiting for. I do believe scarlet/violet desperately need DLC for replayability, for more to do, more to catch, cause they did go all-out for the story part of the game, which is always just the one time novelty part of what pokemon games content truely consist of.
@Araquanid your comment is a giant spoiler, but it makes me glad that I read it. Now there’s more reason for me to skip these games. And if the DLC is not free, like the ones from SwSh, it would be even worse. SV could cost up to $100 to have the full experience the 3ds games had for $40
@Savage_Joe then don’t. If it bothers you then don’t spend anymore time on it. I just don’t understand why people are going on about it when the best thing to do is just move on.
@Araquanid You've already beaten the game?
Yeah better performance would be nice to help these games but remember every Pokemon games (except Pokken Tournament) were never in 60fps to begin with and they had no reason to as you're playing turn-base battle all the time anyways. Input lags and precise control movement doesn't hamper turn-base RPGs that much.
I sorta want to see GF do a demake game. Like open world and same content and using a full color bitmap but oldschool sprites. Basically HD-2D Pokemon style. I know the remakes are sorta that, but I miss 2d sprites.
I’m just here for the ALL the armchair game programmers talkin bout trees…🍿
@johnvboy a more powerful console would help in the sense that a poorly optimized game with the same graphics as SV would have better framerate in a mote powerful device.
Basically, It is a game optimization issue, therefore GameFreak optimizing their game would be a good solution.
Xenoblade 3 came out this year and, sure, it has it's own technial issues but it is much more stable than SV while also looking more impressive. I mean, BoTW is a launch game and it also runs (and looks) better.
@Savage_Joe If you actually read that interview, you would know that the 1000 people involved with Sword/Shield were not all Game Freak employees, and that only about 200 people from Game Freak worked on the games. Try reading more than the headline next time.
I didn't really have a problem with Legends Arceus' graphics or framerate. People said it was bad, but I actually thought the loading times were really fast and the game still had an appealing art style. I also didn't notice many frame dips in Arceus.
So hearing about the frame rate here worries me, because if Nintendo Life is harping on it, it must be bad. If it's the same as Arceus, I am okay with it. If it's worse, it might start to ruin my enjoyment.
I do think it's important to get a palette cleanser from the Series X or the PS5 before judging a Nintendo game - have to be fair with the hardware. But if the game is not even measuring up to what the hardware can do, then that's a big developer problem.
@egervari Performance and GFX quality has always been a problem with Game freak.
Back in the 3DS days, Game freak could not even come close to the developer prowess that was LEVEL5 with their games like Yokai-Watch, which was miles ahead with both graphics quality and performance.
It's the same on the Switch, there are plenty of high demanding games on the Switch today that have been properly coded and optimized for the system, who both look and perform much better than any of Game freak's games.
It's high time that Nintendo steps in and starts shaking up Game freak real good! As Game Freak just keeps on riding the Pokemon IP alone doing all the sales for them, instead of putting some "real" effort in their games.
We all know they can do way better than what they give us and launching these latest games with such poor graphics quality and then still having serious framerate issues is inexcusable! No idea how in earth Nintendo approved these games to launch in such a state?!
From all the videos and screenshots I have seen so far, Scarlet&Violet look worse and very flat compared to Sword&Shield, which had much nicer, more diverse and lush environments & cities/towns.
How in earth is that even possible?
As someone who has "Open World" fatigue and hasn't played a mainline pokemon game in a while, I'll probably skip this and pick up Sword/Shield which looks like a more traditional pokemon experience
@Jeronan you do know Nintendo don’t actually own GameFreak right?
@jowe_gw,
Totally get it, I was just thinking more power would help GameFreak, as they seem to be struggling a bit.
@larryisaman,
You would have thought it was a given, more power, but of course the games on the 3DS were not fully 3D, which seems to have caused the developer all manner if issues.
@somnambulance,
I still think I will get a lot of enjoyment out of it, I am still a sucker for them Pokemon, running around in an open world setting.
@Jireland92 Game Freak is part of the Pokemon Company, in which Nintendo has a big stake in. So Nintendo actually has indirect control over Game Freak if they want to and should after this latest disaster of a game.
I am literally shocked now seeing the real gameplay footage from reviewers and seeing how horribly bland and boring the gameworld is.
