I know to a good number of people this game is going to be written off as the "Sonic 06 of its franchise", an absolutely broken mess littered with slowdown, ripe with glitches and very obviously not polished in any sense.
But beyond all of that, I see a game with a soul that recaptures much of the same essence that Legends Arceus did prior.
Go where you want to go, do what you want to do.
This was a guideline for the first two generations of Pokemon. After a certain point in the games you'd essentially have the freedom to tackle whichever Gym or Evil Team related fights in whatever order you pleased. Do you fight Sabrina first and deal with her incredibly powerful psychic Pokemon, or do you take down Team Rocket in a single stroke. The choices are yours, and yours alone!
What Scarlet and Violet achieves is taking this nonlinear freedom and applying it to everything.
Every gym in whatever order, every Evil Team admin in whatever order, every Titan Pokemon... I think you get the point.
What this allows is for a fully player curated experience where the difficulty is completely up to your own design. It can make this game either be the easiest Pokemon game, or one of the hardest.
For instance, you could go from the academy straight to where Grusha (the intended Final Gym Leader) is, and challenge him the moment you start the Victory Road storyline. Of course it'll be hard as fucking nails, but the possibility exists. (Thinking of trying to do Grusha% Speedruns myself tbh)
And because of this freeflowing sense of progression, I finally felt like I got the Pokemon game I have been craving since Gen 6. A region to explore at my own pace, doing what I want. It is shocking that the closest thing to capture this vibe is the fan PokeMMO game.
However, I do agree with the general consensus that this game needed way more time in the oven, in fact, I still think this game is too soon.
Legends came out less than a year ago and this game, while taking some mechanics, halfheartedly I should add, could have obviously refined them a lot more than it wound up doing.
The lockon feature is a joke and barely works, the Let's Go Auto Battle mechanic though is definitely a great tool but also kind of makes combat in general feel very secondary especially by the end game.
And the slowdown, god the slowdown in this game can be outright abysmal at points, especially in the area with the Fairy Type Team Star Admin, Ortega.
Other than that, I myself didn't encounter too many glitches other than the time my game crashed, but friends I know have had their fair share of softlocks and stuff, so I guess I'm just lucky.
I genuinely hope that we retain this formula going forward because regardless of the unfinished nature of it, it's still got something that actually has some value unlike SwSh or Let's Go Pikachu & Eevee.
I just wish Game Freak didn't have to be forced to pump out these games every fucking year, it's way too much and it is honestly resulting in complete messes of games that will keep getting berated until Nintendo (because it's definitely Nintendo pushing this) realizes how far gone shit is.
Anyways the music is great, Toby Fox is a fucking legend. Especially that final boss track, mmmmmmmmmmm, sooooo good.
But beyond all of that, I see a game with a soul that recaptures much of the same essence that Legends Arceus did prior.
Go where you want to go, do what you want to do.
This was a guideline for the first two generations of Pokemon. After a certain point in the games you'd essentially have the freedom to tackle whichever Gym or Evil Team related fights in whatever order you pleased. Do you fight Sabrina first and deal with her incredibly powerful psychic Pokemon, or do you take down Team Rocket in a single stroke. The choices are yours, and yours alone!
What Scarlet and Violet achieves is taking this nonlinear freedom and applying it to everything.
Every gym in whatever order, every Evil Team admin in whatever order, every Titan Pokemon... I think you get the point.
What this allows is for a fully player curated experience where the difficulty is completely up to your own design. It can make this game either be the easiest Pokemon game, or one of the hardest.
For instance, you could go from the academy straight to where Grusha (the intended Final Gym Leader) is, and challenge him the moment you start the Victory Road storyline. Of course it'll be hard as fucking nails, but the possibility exists. (Thinking of trying to do Grusha% Speedruns myself tbh)
And because of this freeflowing sense of progression, I finally felt like I got the Pokemon game I have been craving since Gen 6. A region to explore at my own pace, doing what I want. It is shocking that the closest thing to capture this vibe is the fan PokeMMO game.
However, I do agree with the general consensus that this game needed way more time in the oven, in fact, I still think this game is too soon.
Legends came out less than a year ago and this game, while taking some mechanics, halfheartedly I should add, could have obviously refined them a lot more than it wound up doing.
The lockon feature is a joke and barely works, the Let's Go Auto Battle mechanic though is definitely a great tool but also kind of makes combat in general feel very secondary especially by the end game.
And the slowdown, god the slowdown in this game can be outright abysmal at points, especially in the area with the Fairy Type Team Star Admin, Ortega.
Other than that, I myself didn't encounter too many glitches other than the time my game crashed, but friends I know have had their fair share of softlocks and stuff, so I guess I'm just lucky.
I genuinely hope that we retain this formula going forward because regardless of the unfinished nature of it, it's still got something that actually has some value unlike SwSh or Let's Go Pikachu & Eevee.
I just wish Game Freak didn't have to be forced to pump out these games every fucking year, it's way too much and it is honestly resulting in complete messes of games that will keep getting berated until Nintendo (because it's definitely Nintendo pushing this) realizes how far gone shit is.
Anyways the music is great, Toby Fox is a fucking legend. Especially that final boss track, mmmmmmmmmmm, sooooo good.