Poll: What Review Score Would You Give Pokémon Scarlet And Violet?

The most polarizing Pokémon ever.

The ones giving it a 10/10 must be joking at this point. Same with 0/10. Guys... Please XD

This game has the best Pokemon story I've played so far. It's not perfect, but I feel I have to give this game a pretty good score for making me want to know what happens next.

I'd give it a 7.5 for multiplayer, a solid 8 for single-player.
I'd give it a 9.5, but wow it is janky. Loveable jank, but still jank.

@SilvercatMoonpaw This sounds harsh but you rate the game not "what happens next".
I don't think it's a 0/10, but neither a 10/10 because they "may do a better game with this structure in the future".

A poll like this will never give an accurate representation, because you are in theory only getting feedback from people who shelled out £€$40-60. Meaning they are likely already fans of the game so unlikely to be impartial but will also have unconcious buyers bias towards the game.

I agree with the 7/10 you guys gave.
The game is fantastic, but these technical problems are just impossible to ignore.

Wtf kind of apologists can honestly give this a 9 or 10. Even if the core game is perfect (which it isn't), the myriad of performance issues exist

@jowe_gw this is a weird comment too. Your logic makes it so that you can never have a 10/10 game because inevitably the next thing might be better. A games ability to keep you invested can certainly be grounds for a good or even great score. Why would you play a game you aren’t interested in???

@Vertigoat Maybe you didn't realise but I was answering to a comment that said " It's not perfect, but I feel I have to give this game a pretty good score for making me want to know what happens next.". I simply said that we don't know what happens next and rating it high because of that is not fair.

Apart from the technical problems it's actually a great game, they have the world design and game mechanics spot on. But the problems and graphics let it down.

So it's a 7/10 from me.

I still believe monolith need to be called up to work on the next game.

If the performance issues didn't exist this game would be an easy 9. It's the best Pokémon game since Black and White. But they do exist and I think a 6 or 7 is more than fair.

The 1/2s and 9/10s must be a joke, no?

@Jayvir because the game is incredible!!! I don't care so much for technical problems at launch anymore. If I based my entire opinion on what a game was at launch I'd hate Fallout New Vegas, Mass Effect and Skyrim. These games were incredibly buggy at launch but had tons to love (especially New Vegas), and are considered classics today. This game in a few months when it's patched will be considered the benchmark for all future Pokemon to be compared to. The story is the best it's been since Gen 5, the gameplay is tight, the post game is fire, the open world was FAR better than I expected, and the challenge the gyms in any order allow you to dictate your difficulty curve (there is an order, but you don't have to follow it). The game is amazing!

@jowe_gw ahhhh gotcha!!!! My bad!!!!

@jowe_gw
I meant "What happens next in the story of the game I am currently playing."

And I gave it a 9/10, and even that's not a certain vote from me: I have things about the game I don't like that aren't about performance. But there are things I like about the game that mean I'd rather give it a higher score.

Your Milage Is Allowed To Vary.

Why couldn't we vote on that terrible sonic frontiers review?

8/10. Point off for the glitches, but this is finally the Pokemon game we've wanted since 3D consoles became a thing. It's fun in spite of what the internet is enraged about. The open world is freeing. I do wish battles were a bit faster, that text boxes weren't on timers and I could simply mash through, or at least let me adjust the timers. Awkward pauses while you wait several seconds for a four-word text box to disappear don't feel great.

Klawf is one of the worst offenders of this. Do we REALLY need to see his ability pop up and have a separate animation for EACH of the five stat increases/drops when he reaches half health? As a point of comparison, Shell Smash affects all five stats as well but (until this game at least, haven't seen it yet here) only two animations would play (one for the decreases, one for the increases) followed by a text box for each stat, and even that felt slow. I'd say just play both animations at once and have two text boxes - one saying which stats raised and another saying which stats lowered.

To each their own, I guess.

A 5/10 from me.

The deletion of QoL stuff is mind boggling and the game just feels worse than PLA. I am enjoying filling the pokedex but I can have that enjoyment in other pokemon games so this one isn't anything special. Obvious performance problems are obvious.

Without the bad stuff, an 8/10 for me. I don't know what pokemon can do at this point to be a 10/10. Maybe not selling 2 versions of the same game. That'd be a start.

@jowe_gw emotional rating at its finest.

5/10 for me.
Game good, technical aspect horrible and casting shadows on the genuine efforts made to refresh the IP. The grade cannot just focus on the gameplay, it has to take into account the tech side too.

It's cyberpunk all over again for me.

The game is somewhat playable and enjoyable but they REALLY need to make 2/3 patches their utmost priority, framerate improvement, clipping/exploit/glitches need to be toned waaay down...and more importantly fix those memleaks and crashes.

I stopped playing after my first crash, waiting for the patches

8/10 for me. It is glitchy, but it's hella fun. Enjoy the auto battles for exp farming. I also enjoy the open world much more than I thought I would. So much freedom! There's almost too many Pokemon! I'm having a hard time deciding who to keep in my party! Should I keep my grass starter and my Charcadet which is very weak until I can evolve it midgame? Or should I scrap both and raise my Capsacid for a Scovillain and have an open slot to try another new mon? Decisions, decisions.

FUN!

@Wexter We don't know if the game is going to be patched tho.

From a purely gameplay perspective, it's one of the best maybe even the single best. There are technical issues, but they've been overblown online. The terrain does look like garbage sometimes though. I still went 8 because it is really fun overall, and the parts that need improvement don't actually impact my enjoyment at all.

@SilvercatMoonpaw I guess I shouldn't complain about IGN rating system being between 7-10 or them rating games before finishing them since people seem to do the exact same thing.

@jowe_gw it's Pokemon, it's going to be patched. Legends got patched, Sword and Shield got patched. It's going to get patched. If it doesn't I'll eat Ash Ketchum's hat.

@somnambulance Skyrim was in 2011 and Pokemon games were still 2D back then. It's a decade later with many better open world game released.

7/10 for me. The game itself is pretty good and the world is fun to explore. Would give a 9 but I can't due to technical issues.

I gave it an 8️⃣ out of 10.

I'll forget the technical issues as I'm pretty sure they'll be patched.

I CAN'T see this Game bring better than 🗡🛡 though...

@WaltherP99 What is this trend of people rating games based on unconfirmed patches or DLC?

@jowe_gw have you actually played the game?

@Wexter No. So what? I can't have an opinion based on gameplay footage that is public online? I just don't want to give GameFreak money until the game runs at least ok.

@jowe_gw in this case, no. You can't just load a YouTube compilation and complain about how glitchy a game is. Any glitch I had sorted itself out in a moment. Maybe my experience was perfect, but overall I think you're a reactionary.

7/10. Maybe even an 8/10. The performance and graphics may be abysmal (along with other small annoyances), but damn am I having a good time with this.

Might even go so far as say it's the fourth best in the series in my book.

Pokemon Scarlet / Violet = Pokepunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 on launch is (much) better than Pokemon Scarlet on launch.

A solid 7/10. This game needs a lot of tweaking. Have to say that Legends Arceus is in a better shape than this game, also the world design and catching in Arceus looks more intriging than this new entry, at least for me. I hope that Gamefreak comes with something better but knowing the company the chances of that are low.

