The newest Pokemon games are difficult to talk about. They are, on one hand, one of the buggiest and ugliest looking games Nintendo has put out, due to a mixture of Game Freak's unnecessarily small teams and Nintendo's hardware. On the other hand, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are the most inventive and unique Pokemon experiences made in the last few generations.

The story and characters aren't mind blowing, but there's enough emotional weight to carry three separate plots, and have them all come together in ways that make them feel equally satisfying and weighty, even if the Team Star story line isn't the most engaging.

Notably, there is far less customization than in Sword and Shield, which while thematically relevant makes having a trainer that feels unique to each player basically an impossibility; you will wear the shorts and you're gonna like it.

This is another interesting step forward for Pokemon as a game series, it just needed a few more months in development (or a bigger team) to pull it all together.