Round Up: The Reviews Are In For Pokémon Scarlet And Violet

Even with the bad reviews, I’m sure when I get it I will enjoy the game anyway, as long as it’s fun I don’t care really.

I don't care for these reviews too much as it is the usual gripes. Violet arrives tomo and I will judge myself but am confident it will be fun

"we couldn't help but feel a little let down by some sizeable performance issues."

A little let down? Wouldn't that only knock a point off?
While it probably isn't a 10, by the sounds of things it could well have been a 9, so how do you justify knocking 2 points off?
What would the score be if it didn't have the performance issue's?

It's almost like pokemon wasn't designed to be a yearly franchise

I love me some jank in games, it makes them feel like games to me.

@RupeeClock lmao if you think Game Freak has optimized Pokemon "to the best of their ability". They're simply not given enough time to do that as Nintendo keeps pushing for yearly releases.

@Fizza To bring up another game, BOTW even has jank, you can fly by doing a dance on a barrel while singing Danny Boy.

I can't stand sites that don't give a score. Just... give a score. I stopped going to Polygon for that very reason

@RupeeClock
I actually disagree here. For what the switch is, you fully expect issues or lacking in graphics, it is after all a handheld that isn't young, which I do feel is often getting lost, especially in recent times.

Considering a couple of the miracle ports we have recently had though, there is evidently still life in the machine.

Let's also consider the jump from sun & moon on 3ds to sw&sh on switch, it wasn't exactly extravagant despite the hardware improvement, so what really makes you think it would be different with a switch 2?

While yes a more powerful machine would in theory solve issues, it doesn't necessarily. Many games can end up performing poorly on much better hardware.

@RupeeClock I would be so happy if they just let Game Freak make the product they actually want to make. But Nintendo knows that it'll sell 15 million copies regardless. Blergh.

The Pokemon community right now:

@Snatcher Up vote, but that should not excuse performance issues. Sure, great it's fun for many people anyway, but these particular performance issues look extreme from footage of people who played it, so if I end up having fun overall as well (hope so), I agree, but I do care about issues at the same time.

I'm assuming I can trust all the footage I've seen, though. They say it's the physical game and not a ROM, so probably.

@MarioFan432 Definitely not, I would love it if the graphics got a better treatment, and it should be better, they have at least two mainline games. I’m glad it can at least be fun, instead of it having performance and graphical issues, and not being fun to play, and I’m sure the music will be great as well.

And I agree, they should be able to do better, they can do better.

Love the delusional love and preordered denial in the comments meanwhile the emperor has no clothes still, which is rude given the price of the game and game freaks resources. I love Pokémon but I hate new industry model based on lazy unfinished effort and hype merchandizing.

@Snatcher Yeah I agree with you on all of this. I think they should put more effort in graphics and performance forwards, but not instead of gameplay or anything.

It's just, this game is a really good case as to why they should.

Also, I don't mean that you may enjoy it less than you think or anything discouraging like that, I don't know at all and can't say either way and don't want to say either, that's up to you when you play it. I'm guessing I probably will have fun with the game myself (hopefully!), but I just mean their graphics with performance should still be good even if it's a lot of fun.

Music should be good. Am sure the music will be good, or expecting so. Seems good from what I saw so far.

The Switch hardware is not an excuse for a 2022 game that looks and runs worse than a PS2 game. Xeno series, SMTV, Astral Chain and a tons of games look amazing and run acceptably. Ports like the latest Persona 5r are incredible (for what the Switch is). PKMN devs are just incompetent.

@MarioFan432 I didn’t think you were discouraging at all, it’s vary reasonable to expect better graphics from a 2022 game, especially when there are examples of the switch running much better then this.

You've pointed to a number of reviews that give new details about gameplay without spoiling a ton of the story. I'm trying to avoid story and new 'mon spoilers, so to get new details like this is excellent! Thanks for the roundup!

