Pokemon Scarlet and Violet REVIEW: The Best & Worst Pokémon Games: 

It's not a question whether it is the best or worst, it's a fact that it's both the best AND worst game so far, and I love it.

something I really appreciate about this game is how the game allows you to build an actual relationship with the legendary. normally you get the legendary in the late game and not everyone plays the postgame so some people don't spend enough time with the legendaries to build an attachment to them. this way, you have them right at the beginning, they show personality, and you utilize them throughout the story in a way that isn't OP

Scarlet and violet did the “the friendships we made along the way is the real treasure” trope but they did it right

They are the worst games in terms of performance and it’s frankly insane for a game to be permitted to release in this state. That being said this is some of the most fun I’ve had with modern Pokémon in such a long time and the HOLISTIC experience of playing ScaVio was so emotional and meaningful.

I lost my dad to cancer in 2017 and I just so happened to choose violet. I also put my 16 year old lab down just a couple months ago. Arvins story had me bawling. Just an incredible story, incredible pokemon design, and by far the best music/endgame in any pokemon game.

Glad you called out the Academy Tournament theme, after spending hours throughout the game listening to the Academy theme while taking classes to get all the character interactions, it was so gratifying to hear a battle theme based off of it, and it's honestly probably my favorite. It does such a good job taking a motif you've heard a ton and making it new by going through so many different emotions and styles.

Team Star has to have the most engaging battles imo. It was so freaking cool when they sent out their Starmobile

Tbh I didn’t really experience as many of the bugs that everyone else apparently is besides the occasional visual goof, so my only real complaint is the poor performance (and to a lesser extent no level scaling but I can live with that) All in all still a very fun time

A VERY levelheaded review. Perfectly realistic with the issues but gave it credit where credit was due.

We had to put down our oldest dog back in July. He had cancer and was slowly withering away. Some days, he’d seem to be doing better and some days, he couldn’t swallow or walk. So needless to say, Arven’s story with Mabosstiff really made me super emotional. If this game would’ve been released any other year, it wouldn’t have hit me as hard.

It's such a shame that Scarlet and Violet were released this way. Game Freak had FINALLY gained the public's trust in them again with Legends Arceus, only to have it damaged again, right after. At this point, yearly releases need to stop. TCPi NEEDS to allow Game Freak to have more time to make these games. This they keep releasing unfinished games, Pokemon will forever be a laughingstock in the general publics eye.

As someone who also likes to explore every house and every nook and cranny, I was also disappointed by the lack of interiors. In general, there were a lot less of the little touches from interacting with the environment than Pokemon typically has, which was sad for me. Other than that and the performance, I loved it though!

The bigger issue than any of the performance is the fact that you can't wear anything but the school uniform imo. I love customizing my character in pokemon games and felt like this game was a bit lacking as a result. Which sucks because the character models are more detailed and customizable than ever. Everything else outside of the performance was mostly awesome. The games aren't perfect but they're a hell of a lot of fun and they push Pokemon in a good direction.

This was my first Pokémon game ever, and I loved every second of it. I bought the game after the patch to fix the glitches, and I haven’t had any performance issues at all. These games made me a new Pokémon fan 🥺

Your explainer in the beginning saying having fun doesn’t mean you’re ignoring the issues. That’s exactly what I’ve been telling all the homies.

My main issue with the games was how, while the games are open world, there is little reason to do things out of order, as you still need to go back and do the skipped content, which will be very easy now that you are such a higher level

It REALLY annoys me that Game Freak would rather patch that duplication glitch, instead of the objective flaws like the performance and bugs. I hope they get their priorities straight and patch all or at least most of the bugs and glitches, but I'm getting my hopes up.

As a long time sub (since your unova music tier list), I've always appreciated your channel as being positive about almost every aspect of pokemon. Frankly, I experienced many framerate issues and bugs with s/v which really soured my experience and I am thankful that you touch on the highs and lows like this for both the positive side and negative side. The new mon designs and music are great and I'm looking forward to your music ranks!

I loved these games inside and out. Great characters, great story even if it was a little bit sad and the best rival in years.

The team star tracks are one of the best in the franchise’. The grunt music slaps, as good as Galar’s gyms and don’t get me started on the bosses. It’s probably my favourite music in Pokémon. Great vid. Excited for top 20 music.

