Round Up: The Previews Are In For Pokémon Scarlet & Violet

My first impression with Pokemon Scarlet / Violet was 6 from 10.
Why six ?
Because I still see the same things over and over again, like Drum n Bass song.
My Pokemon hit the opponent (Dub) and the opponent hit me (Tek).
Pretty much tedious battle and I heard sounds like Dub Tek Dub Tek Dub Tek all the time.
Bring the 3 vs 3 Battle like Yokai Watch and I will see some quality.

@Anti-Matter they already did 3 on 3 in Black and White and it didn’t work too well. Also, why would you want them to be like Yokai Watch. A game where you do nothing in battle.

I, for one, am excited to see how this plays upon launch. I'm an explorer at heart, so being able to do this in the next generation of Pokemon is super exciting for me. Can't wait to play😄

@Anti-Matter This is like the worst take ever lol. Why would the biggest franchise in media copy some random small time game from a studio that is one step away from bankruptcy?

Also they already did the 3 vs 3 battles and nobody cared enough, so they scrapped this feature from future titles.

Do we know every version exclusive at this point?

I love how Joe refers to himself as the royal ‘we’ all the time.

All-in-all, definitely seems like we're getting mixed feelings about this game so far. That said, I don't really care about stuff like graphics and frame rate, so long as it doesn't make the game unplayable or disrupt gameplay too bad.

So, what I’m getting from these previews is it’s a good game that doesn’t run well

@Jireland92
In Yokai Watch, indeed you cannot directly ask the Yokai to do what you want during battle but you can point the enemies so your Yokai will aim the enemies you pointed.
You can use Soultimate directly once the Soul meter is full to unleash powerful attack or nasty saboteur attack or great restoratove skill.
Pokemon still doesn't have something like this.

Also, you can change their behaviour for battle from the books. You can modify into Rough ( Physical Attack tendency), Brainy (Magic Attack tendency), Twisted (Saboteur skill tendency), Helpful (Supportive skill tendency), Tender (Healing skill tendency), Calm (Guarding tendency) so you can make a team with 3 different Yokai to support each other.

I think 3 vs 3 Battle is pretty good for standard RPG games, it just some peoples still keep their status quo with Pokemon games.
I would like to see three Pokemons in my main team support each other during battle so there is a reason I must have at least 1 Pokemon with Healing skills / Supportive skills to stay survive in battle and not wasting a lot of Potions / medicines.

@Anti-Matter Wdym you like yokai watch more then Pokémon? You only say it every time!

The reviews seem pretty mixed, what else is new for Pokémon lol.

@Anti-Matter Sounds like you need to play Pokémon Masters then because that’s exactly what you just described.

@JudaiMasters
I personally prefer Yokai Watch 3DS games Battle style than Pokemon games as I can have different creatures with their different skills to stay survive in battle. It was pretty much standard RPG games (3 main heroes vs a lot of enemies, usually 3 - 4 enemies) so why don't bring 3 vs 3 battle style in Pokemon games.
Also, if Pokemon games really care about 1 vs 1 Battle style, at least make it like Pokken style / Yokai Watch 4 style so your 1 Pokemon will directly attack the opponent with four different attacks adjusted from 4 action buttons and you must run or move to avoid the attack from your opponent, just like the real battle situation from anime. The turn based 1 vs 1 battle style with really cheap attack animation that I still saw from the newest Pokemon games made me think the Pokemon games are not really attractive.

@Shepdawg1
I wish Pokemon games on consoles should have 3 vs 3 style Battle. It's pretty standard RPG games battle style.
Alas, I don't play handphone games.

Hope we don’t get new hardware soon. Plenty of games do what Pokémon don’t.

@Snatcher
Okay, the reason I keep saying Yokai Watch battle style are better than Pokemon games because I have compared the gameplay from both Yokai Watch and Pokemon games and I like more the 3 vs 3 Battle style from Yokai Watch games than 1 vs 1 Battle style from Pokemon games as it's pretty standard RPG game so you can always have at least 1 creature in your team as Healer to heal your party to stay survive in battle, even in Monster Rancher 4 PS2 by TECMO, I can bring 3 different monsters use them individually or together to attack the enemies or Bosses.

Even I have judged the gameplay of Pokemon Battle Revolution Wii from YouTube and it looked really boring with 1 vs 1 Battle style, like if I play music Drum n Bass, the attack pattern just like Dub Tek Dub Tek Dub Tek all the time. Not attractive. Glad I don't have the game even the game price was suddenly inflated crazily on Ebay but I don't have interest with that game.