If this is the result of the Open World feature, then I rather wish they hadn't gone this route. I mean... Legend Arceus was also pretty bland and boring with its environments.
People can say a lot about Sword&Shield, but that game looks way way better than Scarlet&Violet, with much nicer and more diverse environments.
The whole game world of Scarlet&Violet looks very amateuristic where you see for example a big grass plane and they just placed a city right on top of it, without putting any effort in blending it more into the environment and make it look more natural, like they did much better in Sword&Shield.
It all looks like they created the gameworld and then rushed placing assets randomly onto the gameworld without any polishing/blending. Just shocking!
So, from someone who picked up all Pokemon games on release day, this will be the first game I will not be picking up tomorrow and I wait to see more gameplay footage from gamers.
I am so dissapointed with what I have seen so far.
'Open world lacks stand-out locales'
A pitfall that many games fall into when transitioning to an open world format.
This is probably real proof that the new Switch will come out in time for Zelda next year.
The machine needs a boost
@Zadaris That makes no sense whatsoever.
To me it looks like Game Freak has been literally struggling and spend the vast majority of their time creating and making the Open World work, with too little time left to make it look nice.
Like I said in my previous post. It all just looks very amateuristic, bland and boring.
It's like they created a bland open world, with some different zones (grass, snow, forest) with little in it due to their crappy engine and performance constraints and then just rushed with dumping assets on the map, without spending any time to polish it and blend it naturally into the terrain.
You can clearly see it in the above review video where he rides/walks around on the vast grass land and enters that big city that looks like one big asset they placed straight onto the world map, without any blending/finishing.
I am literally shocked in how horrible the game looks and yet still peforms poorly.
After playing a game like Xenoblade Chronicles 3 recently, there is literally no excuse for Game Freak to deliver a game in such a poor state.
@Araquanid short games don't really matter in this age of everyone having a stack of games they never have time to finish. If it is quick and fun then I can get back to the never ending ones later.
@ChakraStomps The Switch is not the problem! Game Freak is!
@Jeronan won't contest that but not every gaming house is perfect. It is time for some new nvidia chip switch to show up for these open world games.. look at Sonic
@ChakraStomps The Switch has 4 GB of RAM for crying out loud and is able to deliver better performance than the PS3 and XB360. Which is more than enough for 1080p games. The Tegra X1 is more than a good enough SoC to deliver high quality 1080p gaming! Its the exact same SoC from the NVidia Shield console days.
Open World games is nothing new. Elder Scrolls: Skyrim launched 12 years ago! I played the crap out of it on my XB360 back then, without any issues.
Game Freak has just a mediocre development team. It was the same crap back in the 3DS days, where the Pokemon games looked like a blurry pixelated mess with poor performance, while LEVEL5 give us games like Yo-kai Watch 1-3, which both looked and performed incredible on the 3DS!
The difference in quality between Yo-kai Watch and Pokemon on the 3DS is shocking. It really shows how bad of a game developer Game Freak really is.
@Jeronan dude there was no need for all that. Everything relevant was in the first paragraph. And Nintendo may have a stake in the Pokémon company but that doesn’t mean they have any control over Game Freak. If they did then we wouldn’t have seen GameFreak games on other consoles.
I enjoyed shield.. first playthrough of a pokemon game since the first couple, and I only dabbled in the last like 15 years. I beat shield around 40 hours and sold it, felt done... Been thinking about this one, but been so tired of lackluster quality in open world games.. theres no reason for this far in Pokemon's legacy they can't make a technically sound game .. they made wonderful games on previous systems. Hire the freaking talent and make a world worthy of the anime, and quit making a baby game every year because children play your game, Mario never had to sacrifice on that front and humor its audience, pokemon shouldn't either
Holy crap, just watched a little bit of that video and man do they need to send it back and spend some more time tuning it.. the pop up and ugly textures, jaggy frame rates... hopefully they patch it or I'll just check out Arceus instead
@Jireland92 What other consoles?
Pokemon IP is wholy owned by the Pokemon Company (in which both Game Freak/Creature Inc and Nintendo each have a 50% stake in) and the Pokemon games are only available on Nintendo Consoles.
Pokemon GO is a spin-off developed by Niantic for mobile phones, with full oversight by the Pokemon Company.
When it comes to the mainline Pokemon games, Game Freak is the developer, but The Pokemon Company & Nintendo are the sole publisher. Hence, why I am shocked that Nintendo approved this game going retail in such a poor state.