It's fun as always but... Game Freak making millions off these games and not investing more in making these games look and run as well as they could on the hardware running them is something that has to stop and lowering review scores for Pokémon games is, while not guaranteed to work, it's worth doing anyway just to send Game Freak and Nintendo a message that enough is enough.

I'd probably give it an 8.

Performance aside, it's MUCH more engaging than Sword/Shield managed to be with a more interesting setting, story, and characters.

Performance aside, it's a much better game than Sword/Shield. There is a world to explore, the gameplay loop is better, and it has much more ideas that it plays with.

I couldn't give it a number score. Gameplay wise, fantastic, but the state it released in is unacceptable. It's a shame because its very fun too.

@Morph but the people who have the game have more realized opinions anyway.

7/10 from what I've played so far. My experience so far is a fun game that's brought down by performance issues. Interestingly though, outside of noticeable frame drops (it's a Switch game in 2022 so that's pretty much expected) the frequency of performance issues seems to be very random. Like today the only performance issues I've experienced have been noticeable frame drops but yesterday there were freezes and softlocks among other things.

I gave it a 7. It’s a good game, I’m enjoying it.

Woo the 10s are gonna tick some folks off. (I didn't vote, as I don't have the game).

I think a 7 is fair. It's good from what I've played. A bit messy, but good.

I completed it and while it does get a lot better during the endgame, having a terrible first 30 hours is having me give it a 6/10.

@Wexter I saw a streamer play through the game not a glitch compilation. I'm not "reactionary" when I say that those glithes (and specially the framerate issues) are real and shouldn't be there.

I'll be honest, I gave it an 8 to counteract the rabid fans/anti-fans. It's both an honest and dishonest score: 8 in terms of how fun it is for me, but yeeeeeeah, because of the performance it's at about a 4. Somewhere between SwSh, Legends Arceus, and SV is a PHENOMENAL pokemon game. But it gets lost under all the crunch and performance issues. It's so sad that I need to apply it to these standards, but Pokemon is about two mainline games away from being unquestionably great by modern video game standards. It's been coasting just purely by the fun gameplay loop

I really, really enjoy the game so far. I love all of the new pokemon designs, they're some of my favourites in years, and the story is working for me. It just has so many technical glitches I don't think I can rate it anything higher then 7/10. Wish it had more customization and kept Legends Arceus' catching mechanics.

From what I've played and seen in someone else's copy, even disregarding the graphical issues there's a myriad of other problems which would not make me give the game more than a 7/10. Then I'd dock a point for all the jankyness and uglyness (not all of which is purely technical) and a general feeling of a lack of care and lack of attention to detail in many aspects of the game and that's a 6/10 for me.

Technically a 5/10, it's bad but for me not unplayable

Game itself would be a 9/10, it's a really great game. I really want future Pokemon games to be more like Legends Arceus and SV and less like SwSh (without DLC) and BDSP

Overall therefore a 7/10, I really hope they fix some of the issues, at least the bad framerate

5/10. It’s not really that enticing, and being the ugliest Switch game I’ve played to date makes this something I long to leave behind. Unless they fix it somehow.

Were the performance/graphics really that bad for a mainline Pokemon game to get a 7/10 from a Nintendo review site?

I believe Pokemon Arceus also had performance issues and sub-par graphics, so I'm trying to understand why Arceus got a 9/10 but this one is only 7/10 so it seems like there's more issues.

7/10 For a Pokemon game on a Nintendo site is pretty bad compared to all other Pokemon title reviews, so I'll be skipping this one.

@nimnio you think that scoring is consistent?

I would suggest typically reviewers aren't always fans of a game and have typically been provided with a review copy for free. Now often times there can be other factors at play, but I would be more inclined to take a review score qualified with a written review rather than just numbers from a load of random people who potentially do or don't own a game.

@Astral-Grain You've gotta actually play the game. Arceus had ugly scenery and, I'll be honest, I never noticed the performance issues. SV is much much worse. So much worse that people who dont even notice these kinds of things are noticing these issues because the game just has straight-up bugs on top of terrible performance.

For example, I was playing past midnight, and at midnight, the mass outbreaks reset. So I got the notification that there was a new mass outbreak and it was for Magikarp and before I got a chance to see the Magikarp outbreak, I knew what pokemon it was because there was an upside-down Magikarp sprite on the corner of my screen and it stayed there. And depending on where I turned my camera, the Magikarp would end up anywhere between the corner and the middle of my screen until I reset the game.

@jowe_gw Even if it isn't patched or has DLC added, the GAME ITSELF is fine.

It sounds like I'm exaggerating but I'm really struggling to think of a single reason it deserves more than a 3, and I hate to think what I'd give it if it didn't have cute new Pokemon running around the empty ugly world.

its some of the worst programming I've ever seen on the switch. right there with ARK (pre-update) and WWE19

4/10

I would settle on a 7.5. It compounds on the issues Legends Arceus had with even more jank, but it's evident there is a good game in there. Game Freak needs reallyNintendo to polish their games for them. If this game looked and ran as well as BotW, we would be having a much more favorable discussion. Also, these games should have had voice acting by now, since SwSh. The emotional scenes are hollow because of the lack of it.

I give it a stop crunching your developers/10

@Astral-Grain Arceus was fun, and its cell shading made the poor graphics at least somewhat charming. This game lacks any fun, it's not stylized whatsoever so the roughness is right in your face, and the difference in reward structures between the two are huge: ScarVi has no reward structure. No secret areas, no puzzles or mazes or winding caves, no challenge, no hard to reach/find locations with a rare Pokemon waiting for you, the challenges before each gym are designed to make a 4 year old feel proud of themself, etc etc etc etc whereas Arceus unlocked new regions with far more memorable landscapes, had rarer Pokemon in harder to find locations, had a very fresh and fluid catch/battle system, had rewarding action segments, etc.
The gap in their score should be much wider IMO.

@Brydontk Wow that is pretty bad, seems like a 7/10 is way too high in its current state.

Thank you for the detail!

@SpaceboyScreams Ah, so it's not just the performance, but they cut a lot of stuff compare to previous games too.

Well that sounds just awful, thank you for letting me know!

I'm no tech guru or anything, so can someone tell me if the problems this game have can be fixed with an update? Or do people think the games finished and they're already moving on with the next game?

I would probably give it a 6, giving how unpolished it is bundled some minor actual fun activites.

And yet the game would still get a higher score than Frontiers from you guys anyway...

@somnambulance
I remember playing the Skyrim Game Of The Year edition for the PlayStation 3. The loading times were so extreme. Returning to the city and selling all the stuff should have been unbearable, but I had so much fun playing I did not mind it. Of course the loading times have nothing to do with bugs, but I can sympathize with people who say they are not really bothered much by them, because the rest is just that good.

