Pokémon Scarlet & Violet - Review

The world is your Cloyster. 

Console: Nintendo Switch.

What hasn't been said about Pokémon Scarlet & Violet at this point? The latest entries in this 25+ old franchise have been polarizing. On the one hand, where Pokémon Legends: Arceus walked, these games ran: they are the first truly open-world Pokémon titles. You can go (nearly) anywhere right from the get-go and Game Freak handled adjusting the formula to this genre very well. On the other hand, is the poor performance. There's no doubt it's bad: from ugly pop-ins, to slow down to even crashes for some. It makes playing these games a challenge at times and not in a good way.

Even so, I played the heck out of my copy of Violet. I am still a big Pokémon fan, I often call it the very core of my gaming, and thus I didn't let some technical problems stand in the way of me playing and (hopefully) enjoying it. And enjoy it I did!

I took my time playing it as you can see and now that I've seen the credits roll at last and I've got to start catching all those new Pokémon to fill out my Living Dex with the time is here to review it. Not that many people still need that but as I've said before: it's just fun to do.

So, without further ado, let's dive into Pokémon Scarlet & Violet.

In Pokémon Violet you are, as always, a 10-ish-year-old kid starting their Pokémon Journey. This time around though you enrol in a Pokémon school, the Naranja/Uva Academy, to help you achieve your goal. You see, not only does the Academy teach its students all they need to know about Pokémon and travelling in the classroom but they have a special study project, the Treasure Hunt, that lets you search for your own personal treasure. AKA: whatever is most important to them.

At the Academy you meet a variety of colourful characters, you're 3 new friends among them. Director Clavell is the head of the academy who comes to your house after a snafu left you without the proper equipment to start your first day. This includes your starter Pokémon and in Paldea this means you get the choice between the Grass Cat Sprigatito, the Fire Croc Fuecoco and the Duckling Quaxly.

From left to right: Sprigatito, Quaxly and Fuecoco.

You have Nemona, the youngest person to hold the rank of 'Champion' after she beat all 8 gyms and bested the Elite Four and its chairwoman Geeta. She's your next-door neighbour and after helping you out with the basics; how to catch Pokémon, you're first battle etc. She sees potential in you, names you rivals and implores you to take on the Gym Challenge.

On your way to the Academy, the two of you come across a mysterious Pokémon that comes crashing from the sky near the local lighthouse. After checking up on the mysterious Pokémon and helping it makes its way to the lighthouse you meet up with Arven, the son of Paldea's Pokémon Professor: Sara/Turo. He has some history with the mysterious Pokémon, who he calls Koraidon/Miraidon and gifts you its Poké ball since he has other things to do: hunt down Paldea's 5 massive 'Titan Pokémon' for the legendary herbs they safeguard for... reasons.

Once the lof of you have made your way to the academy you encounter a shy girl named Penny getting bullied by some Team Star grunts; the school's delinquents. After helping her out of trouble by beating the grunts in a Pokémon battle, you're contacted by the mysterious Cassiopeia. They have a request for you: help them take down each of the different Team Star bosses and shut the group down for good.

With your goals set, you travel across Paldea in search of your personal treasure.

The story of Pokémon Scarlet & Violet is both less involved yet deeper than what I'm used to. The game's open-world design means that since you can go anywhere, beyond the opening hour, is that you can't tell your story in the old-fashioned linear way. You have to account for players travelling across the map in different ways. Knowing this I was a bit fearful that the story was lacklustre due to this limitation. Call me pleasantly surprised on that front. Well, mostly. It's still very formulaic like Breath of the Wild with its divine beasts.

GameFreak has split the story into 4 paths, the last of which is just the beginning of the game that sets everything up and the end that ties it all together. The 3 I discussed above; 'Victory Road', 'Path of Legends' and 'Starfall Street' respectively. All 3 paths have a lot in common. They each drop the locations of the Gym leaders, Titan Pokémon and Team Star Bases on your map and you can tackle them in any* order (*needed). This boils down to you approaching the point, getting stopped in your tracks by one of the characters to give some more detail on what you're about to face; you face it, you get a wrap-up with more story and then it's on to whatever you want to do next.

