This game is simultaneously the best and worst Pokémon game ever.

That may be an exaggeration both ways but Scarlet (and Violet but I'll be saying Scarlet as that's the version I played) is brilliant but also a complete mess.
If you are the sort of person reading this on Backloggd then you have already heard how badly this game runs, probably seen glitches and the like on Twitter. It's bad.

This has given some people (idiots) another reason to dunk on the Switch for being out-of-date hardware and whilst it is behind on power, as it was on release, that is not why this game runs like crap.
Last year's Sword and Shield people said had issues, this year's Legends: Arceus also suffered similar problems but Scarlet is a cut above. At every turn this game feels like it's struggling to live, frames, overlapping menus, bad online connections and more.
"It's because it's fully open unlike Arceus" nah, BOTW (a Wii U game) has a more diverse and open world but they did not have it run this shit.
Xenoblade 3 came out this year too and suffers virtually no issues. This is GameFreak's problem.

I would state that I'd move on from it's technical issues to talk about the game but they go hand-in-hand with some problems I have that I'm sure I'll come back to.

Why if this game is a broken mess can I claim that it's also the best? Design choices and, however strange it is to say considering the issues, this game feels like a good foot forward.

The open world nature as seen to a degree in Arceus works really well for Pokémon. In Scarlet there is much more of a feeling of freedom as whilst the areas in Arceus were open it was biomes you went through in an order with a hub world to return to, in Scarlet you head off to school, do some typical Pokémon tutorialising on the way as well as being introduced to some key characters and once that's done you can go almost anywhere you like.

The game gives you three main objectives:
"Victory Road" is your standard defeat 8 gym leaders, get to the Elite 4, beat them, the champ and claim the title yourself.
A classic enjoyable routine these games have used and "if it ain't broke".
"Path of Legends" feels a bit more akin to Arceus in that you're going to areas to find extra big Pokémon, stop them rampaging and discover what is causing this phenomenon.
Thirdly is "Starfall Street" where you are taking down Team Star (this games Rocket equivalent) that includes five bases which you bring down in a unique way using the new "let's go" feature of letting you 'mon out and auto battle and topping it off with unique bosses.

All three of these you can tackle whichever way you like and whatever order of bosses/monsters you want between them.
The only restriction is that Koraidon, the cover Pokémon and your mount in this game will learn more abilities for traversal from the Path of Legends which means getting to some areas may be difficult without.

Between hitting the big point of the three main missions the minute to minute gameplay is what you'd expect from Pokémon but for me the loop of it just got that much more addictive.
As a series it's always done the "just one more thing" really well - level up, evolve, new catch, new gym, new area, all those in any order and you're always feeling like you're a step away from another milestone.
The three types of mission encourage this further as does even more mechanics.

Item collecting is a thing and crafting, a thing I wish wasn't in all games, is here and quite smart. TM's (Technical machines, items that teach monsters moves) are now one use but are craftable and these items are found lying about the world or picked up when you defeat things in the wild.
You'd be picking up this stuff at a fast rate if it were just that simple but the previously mentioned "Let's Go" mechanic where you send out your lead pal for a walk also allows them to auto-battle wildlife and they happen extremely fast.

Not only is this mechanically good as it means that grinding levels isn't so time consuming and boring it also makes the world feel more realistic as certain Pokémon are likely in groups sometimes lead by a larger evolved version like a pack leader.

If wondering the world, finding items, fighting wild 'mon in hordes or one on one to catch wasn't enough of a distraction between towns and landmarks "Raids" from Sword/Shield are back in a slightly different form too.
Tera raids, which Tera-Pokémon is a whole other new thing that's introduced that adds an interesting wrinkle to battles, team composition and more but I realise now that this "review" is becoming much more of a guide.

Not every game needs to be open world (or have crafting) but it works for Pokémon, they dipped a toe in with Sword and Shield, more of their leg with Arceus and now are waist deep.
The variety of missions as well as the whole school lessons and characters add some genuinely good story telling and lovely moments, possibly the best the series has had.

The characters are worth a second mention as, whilst I think the player character and the choices you get for looks are a step back from Arceus the NPCs are also top tier stuff.
The cast is a lot more diverse, I'd say the most diverse in this series. Some absolute stunning designs from cool, class and funny.

The new Pokémon designs are mostly great, the big story twist with some of them is cool too and the Pokédex (which I have finished 2 in 1 year, I can't believe it!) is completely doable in a reasonable amount of time - reliant on trading which Arceus wasn't but with some interesting new ways to get it all ticked off.

