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doubleddenden · 1 year

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Okay. I'm gonna do it. A full review of Scarlet and Violet where I break down everything good and bad I found with it. I'm not gonna hold back on either fronts, so there might be ranting and nitpicking and praise over the dumbest things.

If you disagree just scroll. I'm just a nobody and not worth arguing with. I'm making this, however, because we need real people's thoughts on this game since game reviewers are being paid to give it 8 or 9/10 while millions of players are pointing out the game crashing and game breaking glitches and rating as low as 3/10.

If a random nobody's opinion influences you, read on.

Now, more under the cut, and this may just be my lengthiest review yet:

I'm going to preface this by saying I have been a fan since gen 1, my first pokemon was Cyndaquil in Silver, my favorite game is Black 2, my least favorite game is BDSP, and my favorite pokemon is Corviknight. I loved pretty much every single pokemon game up until the Switch, where LGPE, base SwSh, and BDSP brought the franchise to absolute pathetic, soulless new lows- yet, Isle of Armor, Crown Tundra, and Legends Arceus renewed my love for the franchise.

That should tell you about the type of fan I am. You can trust I know what I'm talking about.

So how do I rate Scarlet and Violet? Basically I'd say that the best game in the franchise is being held back by... well, not being fucking finished. Bugs, glitches, clipping, slow downs- that's just on the programming angle btw. I still have things I dislike about it outside of those aspects.

Basically if it weren't for the glitches and if it were an actually finished game and not an over glorified beta/ desperate attempt to make that holiday cash, I could give it an easy and deserved 8 out of 10. But because of the very preventable errors that came from several companies deciding that the integrity of a game series much beloved by MILLIONS the world over was less important than lining their pockets, I have to give it a 5 until it's fixed.

That being said: I truly do enjoy the game. I really do. I think these truly could gave been my favorite games EVER if they just... just cared a little more.

Let's focus on the positives first:

The new Pokémon this gen are pretty great looking. Something I really disliked about Sword and Shield was that too many of their new Pokémon looked like canceled cartoons (Eiscue), scrapped Sly Cooper characters (Inteleon), non Pokémon like in general (Stonjourner), or just WAY TOO FUCKING HUMAN (Cinderace). Scarlet and Violet has designs that stretch across the board of being cool, cute, animal like, humanoid, and overall it's a very nice mix this go around. Even the humanoid ones look great because theyre just better designed and cool looking, and I can forgive the lack of natural or Pokémon aesthetics as long as it looks good- such as the case of Ceruledge, which looks so amazing to me despite definitely fitting in better in Megaman NT Warrior.

The starters I feel are way better than last gen and are just overall better quality than we've had in a long time- even though I didn't pick it, Skeledirge is the BEST fire starter we've had since Infernape, unless you count Hisuian Typhlosion. They're also way better balanced the likes we haven't seen since gen 4 with secondary types that actually allow them some wiggle room against their "stronger" rivals.

Not to mention the Pokémon have actual textures this go around that help make them look less plastic compared to past games. You'll see it in terms of fur or scales on some Pokémon- it's not perfect mind you, but it's a start! I think my favorite textures though are the Terrastilized textures. I LOVE Terrastilizing my Ceruledge to see that gorgeous red crystal wrap around it's ghostly blue flames.

Terrastilizing is also a pretty neat mechanic that doesn't really do too much besides change a Poke's type. I do miss some of the hyped designs of Megas and some Gmaxes, but we also didn't really need anything as complicated as those either. It works. It's not really my favorite and I'm not really a fan of silly hats, but I do like that it's pretty balanced overall.

Onto other things, let's get into the main draw: open world. Fans kept saying SwSh was open world- one Wild Area and several hallways in a very cramped and forced rail road progression do not make an open world. They said Legends Arceus was open world: a definite improvement, but you were still bound by progression to open sandboxes rather than them being a singular area.

