#pokemon scarlet review no spoilers

[beastgamerkuma]

Beastly Co-op Review of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet

Beastly Co-op Review of #PokemonScarletViolet

It is always fun doing these co-op reviews especially when a game has two different versions. The video above already gave you our thoughts in a podcast-style review. This is just the summary of that cast. (more…)

[adobe-outdesign]

Can u review hydrapple

Hydrapple is certainly a strange one. Not because of the design or anything—the design's quite good—but it's such a weird addition to the Applin line. Why take a branching two-stage Pokemon and suddenly introduce a three-stage branch? Hydrapple instantly outclasses both Flapple and Appletun both because it evolved twice and for stat-related reasons.

I point this out because all of this could've easily been fixed by just... making Dipplin a regional? Dipplin really does not look that different than Applin; it just has syrup and a long horn. It being a regional would make sense thematically (it's a candy apple, a popular treat in Japan which fits with Kitakami's setting) and it would fix the imbalance issue—in most regions, Applin can evolve into Flapple or Appletun, but Kitakami Applin always evolve only into Dipplin and then Hydrapple.

Anyway, all of that technical stuff aside, I do really like Hydrapple. It's probably one my favorite designs out of the DLC, and it has both a solid concept and good aesthetics.

Thematically, Dipplin was already established to have two wyrms living together, so it only makes sense that it would evolve into what's effectively a seven-headed hydra (or Yamata no Orochi, judging by its Japanese name). This fits with the line's dragon typing and is a neat direction that's distinct from the other evos. The wyrms are also referred to as syrpents, which I think is delightful.

And visually, it's also pretty strong. Instead of having all the heads visible at once, six of them are kept tucked inside of the apple with only their eyes showing, and only four of them pop out during animations. This keeps the design from being too busy.

I also like how the main head that's visible at all times has a nice little identifier in terms of the mini apple and stem-like horn, which kind of feels like it continues from Dipplin's. The long necks are great and look a lot different from either Applin or Flapple, and I like the scalloped underbelly patterning as well. The apple itself also looks good, with some gooey drips on top and some more scalloped patterns to indicate further drippy-ness. And color-wise, the bright red pops out and compliments the duller greens nicely. Good stuff.

Anyway, overall, a really good design and concept here, and a welcome addition to the Applin line... if you can get over the weirdness of it just being a three-stage evolution, of course.

[doubleddenden]

Okay I had a whole thing typed that was my review for the new Pokémon dropped in Indigo Disk, but tumblr ate it, so take 2

Starting with my favorite, Archaludon. It's a dragon, a kaiju, also a stapler remover, also a bridge with power cables inside. This is a really cool design overall and fixes what I dislike about Duraludon, and it's fun to play with. 9/10

Hydrapple fixes what I dislike about Dipplin, but does make Flapple and Appletun a bit obsolete. Regardless, it's a fun idea and concept- I love that 7 Syrpents (which I guess aren't individually pokemon on their own? Slowbro Shelder situation I guess) make up 1 pokemon. It's silly but fun. 8/10

Also these two are neat because the concepts tie into New York/ Unova if we look at it through lense of Archaludon's Sky Arrow Bridge being based on Brooklyn Bridge and Rainbow Bridge, and Hydrapple clearly being a Big Apple reference. Very creative

Onto the paradoxes

Raging Bolt is interesting. I prefer Raikou, and I'll be the first to admit that I do not give a shit about how many cultural or historical references are in a design, if it looks like shit its a shit design. But this design is pretty okay, and because of that I can appreciate ALL of the inspirations that went into its design.

First off, with the Beast Paradoxes drawing inspiration from dinosaurs, we have Raging Bolt as the Thunder Lizard- aka Brontosaurus. That alone is meat, but it's still pretty mammalian compared to Walking Wake- that's because there's references to something called a Questing Beast. In Medieval times, before the age of cameras or fact checking, a description of an animal far far away- such a giraffe- can get twisted abd distorted via several games of telephone until we get to a creature that combines the lower body of a leopard and deer and the neck and head of a snake- aka the Questing Beast. Raging Bolt plays a bit with all of these ideas in a pretty unique and fun way. 8/10

Iron Crown- admittedly the Justice Paradoxes suffer a bit from the same "just make it a robot" mentality that plagues other Violet Paradoxes, but the Swords of Justice got the better end of it, I'd say. Iron Crowns in particular actually fixes what I hate about Cobalion by adding segments to the legs and thus making them feel less like bipedal knees on a quadrupedal animal.

It's signature move, Tachyon Cutter, also looks so cool in action by making the horns HUGE and GLOWING. That's awesome imo. 8/10

And now the new paradoxes we knew were coming

Gouging Fire, Entei's Paradox. I'll say that I like it, although this is the least changed of the Beasts and is basically just Entei in a fancy hat. Hey, that's fine though.

The dinosaur Entei is based on is some kind of ceratopsian blend. I personally thought they'd go in that direction with a triceratops design, so I was close. The head dress piece actually gives me Ho-Oh vibes, in particularly the gold and greens, which could be purposeful and root the Beasts Paradoxes back to the Beast's master, Ho-Oh. Fun design, 8/10

Iron Boulder. This one imo is more of the "robot" angle but done in a very good way. I like Terrakion best out of the Swords to begin with, but only at certain angles in 2d (they murdered him in SV. Murdered. He looks like a cross eyed frog now.) Iron Boulder takes the bulky build of Terrakion and makes it work better in 3d by incorporating spherical and cone builds along its body and head.

It definitely looks the LEAST like a psychic type out if any psychic type I've ever seen, but that's fine. Like Iron Crown with its twin horns and Iron Leaves with its 3 blades, Iron Boulder has a cool looking sword move- his turns his two larger horns into ONE MASSIVE GLOWING BLADE. THAT'S REALLY COOL! 8/10

And now. The Boy

Terapagos is a cute design that becomes more elegant, refined, and Stellar as it becomes stronger. While I'm a bit disappointed at how they handled it in story after a year of build up, I do think the designs after it's base form are incredibly detailed and creative.

The type patterns on its shell actually shift and change smoothly to other types, and the Terastilized form is even more incredible by representing every type plus a hat version of its original form. Beautiful, yet imposing, and a tad silly. The dome is an interesting take that I believe might represent the world or perhaps even a larger turtle- the design could reference one of many World Turtle mythologies and possibly have it represent a planet in space, or maybe a Turtle floating in the ocean, perhaps it's even a reference to the Tale of Urashima Taro. If Terapagos was available in Blueberry Academy- which I think it started out that way in planning- it could even represent the Terarium itself. Perhaps a deeper story was originally planned but dropped- like the castles and gigantic tree of Crown Tundra.

Regardless, base form is a 6/10. Its cute but kinda pointless. The other forms though are 8/10 though for incredible execution, wonderful and pleasing use of color, and overall just being great.

This batch of new Pokémon is way better than Teal Mask's, let's be real. For the paradoxes, I'll say the Future ones got better after Iron Leaves, while Walking Wake was the peak for the Beasts. Ogerpon wins for cutest legendary with the best build up, but Terapagos definitely wins for best design. This batch is an everall 8/10

[talonflamee]

i’ve been avoiding any scvi spoilers as much as i can, so i was lucky enough to not have had wattrel and kilowattrel spoiled for me. i still haven’t seen every new pokemon yet so i’m not venturing into the badlands (tumblr tags) but i still want to talk about these guys!

first off, very interesting choices of species to base them off of! most bird pokemon reference common and familiar birds, like a crow or a duck (/pos btw, this is not a bad thing) but i love that newer gen bird pokemon are including lesser-known species, like hawaiian honeycreepers and cormorants.

(baile style oricorio & ʻiʻiwi)

(cramorant & double-crested cormorant)

so wattrel is based on a storm petrel. there are quite a few different species, but i’d say the most direct reference is the leach’s storm petrel because of the forked tail and the general range of their habitat (although i don’t think that really matters much)

we’ve needed more flying/electric types for sure and this is a very silly fun little guy, exactly what i love in a first-stage, early-route bird pokemon. cute design with neat colors!!

👇

☝

they also incorporated petrel flight behavior into its animation which i’m a huge fan of! i can’t find any good videos or gifs showing their battle animations (and i also want to avoid searching for them) but they soar for a bit and then flap frantically like how petrels do to navigate through choppy water.

and kilowattrel is absolutely striking, pun intended. i’m extremely happy with this evolution

i never expected they’d make a frigatebird pokemon! frigatebirds are massive seabirds that have the largest wing:body ratio of any bird. they can have a wingspan of almost 8 feet! they can also ride air currents for days, weeks, even literal months without landing once. it’s insane to me

kilowattrel’s coloration is based on the female magnificent frigatebird. they have a beautifully angular shape and i think kilowattrel’s design captures that very well with the perfect amount of roundness

frigatebirds don’t typically show up near spain or portugal (where paldea is based off of) (so my attempt at guessing the storm petrel species didn’t really matter anyway lmao)

the few things that are weird to me about their designs are the eyes and yellow markings on the throat that go up their head. unfortunately, the eyes of every character in scvi (and pokemon legends as well) have issues with adapting to lighting and shadows. i think if this was addressed it’d look a lot better because they’re just way too bright sometimes. also the way the yellow comes up above the eyes should either be exaggerated or erased. i think it’s so subtle that it’s just unnecessary. but this is literally me searching for things to complain about if i absolutely had to say something bothered me about their designs. otherwise i think they’re fantastic, and as pretty mediocre as gen 9 is, i’m very happy we got these guys out of it

[noveratus]

Alright, so after finishing playing through the pokemon DLC, here are my thoughts:

For the good parts: the DLC is fun to play and pleasantly challenging, which is new for a pokemon game. It feels great to just walk around catching pokemon to fill the pokedex. The characters are a mix bag with Kieran and Drayton being the highlights but still not quite meeting the greatness of Nemona and some of the Gym trainers. The other ones just disappear in the back as nothing but obstacles. I think that they lack a bit of the soul the gym trainers have even with less screen time. I also found Nemona to be a far more interesting rival than Kieran since you always get this sense she is better than you, even though you beat her. It feels like an older sibling letting their younger sib play with them and getting down on their level. Kieran is still pretty good and quite a plot twist considering the leaks and trailers. He never goes full villain, just kind of an ass out of jealousy, which I think is a pretty interesting concept. Kieran feels like what Hop should have been in Sword and Shield.