I doubt you mention it, because no one ever talks about it, but you can also do mini "missions" with Arven, Penny, and Nemona after you do the post game stuff. It's not much, you just chase them around the school and talk to them learning about their development after the main story, you can unlock their rooms to hang out in. Plus you can redo the bug and grass gym trails. In my opinion the times olive roll is a lot more fun as well as more challenging than the actual gym trail. But from what I've seen in my game and online the grass challenge might be bugged cuz most people can never find the last one.

if you define the champion by being the final boss battle, then Geeta isn't the "champion". The "champion" would then be the professors. They did say they were champion-level.

As a gamer, it's extremely difficult to enjoy the game because you're playing a game with smooth performance then you start up pokemon and the poor performance is very noticeable. And you can tell that they are simply unfinished.

It's such a crazy relationship with he game. Conceptually, it's everything we've ever wanted in a Pokémon game. However...the lack of polish is just so obvious. Still having fun playing it.

Probably the best review I have seen of Scarlet and Violet. Everyone else focus so much on the tech trouble that you couldn't trust their opinions. I played through the game straight and while it did have a few issues it was playable and enjoyable. Best story of any pokemon game!

I miss the story mixing with the gym challenges as it felt like the anime going through them "as the story continues" like ash and co

I can't wait for the Top 20 Soundtracks in SV, revisiting all the best music from these games with someone as passionate in music as you are is sure to be a treat :)

The champion fight could have been so much more memorable and challenging. Have her lead with glimmora and still terastalize it (so the player is unlikely to one shot it and thus probably set up 2 layers of toxic spikes). Then kingambit can be her final Pokémon, benefiting from the full possible boost its ability can give. Heck, give some of her mons phasing moves to play into the entry hazard gimmick and indirectly counter setup sweepers (her espathra's ability already plays into this design space). Her fight could've been on par with Cynthia's in terms of difficulty, but they seemingly handicapped her in order to play up how much more of a challenge Nemona was going to be.

Great hearing your summarized thoughts about the new pokémon we've gotten, Ron! But if you were to ask me this new dex easily surpasses that of gen 8 and I've defended the pokémon there a ton. Paldea's pokémon design wise just vibe with me so much more! Can't wait to see your video talking about them all though!

I definitely agree with you on a lot of topics! The rivals were some of my favorites in the series and hearing them all chat with eachother in Area Zero was the best! It's kind of like what they wanted to do with the XY friend group, but completed. Personally, the post-game of the gen is pretty boring and I can't find myself wanting to play unless it involves shiny-hunting...BUT! The story from the main game really makes up for it because I got around 80 hours of gameplay before completed the main story. So it's definitely worth the money I spent! One of the best pokemon games ever! The only complaints I had were some of the pokemon designs being so... bland. I was super disappointed when I found out the long-awaited dolphin pokemon is just a dolphin. I know it changes into hero Palafin, but I think they could've made the design more dynamic. The other designs I was disappointed in were Flamigo, Pawmi evolving to just stand up, bramblin evolving to become slightly bigger, and Iron Jugulis. I do really like all of the starters and chose sprigatito! The starter signature moves are very fun too. Now I will patiently await DLC... super excited for more...

Thanks for this review Ron! You weren't scared to criticise the flaws and yet again praise the games for it's high points. I also agree that you don't need the perspective of a "true gamer" or needing to compare these games with others or playing other games in order to play these games, it just feels so unnecessary to me. Your stance on the reviews online are greatly appreciated too, i have seen many rating this game either a 1/10 or 10/10, it's ridiculous seeing so many reviews like this, SV is both the best (In terms of gameplay, story and characters) and worst game (In terms of performance) and i really appreciate your honest review. Also i am not saying that everyone shouldn't criticise or enjoy what they want, but please do this in an appropriate manner and not shove opinions in front of others, i strive to have a peaceful community as possible and TrueGreen 7 seems to have created a positive and fair one.

Didn’t really get any bugs in my game, storyline was cool and inmade alot of screenshots. I enjoyed every moment of the game

Not level scaling was a shame. I ended having 2 teams since I didn’t know the intended level. So I broke out my lower level team when I figured out the area was lower level. It only burnt me once when Nemona was a much higher level than the area I was in when she challenged me.