9 for me. personally I haven't experienced any bugs or glitches that mess with my experience too badly, but I get that it's something that needs dealt with and I'm sure they'll get on it soon

While its a bummer that the frame rate suffers so much here, I still appreciate it for what it is: an open world Pokemon game. And honestly Im pretty darn happy with it. Miles above Sword and Shield IMO. Now if we can just get new hardware to support a game like this at a stable 60fps then I can die happy. The gameplay loop does get a tab repetitive but I do love the edition of mini games for the Gym challenges, breaks it up a bit. Anyways I feel like they will continue to improve the franchise

The technical issues still don’t detract from the game itself. I’m having a great time with it but it does feel a step back compared to Arceus so a 7 is a reasonable score in my honest opinion.

I'm very divided, leading up to the release I was hyped to see what it'd be like and it just feels really underwhelming. I don't mind if graphics look a bit rough but a lot of areas genuinely look unfinished. The open world feels really hollow and the pokemon can only do so much to distract from that. The music and pokemon models are a welcome improvement though.

I've only got like 3 to 4 hours on it so far so I can't really review it yet, but my early impressions definitely weren't great. I didn't really feel the need to complain about Sword & Shield or Legends Arceus looking bad aside from performance issues on the latter, but this one I think just looks more blatantly bad than either of those other games and it runs even worse than Arceus ever did. Furthermore it just feels like a step back when coming from Arceus in the gameplay department. I'll start the game proper once I feel like I've had my fill of my Crusader Kings 3 campaign and see if the open worldness of it is enough to win me over.

I wouldn't even rate it until they got their framerate sorted.

didnt buy / 10 points

Honestly I don’t care about the graphical hiccups or technical limitations of the ageing switch. It’s Pokémon, after all — not a shooter or some grand adventure game.

But not being able to customize my outfit is a dealbreaker. For once, the rival is not a brain dead annoyance. For once, we get a gorgeous open world to explore. These are great things, but they cannot outweigh the lack of individuality. The limited Pokédex is a problem, just as it was for SwSh, but now taking a step backward in customization on top of losing hundreds (and of course somehow all my favs) of Pokémon is just not acceptable.

I bought the games for my 9-year-old daughter (the supposedly target audience) and wife, as well. Both got as far as the first city, saw they were stuck with these hideous uniforms, and promptly shut the game off. Neither has played since release night. My daughter just went back to let’s go and animal crossing. Not a win for gamefreak if they can’t even maintain the attention span of a 9-year-old Pokémon addict.

I scored it a 7, not because of the performance issues, because as much as a "60+ FPS at 32:9 with RTX on max" PC gamer that I am, they weren't nearly as egregious as the Internet makes them out to be.

I think the visual and musical direction of the game is pretty bland compared to other entries, and sure, you can do most content in whatever order you want, you're still going to do it because you still need your legendary upgrades along with gym badges to get pokemon to listen to you. The gym challenges are pretty unimaginative save a few, and due to the disconnected story and bland character designs, I didn't really connect with any of the characters.

That said, the gameplay loop is still fantastic and I was having a blast over the weekend playing with friends trading and doing raids together.

So I think a 7 is accurate.

Right now, from the 5 or so hours I’ve played and with the technical issues, 7/10 sounds about right. Without those problems I’d bump it up to an 8, but who knows how I’ll feel overall by the time I’ve finished the whole thing

Not playing it/10.

@Olliemar28 must have missed it or forgotten. My bad. Delete my comment if you want.

3/10 firm, the critical feedback Scarlet and Violet are receiving today is what Sword and Shield should have received. The Pokémon IP generates more revenue than the GDP of most countries; no isolated flashes of "somewhat enjoyable gameplay" excuse the slop. If even access media have publically sustained an honest thought long enough for review scores to finally begin to reflect the complaints of real consumers, that says something about the diminishing quality of these products.

Definitely one for the morbidly-curious and consumers who purchase anything with the brand name on it to buy used, if at all.

Have 850 hours in SwordShield. So when I get the game tommorow I assume it will be worth my while.
Not an open world fan though, so we will see.

Best Story, Best mechanics, worst technical side ever

I give it 3 from 10 so far from my observation as the game has a lot of bugs, glitches, fps drop, low textures, limited customization, stupid team villain idea, terrible Ed Sheeran music, Gamefreak unprofessionalism in developing their games.

I'm sad, but not surprised, at the fandom for accepting this technical mess and making excuses for the biggest IP in the world.

Players deserve a great Pokemon game.
Giant mess / 10.

I got this for my son day 1 and for him it’s a 10/10

8/10 from me, yes there are issues, but for me they are not game breaking.

The game itself is great and I’m actually really enjoying it so far, it’s bright, vibrant and a lot of fun, but damn it runs shoddy as. Like Wii bargain bin shoddy, and I thought Pokémon Legends Arceus was a bit janky… (great game though). I also miss the aiming mechanics of PLA, I thought that kind of set a new standard so was slightly disappointed to see that’s changed.

Overall though if you are a Pokémon fan you will probably love the game either way, and I’m sure we will see some performance patches in the future. It’s an 8/10 from me. Still a great game.

@Morph,

Looking at this there are quite a few people voting who have not played the game, and judging things based on YouTube videos. And not sure somebody buying the game makes much difference, or why they would pull their punches for some reason.

@somnambulance Skyrim came out in 2011. Open world games were much more primitive.
Nowadays Bethesda games draw critism due to their old engine full of bugs. So, in that sense, I guess they are quite symilar to GameFreak after all...

@MythTgr Shiny hunting. Raid battles. Battles against my brother. Filling the Pokédex. Hidden ability hunting. I also like walking around in the 3 wild areas, perfect music vibe. I also explore every nook and cranny in most games, talk to every person and did self imposed rules to make the main story harder.

@johnvboy I honestly hate the whole "you are not allowed to critize a game unless you buy it" argument. Sure, if you didn't play the game you probably don't know everything about it.
But there are videos and streams for a reason. I've been watching different people play through the first 5 hours of the game and, at the very least, I think I have the judgement to say that the performance issues are not excusable in any way and that, at the moment, nothing is really drawing me to the game. And, aside from that, I'm just so dissapointed that, after 5 years of the Switch and like 8 years of 3D Pokemon, people still use the "GameFreak is still getting used to it" excuse.

It just looks like a rushed game that took out the things I enjoyed the most from Arceus. So rushed/10? backwards step/10?

@jowe_gw

lol come on, you know it's going to get patched, you're just playing difficult.

This is going to be "the" Pokemon game for the next couple years just like Sword and Shield was.

You have more of a leg to stand on with your other argument about not having to play a game to judge it. I kind of sympathize with you because we can definitely watch videos and see the performance hits and bugs. But in terms of gameplay... ya gotta play it.

Definitely a 9/10 just cause it doesn't had better graphics.

@rallydefault Noone knows if this game is going to get patched. Neither do you.
And I don't care this is "the" Pokemon game for the next couple of years. I hated SWSH during the time it was relevant and I didn't care at al about it.

And, despite me really disliking SWSH desitions and not really being drawn by it's gameplay I saw online, I decided to buy it to give it a fair shot. And... I ended up hating it, just like I knew I would. Not going to make that mistake again. At the very least I'm going to wait a getting it second hand or from a friend. Even if GameFreak is going to get millions from this game, it won't be from me.

Like I said earlier, I'm allowed to have an opinion about a game I don't have. I have seen hours of gameplay from multiple players online and read a bunch of information about the game.