Could the performance issues be fixed with updates though?
Imagine having an open world Pokemon game running on something as powerful as the PS5 😍 although it's Nintendo so a console that powerful will probably be in 15 years.

@Snatcher Alright that's good.

But yeah, why can't we have both? I feel that too, or I think so. I do accept the Switch really has hardware limits, we know that, but something else feels off in some ways. I'm not convinced this case is just Switch hardware.

Hoping Pokemon Scarlet & Pokemon Violet has a good case for them to take performance and graphics more seriously, they don't have to sacrifice gameplay for it or anything, so yeah.

Surely the 'it's not hyperbole' comment from The Guardian is hyperbole.

@NinjaNicky The very first mainline Pokemon games came out at the time the N64 launch, guess which console it was release for. Nintendo and Game Freak never meant for Pokemon to be a triple a franchise, more so as a money making virtual pet collect-a-thon.

@Kermit1Pineapple That's a pretty interesting perspective, actually. One I'm not sure I agree with completely, but it's still a good point.

@MarioFan432 I hope so too, I don’t know what needs to change to get gamefreak to up there game, but it needs to happen soon. Oh yeah, losing money.

Has nothing to do with the HW lol. There are better/more ambitious Switch games that looks/run better then this game.

People need to stop blaming the hardware for what is clearly on the developers. People just want new hardware and so they are using this as their platform.

If Game Freak had the Series X to work with, they would still put out a subpar game and you all know it.

This is not a Nintendo issue either. Its between TPC/I and Game Freak. Nintendo pretty much only handle the marketing and distribution for Pokemon games. So yes, it's in their interest for it to not be bad or a mess but they don't actually get to enforce anything.

The above comments are entirely correct: the issues originate with The Pokémon Company and Game Freak, not some perceived fault of Nintendo hardware (the Nintendo Switch literally runs Crysis - no one can reasonably think the hardware is what is responsible for such shockingly low quality Pokémon entries). This would be a groundbreaking series if it were broken free from the merchandising-first philosophy of the Pokémon Company/Game Freak and were developed and promoted in-house by Nintendo itself or practically any other studio.

TPC's inability to deviate even slightly from what they've been doing since the early 2000s is harming both the Pokémon IP and Nintendo's reputation now that justifiably upset fans are wrongly laying the blame for The Pokémon Company's annual software slop on Nintendo hardware specs rather than the myriad of true issues plaguing the series.

Unrealistic conveyor belt release schedules long antiquated by the increasingly demanding scope of modern game development; understaffing/incompetent hires/turnover at Game Freak; expectations of (empty) open world game releases with short by industry standard turnaround; poor gameplay design with a consistent development focus on cynical merchandising opportunities disguised as gameplay gimmicks that are forgotten by creator and end user as quickly as they are introduced ("Z-Crystals?" "Curry Dex?" "Dynamaxing?" "Teracrystalization?" Sandwich-making? Maybe the next game can feature a paint-drying feature); poorly-considered millions spent on promotions like original Pokémon-themed songs by Ed Sheeran, Katy Perry, and "Toby Fox," all of which cater to net zero of the IP's fanbase and do little to win back the quickly waning trust longtime consumers have in this slowly dying series. The list grows daily.

There needs to be a fundamental software-first change in how all Pokémon products are developed, despite corporate opinion to the contrary at TPC. Pokémon must be a video game series first and foremost - not a globoconglomerate merchandising brand with an annual after-thought software release pumped out for cynical, short-sighted "who cares, it will sell" reasons. There are too many high quality software experiences being made today by teams with far fewer resources - passion and time must be put into these titles, and these corporate project milestones have been getting neither for more than a decade.

I warn everyone to watch some videos of this game before purchasing, the jank is STRONG in this one.

I'm glad that Pokemon is finally getting the scores that it deserves.