"im the type of person to go in every building." Then how can this be one of your favorite regions. There is literally nothing to do in the cities and routs besides catching pokemon and doing the gyms. Above that the region has no real identity or lore. Its just a wild area with cities that all have the exact same stores and zero interesting npc's to talk to. Like what are you gonna be nostalgic about in terms of the region?? "Awh yeah remember that town with the....................... sandwich shop where you entered and only got a menu screen, good times." Remember that snowy mountain which was really big, but didn't have any interesting areas to visit or anything to do besides catching the copy and pasted pokemon."

So my only gripe (glitches aside) is thst it needs more dialogue with NPCs, houses and stores you can go into, more detailed world and biomes, and whats an open world without side quests granted by NPCs. Imagine you pass by a town where the protective fence is dammaged and taurus have run wild causing mayhem in the town you have to fix the fence and drive the taurus out of the town unlocking some areas of the town like the pokecenter, mart or something else. Theres so much potential of what could have been and its also a good sign of things to come.

Ceruledge and Armarouge look like plastic toys though. Weird in a game where metal is so good looking for the armor pokemon to look plastic.

Video Idea! Designing new paradox forms for pokemon, that would be very interesting

Haven’t had this much fun playing a Pokémon game since 2010 (B/W). Thought I had grown up and was just jaded, but S/V proved me wrong. I love this game with all its flaws. The glitches are endearing in a way lol. I’m excited and jealous of those experiencing this game as children. Nostalgia for this adventure is gonna hit so hard in 10 years.

My review of the game? 10 out of 10. You can avoid almost all the glitches just by playing the handheld vertion, and it’s really fun!

The biggest addition for me this gen is the breeding. Its soooo so so easy to breed and get egg moves this gen compared to any other gens. Biggest downside was the not scaling levels. The poor performance is just secondary

Very good review! Honestly, you summed everything up really nicely and I share many of the same sentiments. This was my favorite Pokemon game ever by a considerable margin and it's a shame that not everyone can enjoy it due to performance.

You're right, the Ace Tourney theme really made me feel Dendra's energy once I finally got to battle her. Vs Team Star Boss is my favorite though, kept me pumped even while losing multiple times to Eri.

So, from what I've seen (can't really afford to play it at the moment), I think the bugs and glitches are major enough to disqualify Scarlet and Violet from being the best Pokemon games. Where it ranks though, is tougher to place because everything else is good to great, but again, the bugs and glitches muddy the water enough to where it's hard to judge the game purely on its merits. Maybe if I get a chance to play it I'll have a better idea, but for now this is my opinion

When I was growing up and playing pokemon, my dad thought the music was annoying so I never played with the music on and 15 years later, I still don't.

Gonna put this on my to watch list for after I’ve finished the game xD

everyone talks about how good the gameplay is but i....disagree. it's hard to not compare it to Arceus since it came out the same year and LA beats Scarlet Violet without even sweating in every single aspect :/ i was very disappointed the entire time playing, with the exception maybe during the arveen cutscenes

Finally someone talks about how much of a banger the Ace Tournament theme is, either my favorite or second favorite with the professor's battle theme

When even casual players notice intense framerate drop and performance issues, you know it's really bad. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet just needed a few more months in the oven and it would've been perfect, I'm still disappointed that this is the state they release it in.

in terms of new pokemon, imo Gen 9s roster isn't nearly as strong as Galars pokemon, Paldea has a ton of stinkers imo. But the good pokemon in Gen 9 are some of the best Designs we've gotten in a long, LONGGGGGG time. Also the Box art legends are the best ones since palkia and Dialga fight me

To me, the worst performing parts of the game were the lakes and oceans. Good god did they lag. I’d also like to point to the school- an instance of map that should be running the most smoothly- running like molasses. Nothing is more immersion breaking than being about twenty feet away from something and seeing low poly models or the inner mesh of a model or something. The janky animation of the students and Cyclizar on the schoolyard, seeing a glimpse of the interior of Hassel’s model- these sorts of things were incredibly offputting. I’m fully convinced that the only things the game fully renders is anything within about ten to fifteen feet of the player. Everything else instantly jumps to low poly jank.