Finally and a minor but important factor that makes this possible the best Pokémon is that there is a lot less hidden rules and busy work and what there is streamlined.
EV's , IV's, Breeding, Items all the stuff to make a "competitive" team still exists in this game but there are items to collect that sort these and most are available in shops not often in one place and also for reasonable money considering the rate you end up picking up Nuggets and the like.
The freedom is there, not just in where you want to go and how you want to tackle your quests but also in how you'd like to mould your team.
Something which thanks to a bigger focus back on battles I started to feel a connection to which was lost to me in Arceus for the most part.

I feel this is going on and on but I want to finish up with two final things.
Arceus comparisons and why I'm struggling on not just giving this a full 4 stars.

At the risk of sounding like a narcissist I will quote my own tweet "Somewhere between Arceus and Sc/Vi with a lot more effort and time is a masterpiece of a Pokémon title." even since then with some more Scarlet played and a little time passed I feel the same.
I believe this game edges out Arceus as the best but I do miss elements of what that did.
The "Let's Go" mechanic makes general running about more fun but I do miss catching wild Pokémon by surprise and being able to nab them without fighting them.
This feeling is admittedly stronger because Scarlet struggles so much that the time to get in and out of the simplest fight and catch is longer than it should.
Also on the other hand the game does have a refocus on battles which had definitely taken a step back in Arceus.
For me there is a middle ground that I'd much prefer.

The freedom that Scarlet's open world gives over Arceus biomes is better but Arceus bringing you back to town did give that place more importance, a feeling the people who lived there mattered.
Scarlet has a school full of staff, rooms with different themes and lessons to take but I never went back until my quests were done because it never asked me to - just gave me a little heads up when a new lesson was available that skipped by faster than I'd notice half the time.
Here again I lean towards Scarlet's way in doing things but think there is somewhere between the two that would work better.
Pokémon loves some customisation. Let the player have a room or places to stay throughout the world that can be customised, that'd be nice.

Last comparison is questlines or more specifically the tracking.
Remembering what NPCs you needed to hand stuff into in Arceus was a pain and whilst that isn't the case in Scarlet I do miss the additional jobs to do in catching and trying new things.
This one is less simple for me to say "somewhere between" because Arceus Pokédex tasks would be too much with a roster the size of Scarlet's but I did appreciate the smaller requests and wonder if something akin to how Xenoblade does sidequests would work?

With all the comparisons above my 3.5 star Arceus score has been bettered but why not all the way to the 4?
Well simply as I said right at the start, this game is a mess.

I can happily deal with low res textures, low frame rates and even the occasional funny glitch but Scarlet struggles and the hard time it is seemingly have to stay alive equates to a harder time to enjoy the things it offers.
Things take longer than they should, stuff that should look nice doesn't and fun functions like online Raids are incomprehensible lag fests that make me personally not want to engage with them.

At time of writing I believe there are 7 Star Charizard Raids happening. For context that's the highest difficulty for a classic iconic monster who currently was not in the game.
I have no interest in putting the cart back into my Switch even for this.
I'd be killing two birds with one stone because I'd get the better items to help make myself a team to battle online, but again I have no interest. This isn't because it's not my sort of thing, it's because they are such horrible experiences that I am done.
There is a lot of stuff you can get used to and it no longer bothers you but my Scarlet experience was bookended with feelings of disappointment.

At the start I took a day or two off the game before I'd even got to the school because catching just felt so slow and clunky, I didn't want to wait the time the game made me to just throw a basic ball at a level 2 piece of garbage but I also knew that I kind of had to.
Without a mount at this point the world was not fun to explore, the run speed was slow and your character has virtually no movement tricks of their own.
I get to the school, do the opening, enter the world, get into the loop and 50 hours later I'm almost done
The finale of the game sees you enter an area, with a collection of friends you've made along your journey and all of this, which is cool, exciting and quite unique for this series is ruined by technical drawbacks and archaic design.

The area looks low res and framey, the characters speak without voice actors which typically isn't an issue but text going along the bottom of the screen whilst you're trying to navigate and also keep getting into fights means that it's hard to take in what was being said and too easy to miss bits - which is doubly a shame because the stories are some of the most heartfelt this series has had.

Technical issues aside would be the three words I'd start a TLDR for this with, but the way in which the technical issues affect every aspect of the game I just can't bring myself to even half-defend it.
It's been known for a good while now that GameFreak and TPC are taking the piss, their stuff feels out-of-date but will still outsell everything because of the franchise and they'll keep doing it because people, even me, will keep buying it.

TLDR; Game is one of the worst running things on Switch and is embarrassing from a billion dollar franchise but it also has almost everything you'd ever want in a Pokémon title and stuff you didn't think of. Also Larry.