The environments are also really great and fun to explore, I love how much personality different pokemon have. I also prefer double battles over single battles as I found out. They do require more strategy.

The story also fits with the story of a DLC, that being you, the player, meet this shy kid who becomes filled with jealousy and tries to become the best by making things very unfun for everyone else only to be demonlished by the player. His desperation leads to him seeking an even more powerful pokemon that ends up being a threat and has to team up with the player to stop them (the pokemon should have been peacharunt, but alas.)

Now for the bad

While teal disk is really, really good, it also increases my disappointment when it comes to the actual main game.

Let's start with the features. Why is flying locked behind a pay wall? It doesn't even make any sense when you take into consideration the story of the game. One of the main missions is all about making the cover legendary better until it reaches its maximum power, and yet there it is, gaining another 'form.' The return of throwing balls and even BBQs are things that I think should have been in the base game. Also, couldn't they have added at least a few more clothing options to the main game?

I can understand the legendaries being behind the pay wall, that's fine. The new areas, new pokemon, all of that is alright. That is what you put in a DLC, but a whole mechanical gimmick in the form of the stellar type, it only goes to show just how unfinished the core games were at launch. At this point, it feels less like the DLCs are extra content and more so that they are what the actual game was meant to be, but due to time constraints, they were half assed and, instead, if you want to play the actual game you have to pay another 30 bucks on top of the 60 that you paid for the unfinished, unpolished mess of a half game that was the core games. Ironically, this almost makes me miss the 3rd games in the franchise because, if you waited a year, you could just pay for the game once.

The last hour of the DLC feels like it was the hour that was missing from the central story of the game. Just replace Kieran with Arven being upset that his parents cared more about the pokemon than him, replace Briar with Nemona, and be excited to meet a new pokemon and Carmine with Penny and you can have the exact same story. Hell, it would make more sense for Geeta to trust the player and trainers from paldea with the investigation of the crystals instead of complete strangers. What was Nemona up to in Indigo Disco anyway? Are you telling me that Geeta would ask for the help of Carmine instead of Nemona? Nemona, whose original team we have yet to see? Don't get me wrong, I like the plotline in the DLC. I just don't think that that last part deserves to be DLC. It simply feels incredibly unfair and greedy. The least you can do is put out one complete main story instead of half assing 3 of them.

That's my rant, anyway. Expect a rewrite of these games soon. For the record, I really, really like the dlc. I would give it a solid 8.5/10. However, seeing it and what the base game could have been makes the core games drop down quite a bit, from a 6.5/10 to a 4/10.

[ramblesbiab]

Spoilers for SV dlc!! Specifically about Perrin

.

.

.

.

.

omgosh it wasnt long enoughhh i miss her alreadyy aaaaaaa but still it was soo good!!! We better actually cross paths again in the next dlc or somethin because otherwise i’ll be mad loll.

But yeah that whole quest was so amazing, i loved the atmosphere of taking photos and the custom ursaluna was one of the last things i couldve expected but its definitely going on my team now!

And all of Perrin’s dialogue was so good, she literally had my dumb, gay ass blushing with pretty much every other sentence. It was a bit annoying having to catch so many pokemon just to do it, but definitely worth it.

11/10 Perrin, as I hoped and expected from the moment I saw her (just one more lil quest and it wouldve been like a 13/10 or more)

[antivanwine14]

I finally finished the main story of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet and boy do I have thoughts about that! My thoughts and spoilers under the cut (long post)

Game Overall: It really felt like they went for something with this game. They have been experimenting a lot in the previous few generations and this is the game they brought everything together. They took some pretty big risks shaking everything up and while I know some people are going to be pretty unhappy with some of the changes, I really like what they did with this one. It did not feel like a reskinned game but something really new and different. I hope they continue to go in this direction of taking risks and putting more attention on good characters and storytelling (and hopefully they will take some time to really improve the graphics though I will say, the pokemon actually look decent with the way they did their textures with special shout out to the steel types) 

Characters: This is definitely one of the best casts they’ve ever had, which is really surprising because it is also one of the biggest casts they had, but they did a good job giving the characters enough time to shine without getting grating. Most of the gym leaders are still a bit forgettable as they tend to be, but the friends, Team Star, academy staff, and elite four all had enough development that I actually could remember them and liked them by the end.

Academy Staff: Funny that the number one academy staff they showed case was Jacq, but I actually think because of how they did his interactions (locked behind pokedex) he was hardest to bond with. The others though actually had some really nice interactions and I enjoyed taking the time to get to know them. 

Director Clavell: I am not including him in the regular Academy Staff because he is too big of a character. I was not sure what we were going to get from him when I started, but I loved him by the end. He was so earnest, hardworking, and dorky. He really tried so hard for the students and I appreciated that about him. 

Team Star: For yet another fake out evil team, I actually liked the bosses and how they were handled (not actually causing any mischief really). They had some personality and it was nice getting a chance to actually get to know them and understand why they formed Team Star. Do I wish there was a proper evil team, yes, but I am happy these five were not actually evil. I also appreciate the fact they dropped the pretense that these guys were evil by the end of the first base.

Elite Four: Hassel may be the best elite four member since Lance. You actually get quite a bit of time with him, get to know who he really is, and I really believe that he cared about the main character. He was just so well developed compared to most elite four members. Larry and Rika were were also great. Larry is probably the funniest elite four member period (I’m putting him here since you get more time with him as an elite four member) and I liked Rika’s design. Poppy...well they were going to make a child elite four member eventually, hopefully this will be the last one. The one thing I will say about her is her ace fits her well. 

Penny: Penny had a great story and I really loved her personality, I just wish we got to see it a bit earlier. I think giving those supply drops scenes a few more lines would have helped boost her character. 

Nemona: She is probably the best of the friend rivals and I love the way she was purposefully scaling herself to your levels. HOWEVER, I do wish she had a little more of a story. I think a Volkner storyline, were she is a little bored, and wants a new real challenge would have worked, especially if she was still upbeat about it. She is great though.

Arven: Arven has one of the best stories in all the pokemon games. They did such a great job turning him from a jerk to someone I really cared about. The explanations for why he is like he is also works well. It is interesting, your journey is the main game, but his story is the heart and driving force of this game and the friendship that actually developed there felt real and natural and seemed like the central relationship in this game. 

The Squad: I loved their interactions and I wish we could have more of them. They really did feel like the main characters best friends and I am glad that instead of forcing this friendship from the beginning (X&Y) it really developed over the journey and felt a lot more natural. 

Ending: That might be the most bittersweet ending I’ve ever seen in a pokemon game and I loved. Like yes, you won, but Arven still lost his only parent and I definitely felt the sadness around it even as the five friends move forward together. They still ended it on an upbeat note, but it wasn’t parades and parties which felt appropriate. It was so surprising for this series and I really appreciate it. 

Gameplay and Graphics: I know some people had issues with graphics and gameplay and while both could definitely be improved, I didn’t find the issues too distracting either

The Professors: Great story, I still hate them for what they did to Arven. 

[rikalovesrice]

Rika’s Wittle Review of Pokemon Violet (Spoilers ahead!!!)

I’ll go ahead and say that, aside from the atrocious framerate and occasional glitchiness, I had a blast playing this. It’s beautiful to see how far Pokemon has come in terms of immersion. With such a rich variety of Pokemon wherever you go in this vast landscape with different habitats, all interacting and exhibiting behaviors specific to their species (and even their natures!), I genuinely feel like I’m in the world of Pokemon. I love it so much >w< I quite enjoyed the three stories and the CHARACTERS. Ahhh the characteeersss I love them all so much lol

Now for the more spoilery bits in good old bulletins. These aren’t in any particular order but in general I’ll start with stuff I loved and things that were kinda eh. Let’s goooo~

There’s now a canon Pokemon character named Rika aaaayyyeee XD Feels a little weird, ngl

Unpopular opinion, but I actually love Meowscarada lol At first I was like, “Uuuggghhh of course they made it stand up” but the more I understodd what it was, the more it grew on me. She’s a jester, magician, dramatic sort of character and she’s a kitty........all things I adore lol

Arven is a precious bean who must be protected at all costs. Seriously, I adore him so much and his story was so saaaad T_T My poor baby...And then it turns out his dad not only wasn’t around but he freaking DIED.

AND YOOOOO SPEAKING OF WHICH I DID NOT SEE THAT COMING. Like bro, Pokemon actually went there. At first I thought Turo was stuck in the future or something and that’s why his transmission got all wonky. BUT NAH. HOMEBOY STRAIGHT UP GOT DEAD AND UPLOADED HIS CONSCIOUSNESS INTO A ROBOT LIKE???? Every time I saw his face on the screen I was like, “Why is his face so...stiff?” Oh. That’s why. AND MY POOR BOY ARVEN.

