Pokémon Fans Vent Frustrations Online About Scarlet & Violet's Technical Issues

Remember when Game Freak actually functioned?

and it will outsell Sword and Shield

So things keep moving right along.

While I haven't gotten around to playing yet cause of Frontiers, Bayonetta 3 and GoWR. I hear it all the same. Fun game riddled with poor optimization.

Considering how this is a 3rd Pokemon in the span of 1 year it's no wonder it's poor. This really could have benefited from a delay. But we need a Pokemon game every holiday for whatever reason.

They could have gotten away with this on the handhelds. But now folks want bigger open world Pokemon games and those type of games take time develop. Hopefully they slow down with Pokemon but that's wishful thinking.

I could beat a fainted ponyta but the comments section will do it for me.

Interesting enough, I wonder if gamers would prefer gamefreak to try new technology/gameplay and fail sometimes like Sonic Team or remain consistent as they were.

It will be concerning if Game Freak don't put out a generic "We apologize for the issues with the game. We will work hard to patching these issues as soon as we can and ensure future titles will be better." in the next few days. If they don't well, they just know they can keep getting away with it.

@Rika_Yoshitake honestly it's sad that it will most likely outsell S/S.

Also funny that people complain and yet continue to buy it

If they can’t make the framerate run consistently on native resolution, then lower it to at least 720p on docked mode or 480p on handheld, that might fix the problem and hopefully make it run at least 30 fps with no lag and frame drops

Pokémon scarlet and violet has performance issues? Naw, I couldn’t tell from the last 3 articles!

Been playing for about 3 hours now…. The world looks gorgeous, and there’s a lot going on, but there’s def frame pacing and stuttering issues a plenty. Arceus runs much smoother, and from a mechanical standpoint, I think better. Haven’t made it far enough into S/V to truly pass that judgement, but unless I get the ability to sneak snipe pokes with a pokeball while avoiding combat altogether, then I think it’s safe to say Arceus may be more fleshed out than this has been.…

Thankfully I'm not too sensitive to bad graphics, thanks to having played on a 5+ year old laptop until recently. However, I'm still noticing issues with this game. I've had the game just freeze for a moment a few times, one time it froze for at least a second and I thought it had crashed. Also the loading times are pretty long. Entering tera raids takes a while, and even just entering a battle or switching Pokémon has a slight delay. It's not bad enough to ruin the amazing gameplay, but I really hope they fix some of these issues in updates, or at least reduce them

@PBandSmelly
Different reviewers, different preferences, different viewpoints, and so on and so forth.

@link12684 that's no excuse. Hold a Nintendo first party game to same standard.

Only companies I currently view worse than the Pokémon company atm are blizzard and Konami, and even then from what I’ve seen and heard they may as well be on the same level as Konami with how much they treat their devs like sh@t

the issue is their insistence on a yearly release and not giving the game a higher budget. every A-list game its being compared to has had YEARS to bake while pokemon is constantly trying to meet a quota

i doubt theyll change their methods since the games constantly sell well, but this is probably their worst case of getting too complacent with noticeable glitches and bugs

@liljmoore
It's a legit reason that people need to accept. Nintendo life isn't one person. IGN isn't one person. Everyone has a different opinion of what they think a game deserves on any rating scale you may make up. No matter what you say will change that undeniable truth.

Does pokemon deserve 7? Perhaps not. Does Sonic deserve a 4? Perhaps not. For me, I would have given Sonic Frontiers a 4 while others would give the game any other number. I can't comment on pokemon yet.

Peace

The game is wildly fun but I don’t get why they are trying to make semi-realistic graphics… Why can’t they make the graphics cell shaded/hand drawn like how the dragon ball z/demon slayer games look like the anime. Like how cool would it be (and possibly less demanding?) if the game’s design and graphics matched sort of what the anime looked like.

As bad as the game's presentation can get, the gameplay may be the best of the mainline games now that I'm outside of the game's tedious tutorial stage. Design-wise, Pokemon and characters are still looking great too. In spite of the obvious flaws, they've still gotten me hooked in and I'm looking forward to my next session with the game.

@liljmoore It kinda matters tho, there not the same people, and they can have completely different standards.

If I had reviewed sonic, I would have given it a higher rating, even with its issues, pushsquare gave it a 7/10 two different people, two different standers opinions and gaming philosophy.

Legends arceus was a step in the right direction. A more free approach to gameplay and exploration. Combat was better and felt snappy and streamlined and most importantly fun. Same thing with catching pokemon. You didnt have to engage in battle to catch pokemon in legends. Sure Sc and Vi is more open world, but open world games are made to make it feel like you have more freedom. But in my opinion legends arceus did it better and thats not even an open world game. Scarlet and violet are MEH games and the technocal issues add up to a bad game in my book.

@Rika_Yoshitake Great game with technical issues vs underwhelming game with no (or at least minor) technical issues

Pick your poison

Despite sales, this entry feels like a tipping point.
Japanese companies do not like embarrassment.

@mariomaster96
Why are those the only 2 choices?

I was wondering what kind of engine that Gamefreak use for Pokemon Scarlet / Violet.
Unity or Unreal or different engine ?

If this were any other franchise it would be canned to the likes of cyberpunk. But it's Pokémon so it gets a pass... it's Pokémon, a multi billion dollar company ....

@Anti-Matter Can the switch run those? But I think it’s there own.

"If you're not bothered by technical whoopsies, you're going to have a blast...". it's hard to play a game if you are constantly hindered by glitches and bugs. And calling it whoopsies, you make it feel like it's not a big of a deal.

"I am repeatedly saddened and disillusioned by the severe lack...". And yet you gave it a 7 out of 10. Not really consistent.

I have seen great game passing the reviews, but scored lower than this jnk.

@Uncle_Franklin Because @Rika_Yoshitake said "and it will outsell Sword and Shield", so that's why there's only those two choises

I wouldn't want either of those to be the second best (or maybe even the best) selling entry in the entire seres only after Red/Blue because that just confims to TPC/GameFreak that it pays off to delivery and underwhelming or unpolished product

@Snatcher Countless games on Switch use Unity/UE4/CryEngine.

Dreamcast could be running this game, smoothly.

@Haruki_NLI huh. I just wanted to be sure! Thank you.

Sounds like Gamefreak need to raise their game if they want to take steps in this direction. Ok, so they aren't the biggest studio, but still. Hopefully we see some patches. And if they release dlc for it, hopefully they rerelease the game in a better state.

@Abes3 In their review the performance issues are downsized by calling them whoopsies. At the same time they write "I just can't stop myself from being repeatedly saddened and disillusioned by the severe lack of polish". Yet they score it a 7 out of 10. Great games have scored lower, and for lesser and poorer arguments. I guess they lack the Nintendo stamp.

@liljmoore,

Not surprising in the slightest, as the people who complain and are obsessed with such things are a very tiny vocal minority, not suggesting they are wrong to complain or to care about such issues, but that does not change the fact the vast majority of Pokemon fans will simply buy these games and get on with it, totally oblivious to all these issues, or the fact they even exist or are being discussed/complained about in the first place.

It doesn't surprise me in the slightest coming from a site called NINTENDOlife, not to mention their heavy bias's against any other platformers that aren't Mario.
This is why I don't take this sites reviews seriously anymore.

The game in it's state is completely unacceptable and it baffles me how fans mindlessly defending it while I know very well they wouldn't have this "gameplay over graphics" attitude (or at least to this extent) if this was literally any other franchise.

@iLikeUrAttitude,

This is pokemon not Mario, and too be honest the sites review pretty much falls in line with the overall metacritic score of 77, although a little bit lower.

On another subject, I do agree with you on the latest Sonic game being treated rather harshly on here, as this sites review falls way below the metacritic average of 72.

@johnvboy
But at this rate, I changed my mind about getting Pokemon Violet.
The game has a lot of issues and I can't even defend this game for being called acceptable to play.
Peoples who buy this game will experience with the issues and I'm very sure they will complain after that.