While formulaic, GameFreak has still made them interesting, mostly because of the characters and by taking most of them in a direction I didn't think they would take. Both 'Path of Legends' and 'Starfall Street' break with the traditions of the classic elements each path is associated with and do a seriously good job of making you emotionally invested.

'Victory Road' is, sadly, the worst of the three. A shame really; I really would've liked them see tackle this tried-and-true story of beating the 8 gyms etc. etc. but they don't. It´s the same as it has always been with fun-looking characters but not a lot of weight. Nemona is a good rival, more of an overly-eager mentor than anything else, and while I like her design the best and she has a deeper backstory like Arven and Penny, the game fails to bring it up in any impactful way. They really need to figure out a way to make the Gym Challenge more interesting and varied next time around.

So to summarize: the story is good. It's formulaic but it's fun and works better than I thought it would.

Placing Nemona here, out of all characters, because she's my favourite design-wise. 

The gameplay of Pokémon Scarlet & Violet is a mix of the traditional Pokémon we've had since Red & Blue and the revamped style of Legends: Arceus though leaning, a bit disappointedly, more towards the former than the latter.

Pokémon roam around freely in the overworld and you can throw out your lead Pokémon with the press of a button, starting battles with the wild Pokémon. You can use this by sneaking up on the Pokémon from behind, catching them off guard and giving you a bonus in battle like an extra turn. Also returning from PLA is the change in how Pokémon moves work. You can relearn Pokémon moves freely in the menu after they've learned it so you can switch out your Pokémons moves anytime, anywhere without penalty. An excellent change that gives players the freedom to try out new moves and thus new strategies, and experiment, without locking you into it.

That's mostly it though for PLA gameplay elements; the rest is all standard Pokémon. Like I said, you can throw out your Pokémon at anytime but only your lead Pokémon. You can't throw empty Pokéballs at wild Pokémon to catch them, you need to battle them. You also have no real crafting or side-quests or anything like that. A shame since it was what made that game feel so refreshing.

Still, the open-world design goes a long way in making this entry feel different and fresh in its own way. Just like any good open-world game, you can find yourself lost in its world, in the things you can do in it. In this case exploring the region, battling a variety of trainers (who know don't automatically battle you when you enter their frame of sight) and catching Pokémon. Finding rare items, participating in Terra Raid Battles or discovering some of the secrets scattered around Paldea. You're partner Koraidon/Miraidon, the Pokémon on the box, is a great help here. You can ride it like a bike, glide through the air with it, surf etc. Makes exploring and getting around the region much easier. It could handle a lot better but that's neither here nor there.

It's easy to find yourself lost in Paldea, it's activities, and roam around for hours without engaging the main narrative. When I finished the story, I already had caught around 320 of the 400 Pokémon in the Paldea Pokédex just by playing and roaming around freely. A good feeling.

That said, it's time to go into that * from early in regards to the open world and the freedom to tackle any of the Gyms, Titans etc. in any order you want. This is technically true: you can immediately go to the far North of the map and fight, say, the strongest Titan Pokémon in the game right after getting your starter. You'll get your teeth kicked in by Pokémon 5x as strong as yours, but you can do it! Put in another way, this game has no level scaling. Each Gym Leader etc. has their own set level, ranging from the early 10s to the late '50s.

There is a clear intended path for you to follow. You can deviate from this and you can have fun challenging a Gym that's way above your level and try to beat them but on the flip-side, this means that another Gym will be much easier for you now with all the experience and levels you gained. Unless you show a lot of restraint and cultivate a big pool of Pokémon with a wide range of levels, you'll quickly find yourself over-levelled and robbed of challenge. The lack of proper scaling hurts this game.

Returning with a facelift from Sword & Shield are the Raid battles. The Dynamax Raid was one of my most applauded additions to that game. It gave these games another community aspect and something for players to regularly return to. They were fun but flawed. The Terra Raid battles take what worked and what didn't to create a more balanced experience. It's a four-against-one fight against a terrastalized Pokémon on a time; defeat the Pokémon in the time limit for a chance to catch it and rewards.