This game is the real deal this time. Sure, levels aren't scaled with the player and you have to progress in the story to unlock certain Koraidon and Miraidon traversal abilities, but it really is a chance to do things how you want without annoying losers like Hop or Team Yell stopping you every 5 minutes to tell you you have to go left. I literally made my way to an area about level 40 to 45 while my team was around level 20 just so I could get items required to evolve my Ceruledge with just 2 badges- and I had more amazing times like this where I stumbled onto areas that were 10 to 15 levels higher than me and gave me thrilling challenges because of it.

An ice type gym leader, Grusha, actually gave me my first defeat in game in several years. Ice type. The glass cannons that go down if a feather touches them. And it was so satisfying to beat him not just by spamming A, but by actually requiring strategy and effective team work.

I encountered and CAUGHT a level 70 Terra Dragonite when I was still level 40 something, and definitely didn't have the badges to control it. But it was rewarding to just let me have a thrill like that! In SwSh, I could be 1 level shy and not be able to catch a Pokémon I can easily defeat because of its stupid system.

I think that the open world could have been done better and made more interesting, but for what it did, it did so, so fucking good. I love being hilariously unprepared for fights- it makes my victory much sweeter! I love being in areas I'm clearly not ready for and discovering weird things- I still am! And I'm in post game! I also love being presented with multiple routes I can take rather than 1 narrow hallway path- I could have gone to the Psychic gym town after getting the proper power ups for Miraidon, OR I could carefully map out and find a detour that let's me go another more accessible way.

It really does give me a sense of freedom I haven't felt from the games ever in my life like this. I sincerely hope that they don't abandon this style of world traversal, because this, I feel, is close to what I've always dreamed my ideal "BotW" Pokémon game would be. Close anyway. There's still leaps and bounds needed before I'm fully satisfied on that front, but it's a good start.

The stories in the game are also really fun and actually have effort put into them- I know I bash on SwSh a lot (and this won't be the last time because it was the last gen), but the fact they NAILED the ending and did not pull whatever tf Rose was up to was such a relief. Sure the gym challenge is pretty standard fair, but the Titan and Star stories were actually pretty neat. I genuinely thought Arven was going to be my least favorite character, but he ended up becoming one of my favorites because his motivations are very pure and understandable, and his background actually made me sympathize with him. I thought Team Star was just going to be another annoying Team Yell, but the fact that it wasn't even an evil team at all and the build up to the boss and reasonings for everything was actually very interesting and well handled- for Pokemon, anyway. And the final story? Suspenseful. I was literally on the edge of my seat. I actually cried a few times throughout Arven's story and the final one too.

And you know what? They somehow made me like an ass kissing weaker starter rival. All they had to do was sprinkle just enough yandere on Nemona to make her just a tad creepy and hilarious, and the dialogue options were GOLD. I even got attached to certain Pokémon like Miraidon, who really is just a large metal motorcycle doggo. It felt amazing watching him regain his strength and courage, and I finally care about a legendary as much as I do Nebby.

The photos of the badges are really fun, and I love that there's something for every type too. Maybe the gym leader was kinda eh, but the photos I have help keep it a memorable experience. The ending one especially had me smiling ear to ear.

As far as other things, I am glad to see they kept the move remember function from LA. It's so much simpler and easier than having to find a guy to do it for you, and that and the nicknames make sense anyway from an adventure stand point.

Another neat feature that isn't explained is the dex rewards. Not just from Jacq, but the pokedex itself will reward you for catching em all with more balls, items, etc. It's incredibly useful and motivating, and gives me a reason to capture all of those 300 Pokémon I already have

Lastly, the music- oh my god the music. Dynamic, diverse, fun! Explosive! Experimenting! I don't think there's a single track I dislike, and I still have Team Star's and the final boss battle stuck on loop in my head. The instruments sound like actual instruments this time and not just DS or 3ds holdover soundfonts like SwSh. Fuck it, I don't even like Ed Sheeran, but the song was still a lovely addition- still unclear how the lyrics fit, but it still sounded nice. Plus there's multiple fun wild pokemon themes.

And now that I've sung high praises... yep, time to absolutely tear the bitch apart. No mercy.

First, let's start with the things a patch will not fix:

Just like SwSh, a lot of things were removed.