I find it fascinating how despite all the visual evidence we still have people claiming they have no issues at all. Either Gamefreak have messed up in a very unique way (it has to be more than just memory leaks) or Pokemon fans are getting "better" at ignoring glaring problems.

@iLikeUrAttitude,

Not sure it's a case of mindlessly defending it, as most of the fanbase will be unaware and not even bothered, and core fans on here like myself knew what to expect, it's Gamefreak, they are not known for their high standards when it comes to 3D Pokemon games, so you either accept this and buy the game and have fun with it, for what it is, or you vote with your wallet and do not..... possibly waiting for a patch that will improve things.

@Snatcher must be a slow ski day at the NL offices.

@johnvboy True reviews are positive but I'd still argue people are so forgiving for this entry is because it's pokemon.

I'm glad we agree that Frontiers was treated too harshly.

Yeah this won't be that large of an issue for the majority of players and it'll sell well regardless, but that just takes us back to the original problem.
I voted with my wallet already and won't spend any money on this game.
Hopefully there is a patch for this game but the fact that it released in this current state is unacceptable. Scarlet/Violet desperately needed more time to cook in the oven it heavily shows, I don't even know who is to blame anymore between TPC, Gamefreak, Creatures, Nintendo etc., I just know that the current release schedule for pokemon games is not working.

I think is time for Nintendo to step in and buy Game Freak outright and invest in the studio. Its been in the card for years.

@Anti-Matter,

Your personal choice, and I would say hold off until a patch is available, as if this is as bad as some are suggesting, then GameFreak must be aware.

And I still think the biggest issue is rushing the game out for the busy holiday period, which I can understand from both Nintendo's and GameFreak's perspective, as they both surely aware most will just simply buy the game and not bother, but still from a quality point of view, they do have a duty to all players regardless of their stance on this, to make the games performance better.

@somnambulance,

I think this is another great point as well, yes there are issues with this game, but they are being overblown by a lot of people on YouTube etc, with people putting the player in situations where the problems are the worst, then suggesting it everywhere on the game.

As I have said the game is far from perfect, but nowhere near as bad as some are making it out to be.

These games are a vast improvement on Sword & Shield, and look pretty good in my opinion. There's a little slowdown and jank, but nothing game breaking or experience ruining. I honestly think I must have totally different standards. Sonic Frontiers was fine on Switch, and this is fine for me too.

Skyrim seemed to do alright. Just saying.

@johnvboy

I don't think that's fair at all.
The feedback I've heard so far are from big Pokemon fans such as Alex who typically don't find performance issues a deal breaker, but sadly could not ignore it in this instance as it apparently does intrude on the experience.

Just so we're all on the same page here, Game Freak literally owns 1/3 of The Pokemon Company. I doubt that they have little say in how the developement of the games is handled.

@iLikeUrAttitude,

Both Nintendo and Gamefreak would argue otherwise, considering the sales of these games, and the majority of the purchasers will simply not care or be aware of any issues.

@steely_pete,

Not totally accurate as Nintendo owns an undisclosed amount of shares in creatures inc, so it looks like Nintendo own 50% of Pokemon perhaps a little more.

@Poco_Lypso

Nice info, but I'm more interested in the fact that you belong to a guild.

@Uncle_Franklin,

When did I suggest there were no issues or people were not right to complain about them, I even stated the GameFreak should issue a patch to improve the games performance for all players, no matter which side they fall on. But again we are siting the games fans as core players, who will notice these issues more, and be far more irritated by them, you proved my point by mentioning Alex.

Unless of course you are suggesting that it's unfair I pointed out it's not that many people complaining, in which case I can't help you, as it's a fact.

@johnvboy
So? GF themselves still have their third of ownership and one of the key people at TPC is Junichi Masuda, who comes from Game Freak.

@johnvboy

"as the people who complain and are obsessed with such things are a very tiny vocal minority"

They could well be a minority, as most people aren't reviewers, but I don't think it's fair to brand people such as Alex as "obsessed with" performance issues because they had the temerity to complain about the game.

As for the precise amount of people complaining, we do not have these statistics.
There could be people who bought the game, and complained about it to their friend offline.

I’m surprised Nintendo let it go out like this seeing as it’s a first party game.

I’m surprised the Pokémon company let it go out like this seeing as it’s a major release of one of the worlds biggest franchises.

All because of money no doubt.

@datamonkey

It's a good point, Nintendo has always prided itself on a certain level of quality, and if the Pokemon games continue down this trend it will start to reflect badly on them.

Saying that, I think Game Freak will probably have a better grasp on this kind of game for the next entry.

@Poco_Lypso

I hadn't realised that guilds had experienced something of a modern revivial, but just reading about it now.

Mine went back to Amazon before all these news popped up.

The performance was making the game feel like a chore for me. I was not motivated to explore the world because the issues made it rather exhausting.

I thought it was because of my old Switch and maybe a slow card or something.

I honestly think I'd dislike these games even more if they were polished. I've only put about 10 hours into violet so far, but I haven't really enjoyed the experience yet. The bugs/glitches in this game have been one of the only things in this game that I have liked so far, often because of how surprising it can be.

@Yanina

Could you expand on that?
Because I find it quite interesting that a Real Person (rather than these fictional reviewer people) found that the issues intruded greatly upon their enjoyment of the game.

Looking at videos of the game the environments looked very bland to me, more so than say Arceus, but it's not always a fair test to just watch videos, so would be interested in your view on that as well.

@Xiovanni Where can I place my bid?

Insert a certain Abba song here.

I'm enjoying the game, but I acknowledge the flaws and think it could have used another year in development. However, I think it's delusional to think some reddit threads and blue checkmarks complaining is going to lead to TPC changing anything when they make crazy bank regardless.

Yep, the game is extremely fun but it is probably the worst performing game I have played since launch-day Cyberpunk 2077 on PS4. Feels like a Bethesda game in many ways - Skyrim PS3 is probably the most apt comparison.

Am loving the game but do agree there is technical problems with it. Still it dosent take away from the fun am having with it.

@Outerdragon What you said.

The worst TECHNICAL Games I played were:

*Fallout 3 and
*Fallout: New Vegas

Two of my 50 favourite Games of all time but the amount of freezing and game crashing and lag was TERRIBLE!

'True Crime: LA' and 'True Crime: NYC' have come close to its performance.

@Yosher
Take a Chance ?

I'm torn between giving it a 4/10 or a 9/10!
Performance and glitches/bugs aside, the game is fantastic and a great step in the right direction, but those glitches are inexcusable from such a big company. The Switch is more than powerful to manage this but for some reason they haven't optimised it

@Yosher Gimme Gimme Gimme?

@NCChris @Anti-Matter I was thinking Money Money Money but those work too LOL.

@link12684
Sonic Frontiers Review - Ollie Reynolds
Pokemon Scarlet & Violet Review - Alana Hagues

You can't generalize these types of scales when the 2 reviews are from 2 totally different people.
If this was a 1-person site or a single YouTuber you'd have more of an argument but this take is so narrow-minded.

Can't they get Monolith Soft to help them?

I bought this day 1 for my son and he’s been having fun with it. He’s 11 and hasn’t noticed any glitches yet or maybe he just doesn’t notice what glitches are

They should give the next Pokémon game to monolith soft or at least dedicate a team from monolith soft to give game freaks help and knowledge on how to make an open world work on the switch, but why bother these games will sell like hot cakes and Nintendo will make a lot of money , low cost development from a bunch of incompetent freaks and million sells equals a lot of money from fans who would buy a bag of 💩if the Pokémon logo was on it.

@Uncle_Franklin,

Never branded him, I simply stated he would be more aware of things than others.

And as these 3D Pokemon games continue to sell wee, despite all this online outrage, I would suggest it's that most people do not simply care.