Also that final battle was legitimately a little terrifying. I loved it haha

Miraidon is electric Toothless and I loved him and we’re best friends forever uwu

I know some people may be bummed that Team Star didn’t turn out to be a bunch of hardcore criminals. But the fact that Pokemon decided to tackle a subject as serious as bullying in school? Big, big claps. And in my opinion, it was really well done and heartfelt. By the end of game I adored Team Star and little Penny. Seeing them go back to school and bumble their way back into society, awkward, shy, but being true to themselves, was so precious. (Giacomo is literally like, “Let’s yell at everyone so they know we’re friendly” and for that I cherish him)

I’d join Team Star in a heartbeat, facts.

Penny being Cassiopeia wasn’t immediately obvious to me but as soon as she mentioned her hacking skills I went, “....Waaait a second...” Might I add that when “Clive” first showed up I physically buried my face into my hands lol

Okay and then when Clavell “revealed himself” as Cassiopeia I went, “Huh?? That...How??? Makes no sense but ok...????” And then was like “just kidding” and I just...wtf dude XD 

Can I just say I love Clavell’s character? He genuinely cares about every student with all his heart and shows compassion towards Team Star. He turned out to be such a good-hearted man who wants to do right by his students and I love that.

While I do love Nemona (what’s the girl version of a himbo? lol), I will say her character felt the least fleshed out, in my opinion. But I guess it could be all that energy conceals more subtle character traits? I liked how she mentioned that people mistunderstand her because she comes from a wealthly family and assume she was born with her battle prowess. When if fact, she’s just super passionate about battling and so became really good at it. Wish the game had leaned a little more into that but Nemona still cool lol Paradox Pokemon are gonna destroy the world and she’s just like, “ Can battle? :D”

While I loved Path of Legends and Starfall Street, Victory Road was the most....meh storyline for me lol There wasn’t much to it, really. And the Elite Four and Geeta were so easy. After the nightmare that was the BDSP League I was fearing for the worst but they were about as easy as the Kalos League. But that’s overall neither here nor there for me.

Picnics were fun but I wish I could get closer to my Pokemon like I could in SWSD and pet them like the Switch has a touchscreen whyyyy T__T Or just use the same format as the washing bit but with a hand :(

Welp, following Pokemon didn’t improve all that much rip Same issue of some Pokemon just being too dang slow. Or too dang fast to the point that they look unnatural cause they keep slowing down and speeding up so rapidly. I always have to ride Neon (my Miraidon) when I let Jellica (my Meowscarada) out cause otherwise she’s just constantly startin’ and stoppin’. Still a lovely feature but I just wish it was better. The Pokemons’ mannerisms are still adorable tho <3

This game removed a lot of little shortcuts (like using items on Pokemon, certain buttons when using the Boxes, switching Pokemon around, etc.) and I gotta say, not a fan lol

Customizatiooooon. I get it, we’re students. BUT WHY DOES PENNY GET TO WEAR HER LITTLE CUTE FIT HMMMMM?????

Socks, gloves, and shoes are fine, I suppose...I just wish there were more ways to customize the uniform at least. It would be cool if the school sold jackets, sweaters, t-shirts, skirts, scarves, ties, etc. Freaking Atticus’ little compadre bought NINJA OUTFITS from the school store. Where’s my ninja outfit huh????

Also Clavell said we shouldn’t let our Pokemon out inside the school and then there are Pokemon in the school at all times for the entire game lol Plus Arven, Nemona, and Penny get to have their Pokemon out in their rooms so why can’t I??? D:<

Side note MC, Arven, Nemona, and Penny gotta be my favorite Pokemon friend group besides the SWSD squad ^^ (That shot of all of us climbing aboard Miraidon before plummeting into the Crater was so precious holy Arceus my fwieeeends)

Ehhhh what else?

Sad to say that a lot of the Pokemon designs this gen weren’t really my taste. It was hard for me to put together a Paldean team cause I just...didn’t like how so many of them looked lol

Grusha has no right being that pretty. Also poor thing ;__; Would’ve loved to know more about him.

Larry. That is all.

All the Gym Leaders were so much fun. Wish we could battle them over and over like in BDSP.

History Class was my fav because looore.

I actually riverted back to a student mentality for a bit playing lol I was like, “M’kay, I’ll take my level 2 classes, explore, then move on to my level 3 classes before dark. Lemme fight this Gym and then I’ll take my midterms. What’s that, I gotta go the Great Crater and finish the story? I should finish my finals and graduate first.” Lol

The music in Area Zero o__o

Ummmmmm

I mean yeah, the framerate is awful but we all know this probably lol The game’s performance ain’t it, sis. Like I said, this would probably be my favorite Pokemon game to date if it ran the way it should.

Looking forward to patches and whatever new updates and shenanigans will ensue in the DLC hehehe

Those are the biggest things, me guesses. Loving the game and will definitely keep playing it~

[lunzoic]

After finally beating the game...

Big spoilers for Scalet/Violet ending!...

I think I'm echoing a lot of other people's sentiments when I say 'Huh, so that's where half the budget went'. I don't even mean that in a salty way, I'm just kind of baffled that there's such a strong contrast between the effort that went into this final area and the rest of the game. I seriously underestimated how much there was going to be too since the Pokemon tradition is that post Elite-Four content is kinda lacking, and the only hint that Area Zero was not 'postgame' was that credits had not rolled yet. I was really expecting Area Zero to just be an afterthought, similar to the usual optional postgame dungeons. Or like Ultraspace, in which: you go there, leave after having one big fight, and optionally come back later to find more ultrabeasts. And instead we got a fairly expansive dungeon that both contains the really cool paradox pokemon as well as like, the game's entire narrative weight, interesting character interactions, a big fight I was definitely not expecting, and all the actual intriguing plot elements in one ultra-concentrated dose. I actually prefer a fantastic ending to mediocre game rather than the other way around, it's just very surprising to see it happen when the opposite is so common. And yeah some of that perception is filtered by the bar of expectations being set so low by the rest of the game, and of course it was by no means a perfect ending. The jank still allows you to accidentally skip if you jump off certain cliffs, the scripted encounters with paradox Pokemon are just ok, and navigating Area Zero without Ko/Miraidon can be a pain if you take a wrong turn. But the pacing, the dialogue, the way the characters play off each other, the gradual reveals, and the whole final fight was actually incredibly well done. And it makes me feel a little sad to see that the dev team was clearly capable of making great story-driven game segments, but that it was only at the very ending of the game that they really got to flex those creative muscles. I feel like it's also created a weird dichotomy of people who could not abide the jank and put the game down or decided not to buy it in the first place/refunded it and the people who stuck it out to the end and got an unexpectedly quality finish. Good for us I guess? I definitely would have lost interest a lot sooner had friends who finished the game not given clues that they really enjoyed the ending...

More specific ending spoilers and commentary: Having an AI character being aware of having their own will being overridden was equal parts fucked up, heartbreaking, terrifying, and really effective. The way they're clearly fighting against it even as they taunt you, their whole speech about freedom and treasure, that moment when they seem to intentionally succumb to the programmed will in order to sincerely tell Arven that the original professor loved him (oh my FUCKING god)... Now THAT'S how you break the mold in terms of creating a different narrative hook than the usual formula! For me it really did retroactively change the feeling of the entire game, knowing that the 'professor' who started you on your whole journey was actually patiently waiting for you to become strong enough to venture into area zero and do what but their programming did not allow them to do. That they were vicariously enjoying every step of your adventure along the way, because their very nature as an area zero anomaly meant they could never leave themselves. Their final decision to send themselves to the past/future in order to disable the time machine, while kind of cheesy and nonsensical, was something that they willed with their own heart and wholly defied the original professor's wishes. That in their vast intellect they decided to stake the future on a bunch of teenagers is still pretty goofy but hey, it's Pokemon. Like a lot of people I did suspect that there would be some sort twist with the professor, but I did not expect THIS, nor did I expect a Pokemon game to handle a sympathetic AI character in a really emotional and interesting way. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised given that Pokemon as a franchise has had various created/artificial beings who are treated sympathetically? But it does also kind of highlight once again that the game feels kind of hodge-podge in regards to what audience it's catering to, due to the entire game feeling hand-holdy and kid-friendly in its appeal and then... that entire ending happens. I can imagine some kids not even being able to finish the game, not even due to difficulty spike but because of finding the Arven and robo professor story too scary and sad. On the other hand, Pokemon at its roots has always some pretty damn heavy themes, so I guess this could also just be considered a return to form? Pokemon themselves being fully sentient creatures forced to serve their masters no matter what, the entire arc of Mewtwo being created and then destroying its own lab... I remember finding those too sad to contemplate as a kid so I kind of just. Didn't. But those aspects were never really explored to the depth they could have been within the main game's stories (I do know the movies/anime/comics have darker storylines, but those are all 'extended lore' as far as the games are concerned). So this is the first time where elements like the death of a main character and having the villain be a human (in appearance) ally with explicitly programmed loss of will who doesn't want to turn against you are THIS front and center in the story of a main series game. And it was actually done pretty emotionally and effectively, so I do applaud the decision to take a risk and make a more mature storyline happen at all.

And yes, it is not lost on me that both a reluctant final boss and the subtle use of the menu interface in the finale are reminiscent of ah... a certain other game? I might be seeing stronger connections than I should due the killer music contribution by Toby, and I don't really care if it was intentional or not, but I'm just really happy to see any game make use of those tropes to great effect.

[wafflecat2]

My thoughts about Scarlet and Violet

This post will have spoilers about ScVi, be warned!

Played Violet so I am gonna be biased.

---------------------------

Overall, Scarlet and Violet is a beautiful game. If Game Freak/whoever is responsible for the game had time to polish and optimize it, this would - no douth - be the best Pokemon game ever. But if we look past bugs and glitches, it's a fun and cool game! At its core, it has mature themes and I like it.