Great to see that there's a person around here who doesn't blame fans for having fun with S/V i hate it when people blame other people for some games short comings i know these games have flaws on yeah they do but it's still an engaging experenice i've ever had i cried inside while playing some parts of these stories i feel like these games story is better then SwSh and i love SwSh

Although I am only half into the game, you said this all so well! I've been having so much fun playing Scarlet. Every weekend I do a rival battle with my brother. Since we both work full-time we both progress slowly and it's been great fun.

I respect your opinion on the future paradox Pokémon but I would've much preferred something to like what you guys did in the art challenge that resulted in the Whale Vaporeon. That's inspired as hell. Way more so than just Iron this or Iron that. But great counterpoint to the past ones just being feral, i suppose at the end of the day the biological and monstrous elements of Pokémon is what draws me in, but it doesn't haev to be what draws everybody in!

12:40 someone agrees! I actually think some of them are good in the ancient paradox side, but so are the futuristic paradox side, like iron thorns for example, that thing looks bad ass!

The cliff textures are almost unbearable, there’s no variation, just the same homogeneous texture, no moss, no brush, no erosion outside of area 0 (the map is like 50% cliff, how have there been no landslides?), no trees on more than a 10 degree slope It looks like a glorified topography map

First, sorry for any english mistake, brazillian guy here. Whatever, my way to describe scarlet and violet is simples: Pokémon scarlet and violet are the best pokemon games ever made, but they are lock in a rough package, making hard to reach the wonderful things game freak did.

One of the neat things about the music is how each area’s theme can transition so seamlessly into its respective wild battle theme. When you start a battle, all that changes is the camera angle. You’re in the spot spot, and the same people and Pokémon are still there. Sometimes foolishly walking through the clash. But they’ll nail that one soon. Performance, visual glitches, pop-in… these are all things that could conceivably be patched. Story and atmosphere cannot. The gym/league atmosphere seems lackluster after Gen 8, (also, could we get a rematch with Geeta with Glimmora first and Kingambit packing Sucker Punch last TYVM) but Team Star set up their bases in some beautiful locations, and I love the red cliffs where Klawf live. And they can obviously create atmosphere where it counts… Area Zero. The waterfalls, the crystal sands on the wind, the mysterious soundtrack… the creators of Myst would be speechless. There are so many cherries on top. Great new Pokémon like the Charcadet and Varoom lines, amazing naming like Smoliv, Scovillain and Nacli, seeing grown men cry over Mabosstif, adorable Tatsugiri and Greavard shenanigans, and the unbelievable twist about Clive. Oh, and that part with the professor was aight, best plot ever including Black/White, whatevs.

One small problem for me is that they took away the vibrate effect for the healthbar after a super effective move was hit on it. They did it in sun and move and it felt right, because it really showed the power of the move.

In terms of performance,visuals and all that kind of stuff,I feel like Game Freak should do a Pokemon Ultra Sun/Moon type of thing and recreate Pokemon Scarlett and Violet with even more depth,less lag,no crashing and better graphics. By that I mean graphics that are more clean and such.

This is the problem with the pokemon community. You just explained how almost everything was average but still you say "it would be my favorite pokemon game without the bugs". bruh how

I kind of find the gameplay disappointing. There isn't anything that makes it feel like an open world game that isn't just the open terrain. It's basically just non-linear pokemon, which isn't great because that's not what open world is imo. Open world is about finding secrets, cool collectibles with nice information about lore, crafting and resourcefulness, side quests that expand on the world-building, and just general freedom of doing things your way (like for example riding a horse to a castle that doesn't allow mounts). But even with that there are mini-games that could be pokemon specific like pokemon interactions that would fit right in too (I don't consider spraying your sudowoodo with water to be bonding per say). I just feel like there is nothing other than the pokemon formula to really add to the gameplay, but maybe that's just me. It just feels empty. Despite the linearity, I feel like prrvious games like BW2, ORAS, and HGSS have more gameplay than SV.