Not suggesting that people can't complain or they are wrong, but that does not alter the fact these people are very niche.

@GrailUK
to be fair Skyrim runs significantly better than this even on switch (at least the none anniversary one) even then skyrim is still a game originally made over a decade ago and since then open world has come a long way, even on lower end hardware (just look at Xenoblade X, BotW etc)

im hoping they can fix the issues since there is a legitimately good pokemon game hidden under it but to me it just feels bad to play with how sluggish it runs.

At least Tears of the kingdom is still looking like its going to be amazing

@steely_pete,

To be honest it's such a complicated ownership, with Nintendo owning undisclosed shares in both the Pokemon company and Creatures inc, you would never get to the bottom of it.

But like you say GameFreak have a large interest in all this, so will have some sort of control. And I doubt either the Pokemon company or Nintendo will interfere with development in any way.

@Yosher What's the name of the game? does it mean anything to you?

Give Pokemon to someone else and have Game Freak make HarmoKnight 2.

@johnvboy

"obsessed with" is different to being aware of.

This entry seems to have greater issues than previous. When the game has been out for a long time we'll have more information on the reaction, people could well be disappointed upon purchase.
Either way, I wouldn't declare anything that information suggests as "fact".

I will say that there is a lot of buzz about these games in Japan.

@Clyde_Radcliffe
Just let them do the top down remakes and give the open world games to another studio.

The game is fun, but I'm taking a break until they patch it up a bit. Performance is absolutely awful, constant fps drops for everything I do. I could deal with the aged graphics if the game ran at a stable fps, but together it's just too much. Hope they can patch it up ASAP, should be embarrassed to release a game in this state.

This is the first time I've ever been disappointed by a Pokémon game after buying it at launch. I’m usually veryyy tolerant when it comes to graphics as long as it doesn’t ruin the fun of the game but that’s what’s happening to me right now. The gameplay is extremely fun nonetheless, I’m 10 hours in and I only have two badges because I love wandering through the map. The feeling of liberty is amazing but unfortunately I can’t fully enjoy it because of these technical issues. Some bugs are funny to me but the npc walking at idk 5 fps? it's just so distracting. The graphics are kind of weird, they’re not hideous but it’s weird to see characters/pokemon with so many details in a "N64 world". I’m aware it might be a very controversial opinion but I would have loved for them to stick with Sword & Shield’s art style but improved with better graphics as I think it looks better when it’s less realistic. I agree with a lot of people about the fact that underneath all the graphical and technical issues lies a very good Pokémon game. Arceus graphics were meh to me but at least it ran kinda smoothly so I tolerated it and also because the game was very good. Right now I would generously give the game a 7/10 but it could easily have been a 10/10 with good graphics/performance and if you could enter the houses in towns
I just really hope they will take more time with the next game. I’m fine with not playing a Pokémon game every year, having two big releases this year has always been weird to me. And I also understand the anger from a lot of fans because I really don’t think it is normal to release a game in this state.

@Uncle_Franklin The graphics where bland and looked like good PS2 open world. But that is fine for me. The low framerate and the stuttering all the time is what made it exhausting for me. If you move the camera around just to look around is messy. (Even standing around and seeing all the NPCs stutter is not cool) And walking/driving around as well. So the main part of the game (exploring) felt broken to me. I played a few hours and was always fixated on my next goal because I wanted to get it done without much walking around.
And at that point I realized that it makes no sense for me to play this. If it feels like a chore.

@Poco_Lypso
Some people are also saying this game is the worst-looking Pokémon game ever made, but... Legends Arceus kind of holds that title with a very bland colour palette.

Seeing this kind of makes me wish Nintendo stepped in and had some more influence over the game development like they did in the earlier days of Pokémon. It was Shigeru Miyamoto who pushed the previously-rejected idea of Pokémon to come to life with the help of Nintendo.

you know what is funny
the issue can be... well not fixed, but become less
and the method is very simple
it is something almost every parent, show and game says
put the game down
no really, just give SV a break, close the game and when you go back to it, it is less annoying

I’ve been enjoying this far more than Sword/Shield.

I have a launch day Switch and to me it's not just technical whoopsies, the console is permamently struggling to put out frames, the whole experience is low FPS suffering... it's like I'm playing at half the speed and I can feel my time being wasted as I struggle to move the character around... ( I know about restarting the game because memory leaks but I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO )

@Theober555 I agree, if only run at a stable 30 FPS at least I could focus on what's going on!

I can be forgiving about Pokemon Legends Arceus because at least for that game, that was truly the first proper open world experience for the Pokemon dev team (outside the Sw/Sh wild areas), the story/concepts were completely new, and the game itself was so fun the bad graphics/performance did not detract from the experience.

There is no excuse for Pokemon Scarlet/Violet to be as poor as it is. For starters, this game was rushed out the gate and easily should have been a 2023 title to cook in the oven. PLA should have had a major expansion for holiday 2022 instead.

My 2 cents in this since these articles are everywhere. So far my son and I have been playing through, hes been playing for about 7-8 hours as well as myself as I got us the double pack. I’ve wondered around a good bit and beat the first gym and been filling my Pokédex as I go and neither of us have come across anything crazy. My sons been going all around the map as well, further then myself. He’s playing on a launch switch and I’m on an oled. The world looks great for what it is and the Pokémon models look better than ever imo. The only things I notice are that weird frame pacing thing with the Pokémon models in the distance which is a bit jarring at first but you get use to it. And I had one instance of this weird visual glitch on a cliff side where a sliver of a section of it looked like it flowed as you moved your camera angle. Not sure if we’re getting lucky or if this is just the new thing for everybody to focus on like the trees in Arceus, but I don’t really thinks it’s as bad as all these articles/comments are saying from my experience so far. We haven’t had a single crash yet either 🤷‍♂️. Obviously the graphics themselves aren’t pulling a xenoblade 3 here, but it’s Pokémon and I never expect them too, at least we got an open world which has got me hooked and we’re enjoying the hell out of it 👍.

Game Freak need to recruit people that are used to working on bigger games. I cut them a bit of slack at the start as they were forced to jump from being a handheld developer to a console developer, but at this point they have probably had access to Switch development kits for not far off a decade.

It’s not just performance struggles, but there’s cut corners everywhere that make the game feel so low budget.

Believe it or not, I'm not having too many problems with bugs but I will say that Game Freak is again going one step forward and two steps back once again.

I am just capturing Pokémon right now and the region is so damn boring, made worse by the extremely ugly terrain. I really just wished the kept it like Pokemon Sword and Shield. I would like nice detailed routes and a wild area. I have no idea where I am going, even with the map. The terrain just doesn't connect well.

Also, finding shiny Pokémon without having a audio or visual jingle is insane considering how pixelated the Pokémon are.
I only spotted a shiny Fletchling for staring at it for about a minute. Why did they not just keep it like Legends: Arceus.

You CANNOT turn off battle animations which is awful because the battles take so long. Why does it say that my Pokémon cannot move because it is paralyzed but then shows the animation AFTER telling me. It's so slow and frustrating.

As of right now, Pokémon Sword and Shield feels like the newer game to me. There's many more things I wanted to say but I'll leave it at that though. I'll still play through it though. Getting a living 'dex will always be the best part of Pokémon for me.

@1UP_MARIO mines 12 and I asked him last night, he said the games great the internets just a bunch of bitches 😂 🪦 💀

@iLikeUrAttitude Look, I get frontiers isn’t long, but tbh, I feel like the reviewer rushed it, for all I know they didn’t but tbh from how it sounded, and how quick the review came out, it felt like they kinda rushed there way through it,

one issue that i hate is camera control, it is really like to center itself when i try to look elsewhere. And sometimes its bug behind a terrain, wall, or people and you can stuck while rotating the camera behind something (the screen become black, and you must step back a few step to get the camera normal again). not as bad as bd/sp imo (i once encounter serious bug in bd/sp that make my save file unusable)

My son desperately wanted to try this game, so I give in and bought it digitally from the eShop.
Even he, at 11 years old, was utterly shocked in how terrible this game looks, compared to Pokemon Sword and Legend Arceus which he also played.