@Bret Nintendo have consistently shown they are happy and even push for delays if a product isn't at the quality they want, and after playing Violet, it definitely doesn't feel like Nintendo's stamp of approval. I have had moments early on where all the textures just became flat colours and super ugly, or a shadow of a cloud will be passing over me that disappears when a character talks to me, so the lighting goes dark to light abruptly. Nintendo, have little say over the Pokemon franchise, they have equal shares in the Pokemon Company who is also owned by Creatures and Game Freak and sets the product release windows etc. Don't blame Nintendo when Game Freak has consistently been bad at programming and optimising since nearly every release of their titles. Game Freak has a massive turn over of staff, they have trouble keeping senior talent which is disguised as "We like to give young people employment", but I think in reality a lot of senior talent butt heads with the likes of Junichi Masuda. So this comes at a cost of poorly coded and optimised games. This has always very much been a Game Freak problem. We need to stop shifting blame. I enjoy Pokemon, but the games would be so much better if they listened to fan feedback, rather than crying in a corner when a game is criticised and then ignoring that criticism, and if they stop setting themselves unrealistic goals.

If Game Freak isn't up to the task of making an open world game in the time frame that has been set, maybe they should be making a more linear Pokemon game.

They are trying to box above their weight class.

@Aerona Pokemon Sword&Shield launched 3 years ago.

BDSP last year was a remake and was outsourced, while Legend Arceus was a spin-off made by a different/new dev team.

So they had three years for this next mainline game. They shouldn't have gone fully open world and sticked to the Sword/Shield mixed linear/open world concept and improve on that instead.

People can say a lot about Sword/Shield, but I loved that game to bits and it had a beautiful crafted game world! Unlike this shocking piece of garbage that is called Scarlet/Violet, which looks like the game world has been created by amateurs new to game world design. /facepalm

@Jeronan I think we all know why they never strayed from handhelds until they had no choice. They aren't up to the task of console development.

@Crono1973 Well they weren't any real good on handhelds either to be honest.

Developers like LEVEL5 wiped the floor with them back in the 3DS days.
The production quality of the Yokai-Watch games was insane. The difference between Yokai-watch and Pokemon games is shocking.

I played the crap out of the Yo-kai Watch games on my Nintendo 3DS. They are by far the best looking games on the 3DS with butter smooth performance!

Game Freak can learn a thing or two from LEVEL5. /Shrug

@Jeronan Level 5 made the fantastic Dragon Quest 8. They are....5 Levels (LOL) ahead of Game Freak.

@Rosona If you knock a point off an 8 out of 10 game you get a 7 out of 10 game.

The idea that review scores are generated by giving every game 10 out of 10 then docking marks for perceived flaws is completely baffling to me. If that were the case, apps like ‘Clock’ works get the perfect score for simply being a clock and should sit above sit above more ambitious titles like Mario Odyssey and BotW at the top of ‘must-play’ rankings.

@Flint I'm so glad to see a comment like this. You really hit the nail on the head and worded all my problems with these games perfectly. It's so tiring to see comments just mindlessly fawning love on this hundred Billion dollar franchise. I used to be a big pokemon fan but I just found swsh insulting, especially with all the innovation going on in other franchises. Certainly expectations are high now, but it's not like game freak doesn't have the money behind them to compete. Frankly though, with so many people proudly proclaiming that they'll shell out $60 every year just because it says pokémon on the box, I don't know if they have any impetus.

maybe pokemon just isn't as great as the fans and trailers hype it up to be

@KBuckley27 It's a game that was never meant to be open world, IMO. When companies try to change genres (I think open world is a different genre than a linear JRPG) they often end up making the franchise worse.

The game seems fun, it's just a shame about the performance issues, especially compared to more graphically detailed games like Xenoblade Chronicles 3 running fine on the hardware. GF/TPC got to stop rushing these games.

@Crono1973 while I generally agree that this culture of forcing an open-world into every game just because BotW did it has been detrimental, I think it's been done well in plenty of JRPGs. Just look at xenoblade.

@wolfsniffer Hasn't Xenoblade Chronicles always been open world?