Two options- Set and Battle Animations- were removed. I personally play with Set because I don't like having an unfair advantage, and I like the thrill of not knowing what's coming next. You could argue "lol just press B, stupid" but this is exactly the same issue that came with the forced EXP share in SwSh. "Just rotate your team" was the common phrase even by Ohmori, ignoring the bigger complaints- and although the EXP share is now somewhat balanced, I don't see how removing Set will ever benefit anyone, because now I always know what's coming next no matter what. I can't just ignore it either because my eyes do not work that way. Although I don't touch Battle Animations, I know plenty of people that like them off since battles can drag on with them on, and that's no exception here.

Although those are just two things so far, these things are just basic options in the settings menu. Now, most of Pokémon has been using the same system since around XY, with the biggest changes coming from LGPE and SwSh that bake in exp share. Moves are pretty much the same with a few exceptions, which means that the battle system is about the same too.

Why this matters is this: they *purposely* removed these features. This wasn't something just left out by accident, this was literally a purposeful choice. I can't personally see any reason this was done except to give a middle finger to certain people. I mean, SET especially. That's been a setting- not a feature, a SETTING since the gameboy days, and all it does is press B automatically on that front.

Now onto other things, they also removed a bunch of moves, abilities, and forms. Scald is now a signature move just for Volcanion instead of a convenient surf alternative. Greninja, while in the files, still has Battle Bonds, but the Ash Greninja transformation is gone. I really do not understand that because now it means the only games you can use it in are the Alola games. There's more obviously but I'd rather not list a book.

A big change was definitely the removal of actually being able to dress how we want. Disguise it as "lore appropriate" if you want, that doesn't really justify them SEVERELY limiting us to just 4 uniforms. Imo, only 1 looks good, and if you have Scarlet then you're stuck in that ATROCIOUS orange and white color scheme. Legends Arceus may not have had that much in terms of character customization besides period appropriate clothes, but there were options to experiment at the least. I'm just saying, it would have been nice to be able to mix and match and sort of defy dress code a little like Team Star does. Plus... I'm gonna be honest, I need someone to inform game freak that full length pants still exist and most of the world still has them. I hate exposed ankles and preppy shoes. It makes me look like a hipster dweeb.

As far as the rest, the "accessories" are pretty lukewarm tbh. I was expecting "accessories" to be like a hoodie underneath the uniform, some hair accessories, patches for clothes, etc, but it's really just an expanded gloves, shoes, hats, bags, and glasses option, like what SwSh had. Sure there's more on that front, like helmets, but with the four uniforms our options are still HARDLY unique.

I'm not going to forget the "most options we've ever had" for the face and hair, and honestly it still sucks. I found it very hard to find something that didn't outright make me look like a femboy or a small business lesbian. Nothing wrong if that's your vibe, but I prefer a vibe closer to the messy hair and boy options in SwSh. And don't get me wrong, it's great to be able to have all the same options girls do, but inclusion by omission isn't the way to go and more should be done on that front. Let boys wear skirts and short shorts and let girls have full length pants and boy hair cuts, and ffs let us have hair styles that aren't so... samey and plain. More eye options too, because I really do not like how our eyes look so big just to make us look even younger.

Imo the most likely reasons character customization is like this is either a time issue, a "lol its school so lore," issue they purposely set up to do less work, or they really, REALLY want to do away with CC all together and are using this as sort of a "soft" excuse to do it. "Oh, everyone hates it so they must not want it anymore lol" basically.

I have my nitpicks with the character design as well, but this is no longer about "things removed," and will be addressed in my nitpicks.

Now as for other things removed that affect actual gameplay, they removed the Shiny sparkle noise that was introduced in LA and made Shiny hunting much easier. I really don't understand this, especially considering some shinies like Cuphant and Garchomp are very hard to tell if they are shiny or not at a glance. This is doubly hard for Pokemon that are very small and hard to see without squinting. Another middle finger to fans of it? I really can't think of a reason except to artificially inflate the rarity of shinies again, and that's just shitty either way. One could argue that because of two separate teams, LA was the one that thought of it while it didn't come to the SV team- and yet the move relearning and free battle camera are exactly the same as LA. Therefore, there was a conscious decision, like Set, to remove it for reasons that are probably very stupid, dumb, and shouldn't have mattered when the jingle helped to identify one Garchomp from a shiny Garchomp and more.