I created a guest user on his Switch, so I could give it a go myself and I am just shocked how this game was allowed to release in this state?! I have watched many reviews, so was prepared, but now experiencing it myself. Wow!

The textures are absolutely all over the place. Especially a lot of the terrain textures are even worse than the latest Pokemon games on the 3DS. What in earth happened here? Place holders they had no time to replace?
What is even more shocking! What the hell happened with a lot of the excellent new Pokemon battle move animations they added to Pokemon Sword/Shield?
I catched and tried to fight with lot of different pokemon and most of them haven't even any animations for their moves? Even if they existed in Pokemon Sword/Shield, while that game got critique for lot of animations being basic or absent.
But it's far worse in this game! I thought Scarlet/Violet was built on the same engine as Sword/Shield and they would reuse a lot of the assets/animations for this game. Since all that work has been done already? Makes no sense?!

The overall performance is really bad. So reviewers are right! The game just feels really sluggish, like your character is often walking through the mud. Especially when you are riding around on your Pokemon. Lot of texture pop-in or not appearing at all.
The game world just feels really empty and barren. Boring and bland. Really minimum effort work. Completely soulless.

Next to this, a lot of the quality of life features in from Pokemon Sword/Shield are completely absent in this game?!
You cannot enter any house, hardly any of the NPC's talk to you. The shops are barebones, with no interior (except for the barber), just a pop-up screen with product list. All very low, minimum effort! Place holders again?
Same with the Pokemon centers! Very basic minimum effort design with those. Gass-station design without the shop.

Pokemon Gyms. Tried two of them. Again! Most boring, low effort gyms to date!

Same with Tera lair RAID's. More simplistic lower quality effort, compared to the MAX lair RAID's from Sword/Shield.
This is just a recurring theme with everything in this game. Everything feels minimal effort, basic implementation everywhere. Just all rushed, no polish, no excellence whatsoever.

All in all, it's like they started from complete scratch again, ran out of time and only delivered a very barebones game, with lot of placeholders still in place. Unfinished, buggy, glitchy, worst graphics to date, poor performance, lack of Pokemon battle move animations, etc, etc.

This is the first game I am now sending a refund request to Nintendo Europe (in EU law you have 14 days for full refund).
I immediately got a response that it will take a while to get back to me, as they have an extremely high number of requests right now. Lol! Guess I am not the only one requesting a refund for this unfinished crap!

Change your television setting in switch from automatic to 720, this’ll smooth things out significantly while playing on the telly.

@FatWormBlowsASparky LOL! So now people have to play on PS2 / Original Xbox settings from 20 years ago? I guess that sums it up right there in what Game Freak delivered to us.

@Jeronan
Lol, unless you have a 4k OLED television you will see no difference except the game runs smoother, lol.

@FatWormBlowsASparky Well guess what? I actually have a 4K OLED TV for the past 7 years.

Doesn't even have to be OLED, but I am sure that many people have a 4K TV these days. Basic 4K LCD/LED TV's aren't that expensive anymore, often on sale. In fact, unless you buy a small TV, you can't even find non-4K TV's in shops anymore these days.

I hated PLA.. I really tried to like it, but just couldn’t.. S/V on the other hand is amazing, but it’s hard to ignore the performance issues..

@liljmoore Yeah also my thoughts. I haven't bought the last four games for just this reason. Not that my tiny cash will make much difference.

I didn't buy it. I am holding out for performance patches. I am not buying a game I think is broken. If they get it to Arceus level of performance, I think it'd be worth it.

But this is what's frustrating. There are people who hate low frame rates and pop ins etc, they know this game is littered with them, they buy it anyway and then complain?!?!??! Doesn't matter what they say, you gave the money and that tells Nintendo broken games are good.

If you are ok with the low performance then to each their own, no one can others what is of value to them. But if you hate it and bought it, you buying it says you like the game as is.

The switch is still underpowered and holds back game development pretty hard. Still, you can't say it's the hardware when someone got Xenoblade 3 to run on the thing. Even bayo 3 obviously pushes the switch, but it still runs despite obviously would have been better on better hardware.

@Axecon If it helps, Arceus and this weren't developed by the same team. They've had since swsh came out and this is still what they came out with.

@Uncle_Franklin these have an open world just for the sake of having open worlds. All switch open world games are barren. Hell, anything with large areas are mostly barren, it's just a limitation of the hardware. But there's a sort of verticality and logic in a game like xbc 3 that isn't in gen 9 pokemon. These are just different colored fields and really remind me of PS2 games. Worse even than some like dq8. It honestly feels like a b list late PS2 early ps3 game

Pokepunk 2077? LOL LOL LOL

@ModdedInkling agreed. Gen 9 looks better, but there are things like shadows and flickering textures that make it objectively worse

@Xansies

I haven't played many open world games,
but I found the environments in Breath of the Wild more varied than those in Arceus.

@Jeronan

The experience your 11 year old son had is most illuminating, and I think a couple of people here would do well to read it.

"I immediately got a response that it will take a while to get back to me, as they have an extremely high number of requests right now. Lol! Guess I am not the only one requesting a refund for this unfinished crap!"

Very interesting, perhaps people should wait before determining what the consensus on this game is, rather than just looking at immediate sales.

@Dragonite89 I'm not sure that would actually help. It's apparently memory locked, not GPU locked.

Is Pokémon Scarlet/Violet poorly optimized ? Definitely. Can/Should we blame GF/TPC? Yep. Do we need hardware revision? Absolutely. These truths can coexist.

We need improvement in storage speed. Current storage speed (eMMC/microSD) isn't enough for future ambitious title with tons of textures. My ideal future storage would be NVMe just like in iPhone.. but I'm fine with the new UFS 4.0 as it's cheaper.. or UFS 3.1.

We might also need more powerful processor (built on 4 - 7 nm process). Hopefully 8 GB RAM (LPDDR5) should be the minimum standard for future model.. 16 GB would be the best.

What Monolithsoft did for Xenoblade 3 was absolutely incredible (the best dev on Switch for me) but I believe we desperately need hardware revision very soon.

@Jeronan I saw someone comment on YouTube about how the engine is full of useless junk code, loads of repeating sections and stuff they obviously didn't have time to remove. It wouldn't surprise me if all the problems/glitches are a result of trying to use the same engine as before to save time but with the increased overworld size it brought all these additional issues, kinda like how the game tries to render everything all at once rather than having optimisation to make far off objects low Res to ease the load...

Gamefreak have never been any good at optimization but on a console like the Switch (and with their obvious ambitions to enter the open-world space) they really need to give their games more time in development, because I doubt Nintendo will continue to let them stink up the building with their half baked efforts for much longer.

@Miu I've seen Xenoblade Chronicles 3 upscaled on PC to 4K/60 fps and it looks bloody amazing, on par with high quality PS4 games. What Monolith soft has done on the Switch is nothing short of amazing and shows the maximum output of what the current console is capable of. But it's clearly apparent that even the highest standard of first party games are being held back after seeing the upscales. I'm really hoping to see XC3/Zelda TOTK run to their fullest potential on new native hardware.

I fully agree with your statement, it really is a mix between the need for new hardware and the poor job GF/The Pokemon Company has done with S/V. I know it's a repetitive argument, but the three year dev cycle from Sw/Sh was not enough time to fully optimize this game for the main team (PLA was made by the secondary team at GF). But I really don't know how much better the end product could have been if GF spent more time developing because they would have still been subject to the same hardware & engine constraints.

Metacritic User Scores are so wildly unforgiving, it’s hilarious

Based on what I’ve seen from people who went into the game wanting to enjoy it (so the minority of the Pokémon community) it’s still an enjoyable game.

