Board 8 > Pokemon Scarlet/Violet Review Zone

(+) Yeah! (+)

ts time forGen 9? I think? Ive lost track. I dropped off of Pokemon hard during the 3DS era and have been looking for reasons to get back into it. I only played like 2 hours of Sword/Shield, but I did complete Lets Go Pikachu on Switch. I got the DP remakes and Arceus, but havent gotten around to starting them. Arceus at least seems like the direction I would want the series to go. Instead we got Scarlet and Violet here taking us back to the old style and its clear that while its a step in the right direction for the mainline franchise, its far too small of a step compared to what Arceus did earlier this year. Not just that though, much like Bayonetta 3 earlier this month it seems were finally past the tipping point of what the Switch can run acceptably and people are becoming less and less tolerant of it, especially with thinks like the Steam Deck out there showing what modern portable consoles are capable of. That leaves us at a 77 through 25 reviews so far! Anyway heres a few snippets from these reviews:

The Enemy 10/10
Pokmon Scarlet & Violet's technical problems and lackluster multiplayer are unable to overshadow its triumphant leap into an open world. Compelling characters, a huge batch of new creatures and an excellent OST help the titles on their mission to renovate the franchise. They celebrate everything that makes Pokmon games endearing: the mysteries, the surprises, the feeling of freedom - and, in doing so, create an experience that's probably the best in the entire main series.

Screen Rant 9/10
Where does this leave Pokmon Scarlet & Violet in the context of the series at large? It's both the best iteration of the franchise and one of its most technically uneven entries. The highs are undoubtedly compelling and noteworthy, while the lows - especially performance ones - feel like they shouldn't be present in a AAA release from a studio and franchise with this much experience. All things considered, Pokmon Scarlet & Violet is a must-play adventure for everyone, even for those who have yet to take the first step on their own Pokmon journey. Time will tell how many of its ideas remain in the following iterations, but Pokmon Scarlet & Violet is a great proof of concept for how the games can evolve, and the future is exceptionally bright for the long-tenured creature collector.

GameSpot 8/10
While undercooked presentation and visual issues hold the games back, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are still the best mainline Pokemon games in years. They build off Pokemon Legends: Arceus's open-ended design in some thoughtful and surprising ways, and retain that same level of depth that the mainline series is known for.

NintendoLife 7/10
There are still plenty more ways wed like to see the Pokmon franchise evolve, but Pokmon Scarlet & Violet has us excited about the series' future. We really hope Game Freak can figure out how to smooth out the series ongoing performance issues on Switch because they'll certainly rub some players the wrong way and theyre going to become a serious detriment over time. Scarlet & Violet is most fun and exciting when you're just exploring the world, and while there are many small new details and improvements to the Pokmon formula, it still plays it safe in a few areas. Regardless, things point toward a promising future for Gen 9 and beyond. Its a smaller step than many may have hoped for, especially considering what Pokmon Legends: Arceus did, but it's definitely one in the right direction.

Nintenduo 6.8/10
Pokmon Scarlet and Violet have failed as open-world games. Its premise with three routes seems original, but it becomes a repetitive task in which some mini-games in the gyms are really boring. Although the Pokmon are better recreated than ever in their wild environments, the overall performance of the game is terrible, affecting the gameplay and giving the impression that we are playing an incomplete game.

Polygon Unrated
At its baseline, its a compelling enough Pokmon game, with stories among the series most memorable. However, as I reflect on Scarlet and Violet, I do find myself thinking back on Pokmon Legends: Arceus more fondly. It had some loose screws of its own, but it tightened so many more, ones that still jostle in Scarlet and Violet. Im hopeful that Arceus is the foundation for the next outing in the series, even if there are lessons to be learned in the open fields of Paldea, as well.

I liked Arceus fine for 2 zones then realized it was going to be the same thing the entire game and dropped it a few minutes into zone 3. A very sharp loss of interest.

After SwSh I don't have much faith in the regular take on these games either, and looks like that may have been the sensible take to have.

Maybe one day Gamefreak will be given a budget that exceeds 4 digits.

This is reviewing worse than Sword/Shield. I was hoping Arceus was an indicator for good things to come but this has seriously deflated any hype I had for a good mainline Pokemon game.

Makes me wonder how badly reviewers are gonna knock down tears of the kingdom if it has frame rate issues and there's no switch pro or switch 2 announced by then

They need to take a break. The success of Arceus indicates that there is a better way for this franchise. It wasnt a GOTY contender or anything but it was a great game with very good reviews to show for it (it also sold like a mainline Pokmon game). This on the other hand is reviewing worse than Sword & Shield, the first gen I missed ever.