Something else removed is the ability to just catch without having to initiate battle. Maybe it's just a Legends thing, but I somehow find it tedious to have to initiate battle with every single Pokémon I want to catch now. It's not entirely unforgivable, but it does slog on having to toss, battle, toss, battle instead of having to battle when you're caught.

Lastly, and definitely the biggest thing to me: the removal of the permanent TM. Sword and Shield (if I have to praise that pile of shit ONE MORE FUCKING TIME) at least had permanent TMs AND TRs that function as old 1 use TMs. The TM system they have now, imo, is just tedious. I have absolutely better luck just finding a random TM on the ground or just going by my team's natural moveset than I do actually saving up for these TMs that hardly benefit any of my team. LA had a better system of just being able to purchase the move to be tutored without the bs materials required. Plus just... it's pretty brutal when you think about it. Disgusting in others. Why tf do I need an entire bag pocket dedicated to carrying Shinx fangs, Drowzee fur, Etc? Why am I hitting these poor creatures hard enough to knock out teeth? If anything, I fucking hate that we've regressed from Gen 5's BEST contribution to the franchise. The simpler solution would have been to have TRs of any move you've seen be made into a single use TR for a reduced price OR a permanent TM for a higher price.

Let's move away from things removed. Let's just talk about things that aren't right or that i just don't like or find slightly annoying. We're not hitting bug territory yet.

Wtf is this game's obsession with SANDWICHES??? Sandwich stores, sandwich ingredients, sandwich mini game, your dragon loves sandwiches, your school sells sandwiches, your friends and teachers and NPCs talk about sandwiches so often, even the last photo in the game HAS A SANDWICH STICKER! And the thing is, there are other dishes in the game such as rice balls or ice cream- but MOTHER FUCKING SANDWICHES ARE THE END ALL BE ALL IN PALDEA! EAT SANDWICH! CONSUME SANDWICH! INTAKE THE SANDWICH!

On a mechanics note, I think the food mechanic is okay I guess, but they don't explain that you're selecting ONE SERVING and not just that many pieces of ingredients to put on the sandwich. This ends with a sandwich that's like BRICKS OF BACON BACON BACON CHORRITO BACON HAM HAM HAM BACON CHEESE CHEESE BACON CHEESE BACON. Plus, as my friend pointed out, WHY are we dropping these pieces onto the bread instead of carefully placing them? Why is an ingredient lost to the god damn void if it lands ON OUR PLATE??? Do our pokemon snatch it like untrained dogs? And the bonuses are hardly worth it in the end- least of all for wonky and very low effort animation that sometimes just doesn't work!

Speaking of picnics, I hate that they delegated the breeding mechanics to the picnic. I'm guessing GF is wanting to get away from it because they don't want to admit pokemon fuck or something, but they lay eggs, that's a thing that's been around for over 20 years at this point, and it's time to just accept it. But anyway, what's in the game sucks because of the WAITING. At least with past iterations of Nursuries, I could just ride my bike around and see the NPC make a gesture to tell me my pokemon laid an egg, and if it's taking a while, I could just leave them for a while while I fucked off to do something else for a bit. Here, you gotta make a picnic and wait for that to load, you probably should box your other 4 pokemon so they don't breed by accident (btw you don't just deposit the two you want to breed, you have to make room yourself for it), then you have to WAIT in the very small confines of your picnic table. This is so tedious and BORING. I could have hatched several eggs in the time it took to get ONE egg.

How would I fix this? JUST COPY AND PASTE THE NURSURY! They copied and pasted attacks and stuff, so they can do it. Why do we have to reinvent the god damn wheel? Just slap it in there! OR! Better yet, stream line it to have it delegated to a menu in a special box in the PC. Sort of like a battle box, but just for breeding. You could also go so far as to include incubator space for your eggs so you don't have to rearrange your team every time it's time to hatch. Put a Flame Body pokemon or something in there with it to help them hatch faster or something and to allow multiple, seamless hatches.