@Otoemetry That doesn't explain everything.

• It doesn't explain where all the Pokemon battle move animations have gone, if this was the same engine as Sword/Shield.
• It doesn't explain where all the QoL features of Sword/Shield are missing in Scarlet/Violet.
• It doesn't explain why the textures are absolutely horrible and low quality, while they could have reused a lot of the Sword/Shield assets.
• It doesn't explain it has no atmospheric and weather effects. This is the most glaring omission in this game and why the world feels so bland, flat and boring.

Scarlet/Violet is just so utterly barebones. Everything is just minimal viable effort, some not even that.

No matter how people feel about Sword/Shield, but everything in that game was high production quality. A lot more love and effort went into that game and the DLC's were of high quality too. Worth every penny.

It's really sad, but as a Pokemon game fan, I feel like that Scarlet/Violet were made by a morally/emotionally defeated development team, that put out a game because they had to. /sigh

Of course it’s getting review bombed it’s pokemon.
I’m might still play it since I play and enjoy games like rise of lyric and Balan wonderworld and Spyro enter the dragonfly (the GC version) so clearly my taste in game are bad enough for me to enjoy this. 😃

@liljmoore the struggle and the headache is--the game is FUN. And there's so much potential and so many good steps forward and plenty of things that ARE worth celebrating. Am I going to repeatedly bang my head and groan that they've bungled it so badly from a technical and graphics standpoint? Yes. Do I have the willpower to deprive myself of what is ultimately still a very fun game just because they continually drop the ball on parts of it? No. It's a bittersweet thing. I will for now continue to tolerate their weaknesses and take comfort in the fact that at least in ARCEUS and now V/S they HAVE proven willing to really rethink core gameplay and move forward. Hopefully the rest will follow as well.

@Uncle_Franklin Botw is still empty compared to Witcher or GTA 5 or cyber punk. It was just well designed with canyons and mountains that it seemed like there was more in it than there was

It's true that these issues are inexcusable for what should be very well-funded games due to how massively successful Pokemon is. But I'm still having fun.

Still a fun game, but you have to draw the line somewhere. This is that line. I could deal with everything else pokemon has thrown at me without it hampering my enjoyment that much, but this is just straight up getting in the way of me enjoying myself with an otherwise quite nice experience.
They better patch it up because amazing sales or not, something's gotta give.

I don’t know what’s worse; the performance issues in the current release, or the fact that they have been literally reskinning a single game concept for over 20 years.

I can’t believe that they are asking full retail for this release!

As a side note (Well a major one actually), at first I could not put my finger on it as to how boring, bland and flat the gameworld really is and just firing it up again and riding through the different areas and then firing up Pokemon Shield afterwards to compare and then it immediately hit me.

Scarlet/Violet lack any atmospheric and weather effects. It's just a open static rendered world with no real GFX. The shadows are also absolutely terrible and/or simply missing on static objects / flora / fauna, which also really cheapens the experience and make everything look flat.

This is also really confusing, as atmospheric and weather effects can be smartly / artistically used to shorten the drawing distance of the game world and a such significantly improving overall performance. Like fog, sandstorms, rain, snow, sun glare, etc.
And shadows also give that extra feel to the game world. It's really not of this time to not have such basic GFX in your game.

I guess this is just another telling example in how unfinished this game really is. /sigh

People blaming TPC and especially TPCi clearly don’t understand the ownership structure of the franchise. I’ve seen so many people say TPC is forcing Game Freak’s hand by not giving them enough time to complete their games. For anyone thinking that same thing, read this:

TPC is a licensing and brand management firm for the Pokémon IP. They manage licensing agreements and oversee production of various aspects of the franchise, including merchandise, PR, and advertising. They also accomplish this through their TPCi subsidiaries. And here’s the fact people often forget: THEY ARE CO-OWNED BY GAME FREAK, CREATURES INC, AND NINTENDO.

It doesn’t make sense to say that TPC sets Game Freak’s development schedule. That would be like a line staff employee at a car manufacturer telling the owner to make a brand new car by a set date and that date cannot be moved, no matter how flawed the design may be. That’s not how business works.

Even further, TPC does not own the copyright to the franchise. That is, again, co-owned by Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures Inc. TPC literally has to get the blessing from their co-owners before they can do anything, otherwise they run the risk of being sued for copyright infringement.

So how does this fact play out in Game Freak’s favor? It doesn’t. Since the only people responsible for the development timelines are Game Freak themselves, it stands to reason that all problems with a game are the responsibility of Game Freak and any development partners they have. As for why recent games have exuded aspects of poor quality, that can only be speculated. Is it a lack of time? Is it a lack of skill? Is it something else? As outsiders, we can never be sure without some level of inside knowledge from the co-owners, which will likely never come as they are notoriously quiet on these matters.

My speculation on the reason behind Scarlet and Violet’s current state: Game Freak bit off more than they could chew. When the time came to start presenting a final build, they had to cut certain corners in order to get the game into a fully playable state. These cut corners are present in the form of unstable performance, low-quality textures, visual glitches, and the like. This game deserved at least another half-year in the oven for polish.

The one positive that can be taken away: the problems highlighted are not flaws with the game design itself and can be fixed. There’s a fantastic game buried underneath this pile of jank, and I’m still having fun with the game despite the issues. But, I agree wholeheartedly that Game Freak and the rest of the parties involved with the franchise need to enforce more quality control. Will the lukewarm reviews and outcry help them see that they can’t just rest on their laurels? Only time will tell.

@Shepdawg1 And you don't know how Publishers work and the power they have.

Nintendo and TPC are the publisher of all Pokemon games on Nintendo's consoles and they very much control the release schedule of the games.

So you can very much bet that Nintendo had a big hand in pushing these games out of the door this month!
Simply, because Nintendo has no other first party game lineup this holiday season and clearly expected Pokemon Scarlet/Violet to carry this year's holiday sales, including the Pokemon Scarlet/Violet OLED Switch themed packs and other merchandise.

Game Freak can for sure bring up a fight with Nintendo and TPC management to push for a release delay, but I think this time they simply pulled the short end of the stick due to the lack of any other AAA titles this holiday season and Nintendo/TPC clearly saw that a few extra weeks would not have mattered in this case other than a full out 6+ month delay and thus forcing them to release as is or it would have hurt Nintendo's holiday revenue big time!

But then again, Game Freak management are part of TPC and most likely didn't even consider a delay anyway. Just seeing the holiday sales dollar signs, instead of doing what is right for us consumers.

In the end you are partially right. They are all complicit in this disaster of a release, but you still fail to understand the power Publishers have over game studios setting unforgiving release deadlines, as game studios themselves generally want as much time as they need to make the best game possible. With exceptions, like in this case Game Freak having a large stake in TPC and as such basically have a conflict of interest lol.

@johnvboy Hi I think most of your points are fine, but your idea that the only people vocally complaining are the ones who have a problem with the technical issues is one I would want to explore a little. Everyone who is giving negative feedback presumably also bought the game, so the latter doesn't wash away the issue. I mention this because you repeatedly mentioned something akin to "people who buy the game, but are quiet don't seem to care or notice these issues."

I work with learning analytics and if we get 10 people complaining about something being jarring, we can't start from the assumption that only those 10 people have the problem. People have plenty of motivators as to why they do or don't come raise their issues or complains. You would have to demonstrate why those people who aren't complaining also happen to not have an issue, which to be fair to you is impossible without some kind of mass survey sent out to purchasers as a starting point. And also to be fair, I wouldn't be able to say how many people of those people also have issues without their input, but you very much clearly want those with issues to be "niche" or in the minority and we don't have enough information to be operating under that assumption, again noting that Sales does not equal Satisfaction.