You could tell something was wrong when this didnt get any TGA nominations despite being eligible. Arceus did.

TGA is a terrible measurement for quality.

I agree they need to slow down though

ctesjbuvf posted...

TGA is a terrible measurement for quality.

I agree they need to slow down though

TGA is decided by just an assortment of big games press outlets, so its useful as a blunt tool to see what the general thought is. Arceus turning up but S/V not=bad sign for S/Vs reviews. Thats the logic.

Putting the high reviews first bamboozles me and I fall for it every time

Whoa is this really good oh wait no it sucks

Bamboozles for the Foolzles

I never cared much for graphics, really not a graphics whore
I grew up on Nintendo consoles and emulators, and I never had a high-end PC either so I always played games that were not very impressive graphics wise and I didn't care

With that said-
Fuck Pokemon graphics. Seriously. They are not just bad and ugly, they are also damaging the game.
It was the worst in Arceus when I couldn't tell from far if the object I am looking at is a Lost Satchel, a Wooden Log or a Bidoof because they all looked like a yellow rectangle (maybe on TV it looks better but I played on handheld)
And of course the draw distance, flying on Braviary and not seeing certain Pokemon until you are close enough to them. It's bad

SHINE_GET_64 posted...

Makes me wonder how badly reviewers are gonna knock down tears of the kingdom if it has frame rate issues and there's no switch pro or switch 2 announced by then

It's a Zelda game. At worst it will receive a 9.5 from all the major review sites.

Part of it is GameFreak and part of it is the Switch hardware. Instead of OLED they really needed a Switch capable of running games at higher FPS more consistently. Not going to see any improvement otherwise for new Switch games.

Nanis23 posted...

Fuck Pokemon graphics. Seriously. They are not just bad and ugly, they are also damaging the game.
It was the worst in Arceus when I couldn't tell from far if the object I am looking at is a Lost Satchel, a Wooden Log or a Bidoof because they all looked like a yellow rectangle (maybe on TV it looks better but I played on handheld)

If a real person were above that "yellow rectangle" they wouldn't know which it is, either. With over a thousand Pokmon, what an odd thing to complain about.

BlueCrystalTear posted...

If a real person were above that "yellow rectangle" they wouldn't know which it is, either. With over a thousand Pokmon, what an odd thing to complain about.

What the fuck? what do you want?

plasmabeam posted...

It's a Zelda game. At worst it will receive a 9.5 from all the major review sites.

Probably. People look past these sorts of issues when it comes to Zelda even though its likely to perform fairly not good too

swordz9 posted...

Probably. People look past these sorts of issues when it comes to Zelda even though its likely to perform fairly not good too

People are more willing to forgive flaws in great games than mediocre games, yes

Links Awakening was great despite some performance issues yeah.

I couldn't care less about graphics of this if the game felt finished in every other aspect.

Axl_Rose_85 posted...

This is reviewing worse than Sword/Shield. I was hoping Arceus was an indicator for good things to come but this has seriously deflated any hype I had for a good mainline Pokemon game.

I still kinda doubt it's actually worse than Sw/Sh, those games had inflated scores because they were the first mainline games on Switch, a massively popular console, that brought a lot of people back to the series after a haitus. Now in 3 years we've had 3 games and fatigue is setting in. We had a game this year and there's already a lot of "man I wish this was Legends 2"

Not really a condemnation of those reviews either, it's just a different context. Pokemon has become something I come back to every 3-5 years and I also enjoyed Sw/Sh more after burning out on Sun/Moon even though they're worse as games. It's just, gamefreak should also have that amount of time to make these games instead of cranking out yearly releases

People are saying that they are gonna take a break but forget that this is still gonna make a fuck ton of money anyway so might as well keep churning them out

Well yeah that's how these big franchises work is that they rotate through new players and returning players and not everyone has to buy every release. They should at least farm out more games to buy time for mainline releases, I guess, but spinoffs don't sell as well so it probably wont happen.

LiquidOshawott posted...

People are saying that they are gonna take a break but forget that this is still gonna make a fuck ton of money anyway so might as well keep churning them out

Pokemon is gonna make a fuck ton of money no matter what. Even if the game reviewed like Superman 64, even if the game was broken and buggy like Cyberpunk at launch, it is still gonna end up with like at least 10million in sales.