PLA ran very smoothly, so i'm hoping they can iron these things out. I'm not one too bothered by performance hiccups, but there is no excuse really. Glad it seems to be a very fun game in spite of it.

@Anti-Matter
Lol what a wild comparison to drum and bass 😂 never thought I’d see that here. Seems to me like you either know that you like it or you don’t. I love both drum and bass and innovative pokemon games, but neither have anything to do with each other.. I know not everything satisfies everyone 🙃 im quite excited though personally

I'll better wait for the definitive edition next year, which will have hopefully improved upon everything from this one.

Honestly, I'll be more than busy this end of the year, with so many GREAT games coming out, such as Bayonetta, Mario & Rabbids, Nier, Persona, Tactics Ogre, Crisis Core, Harvestella, Dragon Quest Treasures...

@Anti-Matter Pokémon doesn’t do any of that because that isn’t how Pokémon works. Pokémon’s battle system is all about how the Pokémon react to one another, type advantages, what move was used, how the Pokémon types affect the move being used, abilities, held items etc. there’s a lot of variables to keep track of which is why the game sticks to a 1 v 1 formula.

If you look at something like Digimon Cyber Sleuth, which does have 3 on 3 battles, there’s a lot less strategy because the type advantages and move sets have to be simplified to compensate.

I don't like trainer battles being optional, but then I'm also one of the people who still wants random encounters and mandatory HMs. Is it weird to think a game is too accessible? It's not like I want everything to be Dark Souls, but I don't think actually having to overcome a challenge to progress past it is too much to ask.

@Jireland92
VGC doubles - Am I a joke to you?

@FatWormBlowsASparky double battles are just as complex, albeit in a different way, but they haven’t had a major presence in the games for while, at least as far as the story goes.

I have come to believe that @Anti-Matter is, in fact, a satirical account. If so, brava good sir, brava!

@Anti-Matter Pokémon is like Pokémon. Yokai-watch is like Yo-kai watch. We do not need pokémon to be more like something it’s not, because what worked for Yo-kai watch has already been proven not to work for the pokémon formula. They can both be unique, seperate experiences. Not everything needs to be more like a game you love playing, otherwise we’d just get the same experiences all over the place in a genre that’s already pretty formulaic. Almost every rpg goes ‘dum tek dum tek’ because it’s called TURN-BASED combat for a reason. If you don’t like turn-based combat, that’s fine. But many others do. So it doesn’t need to change just because you want it to.

Pokémon has enough problems as it is performance and story wise in my opinion, and it could learn a bit from yo-kai watch there. The time travel plot of Yokai watch 2 wasn’t bad at all and the games looked great on 3ds, but that doesn’t really apply to switch anymore since I’m not importing yokai watch 4 to check it out. Pokemon’s battle system is iconic and pretty good, all it needs for me is more difficult battles in the games themselves to take advantage of team composition and movesets.

@Takoda
I still like turn based style RPG like FF X, Miitopia, Earthlock. I have those games.
Don't get me wrong but if Pokemon games adopt at least FF X Battle style so we can see whose turn and if there are more than 1 Pokemons in my team and have ability to double up the speed for my team or slow down the speed of the opponents, it will be a benefit as I will see more turns from my team.

@Anti-Matter The problem is that games, in the capitalist business of games, do better when they have individual identity and "unique selling points" compared to other games. Pokemon's battle ststem, while there may be things that change the formula from time to time to keep things fresh, is part of its unique identity. It, and a lot of other design choices, make a Pokemon game a Pokemon game. Its the game feel. Change it, and youre making a different game, maybe with Pokemon branding, like Pokemon Masters on mobile or the Mystery Dungeon spinoff. If you want to play a game that is different to Pokemon, play the games you mentioned.

@spottedleaf Couldn’t have put it better myself, yep.

Why would I want to roam free doing everything in whatever order when the levels arent scaled with yours. There is no reason to go back to level 5 gym when I am level 28 and have fun with it. Unnecessary feature..

Hmmmm…I’m tempted, but I won’t be burned again. The last like 4 Pokémon games have been so bland and flavorless, I’m gonna need to wait this one out and let the hype dust settle

So the only really negatives are Nintendolife and Eurogamer/DF. Again proving my point I made in the previous topic.

@sanderev game is good, performance and graphics are really poor.

You can’t really say anything about performance, since it’s still a preview. But it’s easy when you get money from Sony to bash Nintendo.