As an example (an unpopular one, I know) the Zelda franchise decided to the 'dungeons in any order' think with A Link Between Worlds but at what cost? Gone was getting new tools in every dungeon to help you progress a little farther in the overworld. In fact, they had to make all the tools available early on to accommodate for that design choice.

So can all agree on the fact that new hardware is needed? Think logically. Not with your pockets.

@Tendogamerxxx No, Game Freak needs to get better at building games. The only thing better hardware would do is power through the poor optimization. That's cheating.

"It’s not hyperbole to say that Scarlet/Violet is one of the worst-looking – and running – games I’ve ever played."

This is a person who clearly has not played many video games. Not surprising since the source is THE GUARDIAN (!?).

@strollin_stu Yes and No.

Yes, Sword/Shield brought new things to the table with the open wild areas and Raid battles.
The game was fun, well designed and beautiful gameworld. The two DLC’s were the icing on the cake. Enjoyed the game immensely.

No, Scarlet/Violet is a boring/bland looking mess, plagued by bad design, bugs and bad performance.
Open world design was clearly a step too far for Game Freak. They clearly lack the expertise and know-how to do it correctly.

They should have instead continued on the hybrid linear/open wild area concept of Sword/Shield and expanded/improved on that.

I remember when a tree was a green square and not a black square, so I guess the player had to use there imagination more then.
It seems to me that now we talk too much about performance and not enough about the other stuff.

@Tendogamerxxx though a new Switch is way overdue, these SV performance issues are entirely GF’s fault. They don’t know how to make an open world game where the Switch doesn’t need to render the entire world and make it fit to some meager 3.5gb ram. That is the reason that the graphics are horrendous, and the performance tanks; the game is making the switch render every asset at the same time. Other open world games create a somewhat fake horizon with very economic assets while the real assets are rendered close to the protagonist, hugely lowering the ram requirements.

The time has come:

a) Take longer to develop the mainline games and do it properly.
Spin offs (often made by other studios) between main releases can still be cash cows.

b) Swallow pride and bring in Monolith Soft to help create an open world. Come on now.

c) Stick to one gimmick and give it a proper chance, rather than changing every game.
We don't need this crystal bollocks

@FishyS LOL!

I will obviously reserve full judgement until I play the game, but for a number of years now I've seen a pattern with Pokemon games that just doesn't make sense to me: people looking for great visuals (and performance-related visuals) as part of the experience. For me, that is simply not a factor. I don't play Pokemon games for that kind of thing. Would it be better if the games looked great and ran smooth?? OF COURSE. But, a sundae without a cherry on top is still delicious. That's just my opinion — others are allowed to feel differently. shrug

I’ve seen all I need to this game will not be getting a buy from me anytime soon. Maybe if it ever gets a patch, but it looks absolutely like hot garbage in its current state. Unacceptable for this giant franchise.

another review of the game https://youtu.be/X1z7uw-Z8Eo

The game is fun, but yeah it certainly isn't running well.
It's full of bugs and frame drops right from the start.

Heck just exploring your house at the very start of the game I stumbled upon 2 camera bugs that resulted in a temporary black screen. (I believe one was triggered by interacting with a drawer in the hallway), And the camera can be very buggy at times in battles too. And that's with the day one patch.. That is unacceptable..

Sometimes I notice that the world was flashing black or white. And while riding your Pokemon the LOD of meshes like hills seems to warp in a really strange way. Sort of reminds me of the PS1.

The pop-in is probably the worst I have seen in years. Sometimes I encountered invisible Pokemon because their models didn't load in time.

Other than all the technical problems I feel like the work feels sort of empty. Like there's quite a few villages and towns. However, after you've been to one once, I don't really see any reason in the post game to return to them. It's more like decoration around a gym and a few shops.

Previous games at least tried to reward you for talking with NPC's and allowed you to enter buildings. In this game it feels like most NPC's won't even talk with you. And most of the buildings you can't even enter. Why?