It must be desperation by Nintendo due to lack of any other major AAA title for this holiday season and them depending on Pokemon Scarlet&Violet to carry the holiday season this year.
I have no other explanation in how they allowed this game to go gold in the state it's currently in.
@Jeronan you didn’t understand his comment. He talked about GF games on other platforms, like PC and PS4, not Pokemon games
@Savage_Joe You mean that terrible Little Town Hero game a couple years ago that flopped? I had honestly completely forgotten about that one lol.
Just more proof how bad Game Freak is and all they have going for is riding the popularity of the Pokemon IP. Without it, they would no longer exist. /shrug
Would you say say this performs better or worse than Rune Factory 5? Cause that was abysmal.
@Jeronan They did a great job on Arceus. With this game, it seems like they just weren't given enough time to flesh out and polish the game.
@bransby Scarlet&Violet need a lot more than just polish. /sigh
I personally wasn’t all that impressed with Legend Arceus. It was an okay game, much simpler in scope too.
It had just a central town hub, from where you load into each seperate zone. So it wasn’t open world at all. It was linear with level barriers for unlocking each following zone. Many of the zones felt really restrictive in movement, forcing you along a path through either steep hills and invisible barriers.
I found the gameworld itself also pretty bland and boring. Little varied.
Again. The game world of Sword&Shield was really nice, well polished and really varied. Especially after the two DLC’s.
@Jeronan dude you need to chill.
@Ryu_Niiyama The whole thing has been dumped for about a week now.
I'm still buying it but those are legit critisms of the game. Its not great for casuals because there's nothing to really do post game, and its not great for die hard fans because 1: still dexit, 2: 20 min timer hits the battling community hard still.
If they just lifted the 20 min timer, had better framerate, and came out with DLC with some more replayability it is a good game, farcry from SWSH and its criminal its a lower rating then SWSH too. Its almost like this gen is worth skipping but they do make me excited for what gen 10 does with the paved road.
It's one thing to have really outdated graphics, even some textures can be linked to the N64..
but to have primitive, basic 3D..AND low framerate ? Come on gamefreak, wake up.
Now, a game cannot be solely judged on graphics, I think outside the technical aspect it looks fun and filled with content.
And please...Zelda and Xenoblade are on that same hardware running and looking better. The tegra X1+ has nothing to do with this, the sole culprit is gamefreak
Wow plot twist!
No level scaling is going to be a problem. Catching Pokémon and battles with 20-30 plus levels on you in either direction doesn’t sound fun or challenging. It would’ve been nice to see a Gym Leader change their teams up to reflect the scaling (example a low level gym with base Pokémon would become a gym with mid to full evolutions as it scales.)
@Jireland92 lol I am perectly chill. Just not going to buy the game.Which will be the first Pokemon game for me not buying day 1.
We are allowed to be critical, when Game Freak delivers a ***** game.
@Crono1973 I think our points are related. Game Freak knows people will buy the games no matter what so they don’t invest in the human resources that should be necessary for a game of the scale of Scarlet and Violet. It is not just a matter of the graphics looking behind the times also. I do imagine it is also demotivating for developers at Game Freak to release a game with a plethora of technical issues. They’ll probably pay for the lack of investment now in the long run.
@GameOtaku with catching Pokemon its usually not too big a deal, as you can just click run away.
Big issue is with battles, if you can still not abort them and forced to sit through the whole battle until all your Pokemon are defeated, get money penalty, etc.
This will become annoying and frustrating real quick, wth no warning or trainer level indicators. That is just terrrible design and big oversight by Game Freak.
Which is yet another example as to why they should not have gone fully open world, without the expertise/knowledge in-house and stick to the linear/open hybrid design of Sword/Shield and expanded/improved on that instead.
Well this just further cements me avoiding this game.
If Nintendolife gave this a 7 for its performance issues then it's probably even lower for me.
Performance is a big deal to me.
@GameOtaku Level scaling is terrible. It is a necessity in open world games though which is a critical flaw of open world games IMO. What's the point of getting stronger if the enemies' level with you? May as well stay at level 1 but then what would be the point of levels at all, may as well just be an adventure game instead of an RPG.