@YoshiF2
^ This.
It has nothing to do with the Switch.
You give gamefreak PS5's power and the games will still run like hot garbage.

I've almost finished Legends Arceus so not sure I'll play Scarlett and Violet right away but they sound good to me. I didn't have big issues with performance in Arceus but noticed a lot more with Sword/Shield.

@Crockin You're not supposed to eat the games. There's your problem.

@sanderev
Sony weren't responsible for criticism regarding the games performance, the games performance was.

This build was sent out by the publisher for outlets to give their impressions on. Ideally it would be the job of PR to mention whether or not said issues are being worked on if its unfinished.

Again look at the content of the articles, the nintendolife one praises aspects of the game but criticises the performance, the eurogamer one mentions that while it is a preview it is rougher than prior previews they have played.

again its fine to enjoy a game despite these kinds of issues, but if your takeaway from someone criticising something is that they have some kind of vendetta, paid or otherwise, then there's not really much i can say.

.

@Anti-Matter so you want “Pokémon masters Ex” as a main series game?

@Tantani
Eh, I don't play mobile games but I would like to see 3 vs 3 Battle style in mainline Pokemon games like pretty much standard RPG games.

Black and White tried to stir -just a little- the formula, rest of the games so far played it pretty safe. Pokemon in still selling huge but its on diminishing returns. Myself i like linear games, i get confused from "open worlds" unless there's a mark on the map that show where to go next

@Dr_Luigi
I'm still under convinced that Game Freak simply doesn't know how to use the Switch hardware to its fullest capabilities. The Pokémon Company did not seem to invest enough money into that area.

A great game that doesn't run so greatly, then. And it's really hard to keep blaming the hardware when we have games like Breath of the Wild and Xenoblade Chronicles 3 available on the same plataform. Let's hope it's only an early build.

My hype level just got even higher for this game, in terms of performance issues I think game freak should enlist the help of monolith, xenoblade chronicles 3 is an absolutely huge open world and it runs fine to me.

Disappointed to read about the poor performance, but that's never been a huge factor for me. The game looks really fun and I'm looking forward to spend hundreds of hours on it, like I do in most Pokémon games.

The Switch being severely underpowered is just simply getting old at this point. Imagine if the Switch has Steam Deck power and OLED with insane battery capabilities.

I'm just shocked that Nintendo is still milking the Switch when it can't even run a mainline Pokemon game at a stead 1080/60 FPS.

Makes no sense.

@martynstuff smt game card tastes way better tbh

@Dr_Luigi don’t think it’s the hardware fault to be fair. As there’s some games on switch more graphic consuming that look great on it.

@SpacedDuck That's a bit of a pipe dream right now, it would have to be even larger and heavier than a Steam Deck for that. Nintendo is also unlikely to go after top of the line performance with their next system.

@Nanami_Ataraxi Game. Set. Match.

I don’t think the npc change is good, I don’t want to stress whether the npc wants to fight or not when I just want to talk

I’m really excited for this game mostly because of the new multiplayer features but if it runs as poorly as initial impressions seem to indicate then it will really make me rethink purchasing.
Honestly though I’d be more excited for a new spin-off title like mystery dungeon, pokepark, or pokken.

This game is a complete failure it ads a random teraforming instead they should have made the return with dynamax mega evolutions and z moves adding a random thing is dumb to say the least...im def skipping this generation of Pokemon main game

We all know what's going to happen. People are going to complain about the technical aspect, the games will be well received by the press for the most part and GameFreak will laugh all the way to the bank.

How many times do I have to teach you this lesson, old man?

@Jireland92
600 hrs into Sword and it’s, what, 90% of my experience with the game.

@Switch_Pro Spongebob:(screams)Outta my way cant you see he going to kick my butt...... Blue fish:So you like kicking butts do yeah will show you old man......(punches sounds)

@Dr_Luigi It is never the hardware's fault period. Developers are aware of the hardware limitations before going into development. If the game runs poorly its either because the developers did not develop with those limitations in mind or they are bad at optimizing for the hardware. But blaming it on the hardware makes no sense. The Switch is 5 years old and GameFreak had their hands on it for even longer, they know about the hardware and its limitations.

This is just very shortened round up of previews, because we learned much more then just that from those previews and those who played it.

@FatWormBlowsASparky was that competitive or part of the campaign?

Doesn't seem like any previewers were all that phased by the performance outside of NintendoLife and Eurogamer/Digital Foundry.

IGN said there's enough new content to shake up the series:.. watch them say God of war Ragnarok isn't different enough while singing another Pokemon's praises lol

Sounds like a good game with bad programming.