The story is engaging and love the characters. Everyone in this game has the potential to be on their own and not just there for the plot. They have personalities and are well-written.

For example, when we first meet Arven, thought he gonna be a bitch and not likable at all. But continuing further, he had his reasonings to be mean towards Miraidon/Koraidon (technically us too since we helped M&K.)

Nemona wanted a rival that she could battle but also she helped us gain the champion rank. The final battle with her felt like a test. Penny... well Penny is Penny. She was bullied in school like the other team Star members. She didn't want to lose them because it was her only family.

The teachers and the gym leaders also are cool characters. Love them, expect Iono. I mean, she's cool but not for me. Clavell??!! Love him. Like, the dude just wants to know how the younger generations are doing and learn from them. And Mr. Saguaro!? Dude's a fucking home Ec teacher. What a chad. And the Art teacher who's part of the elite four? Mr. Hassel? He's funny af. He comes from a family that uses dragon-type pokemon but he isn't like a scary-buff dude rather he will break to tears if you show him a rock. A ROCK!

But oh boy, THE ENDING??!! Beautiful shit right here. Even tho I liked PLA's story, it wasn't really a satisfying one. But ScVi on the other hand?

Professor Turo (and Sada too) is an AI? Built by the original Prof. AND They fucking dead?!? That was a plot twist a didn't expect. And because of that, Prof. Turo is one of my favorites. (As I said, am biased towards Violet.) I wouldn't consider the professors evil, more like morally gray like Lusamine. Well... technically all the villains kinda are, expect Ghetsis. Fuck that guy.

The music is spot on! Gen 5 is my favorite, so this gens music hits hard. The environment and the cities are nice but could be better. Can see that they put more effort into the story and Area Zero. Paradox pokemon are cool too. Also, I like the new pokemon. The starters are nice too. I love Meowscarada, Quaquaval is nice, but the legs bother me. Skeledirge is ugly, don't like him.

As I said, Scarlet and Violet is a beautiful game. Wish it had more polishing time and such. If I'd give a score for the game... I'd say 8.5/10. Why not more?

The performance issues and other things... I'm sorry, they game a bitter taste, because of it.

They didn't ruin my experience and some of the bugs and glitches are funny tho. Didn't run into major problems. The only this that kinda got ruined was the Elite four and the Champion fight. The music was on a loop. My first thought was "That's it?" Later however it was due to a memory leak. But I kinda liked the Elite four loop-music-bug. It made the fight more serious.

Will I recommend these games? Yes, but if you can look past the issues and problems. Other than that, if you just like to complain, I'd recommend getting another game or emulating/playing other pokemon games.

---------------------------

Aaand that's about it. My review on pokemon Scarlet and Violet.

Oof. kinda big post tho 😅😅

Idk might do these more.

[wirecree]

✎ 𝐏𝐨𝐤é𝐦𝐨𝐧 𝐒𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐞𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐕𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐭┊𝙃𝙤𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙁𝙚𝙚𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨

˗ˏˋ ʀ ᴇ ᴠ ɪ ᴇ ᴡ ´ˎ˗

It's fair to say that Pokémon Scarlet and Violet was a mixed bag for most fans. Many people are rightly disappointed by the lack of polish this game has; others are still rightly justified to enjoy it even despite its shortcomings. This game has taken many steps forward in the right direction, yet is still going backward on others.

Ignoring the apparent devasting optimization the game sorely needs work on — they've even taken away a feature that players looking for a challenge enjoy using. 

Set mode.

For those who don't know, the set mode was a feature that allowed players to be unable to see what Pokémon a trainer would send out next during a battle. Now, while players can still technically play by the set mode rules by simply pressing 'no' on whether or not they want to switch their Pokémon — it's disappointing that the game is making it a little bit more of a nuisance by removing that quality of life feature for these players seeking a challenge.

But I digress.

While I could sit here naming all the flaws the game has that others undoubtedly already have done, I won't. I came here to say that, despite this game not being in its prime, I had so much fun playing it. One thing I absolutely adored about the game was the three storylines it had going on. I loved being able to see so many different characters and feel like I was forming genuine friendships (with these said characters), unlike in previous titles.

I loved helping Arven save his dog and feeling like a true best friend of his. Being able to stand there for his lows and see how he gradually warmed up more and more to the player was preciously wholesome. He was, personally, the best boy for me.

I loved experiencing Nemona's absolute joy about us beating her, just being a rival who loved to battle and nothing else that grand. Plus, it was precious that she had called us her treasure of the whole treasure hunt event.

And then I ended up liking Penny way more than I thought I would. At first, I thought she would be a shy character, needing help to break out of her shell. But she was, truthfully, someone with more sass than I was expecting, and it was hilarious to witness her interacting with someone like Nemona and Arven. And I personally found it very endearing how much she and Team Star cared about each other. It was heartwarming.

And then to be able to journey to the Great Crater with them? It felt like I was experiencing a real Pokémon anime adventure! And it only made me love the characters even more!

This game has its flaws, and I will never deny that — but I also won't deny that this game and the characters will have a place in my heart forever. And I know that I will definitely play this game over and over again in the future to revisit all the things I love in the Paldea region.

ʀᴇᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴛʜɪꜱ ɪꜱ ᴊᴜꜱᴛ ᴍʏ ᴏᴘɪɴɪᴏɴ, ᴀɴᴅ ɪ ʙᴏᴛʜ ᴄᴏᴍᴘʟᴇᴛᴇʟʏ ᴜɴᴅᴇʀꜱᴛᴀɴᴅ, ᴀɴᴅ ʀᴇꜱᴘᴇᴄᴛ ᴀɴʏʙᴏᴅʏ ᴡʜᴏ ᴅɪꜱᴀɢʀᴇᴇꜱ.

[adobe-outdesign]

Well, you did partially predict Bellibolt's shiny after all. It's just a lot more yellow and that's it.

It's funny because my edit was just trying to demonstrate how Bellibolt's colors really Don't Work rather than trying to make a shiny. And, unsurprisingly, the shiny that happens to resemble my edit does indeed spot a better palette than the regular version.

[doubleddenden]

Enough time has passed that I think I can do an accurate full scale review for Indigo Disk.

My initial first impressions review of 6/10 was spot on, even with the post game mechanics and additional story.

More under the cut, beware of major spoilers

Story

What's here is fine, but flawed. It is way too short, even with the extra doodads, and not enough time and energy went into it.

Since this is a continuation of Teal Mask, I was expecting to run into some of Kieran's former bullies or to meet a certain Pokémon on his team, or at least see more instances of him being a jerk to other students, but besides a couple of instances there's not really a lot going on here to build him up.

Same with Carmine. You battle her once and that's it. I was hoping to have some kind of introspection with her, maybe she's a victim of a Mean Girls scenario and that's why she became a tad bitchy, but at best she's just worried about her brother and along for the ride.

Terapagos is supposed to be the star of the DLC- literally named The Treasure of Area Zero, but he barely had screen time besides 1 very amazing boss battle. I fear this is another anime Zygarde situation.

Briar basically did nothing besides be a little reckless. Literally if she were removed from the plot, nothing of value would have been lost. She's essentially just a red herring they through out thinking they were clever for tricking us into thinking she was the big bad or at least a bit more important, but in actuality she was just a let down all around. I can't help but feel like they had something bigger planned but scrapped it.

Not to mention the loose ends still left behind regarding Area Zero and the book. Yes I did that extra scene, and honestly it just confuses me further, so I assume we have to wait until the "epilog" is released.

Still, a half assed "paradoxes are from other timelines" was the only answer we got about how Paradox Pokémon got to Area Zero before the time machine. Not the professor or someone else bootstrap looping by sending Pokémon to the past to purposely plant seeds to ensure they come to AZ, just a very tissue paper strength answer.

We still get nothing about the mysterious symbols, the strange metals, the crystal tree, nothing is really answered and it's probably just the result of a room of writers at Game Freak patting themselves on the back and saying "we like mystery :) we did good!" Well, sorry, no you didn't.

This gives me Lost vibes and The Promised Nederland vibes. The Promised Nederland vibes in the sense they built this amazing potential in the base game- season 1 of you will- filled with mystery and intrigue, but then tried to either ignore or half ass things in Season 2- The dlc. Lost comes into play because I honestly think they had no intention of truly explaining anything and had no real clear cut end game in mind except to get people hooked. Like I'm nor asking for a Legends Paldea where we explore the depths with Heath- okay I do want that but I'm not asking right now- I would have been very, very satisfied if there were at least more journals and entries or pages that explained things. As it is now, though, it just won't happen.

And maybe I'm wrong and the epilog will fix everything and give us the answers I seek, but I sincerely doubt it.

At least what's here is passable enough. I like the BBE4 and Drayton is a loveable piece of shit. I still hate that Lacey confirms Clay fucked though. No Elesa is not her mom, that's fake info.

I miss Carmine and Kieran and hate that they're just gone as of now.

BBQ quests

Tedious. Tedious and monotonous. I don't want to play multi-player and I don't have friends with Nintendo Online and DLC to play with, nor the bandwidth. Why am I being punished for that? The quests are fine but you have to do them for several fucking hours to get anything worth it out of the deal.

Coaches

I like the idea and love all the different interactions here and there. The rematch teams are updated, too, but unfortunately remain single battles, so they're pretty easy in comparison to the rest of Indigo Disk. I did have trouble with some after changing out my party for weaker pokemon, but it was never a critical danger moment except for Hassel.

I will say, I love the implications of some of the dialog. Tulip and the school nurse are just very lesbians for Dendra, Saguro and Kofu radiate General Armstrong and Sig handshake energy, and Geeta is trying to recruit everything with a pulse to join the Elite 4.