Changing the limiter from a set number of turns to a timer was a good move. Dynamax Raids could be a slug to get through and this change speeds up the process considerably. With the more tactical terrastilzation gimmick and the introduction of a new tier of difficulty for these raids, the 7-star tier, these raids can be very challenging in a good way.

A Terra raid battle in action.

Speaking of which: terrastilization is this generation's new gimmick. It's a type change; you're Pokémon gets a crown and a crystal look and becomes, let's say, a flying type. This means that your Pikachu for example loses its ground weakness and its flying-type moves become stronger. It's a gimmick that can be used both offensively and defensively and for that I like it. Gives depth. Going to be interesting to see how the competitive scene uses it.

Filling out the list of the new features are the Union Ciricle, the Let's Go feature and, to an extent, the TM crafting and Sandwich making.

With the Union Ciricle you can, at long last, you can finally play a Pokémon game in nearly true co-op. By connecting with up to four players you can run around, catch Pokémon, battle etc. in the same world. The same screen. It's not something I got the chance to try out but it looks like a fun new addition that, I think, was long overdue.

With the Let's Go feature, you sent out your lead Pokémon in the overworld to pick up items, interact with them and battle wild Pokémon. It's a very handy way to do some passive grinding for experience and materials. Those materials you can then use to craft TM's. They're back to being one-use items but since you can craft them now it all balances out.

Sandwich making is a part of the picnic feature, the successor of Sword & Shield's camping. You pet your Pokémon here, wash them and this is also where you know breed Pokémon for eggs. Just like Curry, you use ingredients to make them in a mini-game and give you temporary bonuses. These bonuses are much more interesting this time around. Increasing the chance for certain Pokémon to spawn and, what makes Sandwiches so important to the online community, increase the chances to find a Shiny Pokémon. Neat.

Also neat are the Pokémon themselves. That's what the franchise is all about, isn't it? The creatures themselves. For this new generation, we get 102 new critters. From the usual suspects in the starters to some new regional forms to brand-new evolutions. It's a solid lineup, but not my favourite. The designs are nice but there aren't a lot of standouts to me. Perhaps it's the repetition. We've got 3 single-typed 2-stage dog Pokémon, 4 singe-stage bird Pokémon and nearly 20 Paradox Pokémon all of whom are quite similar, the future ones especially.

Still, I dig Iron Valiant, Kingambit, Greavard, Tinkaton and others. Orhtworm was also a handy Pokémon to have on my team; didn't intend to use it but after coming across a Shiny one in the desert out of nowhere I just had to use it. Again, not a bad lineup, just not my favourite. Plus: the extra texture work looks good. Seeing scales on Seviper, Magnemite all shiny and actually seeing what parts of Corviknight's body is metal and what not is very neat. 

With all of this said, it's time to address the Copperajah in the room. The performance of this game. It isn't good, by any stretch of the imagination. I'm not the type of person to get hung up over a game's specs. To me, it's all about how it all works during gameplay. If you don't notice any difference between 30 fps and 60 fps, then does it matter? Unfortunately, the performance of Scarlet & Violet is something you can't get around because of how poor it is.

These titles are plagued by many, many problems. From pop-in, to severe slow down. From the ground falling away beneath your feet to Pokémon spawning right in the middle of a rock. I've even heard of the game crashing and while that hasn't happened to me thankfully. All of these issues hurt the games considerably. They don't make the game unplayable in my experience but it does make it very uncomfortable to play. Holds the entire experience down considerably.

Conclusion

This review has been going on for a long time; a sign of how passionate I am about Pokémon. But, you can sigh in relief now, the end is here.

Pokémon Scarlet & Violet are some of the best titles the series has brought out in recent years. The shift to a true open-world setup is liberating and invigorating. The story is fun, better than usual, and catching and battling Pokémon is just as fun as ever. Add in some fun new features and you have some very fun and promising titles with a lot of potential for the future. Be that DLC or just the next title.

All of this is, sadly, buried under a pile of technical issues and performance problems. You can't get around them and as long as they're there, I won't hold it against you if you decide not to pick these titles up. Should Game Freak be able to fix these with the patch(es) they've promised, that would really make these games a great experience.