It's perplexing the standards that we set on certain games while we give lee way to others. If this was something Bethesda made, the glitches, frame rate issues, and general problems most people encounter with extended play or playing with friends would be considered endearing. Because the franchise itself is one of the biggest in the entire world, I understand there is a certain problem with them consistently feeling like they under perform. I am not trying to cast aside the problems of performance this game had at launch and further beyond it's extended life. I am however saying, it doesn't really effect your actual experience with the game.
Pokemon Scarlet is genuinely one of the best Pokemon games I have played, and I say that whole heartily. The story beats it sets are great, the amount of characters they introduce are interesting, the structure of how they set up each quest is more than we've ever really gotten. I can't express enough that what Pokemon Scarlet gave us is what I want them to improve on and give us more. Like I know this game was sold as THE open world pokemon game, but the actual meat and potatoes of this game is setting up your own adventure. You have 3 objectives for the main campaign, and each one has you interacting with different characters and giving you a different experience to go thru. Not only does this help shake up the monotonous gameplay that Pokemon has gone thru, but it also empathizes more places compared to just towns of the previous games in the series. The game makes me feel like I am actually on an adventure rather than knocking off places on a list. Despite how empty the overworld can be, the actual towns and characters feel alive. The biomes feel fresh and populated with pokemon, and often there is enough in any given area to make it feel like that's why a pokemon would live there. On top of that the music and sounds are all consistently in place and help build the atmosphere. While pokemon certainly hasn't had a lot of misses, Scarlet's soundtrack is absolutely brimming with a lot of quiet hits.
As much as I want to continue to praise Scarlet / Violet, particularly their efforts into making pokemon better in the competitive format, what we really need to discuss is the failings of Scarlet / Violet. As mentioned before the graphics of this game can get a bit wonky. The level scaling in this game is non-exist despite being open world. The uniform selection is absolutely abysmal compared to previous games. The game does have a problem with freezing if you played it for far too long, or will encounter more bugs the more you play it. Aside from a few set pieces, you really aren't allowed to go in anywhere aside the school and gyms. The game has noticeable frame rate drops when loading the map, or if it's loading too many things at once. And that's kind of the majority of problems Scarlet has. I'm not even saying that these aren't problems that pokemon needs to work with, absolutely they do, there really is little reason aside from time constraints that this stuff shoudn't have been fixed. Ya, a lot of this is cosmic too or only shows up briefly, but I can see how that would break immersion for a lot of people. Do i think these problems ruin the game? No, not really, especially if you plan for some of these before hand, but that's also the problem. Unless you know when going in, these types of problems would absolutely deter people from experiencing this game.
Bottomline, Scarlet is still a bit messy, but a lot of that mess can be ignored for the vast improvements they had with it's mechanics, campaign, and character writing. Story wise this is one of the strongest Pokemon games out there. Difficulty wise the game will at least keep you on your toes every now and then. And for everything else, Pokemon Scarlet shows promise in how we are getting our pokemon now. If this trend continues, and we start getting more improvements in performance and higher end graphics than even those that can't ignore these cosmic issues would be singing a different tune. But from me, to you, I absolutely think this is one of the best Pokemon games we got in a while, so much so that it feels like a breathe of fresh air compared to the fart stain that was Pokemon Sword and Shield.
Pokemon Scarlet is genuinely one of the best Pokemon games I have played, and I say that whole heartily. The story beats it sets are great, the amount of characters they introduce are interesting, the structure of how they set up each quest is more than we've ever really gotten. I can't express enough that what Pokemon Scarlet gave us is what I want them to improve on and give us more. Like I know this game was sold as THE open world pokemon game, but the actual meat and potatoes of this game is setting up your own adventure. You have 3 objectives for the main campaign, and each one has you interacting with different characters and giving you a different experience to go thru. Not only does this help shake up the monotonous gameplay that Pokemon has gone thru, but it also empathizes more places compared to just towns of the previous games in the series. The game makes me feel like I am actually on an adventure rather than knocking off places on a list. Despite how empty the overworld can be, the actual towns and characters feel alive. The biomes feel fresh and populated with pokemon, and often there is enough in any given area to make it feel like that's why a pokemon would live there. On top of that the music and sounds are all consistently in place and help build the atmosphere. While pokemon certainly hasn't had a lot of misses, Scarlet's soundtrack is absolutely brimming with a lot of quiet hits.
As much as I want to continue to praise Scarlet / Violet, particularly their efforts into making pokemon better in the competitive format, what we really need to discuss is the failings of Scarlet / Violet. As mentioned before the graphics of this game can get a bit wonky. The level scaling in this game is non-exist despite being open world. The uniform selection is absolutely abysmal compared to previous games. The game does have a problem with freezing if you played it for far too long, or will encounter more bugs the more you play it. Aside from a few set pieces, you really aren't allowed to go in anywhere aside the school and gyms. The game has noticeable frame rate drops when loading the map, or if it's loading too many things at once. And that's kind of the majority of problems Scarlet has. I'm not even saying that these aren't problems that pokemon needs to work with, absolutely they do, there really is little reason aside from time constraints that this stuff shoudn't have been fixed. Ya, a lot of this is cosmic too or only shows up briefly, but I can see how that would break immersion for a lot of people. Do i think these problems ruin the game? No, not really, especially if you plan for some of these before hand, but that's also the problem. Unless you know when going in, these types of problems would absolutely deter people from experiencing this game.
Bottomline, Scarlet is still a bit messy, but a lot of that mess can be ignored for the vast improvements they had with it's mechanics, campaign, and character writing. Story wise this is one of the strongest Pokemon games out there. Difficulty wise the game will at least keep you on your toes every now and then. And for everything else, Pokemon Scarlet shows promise in how we are getting our pokemon now. If this trend continues, and we start getting more improvements in performance and higher end graphics than even those that can't ignore these cosmic issues would be singing a different tune. But from me, to you, I absolutely think this is one of the best Pokemon games we got in a while, so much so that it feels like a breathe of fresh air compared to the fart stain that was Pokemon Sword and Shield.