@Jeronan I think is just very weird how while some Nintendo releases are not perfect at launch, not at all, none of them come even close to how unpolished Pokémon games have been on the Switch, especially this one, this is unheard of for a Nintendo ip game. Plus in other years like 2020 Nintendo also didn't have a big holyday game and nothing happened, or they could have delayed Arceus, like no one would have complained if we didn't have other game 2 months after BDSP.
I can't confirm but it seems to me the fact that TPC exists at all and it's not managed like other Nintendo series does affects this franchise.

@Jeronan Fair enough. I admit I didn’t consider the publishing portion of the business.

In the end, I hope all parties involved can take this launch and re-evaluate their business with this IP to ultimately give it the respect it deserves. I also admit I’m part of the problem as I continue to buy these games because I’m weak, but I do want more quality from this franchise.

It's not GameFreak, it's TPCi not giving them enough support and enough development time. The game was released too soon, it easily could have used another 6 months of development to iron out all the current issues. Compared to some previous titles, the game feels a bit hollow.

@Oscarzxn We can only guess as to the reason.

What we do know, is that Game Freak had been at a hiring spree several years back and created a new separate dev team for Legend Arceus.

But we all know, they cannot just put a bunch of new people on making the entire game, so most likely the mainline game dev team, working towards Scarlet/Violet had experienced devs taken away to help out Legend Arceus development.

I think I read that even Nintendo sent some of their own devs from the BOTW dev team to help out.

Either way though. The mainline game dev team still had three years to create and finish Scarlet / Violet.

My personal guess? Pokemon Scarlet / Violet were initially not developed as Open world, but after the huge success of Legend Arceus and everyone screaming that this is how all future Pokemon games should be, Game Freak suddenly got cold feat and scrambled to make Scarlet / Violet Open World.

Remember, the first announcement was End of February, a month after Legend: Arceus release and the first trailer didn't show all that much yet.

The first trailers DID show, were much better overall graphics, with actual GFX, like shadows, clouds, fog, rain, sun glare, sand storms, etc. Which are now completely absent from the game.

Who knows. I hope am completely wrong, but at least this would explain the current state of the game, if they only had 9 months to get the Open World to work and as such everything else was no priority and the reason why everything is just feels barebones and unfinished. /shrug

Nothing's changed since Gen 8's criticism, then. At least this site isn't crying "review bombing" now.

Yep. Clearly a lack of giving a ***** because they know the good little sheep will pay up even knowing it's a half-assed unfinished game. Nothing to do with the switch limitations, just the almighty Lord $$$ at play yet again.

@Takoda Theres where you are wrong though. In a few days NL will report about how Pokemon is #1 and #2 in sales. Another few weeks to see the huge amount of sales they made. What exactly is going to give them motivation to change and do better? Nothing. Nothing at all.

@Uncle_Franklin,

I think this game does have more issues, but honestly I do not find them game breaking personally.

As for being obsessed with graphics and frame rates, I never said that was a bad thing, I just stated it was a more niche interest.

@somnambulance,

It was always going to be released to cash in on the busy Holiday period, but yes they could have waited.

The Pokémon Company sets the schedule. They probably have set out the stall for the next 2 years at least with anime, movies, trading cards, merch, clothing etc. No way would they even consider delaying Scarlet and Violet because of the impact it would have on that. Game Freak are constrained to a very tight timeline with no room to manoeuvre. It's not the same as other developers who can delay as much as they like until they are happy with the final product. Not saying that they were right to release the games as they are. TPCi need to re-evaluate their business model.

@tedinthepaint,

It's a tough one because you do not know the satisfaction levels on people who are not vocal about it, so all we are really getting is a portion of the core fans. Of course others could have issues as well, but by the same token they may not even be bothered.

But I do agree the game should be running better, and hope a patch comes pretty soon.

@SteamEngenius Well, after I send in the refund request to Nintendo Europe, I got this response:

ENGLISH

This is an automated response.

Due to the extremely high number of people reaching out to us currently, it takes us longer than usual to respond to your email. For updates, please do not create a separate email thread; simply reply to this email.
We will answer you as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience.

So there is some hope yet, that people (at least here in Europe where it's possible) vote with their wallets and try to refund the game (at least those that purchased digital). That at least will hopefully sent a clear signal to Nintendo Japan and Game Freak. /fingers crossed

What is more infuriating though, is the total lack of response from either Game Freak or Nintendo. As the first critical reviews and complaints went up 5 days ago.

"TPCi is NOT giving Game Freak the necessary support"
I think that quote couldn't be more wrong even if it wanted to.

Sure, TPCi sets the schedule, but this ain't GameFreak's first launch on Switch, and when both SwSh and PLA run better than this you know Gamefreak just did the laziest job possible and called it a day.

Unfortunately I agree with this. I know they wanted to get it out before the holidays, but I really think it would've been worth it to just push the release date forward for the sake of fixing these visuals. On the other hand I'm very much enjoying the game asides from all that. Being able to play around with wild Pokémon makes me feel all the more attached to them, I've made a best friend out of a makuhita, I love her dearly 😅

reason why im holding off playing it till these issues gets fixed so right now im focusing on beating xenoblade 3 and other backlog games.

Joking apart guys, if you think the meltdown on this comment section is bad, just wait for the inevitable "Pokemon sells 3-5 million copies in just three days" article.

@liljmoore If Kirby released a buggy game, there is little I could do to convince my son that he should pick something else. I imagine Pokemon games are similar for a lot of people.

Honestly I prefer quantity over quality

@CielloArc In fairness to Game Freak, S/V are much more ambitious than Sw/Sh and arguably PLA too. Goes without saying for Sw/Sh but they’re doing a lot more than PLA too with a mostly seamless open world and multiple paths versus a linear story and gameplay loop that stays pretty constant throughout in PLA. I actually feel from playing it that it’s far from lazy, there’s a lot of passion that’s gone into it and as a first blush at a proper open world Pokémon it’s impressive what’s here given the time they had to make it. It’s just obvious in so many ways that they had to rush it.

That said, Game Freak make up a third of TPC so these issues are as much their fault as anything else, I really doubt Nintendo and Creatures are outvoting them and forcing them to make all these games themselves with such strict deadlines (certainly not Nintendo at least considering how much time they allow their own devs for games as long as they result in quality). All parties surely want these regular releases but I don’t doubt that Game Freak could have opted to bring in more studios to work on other games to allow themselves more time for their own games long ago but for whatever reason have chosen not to (they got ILCA for BDSP but still spread themselves across two big games so not really fixing the issues). Maybe it’s just them making a lot more money from doing them all in house, maybe they just don’t care about the overall quality and are happy to just churn them out. Whatever it is I’d bet they have a say in how they want these games to be made and they’re choosing to do the lions share of them at the behest of quality since they’ll sell stupid amounts regardless

@Drmarioland Pokemon has displayed technical incompetence since the beginning, this is just a new low.

Pokemon fanboys have the lowest standards in gaming you all accept mediocrity

@Savage_Joe nintendo will get them to get them to fix those issues one way or another.

@Seacliff I don't think that's a fair assessment. Pokemon took a harsh technical nosedive when they started doing DS games. Gameboy and GBA games ran just fine.

@Jeronan I got refund requests faster by calling Nintendo directly. Don't know if that's available in EU, but worth a shot.

The harsh reality is that while pokemon may be the highest grossing media franchise in the world, gamefreak is not. They caught the biggest lightning in a bottle with gen 1 and as the years have gone on they have proven time and time again to not be the most competent studio in the business. They're a AA studio making AAA games, and it's clear the pokemon company gives GF the bare minimum to work with anyway.

It's a merch first game second situation. It also doesn't help that GF only has around...160 employees? They need to hire some more talent. Still enjoying the game technical issues aside. Skyrim is one of the buggiest unpolished games ever (as all bethesda products are) and it's one of the most universally acclaimed games ever made.

They can afford a 1000 person team they want small budget big profits. It's been this way since sun and moon.