Anyway, other than those complaints, I do like the freedom of traversing the world and completing the Pokédex is pretty fun.

I hope they put a team on fixing all the bugs and improving the performance of this game. That should be their priority number one right now. And then they can give us a free expansion.
Otherwise I will be disappointed forever about this entry in the franchise.

Yes, Legends Arceus runs better and is less buggy than this.

They should give up on mainline 3D, go HD-2D like Octopath.

I've just started playing it this morning, and even after reading all the reviews about poor performance, I'm actually shocked this game has been released like this.

So Doom eternal out preforms a Pokemon game in smoothness ? Craziness

I just wish we as gamers were a bit better and actually try to boycott this game and not buy it!

This would actually force Nintendo and Game Freak to come out with an explanation about the current state of the game and what they going to do about it.

If people just keep ignoring it and buy the game in the millions, you just basically give Nintendo and Game Freak the greenlight and let them get away with this.
Why would Nintendo and Game Freak actually care and do anything about it, when the millions in profit just keep rolling in, because people just keep blindly buying the games. No matter the state its in. /shrug

At least I hope the fans are going to be just as vocal/angry now as they were with "Dexit-gate" back with Sword/Shield.

@Rosona Miracle ports? You mean lowered graphical fidelity for the sake of cramming a game onto outdated hardware?

The amount of bots here saying they’re buying it regardless means GF isn’t going to learn their lesson.

@Rosona the performance issues are bordering on severe. There's the whole thing, frame rate stutters, pop in, invisible pokemon, frame rate drops at the end of literally every cutscenes, low res textures, textures that don't load. It's not like it drops occasionally. It's genuinely bad

@RupeeClock it's partly on the developer. It's been clear from this year that the switch is totally maxed out. However, when you have this, which honestly barely runs, and you have xbc3 , which has a much denser and curated map (and indoor areas, which for some reason these games just put everything in menus) the difference is stark. Like ,there needs to be a switch 2, but this feels like incompetence in working within what the switch can do like bayo 3 and xbc 3 run smooth enough despite some drops where violet and scarlet have invisible pokemon, ridiculous pop in, and a flickering day night cycle on top of consistent frame drops. The game WILL stutter at the end of every cutscene

@Crono1973 Well, level design for open world games has really taken a hit because the switch's low power. Even bayo 3 feels a little sparse. Like people say graphics don't matter don't understand that hardware really limits what kind of games can be made. All the switch open world games just feel barren. These games are particularly bad about that. At least with xbc 3 there were enough roadblocks and verticality that it felt like an actual world. Pokemon it's just different colored fields so far.

@Rosona the performance is frankly an embarrassment. There is no reason this game should have such poor performance especially since it doesn’t look that great. It’s a terrible showing for game freak.

Having played it for a few hours it bewilders me at how badly a performing game this is. The UI is also frustrating in that I felt they made leaps and bounds with Arceus in how you caught Pokémon etc and then threw that all away?! I'll still play it to death but it'll annoy me. It amazes me that a game as poorly performing as this is released.

Well known German Techzine ‚heise online‘ (heise.de) (English at the end):
„Nie zuvor in einem Pokémon war das Gameplay besser und die Technik schlechter.“ — „In puncto Technik ist das neue Pokémon Karmesin und Purpur eine Frechheit. Wir sehen nicht die betagte Hardware der Nintendo Switch als Grund für das gebotene Desaster.“

‚Never before in a Pokémon game the gameplay has been better and the technique has been worse.‘ — ‚In terms of technology, the new Pokémon Scarlet and Violet is a cheek. We don't see the aged hardware of the Nintendo Switch as the reason for the shown disaster.‘

@TanukiTrooper Okay, no. Nintendo has allowed other games to be delayed, but Pokemon has never been. Not once. Nintendo knows how much money it'll make despite its issues. Do you really think Game Freak wanted this game out there with all these issues?