It's this level of heart I wish they bothered to put into the base DLC.

What I hate is that it costs so much to rotate them around to get gold borders. It's necessary to do something special apparently- but btw the last 3 slots are story locked until the Epilog drops. Yaya future content, boo withholding content.

Oh and they fixed Geeta's team. Her new ace is actually terrifying.

New Pokémon

Fantastic all around. Archaludon is fun af to use, Hydrapplin fixes what I dislike about Dipplin, the paradoxes are all neat, Terapagos's Stellar form is beautiful and powerful as hell, great all around.

Music

I think we're in Sonic territory where the quality of games goes down but the music just keeps getting better and better. No flaws, love the Unova love! It even fixes Ed Sheeran's Celestial imo- a song kinda shoved in that has nothing to do with Pokémon except maybe to trigger content flags on YouTube.

The remix by Toby Fox actually has elements of music from Scarlet and Violet, it's chill overall, and the lyrics actually sort of kinda have context now? Rinse and Repeat makes it sound relevant to the cycles of bullying and the paradox plots as a whole, and Kieran's spiral actually fits it. Overall a vast improvement.

Difficulty

Guys, it is refreshingly difficult. It's like a dip into Colosseum again with the strategies the BBE4 uses. Drayton actually beat me TWICE. I NEVER lose. The rest were easier, but still required a bit more thinking than "press A to win."

The only downside is that it is sort of a snowball effect. Initially it might be difficult to overcome, but you will gain levels very quickly, which of course diminishes challenge. I'm not joking when I say that the team I went in with, roughly late 60s to 70 by the time I caught them all, are now ALL level 100, which is the quickest I've ever gotten a completely fresh team to it.

Customization

I said it before but it's just lacking. The new uniforms look better than most of the others, come in more varieties, and I'll be honest? Feel less fetishy in the l*li and sh*ta direction. I'm still not completely satisfied but I can make it work. New hair still sucks but I do like the new Star glasses and uniform.

I'm just going to say it though, this was definitely a way to cut corners on customization and they should just let us dress how we want again. Too much limitation makes me look like everyone else playing the game. It was dumb but excusable this time, but it won't fly again in the future. Just saying.

Graphics and performance

Let's do it like this:

The good: graphics in some areas, when loaded in, genuinely look up to date and beautiful to look at. The tropical area, savanna, and under depths are very beautiful locations, the classrooms look extremely polished, lots of gorgeous visuals all around, and even older Pokémon have some updated visuals.

I'll also say the Terrarium is just better visually than Kitakami and Paldea.

The bad: performance still sucks ass and Nintendo, The Pokémon Company, and Game Freak should all be fucking ashamed for charging $95 for what is essentially a stuttering mess that struggles not to shit itself at times. Like the GAUL to leave in map flickering in the first cutscene meant to show you how beautiful and vast the Terarium is is astounding. Give back your Award for Excellence until you actually deserve it, you're no longer an indie company and it's time you behaved like it, Game Freak. Absolute shame on you. You've had over a year to fix this and still haven't.

World's richest franchise, people.

Overall

There's plenty to salvage here that makes it fun and engaging, but the same issues have yet to be fixed and the story just refuses to tie up some loose ends that NEEDED to be explored. It's also just CRIMINALLY short, and I actually took my time. What we got is okay but it's not the same quality of story we got for Arven or Team Star, and honestly I feel like it would have been better to save these characters for another game. They padded it out with tedious quests that just get annoying after a while and feel like a punishment, especially for single players.

While I love the idea of old style event Pokémon coming back, I hate that we have to wait to experience something that- heads up- is ALREADY IN THE GAME. That's just stupid imo and would have really helped keep things going.

So yeah, just barely passing at 6/10. Depending on the epilog, that may go between a 4 or 7.

[thatgamer]

Pokemon Scarlet & Violet

Disclaimer: This is not a full review as I am trying to avoid spoilers. I will post another (longer) review at a later date with a spoiler tag.

---

Now, I know you must be thinking, "This is a $60 game that has nothing but bugs! Just look at this!"

I'll admit, I was super nervous to buy the game. A dear friend of mine even offered to let me watch them play for a bit before shelling out the money, but I decided to still put out the money and give the game a try. Honestly, despite all the bugs involved with this game though, I am genuinely having a great time.

The more "game-breaking" bugs do tend to be prevalent with multiplayer mode than single-player. I have only personally experienced a larger bug during a gym test, which I will talk about later in this review. The other bugs I experienced did not hinder the gameplay at all and made for funny videos to share with my friends. I will preface that by saying funny experiences are no excuse for a $60 game to be sold in this state.

Compared to Legends Arceus, which was able to give us a compelling story, great gameplay, beautiful graphics, and smooth performance, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet missed the mark on performance and some graphics. Although, it did amazingly on carrying the torch of the story. The story is compelling and also loops back to the history of Arceus on occasion. Aside from the main story, there are three different side stories you can follow that add more life to the game. You can also attend classes to help give you more context clues on the main story and get to know some of the characters a bit more.

This is, however, the first Pokemon game where I find myself not interested in completing the gym battles. In fact, I find myself actively trying to avoid gyms as much as possible because of the gym tests at the beginning. The instructions are unclear on some of the gym tests, or the performance is so bad that the gym tests are near impossible to complete in a decent amount of time. They feel like they take forever, especially if you have the issues I had with the olive push. This GIF is similar to my own experience:

The gym leaders also have more basic designs compared to other characters in the game. They also don't hold many challenges compared to previous games' gym battles. Some of the gym leaders are also lacking in the personality department, while others exceed.

Then we have the issue of hats. Yes, you read that right. Hats.

There are some hairstyles in the game that will not allow your character to wear hats. How you find out your style won't allow hats is only by going into your clothing menu and trying to put one on. If your hairstyle conflicts, you will get a message saying "This hairstyle won't allow for hats." If you go straight to the hat store from the hair salon, your character just won't load in if you have a conflicting hairstyle, which is hard to tell if it's the game being slow or your hairstyle not being compatible with hats considering how long the load times can be in the stores to begin with.

The stores are another issue as well. There are times when you go to enter a store, and it teleports your character inside without bringing up the menu, or the items in the store are extremely limited such as the glasses store that only has half-rim glasses or sunglasses. That's it.

There are also the issues of multiple of the same stores being in the main hub area because the city is just too big for the amount of content available. You can find about 4 or 5 of the same food shops just in the hub city. Seriously, when you're in the city count the coffee shops/cafes you come across, the same with the sandwich ingredient shops. There's no need to have that many other than to fluff the area.

All that said, I do genuinely recommend the game, but only with a caveat. If you can find it cheaper, then get it on sale. Do not pay the full price for this game. While it is a fun time, it is not worth $60 when it still looks, feels, and plays like a demo.

[arikad0]

I posted 5,197 times in 2022

That's 3,378 more posts than 2021!

2,634 posts created (51%)

2,563 posts reblogged (49%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@/wygolvillage

@/anotherdragonsfan

@/vourdalak

@/dranora

@/arikad0

I tagged 3,990 of my posts in 2022

Only 23% of my posts had no tags

#castlevania - 504 posts

#pokemon - 410 posts

#ff7 - 253 posts

#video - 164 posts

#asks - 140 posts

#legend of zelda - 58 posts

#legends arceus spoilers - 53 posts

#grimoire of souls spoilers - 49 posts

#pmd - 47 posts

#audio - 44 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#yes i'm gettin emotional over a scene from a non-canon mode with barely any dialogue from a nearly 20 year old castlevania game let me live

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

tapes all four of Sprigatito's paws to the ground so it does NOT become bipedal upon evolution

47 notes - Posted February 27, 2022

#4

ngl it was kinda clever of GameFreak to have the professor who isn't in the version you chose be a deadbeat parent who didn't want children in order to explain why they don't show up in both games

62 notes - Posted November 23, 2022

#3

this concept art of Mai and Adaman makes me so happy. I love chaotic siblings

155 notes - Posted February 13, 2022

#2

whenever Alucard did something to get Dracula mad at him as a kid he would run out of the castle and just stand in the sun. and stare at him.

288 notes - Posted February 12, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

do you ever think about how Alucard looks like his human mother while in his regular vampire form, but looks like his vampire father while disguised as a human,,,,,

4,157 notes - Posted May 5, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[destiny-smasher]

Pokemon Scarlet/Violet is a Damn Mess

Strap in lasses, lads, nonbinary finery, and everyone around and inbetween. This one's a doozy. I won't be describing any post-game/end-game details specifically, but I *will* be mentioning in vague terms some of the late game stuff, in case you're sensitive to spoilers.

This rant starts with things I liked (which it does have!), then goes full tilt into spicy rage. So avoid it if you're for whatever reason sensitive about an unfinished game being talked about like it's an unfinished game. Do not try starting some argument with me, these are my personal opinions and not a scored/professional review. Enjoy your game if you're enjoying it and ignore this grumpy 90's era gamer.

TLDR bullet points at the tail end for those that benefits.

So I've put in 16 hours into Pokemon Scarlet. Did like, 2/3 of the main story badge quests, I would say, caught a bunch of mons. Aaaaand I'm done with this game. I am not of the opinion that without the tech performance issues, it would magically be this super amazing Pokemon game. Personally, I'm just not impressed with it. And we'll get into why I just don't think it's a well designed or well made product or RPG.

But first, the things I liked, or even loved. Because there are definitely some things I did like and love about it, especially after checking out the story (I recently watched all of the main story scenes from where I'd gotten to the end credits).