@jowe_gw,

Your own choice, wait for a patch until you find the games performance acceptable, but just because others are not as bothered should not concern you.

My initial response was aimed at somebody suggesting people that had bought the game would be more forgiving, and it was only their views we were getting, I was simply pointing out this was not the case, as some were judging based on YouTube videos, from memory I am pretty sure I never stated or hinted this was a wrong way to judge, or passed any opinion on it.

@jowe_gw,

I bet the game will get patched, pretty much 99.999% sure of this.

I haven't finished it yet and I've yet to touch multiplayer, so I won't give a score. Janky as all hell but the underlying gameplay loop has me coming back. I'm enjoying it much more than Sword, at the very least.

@johnvboy We'll see if the game is patched in an eventful matter and all of this bugs are fixed. Still bad the game released like this tho.

And I'm not bothered by people not caring about the performance. At most I'm bothered about people pretending that those don't exist and using the IGN review point scale of "the game is not THAT broken? It has Pokemon on the name? 10/10". If this was a smaller franchise, it would have been destroyed critically.

And, yes, people that buy a game are going to think it is good, obviously. Since they spent money on it and it has the Pokemon name on it.
Although it is true that some people that didn't play the game will vote too. Too bad we can't know how many.

@jowe_gw,

As you say no way of knowing, but just because people have bought the game does not mean they are going easy on it, there is no evidence of this whatsoever.

I got the double pack with Scarlet and Violet. Regardless of minor glitches, which can probably be solved with an update patch - the game is so far surprisingly more fun, than my initial experience with Sword and Shield. My score would be an 8 out of 10. It’s not perfect but very ambitious attempt to create the future template for the Pokémon games. I am really loving the seamless feel that is present when playing.

@johnvboy To be fair, that is true. Although I believe that people ARE going easy on it because it has "Pokemon" in the title. Like I said, a smaller franchise would have been destroyed critically.

I haven't finished the game yet, far from it, but I'm having very fun so far, despite the technical issues. It feels like an 8/10 or a 9/10 game if it weren't for these problems. A 7/10 seems fair if they don't patch it. The issues are annoying, but not game breaking.

@Wexter As we all know, personal insults is what every mature people does to show how right they are.

Honestly 7-8 seems like a good range for it. I haven't gotten far, but it's been the most fun I've had with a mainline title in a while, so I gave it an 8.

@Fizza you think it's exaggerated. I do not. I played Cyberpunk 2077 (pc version) at launch and the game, despite the issues, was better than Pokemon Scarlet at launch. If Cyberpunk 2077 deserved the jokes it received, Pokepunk Scarlet 2077 did too. In my opinion, of course... it's different from yours.

I'm still on the fence.
Pros-
Pokemon is always fun
I already know what starter to pick
An amazing story
Cons
A boring world
GLITCHES
It's $80 where I live & I want to finish subnautica and Legends Arceus first.
Probably not getting it, unless it's a good price secondhand + I care less about the world.

6/10.

I don’t really have much else to say, it’s enjoyable but the technical problems are a bit of an issue.

EDIT: changed my wording to be less redundant.

6/10 seems fair. Fun game held back by performance and stagnant mechanics.

@jowe_gw 1/10 is the lowest score here allowed.

Probably the most enjoyable Pokémon experience in a long while, and in many ways, what fans have prayed for. Sadly, the game needed more time in the oven and is a very disappointing release, marred with performance issues. I neither expected or wanted the Pokémon Company to jump on the bandwagon of “release now, fix later”business practices. The best, worse Pokémon game ever

I've been having a lot of fun playing the game despite the issues. (which personally haven't been affecting me too badly) I'd give it an 8/10, it would be a 9 if not for all the technical issues though. In a lot of ways I feel like this is a Pokemon game people have been asking for, it's just a shame it has so many issues that are hiding that.

Would bump it up another .5 if character customization wasn't limited to the school uniform and if there was more to do in towns/cities. The game is fun but there really is next to nothing to do in cities aside from head to the gym.

This is me being fair: I'm going to give it a 4 or a D+.

It feels incomplete. I cannot give a pass for an incomplete, whether it be a game, a movie, a homework assignment or otherwise.

I think game reviewers were GENEROUS to Scarlet and Violet.

Probably a 5 for me in it's current state. The technical stuff brings it right down, but I've so far found the game quite bland and sometimes just plain frustrating to get through (the opening segment is such a slog). It just feels a step back from Legends which done a lot of the concepts this attempts to do a lot better.

In terms of content it seems a step up from SwSh, but the overall presentation is severely lacking. If some of the technical issues can be fixed I could readjust to a 6 or 7 depending on how the story develops.

@jowe_gw because people have answered your question and you keep acting as if these "bugs" are the worst thing ever. When in reality except for crashing (which by the way every AAA PS4 game has done at least once for me. God of War 2018 did it 5 times) is just funny haha and it fixes itself in a couple seconds. And to top it off you have not even played the game so what right do you even have to score it?

@Jayvir

Just to be clear, I gave it a 9.
Mostly, because it's the second most fun I've had with a pokemon game, and I love the freedom of movement in this game.

Critically, I should probably worry and focus on the glitches, but honestly, I've been enjoying myself too much too care.

The real point of my rating is that this pokemon has been immensely, personally satisfying.
I was pretty close to done with the series after playing sword and shield.

Arceus and this have convinced me to keep coming back.

Edit:
That being said, the more technical glitch detailing I read about the game, the more I can totally understand others rating it lower.
I don't know if I've been hyper focused on something else in the game, but I've mostly been unbothered by, or haven't noticed, it. Still, given that the sheer number of issues has been breaking immersion and causing problems for others, it's easy to see why the rating is lower on the whole.

Honestly, the low-poly effects causing choppy npc frame rate is about the only true negative thing I could point out from my hours of play thus far. I love the characters, I appreciate the effort going into the actual open world design... Sure it can be argued there's still a "path" to follow but you aren't forced to do that really. If you wanted to get strong enough to break that, you can. Only time it's frustrated me was me beating my head into a battle I had no right to fight, and I STILL ended up on top after a couple of tries. Only thing in going to say is if Skyrim gets a free pass for it's glitchy *****, and it's even the 5th game in a series of open world games, Pokemon should get at least a little credit for a first REAL attempt at it. Legends Arceus isn't enough open world to truly be compared, so they really have no experience in it. As a first try, I think it's turned out great so far.

I rate it poor for a few reasons. First of the actual performance, stability and polish of this game is worse than terrible.
The worst is when the ligthing flickers.. No when the entire world flickers in and out of existence. (It doesn't happen often but when it happens it really takes you out of the experience)

Second, I feel like the gameplay is a step back from Arceus, yes it's a completely open world (with the exception of the big city and area-zero).

But even though this world is larger and more open, It actually feels smaller to me, or rather.. More empty.. Arceus had more side quests unlocking more mythical and legendary Pokemon, It had more side quests in general.. (Like an npc asking you show them a Pokemon with an elegant tail or something and you have to figure out which one they mean) and all the collecting and crafting made sure that you always had something to do.

