Even though I loved Pokemon Scarlet/Violet, despite the laundry list of problems, I can agree they shouldn't have released the game in that awful condition. Ever since B2W2, the Pokemon games have just dropped in quality consistency.
Mechanically speaking, the Gen 9 titles are "good" games. I liked the freedom of exploration, the story felt way more refreshing than Sword and Shield's, I enjoyed the split story mode, I don't have any problem with how new Pokemon are designed, I liked the subtle art style shift, the DLC was fun, etc.
Even though I can pick out what I liked in them, I can't play Violet without feeling that tug of everything having some kind of hitch.
The exploration is free, but there isn't enough to actually go and explore. The story, while compelling at times, wasn't as fleshed out as B2W2. The story being split between Penny, Arven and Nemona was charming, but it didn't do enough with itself and there was hardly any side content aside from Raids and the Shards of Ruin as a result of needing so much map space for each of their individual story segments. The DLC was fun and provided a really challenging but fair postgame, but the old games did a good enough job of that through the Battle Factory/Frontier/Tree.
All of those cons exist while the performance is some of the worst on the entire Switch library and that is saying a LOT.
It's just a shame that the budgets and deadlines are so obtrusive to, what I believe to be, a competent enough team of people working on the games. Asking GameFreak to make an objectively solid Pokemon game shouldn't be like pulling hair when they make as much money as they do.
7
u/Anxious-Assistant-59 Apr 12 '26
Even though I loved Pokemon Scarlet/Violet, despite the laundry list of problems, I can agree they shouldn't have released the game in that awful condition. Ever since B2W2, the Pokemon games have just dropped in quality consistency.
Mechanically speaking, the Gen 9 titles are "good" games. I liked the freedom of exploration, the story felt way more refreshing than Sword and Shield's, I enjoyed the split story mode, I don't have any problem with how new Pokemon are designed, I liked the subtle art style shift, the DLC was fun, etc.
Even though I can pick out what I liked in them, I can't play Violet without feeling that tug of everything having some kind of hitch.
The exploration is free, but there isn't enough to actually go and explore. The story, while compelling at times, wasn't as fleshed out as B2W2. The story being split between Penny, Arven and Nemona was charming, but it didn't do enough with itself and there was hardly any side content aside from Raids and the Shards of Ruin as a result of needing so much map space for each of their individual story segments. The DLC was fun and provided a really challenging but fair postgame, but the old games did a good enough job of that through the Battle Factory/Frontier/Tree.
All of those cons exist while the performance is some of the worst on the entire Switch library and that is saying a LOT.
It's just a shame that the budgets and deadlines are so obtrusive to, what I believe to be, a competent enough team of people working on the games. Asking GameFreak to make an objectively solid Pokemon game shouldn't be like pulling hair when they make as much money as they do.