I'm surprised how much I like scarlet, haven't noticed anything major glitch wise. The graphics are lovely and I am tempted to get violet for another play through with a different team 😅

I'd love to see more new evolutions for two stage pokemon, anhialape has been an incredible design and upgrade to a really cool pokemon for 1st gen

The past pokemon were just all "feral" i think is more natural than saying pokemon will evolve to machines/robot in future and the naming of future mons with just iron + _______. 🤷‍♂️

Warning: this post does contain spoilers for the games, reader discretion is advised. I think is the best review I've ever seen of this game. Most reviews only focused on the graphical and audio glitches and never on the gameplay. As for my feelings: I will admit this game has problems. The only major glitches I found were mainly graphical stuff like shadows only rendering in certain angles, and there was one when I was in Area Zero and Arwen was just slowly descending into the crater in the center. I thankfully never ran into the Elite Four theme 10 second loop glitch. For a game that advertises itself as a game that you can challenge the gym leaders in any order, they don't scale levels for not just gym leaders depending on what badges you have, but also for Titans, and Team Star bosses. And that's something even Pokémon Origins addressed. I picked Brassius first, and I thought he was way harder than Katy, who was intended to be the first Gym Leader. Same thing for Mela who I went after first instead of Giacomo. What was wrong with the level scaling? And also, they clearly intended for you to do all the tasks in a certain order, see I did the Titans first, before winning all the Gym Badges and beating all the Team Star bases. So, I was unfortunately spoiled on Cassiopeia's identity. I won't do so here, but anyone who did the same thing I did, can see where I'm coming from. I also thought Geeta was by far the most pathetic Champion in the series, the game does a fantastic job building her up as the top Trainer in Paldea, she's called La Primera, I half expected her to be on par with Steven or Cynthia/Volo in terms of battle prowess. Instead, she felt more on par with Diantha, another easy Champion. But enough negativity, here's the positives. I loved the story; the soundtrack was kickass. (Levincia might as well be my new favorite town theme in the whole series. Sorry, Driftveil City, you have been dethroned!) I liked how the Elite Four are much more involved in scouting out potential competition. Instead of just four Trainers who have to stay in individual rooms waiting for a challenger to show up. And I loved the tragic story of Sada/Turo. They had the makings of your typical Pokémon main antagonist: grandiose ambitions, absence of ethics, terrible parenting, you know the drill. But having that professor die as a result of their hubris was just shocking and it makes you feel horrible for Arwen. Especially after everything he's been through. I honestly can't wait to see what the DLC has in store for us next year. So, in conclusion, the game has problems that could've been improved on if it just had more time in the oven, but did I have fun with the game overall? Yeah, of course.

To be honest, the region is kind of a letdown. I love modern Pokemon, but this... well, I did have fun. The fact that nothing from PLA was used is a letdown, the stories other than Victory Road weren't fun, a LOT of the new Pokemon are uninteresting or bad e.g Tinkaton the overused, any of the Paradox Pokemon, the starters, etc, and the music is just so clearly made by Toby Fox that it doesn't feel like a Pokemon OST and instead feels like an Undertale OST (except the Team Star Boss theme and the Quartet of Ruin's theme. Those were amazing). Also, Penny's theme is bad. It actually hurts my ears (no, seriously. It actually hurt my ears when first listening to it during Penny's battle) and is just horrible. Also. Fuck Arven. Arven's an asshole to Koraidon/Miraidon and the Dragons are good bois.

I'm going to delay picking this up. I can't support a game released so unoptimised like this - though I'm glad for those who picked it up and genuinely enjoyed it. I'm also disappointed with lack of level scaling of any kind which is tied with your progression of the game's three main quests. Unless it's obvious in how you are meant to beat the game in the order intended by the developers then I know I would just do my own thing and would just steamroll certain sections when I have to go back. Again lack of any difficulty setting upsets me which shows a lack of respect to more mature players of the series that have been with it since the beginning. A turnbased JRPG is probably the easiest game to implement a difficulty setting e.g. higher levels, max IVs and EVs, better movesets or movesets which apply a certain strategy, and more. If those three things are fixed I would definitely pick it up now or when patched - but Nintendo/GameFreak/TPC aren't a type of company that would release such large patches like this. Edit: Also lack of voice acting. Many of us have seen the fan edits and it's so much better with voice acting even if its nothing groundbreaking in itself but credit to the VAs and producer. Especially after they teased us with the gym leader trailer that had voice acting albiet in Japanese only. All I want is a game that meets modern standards and I think most of the above are reasonable requests for a game released in 2022.

If it had set mode, this game would actually be decent in how challenging it is. But since I could switch when I wanted to, why wouldn't I take the opportunity to. I miss Set mode

"1:36 Nother ever will be black or white", no Ron, never ever will be.