RPG's that don't make you feel more powerful as you go don't really scratch the RPG itch (for me anyway). Take any linear RPG, play a few hours and then go back to the starting town and fight the enemies in the area to see that you really are getting stronger. With level scaling, the enemies in the starting area would always just be around the same level as you are. Every enemy you encounter would be around the same level as you. How exciting!
Another great thing about linear RPG's is that you can usually go into an area you aren't ready for, take the risk and if you win the reward will be greater.
Level scaling is a crutch that open world games lean on because...how else would it work? Doesn't make level scaling anything other than terrible.
@Jeronan being critical of something is good, it’s healthy for games to receive criticism so they can improve. But going on and on about it like this isn’t healthy at all. Just say your piece and move on.
@Dreamcaster-X can some people please stop generalizing critism? Please... This is sad at this point. More than one comment here than have more than valid complaints.
@Crono1973
Level scaling as far as the story battles should be a thing. While you can run away from a wild encounter it’s not guaranteed as they can block your path so your level 5 Pokémon could easily be taken out by a level 45 wild encounter.
@GameOtaku Well there should be some common sense in map design so that you can't accidentally go somewhere with monsters you have no hope of beating. However, going ahead a little where the monsters are a few levels higher but beatable if you are lucky, heal alot or exploit a weak point is what makes a linear JRPG worth exploring.
For example, take an old game, Breath of Fire (it's on NSO). You can grind as much as you want in your current area, but the level gaining will slow down since the monsters don't change or you could bravely move forward and try your luck and skill with monsters a little stronger than you but gain levels faster (and possibly some good equipment). It's a risk-reward system and it's optional. The game won't let you go so far that you end up fighting enemies you have no hope of defeating. Is this not something modern developers can figure out. Pretty simple and it rewards getting out of your comfort zone without destroying you for daring to explore.
No need to level scale bosses either, bosses are the walls that keep you out of map areas that you have no hope of surviving. If you can't beat the boss, you can't go forward. Beat the boss and you can move into new places with harder enemies. JRPG's have been doing this for decades but now all of a sudden, they can't remember how to do it?
Is level scaling the best modern developers can come up with to compensate for what the player might do? I mean, level scaling is a critical flaw of open world games so maybe the genre is to blame.
@Crono1973
That defeats the point of being open world. I love the idea of Pokémon done in a BOTW style so you could go literally anywhere go through at your own pace your own way. But with that said having level scaling is honestly the best COA. Just leave the Pokémon at that location those levels you were when you leave.
@GameOtaku Yes, if you want an open world game, you have to settle for level scaling.
@Crono1973 "Well there should be some common sense in map design so that you can't accidentally go somewhere with monsters you have no hope of beating."
Have you stayed in Gormott (XC2) where you are at level 5 and you see some cute bunnies you want to kill until you stumble on a lv 40 giant rabbit that one shot's you? Yeah, that's how I see the open world games without level scaling
@Savage_Joe Why would there be a level 40 enemy in a level 5 zone in the first place? Seems like bad design to me that doesn't require level scaling to solve. Shouldn't the level 40 bunny never spawn in a level 5 zone?
Even in a linear JRPG that could happen if they designed it that way, it would be bad design. Maybe it's a bug. Not sure why level scaling is the only solution to a level 40 enemy in a level 5 zone.
1) Are the visuals and performance THAT bad? If it doesn't ever get unplayable I'm not too bothered.
2) No really standout areas? That's a shame. For me at least, the allure of BOTW's world was the locations oozing with charm. If there's nothing like that here then I don't know... Probably not going to play this, Definitely not a day one.
It's almost like decades of not substantially pushing the formula for the franchise forward have left the dev team ill-equipped to deliver a fresh take on the game. Never would have seen that coming.
Wait, you gave this, the better game, a 7/10 and Sw/Sh an 8/10? Boggles the mind.
In saying that, Monolith should really assist GameFreak in the next Pokémon game. IMO, the Xenoblade series should be all the inspiration they need for an open world Pokémon game.
Removed - unconstructive
@locky-mavo Sword and shield doesn't have the same abhorrent tech issues. this game seems more like a 5 tops
I want the dodge roll back! And aiming my pokeball tosses! And the pokedex leveling! This is decent but compared to Legends it feels like a step backwards in my opinion.
I like that the leader pokemon can follow me, the open world and the pokestops tho.
@locky-mavo Because Sword/Shield are superior to this atrocity and deserve the higher score.