In Scarlet and Violet most of this is underwhelming when you expect something that builds and improves on the previous games.

I did enjoy exploring the areas and finding rare Pokemon.
And I did enjoy the three main quests and the freedom of how, and in what order you tackle them.

I also like one other thing, and this is a weird one.
I liked the way they made caves in this game. (I know it's a weird one) Some of them felt much vaster that in Legends Arceus and was a huge improvement over how it was done in Sword and Shield. (I'm still waiting for a 3D Pokemon game with dungeon/maze like large caves that feels right, Scarlet and Violet came close)

I like that Scarlet and Violet have a pretty large number of Pokemon included 400 or something. But I still wish they would include all Pokemon in an unlockable National Pokédex like they used to. (I understand it's not practical.. but still)

I rate it poor now, But if they patch the rough edges up and increase the performance then I will rate it as "Not bad".
At least fix the bugs and get the game to a solid 30fps.
(I wouldn't mind if the also fix some of the LOD stuff while they are at it)

But then if they also release meaningful updates that adds more content and expands the game, then I might rate it even higher (Depending on the quantity and quality of the content)

But for now, I really can't rate it higher than poor. It's a shame

@HellbladesFFXI pretty much my view on it. I should care more about the glitches, but they're mostly visual (disappearing assets or the NPCs doing a janky walk) nothing really major. And the game mostly sorts itself out. But, the game is just so damn fun and clear effort was put into the story and design. It's clear they might had bit off more than they can chew with this and Legends, but it's just a damn fun game. At the end of the day it's Pokemon and I don't think I've been this impressed with one (sans Legends) since maybe Gen 5.

EDIT: Skyrim is more amusing when you remember it is also the same team that made Fallout 3 + DLC. So, less of an excuse on that. Though did not stop the game winning GOTY and having some of the same Legacy bugs on the 10 re-release.

They released an unfinished game. Because the majority of the current jank is going to be patched out inevitably. But it’s there. It hasn’t been patched out. It doesn’t really affect gameplay in any material capacity… but it is there. And the gameplay is good. The gameplay actually gives me almost exactly what I’m looking for. (Getting too cocky with levels can wind you up underleveled fast), interesting enough areas, characters seem alright enough, especially for pokemon (I went Scarlet). I gave it an 8 so far, but I’m also only after my first gym/titan/starfall (did one of each). “Too little water.” - I think the geography on the world map is seriously lacking islands and I’m too used to islands in pokemon to accept this change. Though if like Gen 8, DLC very well might be an island.

I was thinking of a 7 at first because of the technical issues but I just finished the game and I have to say the story is amazing, it is my favourite by far! So I have to give it a 8. I really hope they patch this game because it is sensational and gameplay-wise it’s everything I’ve always wanted from a Pokémon game

Without the aggregious performance and graphical issues, it'd be a solid 8/10. I like where it's going, but there's so few trainers out in the wild and they are almost all pushover with 1 Pokemon each.

Something more to do with the school and classes would be nice, but there doesn't appear to be any reward to the classes and it's just another tutorial. Relationships with classmates, class scoring, prizes for doing well or SOMETHING.

I also wish we got the Legendary on our battle team sooner. I hate waiting so long to get it and there's so little to do since I personally don't generally care for post game content.

I find it difficult to say because in terms of the entertainment value I'm getting out of it probably like an 8.5 but in terms of actual quality as an acceptable product to release probably like a 3.

I have it a 6 and here’s why:
It deserves points for being a Pokémon game that truly takes things to the next level and offers some well-thought-out QOL. Plus, sandwiches.
But it loses points for:
[*] Making me clinch every few seconds as frames skip
[*] For when environments load in front of me
[*] When shadows pop in and out for no reason
[*] When the camera clips through the environment
[*] When the animation fluidity is out of sync with same-type objects in the same scene; some looking like 10fps and some looking 30 fps and some 20fps (all in the same scene!)
[*] For when the game is loading discreetly and my button presses are not registering so I keep having to press it until it takes
… look, it’s a large list. It does so many things right but seriously wtf happened and who said “yep, ship it it’s ready.”
My score of 6 comes from a place of frustration and a little bit of sourness but it also is fair. I’d be willing to update my score if things tighten up though.

An 8.5 for me. This is the best pokemon ive played in a long time aside from ultra sun. They need to fix the performance issues and polish the game up in general with patches though. Clearly rushed out the door for the holiday season. A real shame too, I hope this game can reach its full potential.

Gameplay is a definitely between an 8 or 9 as far as these games go since it's probably the best the games have been in a good while imo but the state of the technical issues/bugs as it is currently at launch does push it down to a 7 or 8 for me until they get fixed.
Even if most of the glitches are rather harmless, it still shouldn't have be released in the state it currently is right now but whatever.

Runs like complete garbage, looks even worse, but somehow it might have my favorite gameplay loop. It has addictive qualities. The games will never feel polished or look halfway decent, but I think they will have to increase performance when they inevitably make dlc.

I can only play in handheld, the performance is still sluggish, but it at least stays consistent.

@Cineologist generous indeed, or they won’t get early access previews or review copies in the future.

That’s part of gaming, unfortunately.

@Wexter The what are you saying here? What I am saying is that whose bugs exist and actually worsen the experience. And I love how you keep pointing towards the funny visual glitches and the crashing. Fun fact, I never mentioned that those were the problems. For me the problems are the awful framerate an pop in more than anything else. Well, that and the animations but I guess that's a "GameFreak staple" at this point. Are those also present on those unspecified AAA Sony games? Because I don't think this level of unpolishness is present on the other 1rst party Nintendo output on the same console as SV.

And, again, Insulting and making fun of me doesn't make your point stronger. It just make you look like an ass.

Finally, Skyrim came out in 2011. If that is the big comparason to make SV look better you should think about another example because SV came out in 2022, 11 years later. Specially seeing how every time that engine is reused people complain more and more.

@jowe_gw
The framerate even seemed to get worse across longer play sessions, though even at the start when exploring the area around the players house things felt sluggish with the slow camera speed and how it would often stutter when rotating, but by the time i was at the first major city the performance was getting to the point where just walking around the game world didn't feel "fun" and with a game with an emphasis on exploring its world that was a big negative for me.

@Mgalens To me the tone was set in when I saw people having frame pacing issues on your room right at the start of the game. And it doesn't improve much either.

@jowe_gw Who said I was talking about Sony games? Dragon Age Inquisition is a recent "open world" RPG with many bugs similar to Pokemon SV. It still won GOTY and it has MAJOR frame chugs during dragon fights and crashed on me three times. Once during the final boss. There were times the game would not even let me select my party, my equipment wouldn't load and my mount vanished more times than I care to admit (and that is before I mention gameplay-related issues like not being able to submit completed quests). Still highly enjoyed the game though.

So, there is a recent example for you. And it was developed by Bioware and published by EA. And that is not even me pulling out Mass Effect Andromeda which was a rather bad game (combat was fun at least) and was OOOOOOH me a buggy, buggy mess "my face is tired."

Is that recent enough? Honestly, the only reason I'm even picking on you is that you're acting like an authority on the game and calling out people giving it a 9/10 when you did not even play it. You can't criticize someone's enjoyment of a game or act like you have a right to rate it yourself if you've not played it.