I think corporate just wants new pokémon games out asap regardless of quality so they can make the bulk of their money selling new Pokémon merch. I'm having fun with Scarlet, but I can't help notice all the issues and lack of innovation. It's important to keep key aspects of Pokémon in place, but if they're just going to turn the main series into garbage... well forget it! I love Pokémon, but I hope they at least patch the game and come back with something completed, polished and just better overall next time. They can't rely on the brand name forever.

Honestly even with the glitches and the lacking performance, This is easily one of the best Pokémon games ever. Like the fact that after the tutorial, you basically given the freedom to go whatever you want. No hand holding, no scripted evens, and no blockage. The story is WAY better then Sword/Shield, the new characters are lovable, and the new Pokémon ranges from very awesome to decent.

I caught a Basculin early thanks to a glitch. He swam under a bridge while I was taking my Golduck on a walk and Basculin ran into him

I didn't encounter many bugs, only minor stuff like clippings and some frame drops, so I really enjoyed playing these games That being said, developers should not be rushed like that, Pokemon games need to be given more development time, with enough polish those could be among the best pokemon games ever, if not the best

Honestly, I'm kinda disappointed I *didn't* find a lot glitches in my playthrough

Creatively, it’s probably one of the best Pokemon games. In terms of the quality of performance and other tech categories? Awful to the point of sometimes feeling like the game is punishing me for daring to go to the desert during the weather that happens to the desert the most, or going into Tagtree at all. It’s nigh-tortuous to go from the best stories I’ve seen in a Pokémon game in a long time straight to the slowest areas I’ve ever played, several times

Cutscenes would be so much better if they had voice acting. Subtitles/text is fine talking to random trainers etc, but I can’t understand how Clavell, Nemona, Arven etc couldn’t be voiced in cutscenes

I absolutely love this game and want to play so badly... Easily one of my favourite games in the franchise, along with gen 5.

Hmm.. I wonder if gamefreak will make it that you can't level up a pokemon to a certain level until you get a badge. Like, if you have 1 badge, you can only level up pokemon up to 25.

If Game Freak could make a third version of this gen, fixing most of the problems and maybe... adding a new legendary. it would be the best possible outcome xD

Glaring issues are the lack of sidequests in interesting landmarks (Olive grove etc.), the lack of drive to explore cities, the lack of a dynamic level curve, the lack of challenge and... Obviously the lack of polishness and even the lack of dub, especially in cutscenes. These games could've been game of the year material if finished. Because they're clearily not.

It's my first mainline pokemon game, and I seriously enjoyed the plot and the story, and the mechanics were fun, but I also ended up glitching through the bottom of the map (I actually recorded footage of that happening) in Violet, and found one of the Pokemon league reps not existing, with his speech bubble hovering above the ground, before he popped up properly in Scarlet (got video proof of that too)

I think one of my biggest issues with the Elite 4... Is that I can't rechallenge them. Like that's such a core feature of past games, why remove it????

I feel like most of the pokemon feel incomplete Most of the shinies are lack luster And performance issues And sucks I can't challenge the elite 4 again Technically Katy studied under Kofu which is cool

I killed the fighting team star boss's bus 10 levels down using a rocky helmet and roughly 25 revives

If there weren’t any bugs and the shinies were good it prolly would be considered the best

This could change if i ever get around to playing first-hand, but even if they didn't have the bugged out to hell aspects, i don't think these would be my favorite games or ones i consider the best. But there certainly is a lot to like for sure. Just some of those small things that make pokemon pokemon to me that aren't here definitely dock it down conpared to others. Though i share that feeling with a lot of recent beloved titles in franchises i love that are dipping their toes in the open world pool. It's a fun shift for some but i truly hope the trend mellows out soon getting a bit tired of hearing about it. Regardless, I hope that release schedule gets changed cause sheesh.

Being stuck in a school uniform sucks. What's the point of buying a cool helmet or boots if I just end up looking like a dork.