All Scarlet/Violet have going for is the Open World gimmick, while falling flat on everything else. The game doesn't even have any real postgame content other than some rematch battles. All the while Sword/Shield at least had the Battle Tower, Wild Area news with pokemon and RAID battle rotations, before the DLC hit and added even more.
The only major (and tiresome dead horse beating) critique of Sword/Shield was the so called Dexit, which they actually addressed with the release of the two DLC, which added a ton of legacy Pokemon back into the game.
People can jump high and low against Sword/Shield, but it were fantastic games. They looked great, with beautiful crafted world with lots of variation. The Open wild areas and RAID battles were new and exciting additions. The two DLC's were great and added a ton of legacy Pokemon back into the game and were the icing on the cake.
Me and my son had so much fun with Sword/Shield. It's the only Pokemon game we went through several playthroughs.
And seeing this disaster that is Scarlet/Violet, it will be the first Pokemon game I will not be picking up and rather go for another playthrough with Sword/Shield instead.
It will be interesting to see if Nintendo is willing to come up with an apology and Game Freak going to post a roadmap in how they going to fix this disappointing mess to address the performance and gameplay issues.
This game definitely needs some DLC to add more variation and interesting zones to the game world. Most importantly adding the missing Postgame content!
Until then I stay clear from Scarlet/Violet until I see a clear roadmap, first patches and if/when they going to add DLC content (and what it will contain).
After seeing a lot of the technical issues online, a lot of it comes off as funny to me. Like it’s bad, but not so bad that it makes me angry.
i'd love to play the latest disappointing 3d pokemon game but i need to finish my disappointing 3d sonic game first!
Even with the technical issues which can be ignored somewhat the game is better than sword and shield, lots of quality of life improvements make a big difference
I really miss the Nintendo Gold Seal.
@Rooty The formula has been successful for decades. They creat every pokemon with kids in mind who play pokemon for the first time in their life. Any changes to the formula could make the game worse. The only problems are performance based and maybe lackluster graphics but the core game is still the same and thats what counts. Judging by the vidreview, the stuttering framerate is pretty bad tho.
@Jeronan dont they release a pokemon game every year around the same time? Its for christmas! And while I agree performance could be better, how does it affect a pokemon game. Its not like you need top notch reaction or will fail a battle because of performance
I looked forward to it since last year, but to say that it looks bad is an understatement. We had the gorgeous X3 only a couple of months ago and they come with this mess…? Hard pass for me. Going for Ragnarok instead (which pushsquare absolutely loves)
@sunny63
For me they were really bad,
it wasn't so bad early on in the smaller opening area but it still had some very noticeable chugging when rotating the camera, but when i got to the more open areas and the first big town it was at the point where just walking around and exploring felt bad.
its a shame because it feels like theres a great pokemon game buried under the issues, and personally i would be fine with the visuals if it meant the game ran smoothly but the game stutters pretty bad iirc even having times when it would straight up pause for a second.
(impressions were based on playing it handheld on launch switch though in the gamexplain video they mentioned docked also has the issues)
@Jeronan I respectfully disagree with you an Arceus. To me, that game is the standard that all Pokemon games should improve upon going forward. The different areas may not have been huge, but I certainly spent a long time searching every crevice of the maps. Access to novel forms of travel encouraged you to return to areas later to discover more of the map. The ability to catch Pokemon with just a poke ball makes a lot more sense than having to battle every Pokemon.
Arceus, frankly, had much more content at launch than Sword/Shield did, the game you seem to love, and it was definitely less linear. I didn't really find Sword and Shield to be a good Pokemon game until the DLC's came out.
Maybe the performance is worse on the original switch with smaller battery (for whatever reason), the game doesn't look great but I am not experiencing any major issues
@bransby To each their own. I found Legend Arceus become stale and boring real quick due to the repetitiveness of the gameplay. So I burned out on the game after a while.
Though the gameworld and overall design of Legend Arceus looks much better than Scarlet/Violet. So it looks like that dev team had more time to actually finish and polish that game before release.
Mine goes back to Amazon today. The performance makes playing it a rather exhausting experience for me.
@Poco_Lypso People pay money for fully working products. A glitch here and there is one thing, poor performance is another. Giving money to a company like this is simply rewarding their poor work ethic. Nobody needs this rushed release, and it could have benefited from more dev time.