So disappointed. A friend and I bought the opposite version like we always do, got about 8 hours in, and for the first time decided to shelve the game because it just runs so terribly on our Switches and has numerous bugs. And we're casual players. Crossing my fingers for a performance update or something. Just a shame.

So, how much more money does Pokemon make versus a niche JPRG like Xenoblade?

@BloodyMurder Sword & Shield sold well over 20 million copies compared to Xenoblade 2's ~2 million, I'm sure I don't need to run the calculations for you to prove it's approximately a buttload more 😅

Edit: over 24 million, actually. Enough that the games ought not to release in an alpha state 🤦🏼‍♂️

@Savage_Joe Agree with gen 3 being the most stable. I’ve played every gen and when gen 3 was released the “too much water” crowd had their say but that was probably the biggest niggle about those games. This day and age, pokemon games should surely be a crisp, bug-free polished production due to GF having eons to improve pokemon games as they go. But sadly no. I am enjoying Scarlet, but geez, the framerate (which usually I din’t care about), freezes and chopping is definitely affecting my immersion this gen.

@BloodyMurder Even spin offs like Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee sold over 14 million, 7 times Xenoblade 2…add on top merch, films/anime etcetera…

If mainline Pokemon games started selling as much as Xenoblade games do they’d probably not consider them worth making

@larryisaman I was gonna say Gamefreak wouldn't bother even making a game if it was only gonna sell 2 million copies but then I remembered that bucket of dren they released a few years ago... Little Town Hero was it? Well anyway that sold nothing and they still poached their top developers from Sword & Shield in order to get that crud out of the gate 🤷🏼‍♂️

@Axecon
The devs know the Switch well enough to know what it’s capable of and the engine is likely too ambitious. We’ve seen this too often in the last two console gens with major day1 flops like Fallout76, ME4, Ark, CP2077. Sometimes devs stick with them and games that were unacceptable tech wise are cleaned up and eventually are playable. I like what M$ has done with XBSX as many last gen games got a 60fps boost and between that and boosted cpu and load times its made some games great. Their are generally options for making x86 games run better either with higher end console versions or a beast PC. With Nintendo the options aren’t as great because if it does’t run well on Switch your stuck. Nintendo really should step in and demand a better product from the PokeCo as Pokemon is synonymous with Nintendo and GF putting out subpar products reflects badly on N. Looking at all the great ports and 1st party releases on Switch there is no excuse to put out a technically gimped game.

@Otoemetry Still have their passion projects I guess…don’t really know what happened to their non-Pokemon games though, they used to make some real gems like Drill Dozer and Tembo. The latest they’ve done is…Giga Wrecker and Little Town Hero? Woof…

To all those who didn’t buy this game because it looks like crap congratulations, to all those who bought this game and are happy with it and don’t care about graphics etc bravo, but to all those who have blindly bought this game and are not happy with it then you are part of the problem cause by giving your money and boosting the sales numbers you are telling Nintendo continue to give us crap anyway we will buy it, so next time before buying wait and see if the game meets your expectations because Nintendo don’t listen to you if you just tell them the game is crap after you bought it but if they don’t sell enough games they will listen and try harder next time.

@Bayjax : They absolutely MUST add an audio cue whenever a shiny spawns in. I was fortunate enough to notice a shiny Magikarp and successfully capture it (though I easily could have mistaken it for one of the many Psyduck in the stream), but the game often looks so muddy, and many Pokémon are so ridiculously small (and I'm playing on the larger OLED model) that I'm sure that many will be missed (if they haven't already).

Hell, I wouldn't have caught anywhere near as any shinies in Legends Arceus had it not been for that audio cue, and especially so for Pokémon whose shinies are so subtle to the point of being virtually indistinguishable to their normal forms.

And if nothing else, they could have had them continuously sparkle like they did in Let's Go, but given how laggy the game is already, a single audio cue when they spawn in is probably best.

Like, the game is playable, I’m actively playing it and actually really enjoying trying to “catch ‘’em all” and I honestly do not feel like I’m just going through the motions like I did in sword/shield.
However, I’ll be damned if I didn’t clinch just a bit every time something halts or skips a frame here and there, thinking my game is going to lock up. It happens A LOT. And the textures are horrid and the stuttering animations…. Yikes… It’s all very jarring and without a doubt the absolute best example of “unfinished” or “unoptimized” I can think of. I considered returning it out of principle and not supporting this behavior but I’m really banking on them fixing this up over time. They have to, right? Like how can you even “show your face” again after this.
It’s a real shame because there are so many QOL things added that make this worth playing though.
So… I’ll shut my mouth and keep playing and just hoping they fix this up with patches over time and hoping I doesn’t lock up on me.

We shall see…

@Savage_Joe Glitches? I thought we are talking about 3D performance. As far as the most playable without inconveniences, the GB/GBA/GBC games are the best. They've clearly been burnt out on the series for at least 12-15 years.

I’ve been a Pokémon fan for quite a long time at this point, and I was initially very worried when Scarlet and Violet were announced. As more trailers came out I became more confident that the games would be great, but after hearing people’s reactions, I am simply disappointed. I’ve gotten every main Pokémon game at launch for a long time now, but I don’t know if I can do it for this one. Until they fix the technical issues, I’m either going to skip it, or buy a used copy because I do not support this blatant laziness. It’s ok for people to like these games, but to defend these issues is blind and ridiculous. I wish Gamefreak cared about the series the way that Nintendo cares about 3D Mario and Zelda games. It’s just unfortunate all around.

I wanted to get this game but now it's at the very least going on the backburner after hearing the complaints. I'm not one of those people who will just inevitably buy it either. I haven't bothered with Sword and Shield or BDSP, all my Pokémon are still on the 3DS.

@strollin_stu That is a really good point, with companies or sites having multiple reviewers its almost inevitable that some will contradict each other.

@iLikeUrAttitude,

Totally agree, and even more evidence that all reviews, good or bad, are based on very subjective personal points of view.

At the end of the day on any game. only one opinion should really matter, and that's your own.

Sometimes I wonder if the Switch really isn't all that powerful, then I remember one of it's main launch titles was Breath of the Wild, which is graphically stunning and a massive game overall.

There REALLY has been an issue with the technical side of GameFreak games since the jump to 3D. Game Boy entries were very, very solid in terms of graphics and performance, even impressive. But with the DS something went wrong. Diamond and Pearl looked like a GBA game, period. With Black and White they kind of managed to incorporate 3D backgrounds - when we already had full-3D Zeldas, Dragon Quest IX, Okamiden, Dementium. They reached this level only with Pokemon X and Y, for Pete's sake - which was a 3DS game that looked like totally like a DS game. They never actually cought up, their 3DS engine was very questionable. On Switch we do have outstanding open-world games, from Breath of the Wild to Xenoblade Chronicles 2-3. It's really a matter of hiring better technical specialists.

I honestly don't understand the business model of the Pokémon company and game freak. It would make so much more sense to just concentrate on getting the main line series correct rather bugger about with other games like Arceus and Snap. They are trying to spin too many plates at once and the overall quality is suffering.

If Pokémon want to go all open world then they need to get the baseline right with one game no matter how long it takes, delay it till its near perfect if needs be. Then they can repackage the same engine over and over again till the new hardware comes out. Follow the same process as games like FIFA and call of duty.

Stop giving us these half assed evolutions and just get it right first time. S/s should have been what s/v is trying to be and all of the improvements Arceus made to the format should also be included.

Stop feeding us piecemeal and just get on with it.

It's really not a hardware limitation and it's also not a "lazy dev" situation. This game was rushed out to meet an unnecessary deadline. It's that simple.

Another year and most of the glitches could be ironed out. But also the disappointing gameplay they have could have been fixed too. And for me, those are the real issues with this game. Say what you like about Sw/Sh but they had heart, character and the gym battles had atmosphere. It's all lacking in S/V. And some of the new Pokemon, and I say this as a Klefki fan, are just first pass throw an idea/design at the wall and put it in. And now the 1000th Pokemon is the Cheese Strings man dipped in gold...