Before SV, I had only played Emerald, Pearl, Let's Go Eevee, and Shield. (side note, I've since watched people doing challenges in Pearl and... I don't remember playing the game at all, despite Palkia being my favorite legendary for years) I finished Violet in three days and went to buy Scarlet four days later. The first time I hit the Elite Four theme, I absolutely loved it. It had me amped for the battles _instantly._ Area Zero just blew me away. And the climax of the story was *so good.* I'm one Pokemon away from a living dex (I need to catch some more randoms to finish trading from Violet to Scarlet and nab my Slowking), which I've never bothered to do before (actually, it'll be my first complete Pokedex altogether). I'm looking forward to restarting Violet once all my mons are safely in Scarlet, so I can try again with a new team. The bugs are... honestly, terribly frustrating. But I can't help enjoying these games A LOT. Here's hoping for more patches to iron this stuff out. I think you're right that some areas of the game feel underdeveloped, like the towns not always feeling distinct enough, and the lack of significant landmarks with lore about them (first thing that came to mind, Pokemon Tower in Lavender Town). My thinking is, they focused a lot on the radical changes to how the game works, and with more games from here, they'll get better at bringing forward some of the most fun stuff from past games into this new open-world format. Finally, I'm hoping in the future - like you brought up - the big battles scale to the player to _really_ give the "any order you want" some weight. My thinking is, some minimum succession (to push the player to level up - and maybe a maximum succession to avoid hitting 100 before the final battle) and otherwise scale the opponent's ace to the player's highest level mon (either on team, or altogether) give or take a few levels depending on the opponent's attitude to being hard on trainers, and then scale the rest of their team slightly down from there. Then after first try their team locks, so you have a level-appropriate challenge on first try and if you lose you can grind for the win, encouraging strategy without significantly punishing players who are bad at it or just don't want to, since an appeal of Pokemon is its wide accessibility.

Can’t disagree with anything you say. I am also one of these people who doesn’t care too much about the graphics/performance in a pokemon game. You have to bear in mind the limited time given to develop the games, and the fact that Game Freak is still a relatively small company (it’s no Bethesda or BioWare.) That said it is really embarrassing that it was released in this state.

I'm still upset that the "champions" team was so god awful. I've enjoyed the game overall but some of the decisions that were made are baffling

They tried but not harder enough, it added something new but nothing so innovative. Anyways it's nothing special

Your video informed me that I played the whole elite 4 with the music bug. You can’t play the elite 4 again in the postgame. I will never get the opportunity to play it properly because of the bug. My fiancée had it too and we both were surprised at how bad the song sucked for no reason.

If they took an extra 6 months to a year to release these with little to no bugs this game would be legitimately flawless

the performance issues are a real bummer, its the first pokemon game ive ever played that is so broken, the camera is constantly clipping thru walls and floors,the game has crashed for me multiple times,which just has never happened to any other switch game i have,the animation can be a little wonky sometimes, it simply lacks the polish that nintendo games are known for. i feel like this game would be 10 times better if it had 1 or 2 more years of development to at least fix all these glaring issues. I enjoyed the story and characters but everything else seems to be so lacking, everyone always says that pokemon is taking a step in the right direction but by the way they are walking i dont think we will get there any time soon.

19:01 something tells me that the title of the final chapter will be extra traumatic for a *certain internet funnyman...*

Thing is, organisms don't evolve over time into robots, so I heavily dislike the fact that every single future paradox pokemon is just some futuristic robot lookalike At least the past forms are, you know... organisms.

Ngl my main problem are the blurry/unpolished textures. The storefronts are annoying too but I understand why it's like that. Plus is no one gonna mention how the restaurant street in Medali have the same restaurants on opposite sides? A lot of the stores don't have variations between cities, which is sad. However the game itself is a lot of fun!

Some flaws I've found in these games are that some of the pokemon are too small that you can barely notice them when playing hand held. I've only had Foongus and Flabebe encounters when I accidentally crash into them without noticing. The lack of shiny indication, and the fact they can despawn themselves by walking/flying away or diving under water is frustrating. For me these take away from the game and I've found myself going back to Arceus. The lighting in certain areas/times of day can also make it look like the shiny is just a regular pokemon. Some subtle indication would be a welcomed addition. I like how you unlock the 4 legendaries, though it seems odd that they just spring out at you instead of them being inside 4 sealed caves. With all the legendaries in the past games you see them stood there and walk up to them to start the encounter, like you do with the legendary is area zero. Its a minor thing, but just felt odd during the encounters.

to put it in the words of Jacob Alpharad: the stuff that's good is really good and the stuff that's bad is really funny And really, that's all I look for in a game. Be good, be bad, just never be boring.

theyre reaaaally good but the performance is bad... like expired food in the fridge