@locky-mavo how is this the “better game”? Because of the preorders? Nah
Regardless of reviews, these Pokémon games are still going to sell well. For everyone of us who read reviews, there are easily 500-1000 to the 1 who don’t (an over dramatization on the number). Sadly, even with a newer Switch on the horizon, I doubt Game Freak will ever get their polish game up.
I don't understand what's making the performance so choppy. I'm still in the tutorial and I've seen my character briefly freeze and sprint to catch the first mon. I'm on Violet if that helps narrow down why it seems why some people aren't being affected.
It is hardly surprising since we have consistently seen games struggle with the Switches' hardware from the beginning. What is surprising is that they didn't take away anything from the other open world games in Nintendo's wheel house. This game should have been delayed and gotten Monolith to assist, waited to be a launch title for the next system or should have been paired down their ambitions for this title.
@SonOfDracula I am sure it will sell like crazy. If you like pokemon and dont buy it then you are missing out.
@Darknilious I think it might have to do with gamefreaks lack of experience with 3d engines. There are way more demanding games on switch and they run much better.
@Poco_Lypso That's the main issue though, is that the game is selling on reputation alone. I watched it in a 4 hour stream yesterday and I certainly don't feel like I'm missing out.
@Poco_Lypso i watched the DF video of Ark’s rerelease on switch, and OMG, that is a heaven to earth change!! That’s how open world games should look and run on switch. GameFreak should definitely hire them asap!
@Savage_Joe think we wont see any improvements until a switch successor is released. hoping for backwards compatibility. dont want to buy a ps5 (for persona6)
@Darknilious What are you talking about?
There are plenty games that run great on the Switch and look way better than this game.
Even Sword/Shield, which is 3 years old now, looked way better than this game without performance issues.
The graphics and overall gameworld design in Scarlet/Violet is the absolute worst. There is absolutely no excuse that it runs as poorly as it does.
The only explanation I can think of, is that their game engine simply isn’t made for Open World design, without the required optimizations to make it perform well.
Hence the horribly inconsistent textures, pop-ins, freezes, etc.
@soupwoman
Yeah while it does feel like something went very wrong during development im not really a fan of the whole "lazy devs" idea since more often than not these kinds of issues come from higher up.
it does seem like the games bugs and performance problems are gaining some traction on social media, and while it wont really do much in regards to sales its still good to see some backlash towards the state the game launched in (with quite a few criticizing the overall management rather than outright blaming programmers)
definitely feels like there needs to be some changes somewhere in the overall chain of command
@Jeronan I am talking about how old and under powered the Switch was from the start so its really not surprising that this game like many before just doesn't run well. Its true that has been a lot of successful 1st party and 3rd party games that do run good, the devs always talk about all the compromises made and the tricks employed to get those games running. to your point yes if Gamefreak screwed the pooch on this and that is why I said they needed either to hold off or get some help from the companies like Monolith.
What would really help is to have more powerful hardware so that you don't need to use every technical trick in the book to make your game work half way decent. That is my 2 cents anyways.
@Jeronan Your claim that Game Freak is part of The Pokémon Company is factually incorrect. TPS is a joint venture company formed by Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures.
We went to go pick up daughter dearest's copy today. She's having fun, there's been some slowdown but nothing too bad so far.
"Wildly inconsistent performance and visuals" - shouldn't this be a cry for help for a new upgraded switch pro?
Okay it’s been long enough it’s time they give us Gamefreak Pro
@under_armour
It’s a cry for the developer having more time to work on their engine to be able to hit the scope they’re reaching for on existing hardware which hasn’t been a problem for the vast majority of exclusive games on Switch.
@jowe_gw Need some tissue bruh??
I have noticed a few weird glitches like when I was battling Fidough and they just weren't there, but it's strangely still better than Sword/Shield and Arceus. The open world is fantastic and the transitions between battling and walking is quick. Loving the auto battle too. A few patches to sort things out and this game could be perfect
The game can't even maintain a 30 fps rate during the battles. I don't expect anything from this game.
Curious that people think this should have been on a Switch Pro. Sure, as if Nintendo were ever going to release a beefed up premium model that costs 50% more. Even if there was a Switch Pro in existence, that would mean Pokemon S&V should run at 60 fps and possibly a higher resolution, not be needed to run this substandard version that the current hardware should be able to handle.