Moving on, the day and night cycle. I don't particularly hate the idea of in game days and nights going by faster, but I think it's just inconvenient as of right now. LA once again did it best by having the option to sleep through certain parts of the day so you don't have to wait for nightfall. Oh hey, another pointlessly removed feature.

Now for some nitpicks:

I do not like the camera. It cannot decide where tf it wants to be in battle and zooms way too close while traveling.

This game is in DESPERATE need of voice acting. There's so many cutscenes that are awkward lip flapping and especially towards the end where the gang is just talking- I almost missed some of what they said because I didn't see the text pop up.

I hate how boring most of the gym leaders are here. I was hoping for some shenanigans at least with Iono outside her gym battle but nope

The character art style in 3d particularly is okay but I'd rather us go back to less Detective Pikachu and New Snap and more LA

I don't like how most buildings and shops are just menus now instead of letting us explore little areas

I still hate this inferior trading system. Stop trying to push Pokémon Home on us and bring back in game GTS dammit, you block heads. It wasn't good in LGPE, it wasn't good in SwSh, it wasn't good in BDSP, just give us back the fucking GTS so I can stop asking random people online for help. Trying to find a Quaxly is a nightmare (I am aware of the Austin John codes, that's not a good solution and although I appreciate his efforts, an artificial solution does not work). Everyone is offering Sprigatito for Sprigatito and it's annoying. The surprise Trade is also somehow slower and more tedious.

The main character design overall just feels weird, especially the default boy that looks like someone shoved their shota fetish in. Even then, they describe the academy as a place for all ages, but we're 12? Or something? You'd think this would be the prime of all times to allow us different body types to customize or something. Theres clearly older students as well going as far as grandmas.

The weather is just irritating tbh. Why is it raining in the canyon area constantly? Why does it always rain in the central city during import cutscenes and make the game lag more? Fuck you if you want to use fire types I guess, because it rains every 5 minutes

Some of the "new" Pokémon should just be new forms. Regional variants, Paradox forms- I'm sorry but I don't care that convergent evolution is a thing, that applies to Pokémon like Tauros and Bouffalant or Heracross and Pinser- white Diglett is just white Diglett and the Paradox Donphans are just Donphans. Also, Pawmo is a useless design because it's just Pawmi but slightly taller. Stop padding your dex with bullshit to meet a quota. The designs are cool mind you, implementation is not.

The map design could use work. There's some interesting locations but most are pretty plain looking. Some sprucing up by adding palm trees at beaches, beach goers, some areas with glowing pokemon and lights, flowers- more work needs done in the future.

Gliding does not need a timer. I want to glide for long distances without falling. I really don't understand why this was added because even Braviary didn't have this issue in LA.

Perhaps the biggest nitpick I have that is ultimately of no consequence whatsoever is the choice of ending song. Don't get me wrong, I think Celestial is a decent jingle and I personally have no beef with Ed Sheeran, but what does the song have ANYTHING to do with the game? Was it "written for Pokemon" or did Pokemon just so happen to buy a song that just so happened to be finished but not published at the time? I feel like reception would have been better if it were sung by singers with actual connections to the series, like the anime openings in general, or by well known poketubers or singers in general from YouTube that need way more exposure. Instead they paid out way more for a mid singer to make a decent song that doesn't match the theme of the game at all. Like seriously, why not have a song about the past and future or something? For that matter why Ed? Why not a Spanish singer for the Spain region? It just seems pretty fake for Pokemon as a company to keep getting these random celebrities that have nothing to do or say about the series at all until they're being paid to say OMG I LOVE POKÉMON PIKACHU IS MY FAVORITE. It's disingenuous basically. If Ed were like "oh yes I like pokemon, my favorite game is Platinum and my favorite Pokémon is Lucario" or "My favorite game is Black 2 and my favorite Pokémon is Slowpoke" or something, I'd be more inclined to believe the hype, but as it stands alongside all the other celebrities, it just screams fake fan.