You don't see me jumping on Cyberpunk articles mocking the bugs in that game.

@Wexter Oh wow. Instead of 2011 you go up to 2014. Amazing. Why don't you compare it to an open world game that is on the Switch? One that even launch with it, That would be a fun comparason. It launched even more recently than 2014 too, since it was in 2017. I heard it even has a sequel coming up as well.

Also, like I said, I did my due diligence with SV. I watched plenty of videos and looked up information. I'm not speaking without knowing here. All of the issues I mentioned until now happen in the game. And if they don't then I welcome actual corrections to the issues I mentioned.

If people want to have fun despite the issues it has then be my guess. But if people can go here and say "the haters of this game are overblowing the complaints" then I can say that the people defending it are being a BIT generous with their score. Which is the most I said. You mocked me much more than I mocked anyone here.

@Wexter Are you just going to keep coming with examples (some that are not even as bad as SV anyways) that you think prove your point until the end of time?

And, yes, you were clearly mocking me. And now you are saying that apperantly I showed myself as a "reactionary" and "acting like a teenager" because I took you being a sarcastic prick (your words, not mine) and calling me "reactionary" as insulting. And the gall to call me a teenager when you are using the "you started it" excuse. Again, when you don't have arguments, you go to personal insults. Classic.

I never forced you to be a sarcastic prick. You did that all by yourself. This is over.

Is S/V really that bad? I know most high processing games nowadays don't run the best on Switch. As poorly optimized as it was and despite the poor FPS issues, at least Legends Arceus was playable bar. Is S/V worse than that and by how much?

@Axecon it's not worse than Legends. There is some funny jank when you goof around on your ride-on. I crashed the game, by trying to get a pokemon to spawn in a town... though I'm not sure if that was the game's fault or mine.

If you liked Legends you'll probably enjoy this. SImilar issues with texture quality and asset pop-in. But, it's not anything game-breaking.

@Axecon You can look up gameplay online if you want. But the answer is that It is worse than Arceus. If it would be bad enough to wait for patches (or even avoid the game) it's your call.

@Axecon
For me it felt quite a bit worse than Arceus in terms of framerate. I noticed the game stuttering when moving the camera about even in the opening areas and once i made it to one of the major cities things got worse.

Theres also a bug which can cause the game to get worse over longer play sessions which needs a reset to fix.

Well first of all this article is not a good idea since you're going to be getting a lot of people who didn't play the game give a score which doesn't make much sense. And this is coming from someone who doesn't plan to buy the game at all.
You can't judge the gameplay for sure if you haven't played it.
Also this article looks like it's baiting people to argue, but at least the discussion in the comments has been mostly civil.

However performance, graphics, and bugs do not require a copy to evaluate, this isn't a subjective factor like how "fun" the game is, the game objectively runs like garbage and looks like it too which is why put off from even touching this.
I watched multiple friends of mine play this for hours and I don't recall a single point where the framerate was at 30fps, it genuinely looks like its 2 generations or more behind as a game.

You can say "the game is fun at least" all you want but if I don't get the play the game or play it smoothly, to me it's not worth playing or a good game.

If I lowered my standards to buy this game I would probably rate it very low seeing how performance is a big deal to me, graphics not so much but I also like my games to look like they've been made in the current generation or at least belong on the system.

@Axecon I can't speak on the gameplay loop since I haven't played either but SV definitely runs significantly worse than PLA so keep that in mind.

For good or bad, I am apparently incapable of seeing low frame rates or pop-ins, etc. I just literally do not notice them or care. Everything looks fine to me and it plays great. It isn't just this game, it's every game that people drone on about poor performance. It does not impact me in the slightest. I know some of you are burdened by an inability to see past these issues, and I pity you deeply, but honestly, 10/10.

@Wexter The Outerworlds was not even made with the Switch in mind. It's a port. And people complained a LOT about it's issues when it launched.
On Switch it has a lower critic score than SV after all.

By the way, BoTW came out at launch and looked and played better than SV in every single way. And it was an open world game made for the Switch. That game was the one I was obviously refeering to.

And, yes, the frame pacing issues are worse than Arceus. Not sure about the textures tho since it's a fierce competition.

Also, love how you now went for "you are being too emotional" when you felt the need to be a "sarcastic prick" when your favorite game got critized online.

Imagine praising Sword/Shield but dissing Scarlet/Violet because of things outside of GF's control. It's Nintendo's fault for not upgrading the ANCIENT hardware in the Switch.

So far, technical problems aside, I love it. If this game was polished like it should be, this would be a 10/10 for me. But it's not, so I gave it a 9.

This is the most delusional take about SV.
Yes the Switch is underpowered compared to other consoles but SV looking and running like arse are completely on Gamefreak, there are a multitude of 1st and 3rd party games that look and run miles better than this, some of them being 5 years old.
Botw, Odyssey, Xenoblade 1-3, DQ11, MH Rise are just a few examples.

@SilvercatMoonpaw As opposed to what? People who didn’t play it?

I guess my biggest issue is the performance of the game, at least in handheld mode.

We really ARE at the point where the motion of NPCs walking and windmills turning should NOT be jagged. At some point, Game Freak needs to invest in that.

I LOVE the overworld and the transportation. I LOVE the open world sense of things. I love the battle.

I could STILL do with an option to skip conversations manually. Mashing the B-button to progress text is just exhausting.

DLC and a proper performance fix could bump this up a lot. I went with 6 cause at times its genuinely unplayable with the framerate.

It does feel like there's nothing to do post game, once the dex is done you're feeling kinda unmotivated to do anything else, you can shiny hunt but breeding is tedious and training is rough with pokerus being gone and no high leveled XP farming locations (you can find level 50 chanseys to take advantage of but try getting to 100 off that lol..)

I love the direction the games are heading but gen 9 is kinda a bummer at the moment, take the new formula to gen 10, do better optimization, give us more pokemon instead of less than the sinnoh dex's worth from 2006, and you got a pretty good revival to the series.

6/10. It has the makings of an excellent game. However, that performance is atrocious. The 3 branches of gym badges, titans, or gang wars is a nice touch but don't feel fully baked. World still feels empty ish like arceus. QoL touches are great but some are missing that didn't carry over from PLA. Battle system didn't carry over. Overall I feel they could of used another year to at LEAST iron out most of the performance issues. Those crazy bugs are another thing.yikes.

@Wexter Kinda like how I'm just hitting report on all your trolling and baiting posts.

I wuv Scarlet/Violet...

spreads arms out wide

...thiiiiiiiiiiiiiis much!

I'm still playing through Pokemon Scarlet at the moment, so it wouldn't be fair to rate it yet.

The reason I give it a 7/10 because of the glitches. But all in all 10 because it is a good Story base and game base

I feel this game is a solid 6/10 because while I'm having fun; This game is broken and that makes me sad. I enjoy the characters, the world, and the new Pokémon to play around with. It's a shame that Gamefreak didn't bring their A team onto these games development cycle... There's a great game underneath the technical mess, Gamefreak better patch this game.

