Quick Look: Pokemon Scarlet/Violet

My kid's birthday is coming up so I can't play the game just yet until then. I'm intrigued.

Perfect opening.

I don’t expect great performance from a Pokemon game but this one looks roooough. The next hardware upgrade can’t get here soon enough.

While the performance issues are a real shame, there definitely seems to be enough in this game to intrigue me as someone who has played all mainline Pokémon games since Gen 1. I just wish GameFreak would add a hard mode. Seems like every game since Black and White have been getting easier and easier.

Straight up N64 textures and pop-in. Yuck.

Like The Windbag said, Pokemon are games for children.

@allthedinos: i don't think it's entirely on the switch , though it partially is. i genuinely think the pokemon company and nintendo need to stop riding GameFreaks ass to get a new Pokemon game out every year like clockwork. the switch generation has seen GameFreak step further into 3D gameplay after ditching sprites back in gen 5 , but also trying to open up the gameplay and worlds of these games. and while the ideas are cool , i don't think they're given enough dev time to actually put out a great game because before the new game is out the door they're already working on the next one.

but seemingly as long the bad performance of these games doesn't impact sales things are just gonna continue this way.

@gendergenerator: Yeah I think they've proven that they cannot compete with Nintendo's studios. The switch is under powered but Nintendo internally can do a lot more with the system than Game Freak. Either the talent isn't at the studio, or the budget is too low to hire the talent. Probably both.

I just picked up my copy a short while ago. My interest in Pokémon has also slightly waned over the last. . .24 years (!), but I just have to know. Game Freak did a lot of experimenting between Sword/Shield, its DLC, and Pokémon Legends. I have to know if it all pays off here.

Shame about the performance stuff, though. The Switch may be old, but I'm sure this is mostly on Game Freak. The studio's design chops have always outpaced its technical skills, even back in the old days.

EDIT: Holy crap, what's wrong with your house?! There shouldn't be any other environmental geometry to render except that interior. Why is it chugging? This isn't normal Game Freak jank. This is advanced Game Freak jank.

"Who feels hopeful, but also tired all the time...?"

Me too, bud. Me too.

I've never seen someone hit the Switch's 'Capture' that many times on purpose xD

I’m actually really excited to play this, though I wish they would ditch the whole child protagonist thing… The fucking shorts, long socks, and hat are too much!

Okay, I put in an hour or so myself. The issues here go beyond just old hardware and a lack of developer proficiency. Some stuff in here either got overlooked or actively ignored.

Cross-fades and fade-outs often get accompanied by a white line along the left edge of the screen, which suggests they either aren't framed correctly or don't render properly. Events not related to camera position, such as talking to NPCs, can cause shaders to pop on or off of objects. The worst thing I saw so far, though, was in the school welcome cutscene. I caught characters T-posing during the last few fade-out frames.

There's plenty I like about the game so far, but as far as presentation goes, the reviews are right. This is pathetic.

These games are always such a bummer. There's just enough novelty and an enjoyable vibe to these games that you want to cheer for it, but at the same time it would be best for this series if players straight up stopped buying it for a few installments. You shouldn't want to put out a sprawling new open world on a yearly basis. This ain't Fifa where the playfield, gameplay, and models are roughly always the same.

It's so weird that they did normal translations for the pokemon noises for pretty much everything, but decided to do what seems like 1 to 1 literal sound matching for the motorcycle dude. Like... believable onomatopoeias are different for every culture. Why make it sound so awkward for the thing that (presumably) you'd be hearing the most from?

Ah, the WWE 2K philosophy: who cares about quality tomorrow? It's selling today!

Don't blame the switch. There are games that look phenomenal on the switch. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 runs extremely well all things considered. This is not a hardware issue.

Wow, sword/shield wasn't this bad.
What's a Quick Start? Is it a Quick Look?

Urgh, that camera pan with poor frame rate made me feel sick & I never feel sick from games.

Also have the ads been turned up on YT? I’m premium but usually watch on YT since it’s a lot easier to do so on my TV plus I like to give extra support by paying here but watching there but the number of adverts in this were ridiculous! Far more noticeable than usual.

I wish Jan held off on doing this QL after the opening, because you actually get to see what the game is not long after the time of this video ending.

While the production values leave a lot to be desired and it's still pathetic in terms of performance, textures, and general technical aspects - there's a lot more to the game he didn't even get to touch on. It's pretty rad how big the world is, how many Pokémon are out there to catch from the jump, the open ended structure, and some of the other new mechanics.

This game is pretty fun and has some good ideas underneath the pretty horrendous technical issues, Nintendo need to fundamentally change the way they manage this franchise because no one can think that this is okay over there. GameFreak need to hire up a ton of new engine people or something because this shit is horrible. Sure, the cynics will come out of the woodwork saying Pokémon is for kids and it will be a cash cow even if the games are bad. Yet there's got to have been enough of this shit somewhere in that company and the arguments on the other side have got to be getting louder and more convincing for someone to throw money at this problem. They should be making enough by this point right? Because we all know the Switch has big games that look and run a hell of a lot better than this. I'm glad I didn't spend money on this at least.

Someone needs to just rip off Pokémon, do it better, and make it multiplat. Tem Tem was a good attempt, but the art style was very ugly, and the world felt too small.

One company I think could really pull off a mainstream Pokémon rip off is Mihoyo.

This game runs like hot trash but damn if it isn’t the most fun Pokémon game in years. I wish it ran better but nothing has actually broken the game and it’s just performance based issues so far.

Let’s hope they fix these issues soon

@allthedinos: It's not a hardware issue. Go look at what Xenoblade Chronicles 3 looks like compared to Scarlet/Violet.

I haven't played Pokemon games since the early DS games, but this one has been fun so far. That being said, I probably wouldn't have bought it if my niece didn't need someone to play with. Yes, the framerate dips constantly and it feels a bit unpolished, but it's not broken in the same way games like Cyberpunk were at launch.

I like how most of the comments are complaining but still saying they bought the game and love Pokemon. Demonstrating exactly why there's 0 panic from Game Freak to rebuild the whole apparatus from scratch.

Seriously though, I don't think Pokemon is on the level of Fallout or the like in terms of mechanical complexity but I rarely see a lot of understanding for how much work a fully current-gen Pokemon game would need. There's nearly 1000 Pokemon now and making custom models and animations (both battle and in-world ones) for all of them plus an open world and maybe like 50+ unique VA performances is a hell of a lot of work. Not an insurmountable amount of work, obviously, but more than is possible in the 1-2 years between games and wayyyy more than necessary for the game to sell 15+ million copies.

@charaznablecustom: Yeah, I bought it. I'm also enjoying it in spite of everything, and I'm not alone in that.

That said, there are also people who have canceled their preorders, gotten refunds, and/or decided to just emulate it. Additionally, this game's issues are far, far more visible than just not getting to have a Chatot or whatever in the last game. GameFreak and Nintendo may not have to worry about sales, but they do have to worry about the brand's reputation.

I'll be surprised if critical and consumer responses thusfar don't force these companies to change something about how they shepherd the series.

Granted I haven't played fully through any pokemon since.... pokemon red. Arceus got me back into pokemon, and I also picked this one up too. It's been fantastic so far! But maybe I'm lucky that I haven't run into any issues at all. It still has some annoying things, mainly how pokemon are caught through battle. I'd prefer the speedier catching mechanic of Arceus, and the larger amount of optional trainer battles, the open world, and the auto battles of wild pokemon from this game. Hopefully they'll do something like that one day.

The textures on the legendary pokemon in the intro... that's rough