@Dizzymario Arceus has a plethora of other things going for it, so even if SV looked better (which it absolutely does NOT), Arceus would undoubtably be the superior game.
@Savage_Joe Only a fraction of the experience that the (3)DS games offered. That's the saddest part. I'm sure there are some people who worked really hard on this game, but it's just not worth more than 20 bucks. There's just no way in which anyone could possibly justify this disappointing work in progress costing $60. I've never felt this cheated
@Dreamcaster-X what?
@Jeronan I agree that SV have lot of dissapointing issues (the fact that there isn't even a Battle Tower says a lot) but launch SWSH was also quite bad.
The story was really bad while also interrupting you every 5 seconds and the routes outside the wild area were uninteresting corridors. It also suffered from the now classic 3D animation GameFreak issues, including the moving characters 180 degrees with no animation at all an really stiff battle animations. All while saying that those animations were the reason not all Pokemon were in the game. Saying people didn't have valid issues with SWSH and it was just Dexit is just lieing.
SV is worse in that regard but that's because 3 years later it has the same issues plus more while Arceus already fixed some of them the very same year it came out.
And, let's be clear here, the post game in SWSH was also short and uninteresting. It's just than in SV it seems to be short and uninteresting without the Battle Tower this time. I guess they are going to say that not a lot of people played those so they removed them, like they did for every single post game feature since B2&W2.
@Darknilious BoTW is a game that came out on the original Switch 5 years ago.
@broskiplays To you and anyone else saying this is the Switch hardware being outdated are ignorant and have no clue what you are talking about because it has nothing to do with the power of the Switch, and everything to do with incompetent developers.
Zelda BotW being 5 1/2 years old still looks better than this mess of a game, and runs flawlessly.
The Witcher 3 also looks and runs better than this game on the Switch's hardware.
Those are just 2 prime examples that prove the problem is on the developers side, and not the Switch's hardware. This game reminds me of the terrible Ark port on the Switch. Sure the Switch won't run Cod:MW2 but this game is ugly as F*** and could have been just fine if the developers knew what they were doing.
The second trailer looked pretty good, but now that I have seen a review on youtube...it looks terrible! Very weak textures and trees, slowed down characters in the distance (because of frame-rate), etc, etc. It looks worse then Arceus and the reviewer also said the performance is worse then the performance on Arceus. Also, some very terrible new Pokemon species from what I have seen. And no more free-catching mechanic from Arceus?!
That all feels like a step backwards, and the game just looks highly unfinished to me. Might still be fun, but should have been sooo much better. Switch CAN do open-worlds if developers take their time (Botw for example). But its always Rush, Rush at Gamefreak...
Can't help but imagine a timeline where Legends came out Holiday 2022 and this was Holiday 2023.
If nothing comes out 2023, then there was no benefit for rushing this game and releasing two Pokemon games in one year. This game is straight-up undercooked from a technical perspective, and that's a shame because it's otherwise the most fun I had since Gen 5.
@BloodWolfe Ark was rereleased on switch a few weeks ago and it looks and runs waaaaaay better than its OG version, and obviously SV
@Savage_Joe Ah the updated Ark re-release finally came out? I heard about it, but didnt realize it was already released. Glad to hear it runs better than the OG, and now Pokemon SV.
This means their may be some hope these games may get fixed to an acceptable level.
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Truth be told, yyyyyup, this is poor game optimisation. The Switch has managed to run stuff like Doom, Wolfenstein, Warframe (even with its "open-world-esque" maps), Breath of the Wild, Bayonetta 3, Xenoblade Chronicles Remastered, 2 and 3, and a long etcetera.
It's honestly sad, because the game is quite fun and kinda gets rid of the old boring and tiring formula: Go from gym 1 to 8, beat the evil organization in turn, catch the game's legendary Pokémon, beat Elite Four, end. In these games you have to do the same things, but the order is up to you and the focus (gyms, titans, evil group) to tackle on things is up to you, it finally feels like YOUR adventure.
But it all is awfully hindered by mediocre game developing, it's like playing Cyberpunk 2077, when everything works the game is awesome, but things start to go south very fast. It's even worse if your game session starts to get longer, I did a 6-7 hour session and had to reboot the game because textures just failed to load and the game world just disappeared.