Anyway, back to the game, I think that covers most of what I dislike that has nothing to do with glitches or performance. There's probably more, but for now this seems enough. Reminder that I still like the game, but I'm not going to hold back on what bothers me.

And now I talk about glitches and performance. Pretty much everyone and their grandma have, but it needs to be pointed out until it's fixed.

I'm going to list everything I HAVE PERSONALLY encountered. If you somehow haven't encountered a single thing anyone else is talking about, 1. You're lying, 2. You have and just don't realize it, and 3. You're some special miracle child that needs to go buy a lotto ticket because that is highly unlikely.

Now, what I have personally encountered while playing:

Slow downs- slowdowns to the point that it takes 20 seconds to finish a jump. Slow downs to the point that I feel like I'm trying to emulate X on my laptop. Slowdowns that drag on and on to the point that it's 3x slower than it should be.

Somehow the game works better in hand held- not by a lot, but better. This tells me that they probably didn't spend a lot of time optimizing it for docked mode and literally developed it for hand held.

The world flickers. You notice it a lot for far away locations but even indie games don't have this issue. Sometimes it flickers black or it flickers blue. It's so frequent that I really am convinced that the game wasn't finished.

Wall clipping. Pokémon sometimes spawn INSIDE walls. This makes hunting a specific one annoying or avoiding them annoying, as you're hugging a cave wall to get around a Diglett and WHOA WALL SALANDIT. It's jarring to say the least and is not only immersion breaking but super, super low quality. You'll especially notice it in those tube caves around the mines. If you're not careful you're liable to fall through the entire world.

Landmass... swelling??? I really don't know how to describe it, but there's areas where I guess land doesn't load in until you're RIGHT THERE like 20 yards away, and it makes rocks, islands, and mountains feel like they're inflating right before your eyes.

Falling forever. This... idk how this happens but it's happened a few times. You fall off a mountain or into a river, and instead of landing, your animation is locked into falling. You can't open any menus btw so you can't warp away. You just have to sit there and wait or restart and lose progress.

Black screen. My friend also experienced this, and it's just when the game won't load. No indication that it's loading, no timer or bar to indicate how far along we are, and it might just not load. I waited 8 minutes for a single cutscene to load one time out of curiosity when this happened to me. My friend ended up having to quit and reload.

The eating animations just don't work sometimes

My pokemon sometimes takes on the texture of a nearby building. It'd be cool if it were intentional, but it's not.

Pokemon clipping through the floor- especially noticeable in gym fights

Sometimes my pokemon won't fight in LG mode. It's not a shiny, because I swapped to a different pokemon and suddenly it's killing and mayhem again.

The PC. Just. Yeah. Takes forever to load one box, then if you go to another it has to load that one, and if you go back it has to load that one again. It makes organizing so fucking tedious.

Picnics take forever to load

Massive stuttering, especially while capturing. Yall know that clip of Psyduck being captured and the whole background unloads and reloads? Happened to me but in a different area all together.

And of course, game crashes. I had 3, one of which was after a HEAVY slow down.

And there's more of course out there. I personally haven't done co op yet, so I'm just curious how bad that is after everything I've seen online of Dick Wigletts and models just going crazy.

As far as non game breaking performance stuff I hate:

Draw distance is still stupidly low. Higher than SwSh, but I should not be seeing grass and trees growing before my eyes.

Low frame rate for objects in the same area. I'm sure we all know about our 10fps classmates, but this also affects Pokémon that are clearly loaded in but jutting around like action figures. Windmills are especially noticeable, not winding or just having abysmally low fps when very close to them. Honestly how do you fuck up a WINDMILL? Thats SUPPOSED to spin and be visible from a distance.

Reflections. Just... Game Freak, do you not know how reflections work? Because that's not it sweeties. At all. It's especially noticeable at the very pit of Area Zero.

My Switch gets VERY hot running this game. It has no issues with BotW or XBC2. It's not a model issue because of the low draw distance, and again, those games rendered way more complex objects at a distance in comparison. I'm reminded of how SwSh apparently fucked up Roku tvs at launch. Like wow, I was actually concerned for a bit. Game Freak just does not know how to optimize.