The core gameplay is unbelievably addictive. The new designs are awesome. Love the new models for all the pokemon too. But each of the three story lines have very average gameplay, the cities and the design of the open world itself is very average, and you can't ignore the performance. It's odd. How do you rate it? This has hooked me more than any other switch game has, but objectively there are so many massive flaws. To make a sacrilegious comparison, I think of Majora's Mask. A 10/10 game that's far from perfect. To me this game is an 8 or a 9, because it is just so damn fun. But it's an odd one.

@jowe_gw First off, frame rate really isn't a problem on my game, maybe you didn't update it? Idk.

But the reason I personally compare it to Skyrim is this. Bethesda has made MANY, MANY open world games before Skyrim. They should have known how to fix these problems that SV are running into and could have. But choose not to when making that game as their focus was elsewhere, and no one cared. GF have literally never made an open world game before, and they took baby steps into it, to poor critical acclaim because their fan base is literally impossible to please at this point I guess. But their first full step into open world is, certainly not perfect, but very solid. I agree that sure, the issues of 1.0 should have been fixed without a day one patch, but overall it's the game I was looking forward to and more so far. People need to stop expecting perfection, they haven't been perfect from the first gen but we still (mostly) love them, flaws and all. Well, mostly. Some of gen 1's bugs though. >.> BUT This is all just my honest opinion.

Edit: Oh something else, the only frame drops I've had are actually hard coded low-poly maneuvers to save strain on the system. It's FAR too close, sadly, so it's really noticable, but if you pay attention, it clears up as you approach things. That's all I've seen personally.

I gave it an 8 because I'm enjoying the heck out of the game. Love the open world, love having choices on what to do, love some of the new Pokémon (ex the dolphin, the puppy and some other cute ones), love the Tera Raid battles, love the storyline & characters. I don't like the lack of clothing options. I get why people don't like it because of the performance issues but I haven't really experienced a lot of them. I am playing on an OLED though so maybe that's why. Plus, my kids are enjoying the game even though they have encountered more glitches than I have. They are enjoying it so much that they've almost beat the game.

8 from me. My playthrough so far is around 7-8 hours and I'm enjoying it.
The opening hours with the academy are.... Painful.
The performance is decent for me, at least in handheld mode. Docked mode is a little rougher but still playable.
The open ended structure however is excellent, and having co-op to go with it makes this game stand out from the others.
Spent a few hours last night going to an area that's way too high a level for us but we brute forced our way through, even caught a bunch of pokemon 15+ levels higher than us. Very fun and rewarding 👍

6/10 for me, mostly based on the horrible performance of the game. It never should have been released in its current form. I wish TPC would just give developers time to make a great game, instead of putting the development under so much stress they basically have to release an unfinished product. If they would have fixed all that, the game would probably be a 9/10 for me.

@jowe_gw.

Or have you considered they may not be as troubled by the performance, as you and others are.

@SonOfDracula,

It's not baiting or trolling simply because people do not agree with you, I get it that you and others find the performance shocking, but you just have to accept that not everybody will notice or even be bothered by it.

In the case of @Wexter , I think you are wrong, this member has always come across as very reasonable, and his posts may not agree with you, but that's no biggie, we can't all agree all of the time.

But I think labelling people as Trolls is never helpful, and more often than not just an indicator of s person losing an argument.

I would say I'm at an 8/10, leaning 9/10 as I continue to play. The lack of polish has been very noticeable, but not distracting from what I've experienced. If the game did become polished through patches, Scarlet would be an easy 9/10 and 10/10 even wouldn't be out of question. Scarlet has been a blast so far outside of the game's tutorial stage.

@SonOfDracula not really trolling. I was exceptionally reasonable at first talking about why I enjoyed the game before the person got snarky and rude with me. Then, I was a bit more reasonable before I lost my patience with someone who hadn't even played the game dismissing others. Watching someone play a game vs. playing a game is a very different experience. Though my last post may be "trollish" but I think it's very clear it does not matter what I say the guy will dismiss my experience with other games as not good enough.

@johnvboy he's allowed to have an opinion about me. I'm just confused why people who have not even played the game feel the need to come into an article clearly aimed at people who played it and be dismissive arses. To each their own.

@johnvboy is labeling people "reactionary" helpful for a disscussion? Or admitting you are just being a "sarcastic prick"?

Also, like I said earier, people can say that they are enjoying the game despite the issues but if they go "they are recieving way too much critism" then I can say that people may be a bit generous because it's Pokemon, something that I still believe it's the case.

@jowe_gw Go back and re-read comment 32 and tell me you weren't being rude to me. Which by the way was when I lost my patience. If you can read that and apologize for being rude, I will apologize for being firm and snarky. Deal?

@HellbladesFFXI The framerate issues exists. You can ignore them and say that you are enjoying the game despite those issues, which is fine, but they exist. Right since the beginning of the game. I doubt there are many cases outside of battles where you can get 30fps stable.

And I said it before but here it goes again: Skyrim came out in 2011. Did SV came out in 2011?
Also, do you know an open world game that was done by a team that never did an open world game before and came out quite well? BoTW.

I was going to give it a 5 - ‘Average’ but the more I think about it the more disappointed I am with so many aspects of it I had to give it a 4 - ‘Poor’.

It’s a decent frame for a good game but it needs a year or two more in the oven. And I’m not talking about the bugs I’m talking about the underlying core gameplay.

Also you don’t need to keep Gigantamax but keep the awesome stadiums at least! It’s still European based so football is still a huge cultural thing and they made you feel like a rockstar! Now it’s like “oh roll this ball around a field while no one is watching. One shot three Pokémon for someone who is part-time gym leader whilst six people watch, three of them visually identical. So, unbelievably underwhelming in both gameplay and narrative.

Oh and take out the fight against the literal cars! And maybe, given team Star is all about rebelling against the school rules….maybe don’t have them all in school uniform?

Everything is so unpolished and half-baked. Have you noticed when you heal at the Pokecentre the lady behind is animated typing on a keyboard? There is no keyboard, there isn’t anything there. It’s so clearly not finished.

@Wexter I get that you are trying to extend an olive branch but I don't like how you try to frame you being rude to me as "firm and snarky" while I'm just apperantly plain old rude. I mean, sorry to say that I found multiple of your comments rude as well, you know?
Anyways, I appreciate it at least. I apologise for being rude and I'll delete that comment. Hoping you delete all the comments being rude to me.

It's weird. It is both the worst designed/looking game due to all the bugs and also the most fun I have ever had while playing pokemon. I honestly think that without the bugs this would between a 9.5 and 10 for me but the bugs just hold it back to 7 personally. Fun game riddled with bugs that don't take too harshly from the overall experience.

gave it a 5. after some consideration I think thats what it is. for pokemon fans it will be an 8 I guess.

@Wexter This. I'm glad someone else remembers that alot of the best games ever made were absolute messes at launch.

@jowe_gw,

Sorry, but you keep putting words into my mouth, that I never said, all I have said is that not everyone is as upset about all this, and while I respect your position on this, you also have to take others views into account as well.

And labelling people as trolls does not help either.