Still excited to play it. Despite Sword/Shield's flaws, I've had an absolute blast finally playing through the Galar region. Bias caused me to avoid playing it for the longest time, and once I finally let go of my hangups and gave Sword a proper go, I realized Pokemon games are still a joy to play.

Gamefreak just needs to license Capcom's REngine already. Can you imagine Pokemon assets running around with REngine's crisp optimization?

I love the direction that Pokémon is going but hopefully the battle system stays the same going forward. I couldn't stand the changes PLA made. The competitive meta is why I play Pokémon and the Terastal feature has SO much potential for mixups. If I want a different battle system, I'll go play a different RPG. Looking forward to S/G

Ugh all the references to BoTW makes me expect a very empty and bland "open" world.

I just want another real Pokemon game, not these crap shoot spinoffs and remakes they keep pumping out (this is another spinoff to me regardless, it's not a real Pokemon game.) with a team that STILL apparently doesn't know how to work on the Switch with all the performance issues. NieR can run fine, then ugly bright Pokemon games filled with the simplest grass/tree textures available, surely can run at a smooth 30, they just don't put the effort in.

@MajinSoul Amen. Nothing wrong with the Switch hardware when the developers TRY. They just know they don't have to work hard to sell Pokemon.

Pokémon is reaching a new peak right? If that is true, then I hope these games stay relevant for a long time. If the game recieves DLC big enough to expand such open world, three years maybe won't cut it.

Let Game Freak take its time until the inevitable "Generation X" game.

@contractcooker He blocked me because I spoke out against his complaint on every article he doesn’t care about. If it was satire, he’d be happy because that’s the response he’d want. Somehow, these are his real opinions 😂

I'm wondering what the central plot of Team Star is.

@theModestMouse This isn't a spinoff. It's the next game in the core Pokémon series

@Sahnec Most of his takes suck

So, not all everyone had problems with the performance? Does it mean the issue is overblown or affecting only some copies?

@Dr_Luigi Zelda BOTW struggled on some in-game places, like in the Lost Woods.

However, it worked alright even with +15 enemies on screen. After +30 enemies in zones that weren't meant to, it started lagging.

I don't think it should be that hard for newer games (released +5 years after Zelda BOTW) to accomplish something similar. BOTW IS OPEN WORLD, even if you may say it's "empty", it loaded fairly well with not many hiccups. I don't see any reason from the trailers for Pokemon not to get a similar smoothness overall.

Yeah, yeah, not a GAME developer myself, but graphic-wise, Scarlet and Violet don't look as texture-detailed as BOTW.

GameFreak is ruining it all. Pokemon games also struggled on 3DS, even on 1vs1 battles! Meanwhile, more graphic intensive games had no framerate problems at all. RE: Revelations. Street Fighter IV, Monster Hunter 4.

@Nanami_Ataraxi
Exactly. The 3DS Pokemon games ran into framerate issues too. Gamefreak has no clue with regards on how to optimize the games. Unlike Monolith Soft who have done a fantastic job with optimizing their games on Nintendo hardware.

Pokémon is just like fifa , same crap being released.

@contractcooker I'm not about to dive down the rabbit hole that is their comment history, but at one point they said they were from a country where English wasn't the primary language. Looking at their comments through the lens of a slight language barrier makes their comments passable.

@the_beaver Hate to break it to you but there hasn't been a definitive version since Ultra Sun & Moon. Sword & Shield had dlc just like Scarlet & Violet will no doubt have.

@PJ301178 Considering Sun & Moon is the latest entry before Sword & Shield, it wouldn't be weird at all that this happens again now haha

@contractcooker I wish. Dude is entirely serious, even blocked me because he was tired of me going at him for his bizarre takes.

Put me under “concerned but excited” because of that frame rate stuff.
I’m fine with slight chugging here and there — nothing is perfect — but if it’s going to be distracting then I can’t help but be distracted.

@Thoughts I don't think so, because this time at least the games look pretty great and a proper evolution of the formula. I didn't like Sword and Shield that much overall. Not because of their graphics or performance, but because the wild area sucked and the rest was the same old. Arceus, on the other hand, was great fun.

@westman98
Gamexplain also mentioned the performance issues , they mentioned hoping that its fixed by launch.

@Dr_Luigi
I feel like if the engine used doesn't work well with switch hardware then it probably wasn't the best choice since the game is being developed exclusively for the hardware, often though its not even the developers fault and can come from higher up, such as having a deadline which cannot be changed for various reasons.