That's about all I can think of right now but I feel like I'm forgetting something.

All I can think of is what this game could of been. It could have been my favorite next to LA and BW2 if stupid fucking rich people in suits gave a damn about the game beyond their holiday cash in.

You can observe this from various angles, but this is my take on the issues present in the game:

The game reportedly took about 3 and a half years to make, starting production close to LA according to leaks and datamines. Most of us can agree that they should probably get about 5 or 6 years per game. We know GF works with multiple teams on a project: I theorize roughly 3. Team A is for new gens, Team B is for enhancements, and Team C is more of a fuck around team for games like Arceus or remakes. That's just on the Pokémon angle, because we know they have the Gear Project and like to work on other projects despite not having the manpower- because they really thought Little Town Heroes would be bigger than Pokémon. At the very least, it doesn't appear that we had a side project to blame for detracting from the main game like LTH did to SwSh.

But I'm going on a tangent. SV and LA clearly needed more time in the oven (and I'd argue more time debugging).

However, the belief is that GF is being bullied around by TPC and Nintendo to produce a new game every year and a new gen every 3 years to keep up with everything else going on around the franchise.

TCG

Anime

Manga

Plushies

Toys

Clothes

Merch

Music videos

And way more.

Each new gen serves as the spearhead for everything else the franchise does until the next gen- which for the last 9 years as of writing this has been consistently every 3 years.

In other words, the belief is that if Game Freak has to delay, TPC and Nintendo loses a LOT of money in delaying everything else and pisses off shareholders.

I somewhat buy into this theory, but I refuse to believe the people in charge of GF are being bullied into it. It's much more likely that someone in management, producing, and directing are writing checks their teams are struggling to cash. GF has a big turnover rate, and employees have described the environment as basically not being able to move up by merit alone while promotions go to people the higher ups like personally instead.

In other words, too many "yes men" are saying "yes we can make a huge game like Legends Arceus in 3 years. Oh, we also have to release a new mainline title? Yes, we can do that! No no no, don't worry, it'll be done by then!"

And again, this is just me guessing and theorizing and I by no means have inside information. However, this seems the most likely answer to me. Imo there was a significant drop in quality from one game to the next when we hit 3d, and especially in games directed by Ohmori where there's so many corners cut, he may as well be the antithesis to a Wendy's hamburger (their motto is no cut corners, hence the square patties- get the joke? Okay moving on). He's most likely not the sole person to blame here, but rather one of many "yes men" that do not want to give their higher ups a wrong answer.

I will say that LA (directed by Iwao of USUM fame) and SV are absolutely progressive for the franchise in so many ways, but most of the community agrees that they are not living up to their potential- and the sad thing is, they're probably already planning a Let's Go Johto game (like USUM, the words Let's Go! are directly in the game and there are many gold and silver items to buy) and eventually gen 10 to come out within the next 3 years already.

I could sit here and talk about or theorize all the ways they could give themselves more time, but the reality of it is this: pokemon is a product, not your neighbor you grew up with or the mom and pop shop you go to to support them, and they are definitely not indie (hasn't been since gen 3 I'd argue but I'm willing to push as far as gen 6). New gens especially are just commercials for merch for the rest of the franchise. No matter what, the games will make about 5 times their initial investments back- it literally sold 10 million copies in Japan in the first 3 days alone. Boycots don't work because it's literally too big to fail. Seriously, I saw a guy who literally went out of his way to collect multiple copies of each game from around the world for collection purposes- that alone gave TPC about $1k probably. Not to mention scalpers.

So the best thing people can do, imo, and especially reviewers, is to grade HARSHER on the games. The only way they'll learn is if there's enough back lash- remember dexit? That's how we got 250 pokemon added back in after the initial 400. Even if you love it, point out what could be better, no matter how small, and point out every glitch you encounter. They have to do something different for the next gen, because at this point the next gen will be even buggier on the next Nintendo console.