Ngl, I was really upset at the score you gave it, but my copy came yesterday and I’ve been playing it all day. I’m still very early on, but I’m just not engaged in the gameplay. That might change later, but even then, there’s the graphics. They’re not nearly as bad as people were making them seem to be, but coming from Xenoblade 3, I wish it ran and looked better. Textures are absolutely terrible on buildings, etc. I hope I start having more fun with it soon.

@jowe_gw,

Not totally true, and non evidence of this whatsoever, when the critics review this game they will take into account all the factors, and the game is reviewing good, but not great.

I’m going with a 8.5 and the only detrimental factors are the visual glitches etc. I only docked that 1.5 due to what other people are experiencing as I haven’t had anywhere near the same amount of problems personally . I think the visuals are a lot better than Arceus and Sword/Shield. The stutter affect for distant Pokémon was in Arceus as well. I remember seeing those flying gyardos stuttering in the air by the mountain tops 😂. After about 11 hours that’s really the only constant issue I’ve had, I do primarily play in handheld so I’m not sure if that helps. The amount of freedom is awesome, the story’s great, I think the aesthetic looks dope on my oled, the Pokémon models are fabulous. Not to mention the fact I can invite my son into the world and we can actually do things together which is the cherry on top to me. All in all I’m having a great time with it. To say this is anywhere near the levels of cyberpunk bug wise or a ps2 game visually is a ridiculous reach, does anyone remember what a ps2 game actually looked like on release? 😂 🤷‍♂️ 🤦‍♂️

@Mrkittyhead give it some time. I was not in love with the game till the 1st badge. You'll really dig it once you get to Team Star and the Titans. Really fun stuff!

@Draxa for the PS2 comment... Probably not. Played Xenosaga 3 recently and ooooof! It looks jank in spots and very linear. Looks great for a PS2 game, but not nearly as nice as Pokemon SV.

@Wexter truth my friend, I remember playing ps1/2. Every time I see those comments I just sigh and shake my head. 😂

I am probably one of the few, but I hate the open world concept. It's not for me. I played it for the first 2 hours and it was okay. I'll go back to it once a patch gets released

@Emmerichcoal that's okay dude. I'm not in love with the open world, but I think they're on the right track

it sucks that performance ruined an otherwise great experience.

Generally, I don't care about performance or FPS nonsense. But it is unacceptable how bad it is in this game. Game Freak should not be allowed to so badly optimize a game on a platform they've worked on for years now

@johnvboy 1) I'm not involved in the argument. 2) The person was making direct insults at the other user, so pointing out that they were indeed trolling and reporting to mods is the best option. Don't defend that sort of behavior, though it doesn't surprise me because you're also prone to it

Gave it 5/10.
Regardless of its qualities the polishing of a game matters, even more so for Nintendo who for decades was synonym of quality in that department.
It would have been another IP without the Pokemon name it would not have gotten that high a score from the medias. And that's the problem. We all love Pokemon, but when comes the time to review a game this has little to do with it.
It is a cyberpunk situation. Nintendo, TPC and GF need to take the L, apologize and communicate about their plan to fix it. Do what better companies do in that case.

@Wexter,

And you can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be lead.

@johnvboy Oooh that's a good one I need to write that down!

7 and 8 seem to be the highest scores, i guess people don't hate them as much as they say haha

@jowe_gw I respect your opinion but I've honestly never noticed an issue with actual frame rate myself. But that's probably because frame rates don't matter to me personally so long as then game isn't skipping wildly. To each their own though.

Time doesn't really matter though, because they have RE-released Skyrim for new consoles, literally rewriting the code for newer languages, without fixing issues they already had. Kinda why I still count it.

Now, you are right about BOTW, for sure. But... I don't care for BOTW myself, mostly because I'm super critical of a couple of mechanics that throw it right out for me personally lol.

I still rate Scarlet high myself for my own enjoyment.

@Wexter, yeah. I just found out I’m running a temperature, so that could definitely have affected my enjoyment. I’ll probably continue when I get better.

@HellbladesFFXI Time does matter with Skyrim tho since the newer releases don't get as high of a score due to not fixing all of those issues. Like I said, if SV came out in 2011 I would probably be more kind to it due to graphical power at the time (specially on the Nintendo side, since the home console then was the Wii). But it came out in 2022.

If you don't mind the performance issues then fine, you do you. But those exist and I don't think people are unreasonable when they say they shouldn't. Specially on a game that, let's be real, doesn't look like it's pushing graphical boundries.

@WallyWest Can't wait for the next Pokemon game to also be rushed and see how people are going to justify it next time.

@Wexter I deleted the comment that you said I was being rude. Just saying...

@johnvboy To my knowledge, I didn't call anyone troll here.

@jowe_gw As long as i'm still enjoying myself like i am with Violet i couldn't give a monkeys toss.

@jowe_gw thanks mate! I'll go back and delete the initial comment. Sry for offending you and hope you have a good day.

@Axecon Yes, it is so much worse and I’m glad I never got it. Game Freak started development right after Sword & Shield and - thanks to The Pokémon Company - they ended up with an even jankier game than Sonic ‘06. And considering the fact that only 10% of glitches in ‘06 are actually annoying and the only real reason for the hate is because of what the game does with Sonic & Elise in the game’s final story, releasing a game that’s even worse than ‘06 jank-wise is an ACCOMPLISHMENT.

Sure - the game looks great and you get the game’s Legendary only an hour in, which is a great deviation on how you usually get Legendary Pokémon. Aside from that, the games are a total MESS. Scarlet & Violet were made to push the Switch to it’s limits, similar to what the first Crash Bandicoot game did for the PS1. Only difference is, the PS1 is a console that can handle such a game. The Switch ISN’T.

@Ruler-Of-All-Evil Switch has BoTW. It's a launch title too. It's not the Switch's fault the game runs like this.

User reviews are much more generous on NL (8 is the "average" score) than Metacritic (2.9) 🤔

@jowe_gw You think I don't know that it's the game's fault the game runs like this? I may have given myself a weird username for this site, but even I have standards.

@GameAndLuke Metacritic user reviews are kinda worthless. Any game that is "controversial" tends to get review bombed justifiably or not.

10/10
Open-world, good story, good pokemon list. Aside from the graphical and technical issues, this is the Pokemon game that I've wanted for years. I grew up with un-polished graphics when it comes to games, minor glitches like this doesn't stop me from having fun.

Haters will always only see the 0.1% dirt in a pool of beautiful water.

Without the crappy graphics or awful performance I'd probably give it a 7.5/8. With all the problems it currently has now though it does not deserve anything more than a 6. Game is fun, but a chore to play with all the slowdown and abysmal frame rate.

@Rhodeku The awful performance is a whole lot more than 0.1% of the experience. The game never runs consistently at 30fps.

Why the hell are the credits laggy?

@Jayvir

To further confirm why I have it as a 9, a patch just went through for the game.

I'm not saying the patch has anything to do with my score, but it helps outline my coming point.

Everybody else is saying the game runs better, and while I've downloaded it, I haven't noticed any improvements.

To my perception, the game still plays the way it did when I started.

If i didn't/ couldn't/ hadn't noticed the glitchiness, then all that's left to review is the gameplay and fun.

For me it was, and still is, a 9.