Opponents have never had this amount of personality put into them. When stacked against other peers in the gaming landscape, it's still kind of laughable how limited these characters are in a lot of ways, but SV goes to further lengths than any previous game in giving opponent trainers and story characters specific designs, bits of life in their animation, and even some mid-battle dialogue, on top of some of them even having…more than single note to their personality! Crazy, I know. It does still feel a bit flat without voice acting (we'll touch on that later) but it is SOMETHING. Character models look much improved from Arceus, and they do much better and more interesting things with what story there is, for the most part -- the one area I will concede I think this game clearly beats Arceus in, objectively.

The music is inconsistent imo BUT the songs that are bops are great, and naturally they're reserved for fights. I blame Toby Fox for this and Sw/Sh having some truly fun tunes, but I'm sure the other people working on music are doing work. Pokemon has never had TERRIBLE music, it's always been at least good if not awesome, and at least the Switch games are pushing things somewhat forward. My favorite tracks in the game are probably the Gym Fight (the opening part with the brass, before the vocals kick in), the Star boss fights, Nemona's Battle Theme, which I love that we get a few variants of (reminds me of Marnie's theme, my fav from SwSh). And speaking of Nemona…

Nemona is probably the best character in the entire Pokemon franchise at this point, at least to me. I mostly write YA fiction, sometimes from a perspective of trying to sift through the silt of my youth and identify who I 'truly was' as a youth given how like half of my personality was stifled and suppressed. And Nemona's the first time a Pokemon character has felt like someone I would write myself, felt like someone who reminds me of why I like the things I like. She captures the essence of the gameplay of Pokemon into a passionate youth who walks a fine line between teaching the player the ropes while alluding to her being much better at fighting than she's letting on, all because she just loves doing it, loves growing and learning and being impressed by others doing the same. Pokemon games struggle with their rivals usually, and even their gym leaders, because they honestly aren't that great at Pokemon battling, usually? But with Nemona, they've found a clever solution to that issue: they can allude to her experience, but her context with your character is that she's 'senpai,' she's the older student teaching you, so naturally she's going to go easy on you. It's a shockingly elegant solution to a problem the franchise has basically always had.

Beyond this, she just has a cute, cool character design that's pretty recognizable despite wearing the generic school uniform (she at least squeezes some bits of uniqueness with her green highlights and arm guard). She's a bit of a one-track mind but within the world of Pokemon that honestly fits right in. I have some personal bias here that I tweeted about already, but I just really like her, and I love seeing a character so overtly passionate about battling and looking to your player character to grow to be a fitting rival to her. She specifically says this, but it's clear enough before that point -- and it's also funny how ironically BAD people in this world are at Pokemon battling, so honestly, can you blame her for being desperate for some real competish? She does still lay flatly on the side of being fully supportive of your character and not truly feeling like an actual rival, something the series seems honestly afraid of at this point for some reason. But at least there's context. She's adorable and I like her a lot, she reminds me of my younger self. And as someone whose favorite genre is fighting games? Her motivations totally speak to me. Even her intro animation to a battle feels like something out of a fighting game.

Nemona represents pursuing your passion and letting yourself LOVE the things you love, letting yourself get EXCITED about having new people in your life to share those things with, and I just love her so much for it. I didn't expect going into this game that I'd end up having such a strong emotional reaction to any of its characters but Nemona made me cry tears of happiness (literally right now, thinking about and writing this up after watching the ending of the Victory Road path) because I GET IT, girl. And she's going to help kids out there feel OK with pursuing their passions, pursuing bonds with others, pursuing mutual growth and self improvement, and that makes me extremely happy.

( - Continue Reading after the line break - )

Arven's story takes that well-tested shortcut of 'make audience feel sad for a dog,' but it's a plotline we've not really seen in the games, and it's great to have here even if it's a bit on the nose. It also gives his rough exterior at first some depth when you realize what he's trying to accomplish, and why, once you learn about his backstory. It's a sweet side story and I also liked how it tied into your movement abilities out in the field. And Penny's side plot…well, it's a little convoluted and undercooked but it is something different, as well, brushing against a pretty meaningful topic without ever diving deep enough to do much with it. And Penny herself is fun, with a great character design, with the Team Star members being certainly recognizable and just wacky in their very high-school-esque, over-the-top premises and personas.

The Star gang is amusing enough, Penny's role was not at all a surprise but that's fine because it just made sense and added up nicely. Penny as a character is great, too, it's actually refreshing having someone prominent in a Pokemon game who...just doesn't seem to love Pokemon the same way everyone else does? Who's jaded and cynical. I like that. Honestly, she looks a lot like my wife and shares a lot in common? (her name is even Jenny so, funny coincidence)

I also loved Car- I MEAN CLINT. What a fantastic character design/concept (yet again), just awesome and fun. Pokemon needs more of that -- just embracing the goofiness. And also just older characters who persist in the narrative without staying back in your home town or whatever. Moreso than any other Pokemon game before it, SV actually has what I'd say is the best cast of human characters. Now, without getting full on into the negatives just yet, bear in mind…this is still Pokemon as you know it. Very limited interactions, very basic scenes, bare minimum animations, no voice acting, barely any character development. It's still clearly going for the designs first and foremost, and they are varied and appealing, for sure. The 'Normal' type gym leader with his Nick Cage ass businessman schtick had me chuckling in a way no Pokemon game has made me react to an opponent trainer. Just seeing Gym Leaders being presented as PEOPLE who have…LIVES…and JOBS, with the Pokemon battling being like a side thing, or like a new job, that's such a huge change and it's refreshing.

There's only a handful of truly animated cutscenes in the game, which have that weird hollow feeling to them with literally no voice acting, but it's more than Pokemon games have really done before. The human characters actually look pretty good even up close, too, and do many of the Pokemon -- and touching on that, I think a lot of the new mon designs are great. GameFreak seems to have figured out hair physics, and HOO BOI do they make sure you know it with the many overdone, strange, wacky hairstyles in this game. And they also seem to have actually figured out mocap, from the looks of it -- during the brief actual cutscenes, the characters actually animated naturally and look pretty good (even if there's still a lotta rough edges in the presentation otherwise).

As for the story itself, it's again, pretty barebones, super basic, but still a noticeable step up than previous games. Like some degree of effort beyond the norm has gone into story this time, which I can appreciate, even if none of it reaches what is standard for other high profile JRPGs these days. Having multiple threads you progress at your own pace, and then tying them together is nice - and they do weave the main characters of all three together in a way that's simple but effective and organic. I have to wonder what they might have been able to do had they focused their energy into telling ONE story instead of three. Like having them more tightly threaded together to form one plotline, I mean. But what's here is at least more interesting than previous games I've played (I skipped the DS era but I hear people liked that era's worldbuilding). Even when I felt done with the game, I still looked up the story scenes I missed as I was just enough invested and curious to see what they did with them. Pokemon is, for better and for worse, squarely targeted at kids in its design and presentation, and I think what's here is certainly more substantial than what the series has done before, both in visual representation and the basic but relevant to kids plots it has going on.

I will say that after looking up the final hour of the game, I do get what all of the hub-bub around it is. My wife and I were literally talking about how a Pokemon game could be so awesome if it functioned more like a traditional RPG with actual party members, inter-party dialogue, that whole shebang, and while it's…extremely ROUGH in its execution due to the technical problems and lack of presentation, you can totally see a glimmer of this in Area Zero, and even what little is here is honestly pretty cool, interesting, and has a complete mini-story-arc going on. I want to play a full Pokemon game that has something more like this all the time, with multiple humans, each with their own teams to manage, even -- it'd make for a great spinoff imo, but what's here is…at least different, trying new things that actually have good ideas. GameFreak certainly seems to have lots of good ideas they are struggling to implement, yet they clearly are in over their heads on how to do it.

And on that note, that's it for the positives. You may have noticed I have barely talked about the gameplay, and predominantly have been talking about the characters, what bits of world-building there are, and story. That's because as a video game, I just found it really boring. Time to get nitty gritty on why I personally didn't even find a very engaging video game buried beneath all of the tech issues.

I will not dedicate much time to this game's inexcuseably poor optimization and tech issues. For a first party Nintendo game, this is a new low. I have never seen a Nintendo published game look and run this awfully, and I'm sure many have been startled, shocked, and disappointed by this. By now, if you're reading this, I'm sure you're well aware of these issues. I personally don't expect most of the problems to improve even with patches, in part because a lot of this stuff just isn't 'fixable' in a post-release sense, generally speaking, AND the companies involved have like zero incentive to meaningfully address or even explicitly acknowledge them. But it's a big deal, and I'm glad it's been talked about. Let's move on to the gameplay.

This is an "open world" game, yes. In a technical sense. In a barely functioning sense. But it is a far cry from understanding what makes for a compelling open world game, or even a modern, by-the-numbers one. It at least is attempting something, but bleh. It's so hollow. There's basically two types of open world games at this point. ones like Breath of the Wild or Outer Wilds that basically leave everything up to the player to decide where to go, what to do, and give them a vast array of unique locations, landmarks, and the like to pique their curiosity, with baked in interwoven systems that can be learned and mastered over time. Then, there are by-the-books open world games, with vast maps populated with a bajillion icons, a giant checklist of tasks to do with a trickle feed of rewards and a linear story to complete, where player experience/strength is measured more with numbers than knowledge. Pokemon Scar/Vi is neither of these types of games, really, but is trying/pretending to be both, and fails at capturing what either does well.

All it really has going for it, in my opinion, is the same old song and dance we've been doing for decades: the core Pokemon formula of discovering, catching, and raising teams of creatures to fight. It sure does do that, and in a more traditional way that Arceus, with the more traditional trappings and mechanics all accounted for, plus the obligatory time-consuming gimmicks. Even just some level balancing could've gone a LONG way to making the experience really feel more open-ended, and giving opponent trainers, especially gym leaders, some more bite, especially if they scaled their teams to how many badges you had (like the actual Pokemon lore) would have been awesome. But it wouldn't save a lifeless, boring husk of a world map from being oddly unpleasant to navigate back to the world, though, while it IS very good that they have opened up that world for us to explore more at our own pace, it's got major problems imo. Let's start with the map…'design?'