And again, I know nobody from GF reads this, but I'll say it anyway: NOW is the time to negotiate for more time. Not 2 months before release, NOW is while gen 10 is still in development. Push for 5 years minimum, and let some other studios fill in the gaps in the mean time. I know for damn sure a Colosseum 3 or a side game in a similar vein developed by another studio would more than keep me and the super fans occupied for a while.

But. Reviewing SV as they are now... 5/10 seems fair. Listen, I love the game and I think it is super duper ambitious and fun when it works- but the glitches and performance are so distracting that it breaks my immersion. The graphics are close to being good but NEED so much polish. Even with all of my nitpicks, I would have gladly given this an 8/10 if only it were FUCKING FINISHED.

But alas, it's not. It's released and I'm more than sure some business men who couldn't give a shit about the actual game or fans are saying it's perfect, but it's not finished. Several million people basically got a glorified beta game thinking they'd patch it day 1.

That being said, and I fully acknowledge I am a pessimistic POS that assumes the worst in everything, so this is surprising coming from me: a patch is most likely coming. This is THE new gen game, meaning this is what's going to go for competitive and World tournaments. Rn there's exploits to make OKO moves like Sheer Cold have 100% accuracy and it's not due to an ability like No Gaurd. That, and it's pretty much guaranteed that they're going to add DLC to expand on the story- too much in the game is pointing to that. Nintendo also has been forced to give out refunds- pokemon seemingly being one of the few games that make them break their no refund policy, something I'm sure they're unhappy about as publisher. It is within their best interest and ours that, especially for gameplay and tournament purposes, they patch and finish on the performance end. Visuals will probably still be fucked, but even SwSh got patched eventually. This isn't a situation they can run from like LA, it's something they are probably required to fix. Hell, a sound designer from the game found out about the E4 music glitch, so I think they have to be aware.

But pessimism aside, I do want to thank the people at Game Freak that tried their best to create something incredible. Behind all the business politics and corners cut by higher ups, there are solid ideas all around, and an amazing, heart felt attempt at a story and pokemon designs once more. This is by no means directed at the assholes that inflicted crunch times or approved of releasing the game in this state mind you. Those people deserve to be fired and never allowed near the franchise again.

So yes. 5 out of 10 for now, fix the performance and it'd be an easy 8.

Hopes for the next game: I know I said that the open world was a good "start" for the franchise, but GF has this issue where every game has a mediocre but good "start" to something they hardly improve on.

Oh, the graphics in LGPE were bland but its a good start for the next game!

The Wild Area is boring and lifeless- but it's a good start for the next game!

The DLCs vastly improved on the exploration- it's a great start for the next game!

LA gave us so much freedom to explore- it's a great start for-

You see my point. SV gave a great start for open world exploration, but I just really want them to NAIL it for once. There's clearly someone on the inside that gives a shit- maybe not the higher ups, but there is someone that does. I want them to keep trying their best to improve on what we have.

That's another thing: let's try to not regress and try not to come up with another useless gimmick. I say the next gen or next game just needs to focus on improving what we have now instead of trying to come up with what comes after Terrastilizing.

Seriously, just polish the graphics, no new gimmicks, get the game working and prioritize optimization. Do what went right with SV and LA again. That's all we need.

As far as other things, maybe base the next region in Australia? Prime candidate for open world with lots and lots and LOTS of unique pokemon species. I don't want to see it for 5 years though because I want it to be rich with diverse biomes and exploration and better graphics.

And ffs just give us better character customization. This was piss poor.

And for the next game- which I sincerely hope isn't just LG Johto because I HATED LGPE- just go ahead and delay. We know you want to come out in 2 years, make it 3 instead.

Honestly just optimize SV, add updates and FREE DLC to it (seriously, they owe us), expand the story, maybe add in a couple of new quests and pokemon, do something with that unused area in the NE area of the map or add in something like the Canary Islands, or hell, past and future versions of the region we have now, and that will keep us occupied.

Just. Finish your god damn games. This is inexcusable of the world's richest franchise. Finish your fucking games. SV were so fun but they aren't finished. FINISH THE FUCKING GAME.

#pokemon #pokemon scarlet and violet #den reviews stuff

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