Put it back in the oven, its not done yet.

I'm enjoying the game, but the bugs do take me out of it. One thing i've been thinking about is the graphical style, Arceus, BOTW, and a lot of the games listed above have more....stylistic cartoony worlds. Can't help but to think if they had gone more that direction instead of the more realistic tone that folks wanted if some of these issues would have been less noticeable. Haven't we always said cel-shaded games age better?

@somnambulance,

Yes I totally agree with you, a patch will calm things down a bit, although in reality how much of a fuss is there about all this in the first place.

I truly enjoyed PLA. So much so that it actually reignited my love towards the franchise and made me purchase Diamond and Sword. Yes I purchased those two after PLA. Because PLA worked so well with their Open World, I had high hopes with SV when I heard they'll be integrating what they learned from PLA to the game. Yet here we are with one of the ugliest, broken Pokemon games on Switch. Removing customization, ugly battle, ugly effect, removing quick capture. It's like the game just moves backward. Frankly, I'm done with these people. SV will be my last Pokemon game ever, it was a mistake to trust them again. They have turned to EA and this is their FIFA. Garbage.

Game Freak were never that good when it comes to making huge open world 3D game. Nintendo and the Pokemon Company seriously need to give the series to a better dev, perhaps maybe Monolith Soft, Camelot, or even HAL Laboratory. Game Freak should just stick to making indie games.

I’m really enjoying the game so far; it’s a breath of fresh air to the overplayed Pokemon formula.

But I will say that it runs like complete dog crap. Sometimes I feel like the FPS is in the teens. The aliasing solution is nonexistent; the edges of objects look like a PS2 era game. I haven’t ran into any crazy bugs so far, but considering the poor presentation and lack of general polish I’m sure I’ll encounter them soon enough.

Ahhh pokemon fans (not all Pokemon fans those vocal ones). Oh no this amazing pokemon game that revolutionizes the franchise, with amazing pokemon, awesome gameplay, and an actual heart warming and engaging story has some technical issue so it is RUINED!!!

Like geeez! People are acting like a bit of slowdown and the odd technical hickup is the same as Aliens Colonial Marines or Cyberpunk 2077. These issues will get patched in a month and smoothed out. The game is great, relax a bit. I get it "Pokemon is the biggest multimedia franchise" we get it! But, the game is terrific despite the issues. Some amazing genre defining games were released with some bugs like Fallout New Vegas or Skyrim, and most of those bugs got patched. Just take some deep breaths go touch some grass and maybe just wait a month if these very minor issues are bothering you this much.

@Wexter
The game frequently drops below 30fps even at the best of times and at its worse can drop to single digits, the game is rife with both minor and major technical issues and bugs including a data leak which needs a reset to fix.

It is fine for people to enjoy a game despite the technical issues (like with @OrtadragoonX s comment) its even fine to enjoy the game and not be bothered by the issues , its just when you get people who just dismiss others criticism of the game as whining that it becomes an issue.

@Mgalens Not dismissing (the dude did not even play the game), but if someone played the game and could not get past the issues and want to play after a patch. Or the game just did not click with them. It has happened to me before.

I just dislike the bandwagon jumpers who are acting like this is the second coming of Aliens Colonial Marines and did not even play the damn thing.

I'm also being hyper sarcastic which may not translate because this has been the same song and dance since Pokemon Gen 4. Hence the meme "no one hates Pokemon then Pokemon fans"

@Wexter
To be fair the bugs and performance is something you can tell from watching it and if someone saw the framerate and it turned them off playing i could understand that.

a lot of the bugs in this games case were encountered just by people casually playing the game, i know i ran into the data leak issue where the performance got so bad that even walking around the game world felt bad but even when it was running normally there were frequent frame-drops and other performance issues.

i can definitely understand why people would be annoyed at the condition the game was released in, even during previews when performance issues were brought up you had people dismissing it due to it being an "earlier build" (despite it being a preview build close to launch) and even some acting like the sites which mentioned them were somehow biased against the game.

at the very least the negative PR has been largely focused on the performance and technical issues and to be fair, im fine that there has been at least some pushback against the state the game launched in.

@Mgalens A lot of them are bandwagoners you have to admit. The bugs I've encountered are not even unique to this game. The PR pushback I find a bit artificial if you don't mind me using the term. That and the odds are most of the bugs will be patched out.

I can agree the game is a bit undercooked, but I think most of the "criticism" is reactionary. Where were some of these people when Dragon Age Inquisition won GOTY over Bayonetta 2 one of the most smoothly polished games of the last gen? For the record, I did love that game to bits.

@Wexter
It can be harder to gauge performance in DA since it was released for a variety of different platforms but with pokemon the framerate wasn't particularly high even when indoors let alone if the data leak bug is encountered, even without it you see objects running at a much lower framerate, there's the cutscene early on in the classroom with the other NPCs running at what looks like single digit framerates, its not even like they're distant background characters, the game lingers on them, its like something out of YIIK

Though it is not uncommon to see janky aspects from other games also get the spotlight, with such legends as the lightning returns low-poly dog or the endwalker grapes (though to endwalkers defence this was an MMO using the same engine since 2013)

for me i am hoping it gets a major patch, if the game was able to keep a consistent framerate with a lot of the jank ironed out i would really enjoy it.

@Mgalens That's cool! As I said my only issue has to do with people dismissing people who actually played it as "fanboys" because they highly enjoyed it despite the issues and dismissing the idea of a "patch ever coming out." I'm almost expecting one to tackle a lot of the jank. Not sure about performance as this seems to be exclusive to docked play. I'm in a large area right now swinging the camera around like a crazed monkey without a single frame drop in handheld mode. The performance is very inconsistent in that regard.

Maybe I'm just getting old and don't care anymore. I remember in my younger years dismissing some amazing games due to "looking bad"... I really regret missing out on NIER.

@Wexter
Were the people saying this saying it to people who were just enjoying the game or to those who were dismissing criticism as whining, since there are often times on social media when people interpret those critical of something as that "stop having fun" strawman (that comic often gets trotted out on twitter, it also was during the launch of arceus)

If someone is called a "shill" or "fanboy" for enjoying the game then that is also a similar problem to those who are calling those criticising the game as "whiners"

In terms of my experience with performance i was playing it handheld on an OG switch, outside of the players house i was encountering frame drops when turning the camera towards the manor in the distance, got a few in the forest again when moving the camera but when i got near the first town things started going south fast which seems to be the "data leak" mentioned earlier, From what i gather the game also seems to be rendering the open world as one large area rather than in "chunks" like quite a few other open world games do (when people fell through the game world you could see far into the distance above.)

@Wexter
really though i would say that a lot of things can fall into the usual issue with online discussion, in that the way social media works robs anything of its nuance.

i imagine many people have been called either a "fanboy" or a "hater" when it comes to discussions (or even both)

@Mgalens While I can agree to disagree about how bad the bugs are, I can agree that better optimization is in order and the lack of nuance. I think my personal experience of just letting go and enjoying the experience could have me a bit more biased in favour of what a game is trying to do, v. odd technical hiccups.

Solid discussion. Sorry if my initial post was poorly communicated sarcasm.

@Wexter
To me when its a game or series i enjoy it can either go 2 ways, either my enjoyment of said game/franchise will make the flaws seem less apparent or i will end up noticing them even harder, sadly in this case it ended up the latter.

(also was nice to be able to discuss this)

I agree with that comment but why is the resting option’s so fixed and why is game freak not updating it more frequently m8te I need to have no glitches in this game so I can get through these level’s & earn more poke $’s

@NCChris

I don't understand how my take is narrow-minded when you said the same thing. The two reviews were from different people with different minds. Hence the reviews should not be compared and held in the same light since they are done under other people. I would love an explanation of why my take was narrow-minded so I may see what I can change, but for now, I have no idea what you mean.