The world doesn't really have much design TO it, really. It's a series of pathways with hella empty space in-between, with lots of artificial divides that discourage exploration, locked behind the movement unlocks you complete in Arven's story (or maybe jumping backwards up a fucking hill because lol game's unfinished). It doesn't feel like one giant level laid out in themed zones, with environmental 'puzzles' to work through. It's just…a big mess of shapes. A giant circle of places to go to accomplish tasks -- and while you CAN technically do them in any order, you are basically punished for trying to do them outside of an intended order, due to the strict, linear levelling nature of Pokemon. Shit isn't designed or balanced around numbers-based combat in an open-ended scenario. Nothing seems to scale, at all, in any way. In Elden Ring or BOTW this is fine because you can use cleverness, strategy, items, summons, friends, WHATEVER, to tailor the experience, and when things are too easy it's usually still fun because it's a great measure of your character's growth, often due to overcoming things balanced against you to get that extra edge. You can summon your friends into Paldea which IS cool but what can you DO together? Those raid things? Which are boring, slow, and easy as fuck and the screens before/after take longer than actually playing them (which usually is just spamming your Super Effective move repeatedly when it's even functioning correctly). Trainers don't stop you in your tracks but what is the damn POINT of them, even? Everyone's got like one, MAYBE two monsters, and gym leaders don't seem to put up much of a fight at all, either. I GET hella kids will play this but that was true on GB and they had SOME more there.

In fact, backtrack to the GB games. I still distinctly remember exploring Mt. Moon for the first time. It was a maze. It was full of fucking Zubats and Geodudes, and trainers who had Pokemon my Fire starter and normal types struggled against. It was memorable as a challenge, as an environment to work through. Most Pokemon games have locations like that, at least in older gens. This game seems to be lacking in any of that despite the open world format being ripe for putting things like that in. I don't remember locations really, apart from a handful of small landmarks shrouded in buildings in the towns. I, uh, stumbled upon a neat cave tunnel one time, which had…some of the usual Pokemon you'd expect, maybe a TM or something, and that was basically it? Nowhere else in my 16 hours of playing felt like I had DISCOVERED anything, save for the single ominous glowy nail stuck in the ground I saw. And yet multiple times in Arceus I experienced at least a sense of discovery when I found a unique patch of land with a wisp to collect or an Alpha Pokemon tucked in a cranny somewhere you couldn't see from a distance, or a nice place to stock up on certain items, or a shiny Pokemon that made its presence VERY VISUALLY APPARENT the second it was on screen, from at least some amount of distance (rather than you tripped over it when it pops in three feet in front of you with a color so barely different from the norm you don't even recognize it as a shiny). I'm sorry, this world is mostly hollow, vapid, and boring for me to navigate, worsened by the performance issues really hampering things.

There are giant arrow signs pointing to where you can actually go because the world design doesn't make much sense. Ladders stuck into the side of rock faces because…no reason? They're just…there. They make no sense with the design of the landscape. Doesn't feel like a world. You can't rely on the map to figure out where to go sometimes due to the way things are laid out, too, with entrances to some of the northern regions being really obtuse. Towns stutter and chug as NPCs pop in and out and flicker, they don't really have anything interesting to say, anyway. Houses can't be entered, trainers aren't deliberately in wait for you but just…standing aimlessly around, waiting to be talked to - and of course they almost always have a single mon and that's it. There's barely any landmarks to get you curious to check something out, and on the rare occasion when something visually looks…"interesting" (read: different but ugly because this game can't render for shit), when you go to check it out, it's usually just…a big blah, nothing exciting. I will say that at least there DOES seem to be some kind of neat sidequest involving glowy nails stuck in the ground (presumably to unlock a mysterious Pokemon, I assume). THAT is something! Give us more of that! That is actually using your open world and Pokemon formatting to do something fun and interesting the old style of games wouldn't be able to do the same.

Even Arceus did this way better, with all kinds of little nooks and crannies with specific Pokemon hiding in wait, motivating you to check out the parts of the map you haven't been to. It wasn't super advanced, but it was something. Here, everything feels fucking RANDOM. Even items feel absolutely random, and near as I can tell, many of them literally are. There's some TMs that do seem "deliberately" placed but not in a way that generally feels rewarding to get to, and every other item literally feels randomly scattershot around, and often seems laggy to get picked up for some reason. Also, why is everything you pick up in a pokeball again? We finally ditched this shit in Arceus, where items are actually recognizeable out in the field, and make SENSE, and you combine them and use them in organic ways. The only crafting we have now is for TMs, which IS a cool idea, but I don't really like the execution since it entails 'parts' from specific Pokemon, whereas I think it'd have been better to give you a few options per TM, and/or types, or…something less finite and rigid, given just how many Pokemon exist. That's a minor complaint, it's really fine I suppose, but I already miss the much more beneficial item crafting of Arceus, which meant I valued every healing item and pokeball I used and stockpiled until the late game, where I felt rewarded for having made so much progress so as to not even worry about that stuff.

Not to mention from a tech spec the game can't even render an open world that functions properly. Shit pops in SO close to you. And it's not just a visual thing, it directly impacts the gameplay in a negative way. Your big dragonbike will trip on the smallest mon that popped in ten feet in front of you and whoops, you're stuck in a battle now. See a Pokemon you wanna fight but overshot where it is slightly? It despawns and guess what? It ain't comin' back because when something disappears it doesn't necessarily mean it's still there, it's probably just fuckin' gone now if it's a wild mon.

Briefly, let's touch on Tera types. Fun idea, on paper. In practice...just more nonsense than it's worth, tbh. And it's patently clear they wanted a fancy new visual gimmick without needing to actually render new mon designs so hey, slap a wonky texture and a hat on their head that makes things easily interchangeable. I will admit the idea of being able to swap a Pokemon's type temporarily is a great one, though, especially given just how pivotal type matchups are to the strategy and success of the mainline games, but the implementation here is...just kinda half-baked, in my mind. Not to mention the raids somehow being even worse than before, despite having some more interesting ideas. Like they're just WAY too difficult, or WAY too easy, and/or way too buggy/laggy.

There's a new cooking system, and unlike the curry system it's less engaging to do, much more finnicky, AND is just plain unclear. Like. Someone explain to me how the cooking system even functions, why it's useful, HOW and WHERE you can even see what food effects you currently have active and for how long. Big waste of time, not to mention how comically bad the foot eating animation is, on top of how finnicky the sandwich minigame itself is (psst, GameFreak, just…just add a SHADOW, you know? so we can see where the heck objects are going to land?)

Oh and there's a day-night cycle, but it's terrible. There's no in-game clock (just a vague symbol that changes, on your map, which is easy to miss to begin with). It's not based on real-world time. Lighting will SUDDENLY change from night to day, no inbetween, seemingly. This happens during big battles, cutscenes -- you'll start a boss fight in the day, end it at night, watch a cutscene in the day, and then suddenly it's night time when you're out of the cutscene. You cannot seem to fast-forward it or change it in any way, so if you want to catch something during a certain time of day, sucks to be you, I guess. Arceus did not have these problems, not any of them as I recall.

Which brings me to probably my biggest gripe with the gameplay: it's back to being pointlessly slow, boring to look at, and generally a terribly clunky sense of flow. Arceus was laughable amidst other AAA franchise peers but it at least got lots of quality of life things improved to make game flow FASTER and more seamlessly. In ScarVi, basically EVERYTHING Arceus did to somehow address Pokemon's awful pacing has been undone. Practically all of the same bullshit is here and accounted for when it comes to battles, using items, buying things, it's all clunky as hell. Want to buy multiple lemonades at a vending machine? Have fun scrolling the text and waiting for it every single time. A mon changes stats in a fight? Watch every single individual stat change animation in sequence, every time. Using an attack that hits multiple times? Watch the dinky little animation, then the HP decrease, every single time, and of course with pointless text boxes slowing things further. ANY time HP changes in any way, you have to sit and wait a second for the bar to change. Except, actually, not always -- seemingly at fucking random it just…won't show it sometimes?

Did a move miss? Cool, just don't bother animating it! Did a Pokemon dodge? No animation for that either. Can you run away? No animation for that, either, just an arbitrary "dunno, you couldn't escape for SOME REASON" Why. Why is this shit still a thing in a top selling RPG in 2022? Arceus also did most of this shit, too, and it's pretty dumb, to be frank. Just a QUICK little jump and rotation of a Pokemon model as the text tells you it missed, SOMETHING. And Arceus actually let you RUN AWAY by just…literally running. Not to mention how seamlessly it allowed you to switch Pokemon and use items, even out in the field, by letting you sort things and use item bars. Like modern video games do? None of that here. Hope you like sifting through like ten pockets of random shit to get whatever specific thing you need, then click on a mon, play a glaring sound effect they refuse to get rid of, then wait arbitrarily for it to do its thing, and get a text prompt telling you it did its thing. I know there's an 'auto heal' function on the menu, which IS something, at least? And you are picking up healing items a lot, which does show some degree of foresight (though again, feels more random than anything). But the clunky UI and beeping and booping and ALL of this fucking waiting for plain text scrolls to describe things that don't need describing and could be SHOWN with just super basic, quick animations…this isn't charming at this point, it doesn't feel deliberate -- it feels lazy.