@broskiplays It is entirely GameFreak. Games like BoTW, Xenoblade, Monster Hunter, Witcher 3 and others show that the Switch is capable of far better open world performance and fidelity.
@broskiplays lol wut???? The Switch is extremely under powered for sure but that's not the issue. There are a magnitude of games that look amazing on the Switch's outdated hardware like Breath of the Wild (6 year old game btw that was also released on the Wii U) and all the Xenoblade games. GameFreak are the main problem not the Switch
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great game !
its just going to take me a while to
get used to getting around the different
areas since i'm still new to the game
i just bareley started playing Pokemon Scarlet !
i love the new bikes in the game !
Whoever the developers were for the new pokemon snap game should be the developers for the next pokemon game honestly! The details and landscape they had in that game was awesome! Scarlett just ain't worth it to me, the pokemon are cute and I love how it's open world, but compared to other new games released on the switch the new pokemon releases are subpar or mediocre at best
Besides all the good things everybody has been saying about the game (and ignoring the patchable issues), there are pleny of ideas to expand this game. Not just in Expansion Passes, but also on free updates like PLA.
Right now I want to think about the free DLC this game could get soon. Level Scaling (which I just recently realized was actually in many previous mainline titles since the Trainer Tower in Gen 3) is a necessity here to elaborate on the open-ended aspect of the game, and at the same time something to make the game more challenging.
There's also the fact there is no battle facility currently in the game, so this means they're either working on implementing a Battle Tower soon, or maybe a frontier more ambitious... there could also be some small nice mechanics or additions to implement.
But really, right now I'm truly hoping for more Paldean Pokémon and evolutions. Give me an Imperial Eagle Pokémon!
Okay... Look at a couple things. There's people leaving Game Freak so something is happening out of the publics eye.
Look at a nintendo switch release game such as Zelda BOTW. That game was and is absolutely beautiful to look at and play. That game was designed for a gen 1 switch! Then look at Pokémon Legends Arceus that was a game great full stop. It brought Pokemon back for a lot of people and ran awesome.
There is 'NO EXCUSE' for something like this to be on the market after going through extensive testing from the biggest franchise out there.
Now... Look at it simply. You, (or a 10 year old child) have paid for a product with your hard earned money for an incomplete product.
This is poor.
I am lovimg this game like a child, with all my heart. The frame rate issue is the only thing I had notice but it has not been something that stops me from enjoying at all. I find it to be the best 3d Pokémon game and one of the best Pokémon ever for me, here since Yellow. I am not the most exquisite taste gamer, but I have loved it so much until now.
I'm sad it just feels like the game could have used another year in development to shine. There are plenty of Switch games that are beautiful and run fine on the hardware. It's not a bad game, but it could have been a GREAT game if they'd just spent some more time on optimization and landscape and depth. I'm not far enough in to comment on story. I like all the Pokemon and Character designs, and Pokemon as a franchise proves the basic gameplay is solid.
I enjoyed the changes of Arceus, and I know some folks wish they'd brought more of those mechanics over, but I think part of the point of Arceus is it's a different time when we were first discovering partnership with Pokemon rather than fearing them, and thus things work differently than modern times of Pokemon. I like that it's rather unique.
I was expecting more, but I'll still have fun. This is the future of Pokemon, but they kinda tripped coming out of the gate. I was kind of expecting to be done with Pokemon after feeling pretty meh about Sword/Shield and it seeming like they were sticking to rehashing the same formula, but Arceus brought me back in.
I've been a gamer, and particularly a Nintendo gamer, all my life but I've never played a mainline Pokemon. (Only Snap and such.)
Which one is the best game for me? I get so confused by all the entries with variable scores but also by texts saying Scarlet is a step in the right direction while scoring it lower. So is this it, or should I backtrack to Arceus or Sword and Shield? (Wanna play on Switch.)
This game is definitely a step forward and definitely improves over the previous generation, but they still have to perfect the open world formula. I think this game lacks "getting lost" charm that the Zelda and Elden Ring worlds have, which by the way would feel perfect in a Pokémon game. Imagine, only you and your Pokémon against all odds
I wish the Pokémon games had more development time to allow for more elaborated gameplay, cutscenes, characters... all that stuff the blockbusters are known for. Otherwise it's really enjoyable and shows potential for expansions. I want to see more on Game Freak's take on the open air concept.
@broskiplays after totk this comment aged like milk
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