Conflicting is the only thing I can call my thoughts on Scarlet and Violet, because based purely on enjoyment I'd happily give it 5/5 but the performance and graphical issues are downright embarrassing.
Sadly, Pokémon being as big as it is means the higher-ups care more about it's holiday merchandise cycle than it's dev cycle; so I hope how much the immense amount of bugs have blown up is a bit of a wake-up call for them. Considering it's the best-selling Nintendo game yet though? Yeaaah. Probably not, unfortunately.
That being said, these are without a doubt my favorite Pokémon games since BW2 in spite of that, which is honestly quite incredible. The complete freedom (although not perfect, considering bosses don't scale with you if they fall behind, and whether your Pokémon listen to your commands is still locked to a Gym Badge-based level cap) after the tutorial is fantastic, and you're absolutely allowed to go through the three stories in any way you want to.
And even though the over-arching story is very low-key at first, it builds up so incredibly well, and manages to be so much fun to go through thanks to all of it's enjoyable characters. There's some surprisingly deep and refreshing cast members here, and all in all they're my favorite Pokémon cast yet.
The finale is also, without a doubt, my favorite thing in the series yet - so yeah, I feel pretty confident in calling this my favorite game in the series despite it's bugs. Makes me all the more sad it released in this state, though. It could've been fantastic if the devs had more time to iron out.. whatever the hell's going wrong with this thing.
Even so, it's absolutely a worthwhile experience. I wasn't big on Gen 8 - Sword and Shield was so boring to me that I haven't even bothered to try PLA yet.
Even being the buggy mess that it is, everything else about this game has restored my faith in the series - and I'm so excited to see where its future goes.
Sadly, Pokémon being as big as it is means the higher-ups care more about it's holiday merchandise cycle than it's dev cycle; so I hope how much the immense amount of bugs have blown up is a bit of a wake-up call for them. Considering it's the best-selling Nintendo game yet though? Yeaaah. Probably not, unfortunately.
That being said, these are without a doubt my favorite Pokémon games since BW2 in spite of that, which is honestly quite incredible. The complete freedom (although not perfect, considering bosses don't scale with you if they fall behind, and whether your Pokémon listen to your commands is still locked to a Gym Badge-based level cap) after the tutorial is fantastic, and you're absolutely allowed to go through the three stories in any way you want to.
And even though the over-arching story is very low-key at first, it builds up so incredibly well, and manages to be so much fun to go through thanks to all of it's enjoyable characters. There's some surprisingly deep and refreshing cast members here, and all in all they're my favorite Pokémon cast yet.
The finale is also, without a doubt, my favorite thing in the series yet - so yeah, I feel pretty confident in calling this my favorite game in the series despite it's bugs. Makes me all the more sad it released in this state, though. It could've been fantastic if the devs had more time to iron out.. whatever the hell's going wrong with this thing.
Even so, it's absolutely a worthwhile experience. I wasn't big on Gen 8 - Sword and Shield was so boring to me that I haven't even bothered to try PLA yet.
Even being the buggy mess that it is, everything else about this game has restored my faith in the series - and I'm so excited to see where its future goes.