So no matter how much people complain, GameFreak is just gonna be lazy and release subpar titles which sell like hotcakes anyway because let us be real Pokemon sales are just bulletproof at this point.

They can release a Pokemon Survive game like Metal Gear Survive, only you palette swap the main character with Pikachu and it is likely gonna outsell 80% of the games which release in the year.

Axl_Rose_85 posted...

Pokemon is gonna make a fuck ton of money no matter what. Even if the game reviewed like Superman 64, even if the game was broken and buggy like Cyberpunk at launch, it is still gonna end up with like at least 10million in sales.

So no matter how much people complain, GameFreak is just gonna be lazy and release subpar titles which sell like hotcakes anyway because let us be real Pokemon sales are just bulletproof at this point.

They can release a Pokemon Survive game like Metal Gear Survive, only you palette swap the main character with Pikachu and it is likely gonna outsell 80% of the games which release in the year.

That's the sad truth, yes
It will only die after a truly terrible disaster of a game, or just graduall lose of interest over the years in a very slow death

I mean, people still enjoy them.

Sword and Shield was actually my favorite one since Black and White. I may be willing to give this a shot just because of that

The games are actually an extremely small percentage of Pokemon's profits. The only reason they churn them out is to make more pokemon to use for merch outside the games that will be more profitable than the games themselves.

Pokmon games are the gaming equivilant of those really cheap and basic anime adaptations that only cover the beginning of a story and just exist to advertise the manga.

Nearly one billion dollars in sales per mainline game on average is not an extremely small percentage. It might not be their primary source of revenue but it is one of the driving factors behind it.

That's just you underestimating Pokemon's overall profits!

I swore off pokemon after being burned by SwSh

then i ended up buying the dlc and swore off pokemon again

then i bought Arceus with the justification that it wasnt a mainline entry and it was gamefreak finally trying something new. It was neat but ultimately still a middling video game once you take away the pokemon aspect of it.

Swore to be smarter about pokemon games and ignored all the ScarVi stuff bc who the hell cares about pokemon anymore? Certainly not this discerning consumer

preordered scarlet yesterday night anyway

UshiromiyaEva posted...

The games are actually an extremely small percentage of Pokemon's profits. The only reason they churn them out is to make more pokemon to use for merch outside the games that will be more profitable than the games themselves.

Pokmon games are the gaming equivilant of those really cheap and basic anime adaptations that only cover the beginning of a story and just exist to advertise the manga.

I just looked and saw that its mostly plushies and figures

wow people are nuts for those

UshiromiyaEva posted...

The games are actually an extremely small percentage of Pokemon's profits. The only reason they churn them out is to make more pokemon to use for merch outside the games that will be more profitable than the games themselves.

Pokmon games are the gaming equivilant of those really cheap and basic anime adaptations that only cover the beginning of a story and just exist to advertise the manga.

The games are ~25% of Pokemon's revenue. They're a much higher percentage of its profitability, though. Stuffed animals in general have ~20% profit margins, while digital games have much higher margins.

https://twitter.com/Starjeti/status/1592712852514959362

KommunistKoala posted...

https://twitter.com/Starjeti/status/1592712852514959362

Is this a YouTube poop??

Nanis23 posted...

What the fuck? what do you want?

To point out that it's a perfectly normal thing to have in a game, particularly one where there are a thousand creatures. Of course many of them will resemble items. That's just how it is.

Nanis23 posted...

It will only die after a truly terrible disaster of a game, or just graduall lose of interest over the years in a very slow death

Pokemon will never die, even though the anime's over.

LiquidOshawott posted...

I just looked and saw that its mostly plushies and figures

wow people are nuts for those

Just buy third-party on Etsy. Those are often better quality anyway. That's all I do now. My Vulpix-A should be arriving in 2-3 weeks. This is the first I've gotten in a while (since the secondhand Bulbasaur I got cheap off a neighbor moving out).

But that's astonishing that the plushies and figures make THAT much money for Nintendo. But it doesn't surprise me, not for people with kids who want those anyway. Or adults who collect more than their favorites.

SHINE_GET_64 posted...

GameSpot 8/10
While undercooked presentation and visual issues hold the games back, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are still the best mainline Pokemon games in years. They build off Pokemon Legends: Arceus's open-ended design in some thoughtful and surprising ways, and retain that same level of depth that the mainline series is known for.

Wasn't there a controversial Gamespot or was it IGN review for Sword and Shield where the reviewer called it the best game in the series and the fanbase absolutely crucified her on social media? What was the actual score that caused the meltdown antithesis of Twilight Princess' 8.8?