Oh, hey, by the way, remember how an exciting addition to the past few entries has been customizing your character with different outfits and hairstyles? WELL FUCK YOU you don't GET to customize your character as much now. No new outfits to find. Nearly every damn store sells like 10 color variations of ONE thing, maybe two, and almost all of them are so boring and bland! Want to change your hair? Hope you don't like wearing hats, then, because for no good reason the game just DOESN'T let you wear hats with certain hairstyles! At all! Just can't be done I guess! They've never been EXTRA with the cosmetics but this is devolved BACKWARDS, not even from Arceus but from games BEFORE that one.

The game is just awfully inconsistent, all around. The feel, the presentation, the animation, the MUSIC, even just the textures on things…it all feels so hodgepodge. Arceus was light and muddy and didn't look very great usually but it was at least somehow consistent. And I get it, they're clearly commissioning and outsourcing a lot of stuff, but then if that's the case, why does so much still feel so shoddy? If you're gonna outsource, fucking OUTSOURCE -- you're POKEMON, the highest grossing media franchise on the planet. Hire voice actors, hire animators, hire people who know how to make games actually run on the Switch, hire people who know how to make these potentially cool building look GOOD, hire people who know how to apply natural looking textures and polygons to natural environments.

This lack of consistency just gets jarring, especially when stacked with camera wonkiness, framerate dips, etc. And of course you can't edit options anywhere for this shit. Find the loud 8-bit chimes every time you scroll text or use items annoying? Find some songs too repetitious? Too bad. You could completely turn the sound off, I guess?

And YES, I will bring up voice acting, because YES, a series THIS huge should fucking have SOMETHING, somewhere. Not literally everything needs VO, even though just some basic sounds would go a long way. But the CUTSCENES? With named characters who even by now actually somewhat animate? Why are they all muted? It was kind of cute on the Wii when they did it with Twilight Princess, a game that was actually oozing with detail and production (by Nintendo's standards then), and characters who animated in ways that made them genuinely interesting to look at. But here, it's like…I dunno? It just feels EMPTY. Like it feels like voiceover is missing, because...it literally is. If other RPGs that sell a FRACTION of the copies Pokemon does can have two or even MORE voiced languages, why are we getting literally nothing here? It's not a "stylistic choice," it's just boring. And if people don't want the VO then hey maybe let us mute JUST the VO -- that is, if you're capable of getting that to work. Arceus had its issues. It absolutely did. When that game released, I thought it was a new low for the series, production wise. How ironic, given how much worse this game is in that department. But Arceus had a strong sense of FLOW. It was so organic and fast-paced compared to other Pokemon games, filling out the dex was more enriching and involved, side quests contributed to an overall theme and focus, everything was streamlined, sped up and improved -- even the holy battle system was CHANGED in ways that made it faster and more interesting imo. I'm not saying you need to ditch this entire classic style formula, Legends can easily be its own side series, but DANG did ya'll drop the ball on picking up what inherent improvements it made and reverting back to the slower, boring stuff, INCLUDING releasing two versions.

And lastly, why in the fuck ARE we still doing this double version bullshit? It's not cute anymore. You're not doing anything meaningful with it. It's just there to boost sales. Cut it out. Another thing Arceus addressed, by the way, and ditched. Because it's pretty dumb. Give us meaningful choices, yes -- like our starters. Remember back in the day when that wasn't the ONLY choice you'd get that would limit what Pokemon you'd have? Give us more of that, if your real goal is to encourage players to trade. But it's not -- it's to arbitrarily sell more copies to the people who will double down JUST to…own the same fucking game twice. And we still fall for it.

And in the end, isn't that how we ended up here? Because we keep collectively giving GameFreak the benefit of the doubt. We keep cutting The Pokemon Company slack. We keep letting Nintendo off the hook when it comes to Pokemon, specifically, in a way no other franchise except KIND OF Sonic gets away with. Pokemon means the world to me. I got into writing fiction because of Pokemon. I treasure those early days of the franchise, and I still treasure the POTENTIAL it is brimming with, as new kids get into it in numbers untold of, and as kids who grew up with it are adults, hungry for more -- and yet does GameFreak acknowledge that a DECENT PORTION of its audience are adults? Nah.

"But it's made for kids." Miss me. Miss me with that tired ass excuse. It's old and stale and not applicable anymore. Kids don't deserve games that run like ass, held together by tape and string, with bare minimum presentation yet a premium price tag -- oh, and make that price tag DOUBLE for lots of folks due to the unnecesary dual-release thing. You know what other games came out this year that were made for kids, and even specifically on the Switch? Kirby and the Forgotten Land. Splatoon 3. Some recent TV shows made for kids? The Owl House, She-Ra, CentaurWorld. And they're all fucking great, well produced, well made, and all pieces of media adults can easily pick up and enjoy even if they're not the target audience. And at the end of the day, people of EVERY age deserve to enjoy things they love, and deserve GOOD, well made things that money is getting spent on.

This would be an entirely different conversation -- a non-existant one, really -- if GameFreak was actually an indie team, making actual indie games. You may have blinked and missed it, but they HAVE made indie games -- multiple by now. And they never seem to take off. Just throwing that out there. GameFreak seems to want to cling to some fantasy of being a plucky indie developer, yet insistent on trying to stretch their too few workers too thinly rushing out multiple things out the door (ScarVi and Arceus absolutely did not need to release in the SAME CALENDER YEAR). I'm sorry but when you're an "indie team" operating under the highest grossing media franchise on the planet, AND you want to be producing multiple games simultaneously, AND you want to try doing ambitious things, AND you don't want to (or more likely, don't GET to) take your time on them, AND you don't want to allocate the people, experience, resources necessary to get things to actually function properly, much less look and feel good? Pokemon Scarlet/Violet is what you get.

And it's not some anomaly. This was to be expected. We could all pretty much see this was where the franchise was going when Sword and Shield happened. And there's no reason for this trend not to continue at this rate, with record setting sale numbers in its opening days.

I love the potential of this world, and other franchises that have found success have been able to BLOSSOM in beautiful ways from that success, in this past decade specifically (even just the past 5 years). I really like many of the individual characters in this specific video game. I love seeing Pokemon games try to FINALLY mix things up in meaningful ways, it's long overdue.

But I'm probably just "too old" and "too grumpy" to appreciate the shoddy quality, repetitious and boring pacing, and overall lack of foresight or game design present in modern Pokemon games. Many will gobble this game up and enjoy it, and I am honestly really happy that can still happen even with the state this game is in. I was likewise able to enjoy Arceus more than any mainline Pokemon since Gen 2, even though the game felt like a glorified tech demo. The Pokemon formula just isn't enough for me anymore, and The Pokemon Company absolutely has all of the time, money, and resources they could want to make the games elevate to the standard of quality you'd expect from a brand that performs like Splatoon, like Mario, like Zelda, like Animal Crossing -- and a franchise that reels in adults to a kid's game in ways essentially no other franchise does. It's fucking weird how scared of quality production values the Pokemon games are in a lot of ways. Meanwhile, look at what Bandai Namco has been able to pull off when given the reigns: games that look and feel like actual modern video games, still kid-friendly, but also aware that adults like Pokemon, too. Why do actual Pokemon games seem terrified of this?

Dear GameFreak: Get over your indie complex. You don't get to pretend to be indie while selling more copies of a single game than every other indie game combined, and then do it AGAIN like 8 months later. Also? A Iot of the people who put you on the map -- people who were kids years ago -- aren't kids anymore. Stop pretending your entire audience is literal children, because many of them are not, and I'm sure you know it. But even if all of them were, you used to treat kids with more respect in how you designed and balanced stuff. Stop being afraid of that, I feel like most anyone picking up a damn Pokemon game in 2022 has some idea of what they're getting into.

Dear Pokemon Company: Let GameFreak fucking have TIME to make quality games. Give them proper resources, experienced programmers and artists, hire some actual writers maybe, voice actors. YOU HAVE SO MUCH FUCKING MONEY. Stop being greedy shits rushing more and more out the door just to keep growing when you are already so huge. Your games are suffering from it and it's embarrassing given how successful you are. You invest SO MUCH into animation, marketing, cards, merchandise, and the actual GAMES -- the part the MOST amount of your audience engages with the most deeply -- are getting starved for time and resources. What the fuck.

Dear Nintendo: Ya'll are fucking better than this. You may not always make smart business choices, or even MODERN game design choices (though you're starting to get your heads on with that, small steps at a time), but at LEAST you've always been known for QUALITY. This messy product is a notable low for you. You should be embarrassed that a game this ugly, buggy, stuttery, rushed, and unfinished got your stamp of approval. If I was you, I'd be rushing people in to help patch the issues, and sitting down with all parties involved to make sure this doesn't happen again.

I know the ownership/management of Pokemon games is this weird mishmash in a way no other Nintendo property quite deals with so I'm sure there's stuff going on behind the scenes we don't know. I'm just mad, I'm tired, I'm fed up of seeing a franchise SO FULL OF POTENTIAL get this treatment. Unless something substantially improves, I'm done with Pokemon -- and that doesn't matter to the corporations involved. But it sure makes me upset, personally, and I'm certain I can't be the only one.

I did not get to the end of Pokemon Scarlet.

GameFreak did not finish their damn game, so I don't see why I should, either.

TLDR;

+ Great character designs and new Mon designs + Actual splashes of genuine worldbuilding and personality + We are technically allowed to do what we want + Pokemon formula/numbers game is addictive -That addictive formula is like 25 years old ya'll, gotten stale -Technical issues are HELLA BAD but you know this -Game is just overall kinda ugly already, WITH terrible optimization -World is flat and empty, devoid of life or anything interesting -Gameplay is slow, repetitious, mind-numbing -Basically everything Arceus addressed/improved, this walks back on