March 19, 2023
By Jude McElroy
Editor
The Pokémon series is the most successful media franchise in the world. Between the games, cards, show and merchandise, there’s no stopping this behemoth, which has led to a decline in the quality of the franchise’s most popular medium, the games.
Since 2016 with the release of Sun and Moon, Game Freak has published a brand new mainline Pokémon game almost every year, with the exception of 2020, only containing Downloadable Content, or DLC, for Sword and Shield. The formula of the games was already showing cracks with Sun and Moon, and it wasn’t until the mediocre reception of Sword and Shield in 2019 and the decline of fan approval in the series that a change was made.
In February 2021, Pokémon Presents, Pokémon Legends Arceus was announced. It seemed to be a complete change of pace from a traditional Pokémon game and shook up the Pokémon formula almost entirely. It was received very well for how successfully it advanced the series after laying dormant without any huge innovation for the last decade of releases. Game Freak’s second attempt at shaking up the formula was far more interesting.
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet was released on Nov. 18, 2022. This was the second release from Game Freak that year and came only a year after the last mainline release, Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. It was clear from the first gameplay trailer that the game was rough around the edges. But that didn’t matter to others, myself included, because the idea of a fully open-world Pokémon game is especially appealing after how guided the recent games have been. As more gameplay was revealed with choppy performance and iffy visuals, many just wrote it off as the game still being early in development, hoping that by the time release day rolled around, the issues would be ironed out. This did not entirely happen.
Scarlet and Violet was released as a choppy, ugly, buggy mess, but it sold 10 million copies in its opening weekend. The game blew up with countless clips of its many glitches circulating on social media.
When I got to sit down and play the game, I did not run into any of these bugs. It might be because the game was patched by the time I got to it, or I got lucky. But besides some camera issues, nothing really stood out to me. But just because I didn’t experience any major bugs, it doesn’t excuse the fact that bugs were present in other people’s playthroughs.
The performance is bad, though. I can’t just ignore how terribly the game runs. Very rarely will it hit a consistent 30 frames per second. It’s almost dipping below it. Usually, it’s not super noticeable when a game drops a couple of frames, but when it happens so often, it cannot be ignored.
The visuals are alright. They are not ugly, but the game definitely could have looked so much better if it had been further developed. Many people seem to blame the Switch’s hardware for not being able to handle the scope of Scarlet and Violet, but this argument isn’t just limited to Pokémon. I find the poor visuals just a product of rushed development. The Xenoblade trilogy, Breath of the Wild, Mariokart 8 Deluxe and Luigi’s Mansion 3 are all super impressive examples of the Switch being able to handle strong visuals. Scarlet and Violet didn’t have the time and care put into them, and the game’s performance issues are most definitely not because of the Switch.
With all of the technical aspects of the game out of the way, let’s talk about the game itself. The player is a student enrolled in Naranja or Uva Academy, depending on what version of the game is being played. They are visited by Director Clavell, the head of the school. Clavell gives the player their first Pokémon, a choice between Fuecoco, Quaxly and Sprigatito. The player then battles Nemona, wins, goes through a tutorial and then meets the Legendary Pokémon of the game, Koraidon for Scarlet and Miraidon for Violet. It’s weird for the player to meet the legendary Pokémon plastered on the box only around 30 minutes in, but I like it. The legendary Pokemon saves the player from a pack of Houndour, and right afterward meets who might be the Pokémon’s trainer, Arven. After a quick battle, Arven has no issue handing over Miraidon or Koraidon to the player. The player then finally makes it to the school and meets Penny and the game’s “evil” team, Team Star. Some more dialogue happens and the player is finally let out into the world alongside Miraidon or Koraidon.
If the player knows where the more difficult battles are, they can go to that spot early and take on the badge located there. It allows for great player agency and a level of difficulty that no other Pokémon game has.
The player is also given three main questlines from Arven, Nemona and someone named Cassiopeia. Arven’s story is called The Path of Legends, where the player assists Arven in obtaining the mysterious Herba Mysticas. Nemona’s path is called Victory Road, and it consists of the eight gyms and Elite Four battles that almost all past Pokémon games have had.
Cassiopeia’s is called Starfall Street, where players are tasked with taking down Team Star’s five bosses to defeat the team entirely. This leaves 18 major tasks for the player to keep track of, which are all spread throughout the map. These badges neatly split the game and keep things fresh. Players can accomplish these tasks in any order they want, which has benefits and drawbacks.
This leads me to the gameplay. If the player knows where the more difficult battles are, they can go to that spot early and take on the badge located there. It allows for great player agency and a level of difficulty that no other Pokémon game has. Battling itself is exactly the same as it’s been, but now there is the generation’s new battle gimmick, Terastilization.
Terastilization allows for one Pokémon out of the players’ party to switch typing. Let’s take Wooper for example. It has a dual typing of Ground and Poison in its Paldean form. Terastilizing Wooper into ground-type allows it to drop its Poison type, and it loses its weakness to Physic and Ground moves. Terastilizing opens up so many fun battle ideas, and in player vs. player, it works wonderfully. The trainers located within the game use it poorly, though. The gym leader’s last Pokémon is never of their respective typing. Katie, the bug-type gym leader, has Teddiursa as her last Pokémon, which Terastlizies into bug type. This is the case for all eight other gym leaders.
At least they tried with the Gym Leaders. The Elite Four and Champion just Tera their Pokémon into a type they already had. Terastilizing is unfortunately so underused in the main game, and I wish it were incorporated in more creative ways instead of using the mechanic in the most boring way possible.
The overall story is actually quite good. Nemona is a fun character, and she never becomes annoying, which is something that can’t be said about past rival characters. Arven’s story is really touching, and what happens in the game’s final act solidifies him as my favorite character. The whole Starfall Street story is just a massive spoiler, but it’s definitely the weakest out of the three storylines. The twist is painfully obvious, but I will respect the writer’s intentions by keeping that twist a secret. How Starfall Street concludes also makes zero sense, but again I won’t go into detail. My ranking of the stories would be the Path of Legends first, Victory Road then Starfall Street.
I also want to address the new Pokémon designs. This game has my favorite lineup of new Pokémon ever. All of them are well-designed and have a lot of personality. Some of my favorite additions are Baxcalibur, Ceruledge and Clodsire, but there are so many others that stand out to me.
On the topic of looks, the character customization feature has given so much more life. Instead of picking from eight preset faces, with the only major difference of these choices being the gender and skin color of the character, Scarlet and Violet give a massive upgrade with the fact that the player can change almost anything on their face.
With facial customization, there are so many options. Options that would have been limited to gender from past games can now be used on a character of either gender. But with that massive step forward, there was also a massive step back. There are only four major clothing options. The player can only wear four school outfits that include shirts and pants, while the rest of the clothing options are still customizable. It doesn’t really make much sense to me why players would have so much freedom, but also take away the clothing customization that past games had.
If there’s one thing every single Pokémon game seems to nail without fail, it’s the music. The soundtracks in this game are great. The battle themes are solid and the overworld themes are good. Some of my favorites are the Arven’s Battle Theme and the Tera Raid Theme.
Overall, I’d give Scarlet and Violet a 7/10. As much as I feel this game is a product of a time crunch that could have been avoided if the developers had a few more months to work on it, I still had a lot of fun with it. It reignited in me a love for Pokémon I haven’t felt in years, and that in itself is reason enough to play this game.
The player runs up to the Uva Academy.
SCREENSHOTS BY JUDE MCELROY