Axl_Rose_85 posted...

Wasn't there a controversial Gamespot or was it IGN review for Sword and Shield where the reviewer called it the best game in the series and the fanbase absolutely crucified her on social media? What was the actual score that caused the meltdown antithesis of Twilight Princess' 8.8?

https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/11/13/pokemon-sword-and-shield-review

9.3 for Sword/Shield lmao

Remind me not to take the IGN review for Scarlet/Violet seriously

BlueCrystalTear posted...

To point out that it's a perfectly normal thing to have in a game, particularly one where there are a thousand creatures. Of course many of them will resemble items. That's just how it is.

No, you misunderstood. I am not complaining about Pokemon designs, I complained about Legends Arceus graphics being so bad that I couldn't tell the difference between 3 different objects from far away because it's so pixelated and in low quality

I'll never understand the performance complaints about games on Switch. There are plenty of games on the console that look incredible while still holding solid framerates. Yeah, a more powerful Switch would make it easier for games to perform better, but when a game is released janky, especially if it's not a multiplatform title, that's pretty much entirely on the developer's failure to optimize their game. Saying that these problems are because the Switch doesn't have a more powerful variant console is just sweeping those problems under the rug.

Grand_Kirby posted...

I'll never understand the performance complaints about games on Switch. There are plenty of games on the console that look incredible while still holding solid framerates. Yeah, a more powerful Switch would make it easier for games to perform better, but when a game is released janky, especially if it's not a multiplatform title, that's pretty much entirely on the developer's failure to optimize their game. Saying that these problems are because the Switch doesn't have a more powerful variant console is just sweeping those problems under the rug.

Because these problems are related. It is harder for devs to develop around weaker hardware or weird architecture or whatever is going on. Yes it's on the developer to optimize the game but multiple devs are clearly struggling with the hardware, we've had exclusives with issues like SMTV, Bayonetta 3, NMH3. Even very polished games like BotW have occasional weird stuttering, and Nintendo is one of the rare devs that can afford that kind of luxury.

If you want the most extreme possible example, look at Cyberpunk 2077. That game was extremely buggy at launch but it wasn't much worse than a Bethesda game...on the high end PCs that could brute force performance. On low end PCs and consoles it was unplayable. It took months of extra dev time to fix.

Yeah, performance problems are definitely on the developer. Like, people weren't clamoring for a more powerful 3DS when games released on that and had frame rates in the 10s - that was all due to devs biting off more than they could chew.

For games like SMTV, there wouldn't have been issues if the devs had kept the graphics to a more appropriate level, like they did with SMTIV and Persona 5.

I'm honestly looking forward to the 8.8 meltdown when BotW2 starts getting pinged for performance left and right.

I mean they couldn't even get Link's Awakening right, for God's sake.

Theyll ignore it for BotW2 because Oh god finally a new LoZ game HyPe 10/10 even if it dips to 10fps several times

MacArrowny posted...

Yeah, performance problems are definitely on the developer. Like, people weren't clamoring for a more powerful 3DS when games released on that and had frame rates in the 10s - that was all due to devs biting off more than they could chew.

For games like SMTV, there wouldn't have been issues if the devs had kept the graphics to a more appropriate level, like they did with SMTIV and Persona 5.

But they do turn down the graphics to get the game to run and people just complain the trees look worse than in Breath of the Wild. Can't win.

Been playing for a few hours now. It absolutely CHUGS undocked. Like at completely unacceptable levels lmao

<img src="//:0">https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/7/0/AAe3nCAAD5EK.jpg

swordz9 posted...

Theyll ignore it for BotW2 because Oh god finally a new LoZ game HyPe 10/10 even if it dips to 10fps several times

Are we all forgetting that BotW already did that? Going to the Lost Woods was rough.

Honestly if it was anybody but Nintendo with their infinite money vaults, this kind of performance across so many exclusive and first party titles could be damning.

Even moderate PCs can Run Switch games emulated at higher framerates and resolutions than the console.

Zigzagoon posted...

Been playing for a few hours now. It absolutely CHUGS undocked. Like at completely unacceptable levels lmao

This feeds into my theory the OLED switch was supposed to be switch 2 before the pandemic and this game was made for the switch 2

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Honestly if it was anybody but Nintendo with their infinite money vaults, this kind of performance across so many exclusive and first party titles could be damning.

"Could be damning?" What does that even mean?