Introduction

Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet are the latest additions to the Pokémon franchises, comprising the start of its 9th Generation. These games deviate from the series’ standard formula seeing the player journey across the open Paldea region, collecting Pokémon and exploring the world in any route they see fit. These games manage to be extremely fun and engaging, but unfortunately are not without their flaws.

Gameplay

Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet are incredibly fun and addicting games at their core. As an RPG, they are reliant on two factors of gameplay working in tandem to produce their overall experience: battling and exploration. In both regards, these games are incredibly successful in making these elements engaging for the player and entertaining.

Exploration

Following on from the release of Pokémon Legends: Arceus earlier in 2022, these games inherit greatly from it. The player is given a vast, open world to explore at their own pace as opposed to the linearity of previous instalments in the franchise. This world is populated by various set pieces and Pokémon of varying species that the player can discover and interact with at their own pace. There is never a position where the player feels as though they cannot experience more.

Traversal is done through the help of one of the game’s cover legendries; Koraidon in Pokémon Scarlet and Miraidon in Pokémon Violet. These Pokémon are capable of being ‘upgraded’ for the story, for lack of a better term, to allow them to run, swim, climb, and glide to the player’s heart’s content. 

Therefore, navigation of the world is greatly improved from previous titles. Unlike Generations 1-6 the player is not required to waste a move slot on their own Pokémon in order to get past obstacles, and unlike Generations 7-8 the player has a connection to what they are traversing on; a benefit for a franchise like Pokémon.

The legendary Pokémon are easy to control and provide the player with great mobility. This makes the open world incredibly accessible and intuitive to explore. In turn simply walking around the vast areas is a joyous experience.

Battling

As is standard for the Pokémon formula, Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet allow the player to engage in turn-based battles between their own and their opponent’s Pokémon. Pokémon battles employ a rock-paper-scissors-esque system involving the Pokémon’s types allowing for certain creatures to have the advantage over others. This is on top of every Pokémon having their own unique stats and abilities to diversify the roster and make every monster unique in battle.

These games manage to make Pokémon battling as fun as it ever was.

Thanks in large part to the many new Pokémon, items and abilities added to the game, there is plenty of variety in the options available for players to concoct their own strategies and playstyles. New players are given an almost unlimited number of ways to learn and experience the game, and veteran players have plenty of new tools at their disposal to experiment with.

The largest part of Pokémon battling within these games is the introduction of the ‘Terastal Phenomenon’. Since Generation 6 (Pokémon X and Pokémon Y) each new generation has introduced a new battling gimmick to make it distinct from the previous set of games. With Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet, a Pokémon is able to Terastallize into their Tera type, meaning that a monster’s typing will change to a new, predetermined typing.

The Terastal Phenomenon is arguably the best battle gimmick introduced to the series up to this point. Between its ease to learn, incredibly high skill ceiling, and how seamlessly it weaves itself into the existing battle formula, Terastallization feels like a natural addition to the series. The mechanic adds an extra layer of strategy to Pokémon battling, while not being unfair (as opposed to Dynamaxing and Z-Moves) and also being accessible to all Pokémon (unlike Mega Evolution). As such it deepens the complexity of the game in a way that can still be predicted and worked around, bringing an intensity that Pokémon has been lacking in recent years.

Pokémon battling is easily one of the highlights of Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet, and for good reason. Battles are engaging and riveting for the player, allowing for unlimited gameplay in terms of their potential.

Side Gameplay

Additional gameplay has always been provided outside the traditional battling and exploration as to provide players with distractions, and ways to interact and bond with their Pokémon.

Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet are no different in this regard. The games introduce the ability for the player to have picnics with their Pokémon, allowing them to roam around the picnic table, play games, and even be washed by the player. This feature, while seemingly generic, allows the player to engage with their Pokémon to an extent that would not be possible otherwise.

Moreover, these picnics allow the player to make sandwiches for themselves and their Pokémon, providing boosts outside of the battle such as improving the chances of finding rare, alternate-colored Pokémon. Sandwiches have a wide variety of ingredients that they are capable of being constructed from, ranging from ham (which bodes poorly for new Pokémon Lechonk), to noodles and burgers. The player can experiment in a similar vein to battles with their sandwiches, trying out different ingredient combinations to help find the most beneficial effects.

Like ‘Pokémon Amie’ and ‘Pokémon Camp’ in previous games, picnics are a welcome addition to the franchise, giving players a new way to experience the monsters they spend so much time battling and exploring with. They bring a sense of immersion to the game that would not be there otherwise while being useful for the player.

Story

With the exception of Generation 5 and 7, story has never been the focal point of Pokémon games. While an odd design choice for many RPGs, Pokémon takes advantage of this by using its lite story to allow players to journey through the games at their own pace, and make their experience unique. 

Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet can be seen as the Pokémon franchise taking a new direction with its storytelling. Rather than having the story be separate to the exploration of the games, it is integral to the exploration. Having three separate storylines the player can journey through, the games use their story to motivate the player to explore the world.

However a common issue all three storylines suffer from is how they very overtly give an intentional path for the player to journey through. As the levels of the varying bosses the player encounters do not scale to the level the player is at (even though this is entirely possible for a game like Pokémon) there is an obvious path if the player wants to stay at the same level as their opponents. This prevents a true sense of exploration for the player as either an opponent will be virtually impossible to defeat or a complete pushover in terms of power.

While the story works in concept for what the game wants to do, it is missing a key aspect in its design to fulfil its intended function. The introduction of scaling to boss fights would open up the exploration of these games to their fullest potential.

Victory Road

Victory Road is the standard Pokémon storyline, tried and tested since Generation 1. It sees the player explore the Paldea region, battling gym leaders to earn gym badges and eventually challenge the Elite 4 and the Champion to become a champion level trainer.

This storyline finds itself being the most repetitive of the three, as well as the least engaging for returning players. Anyone who has played a Pokémon game before is aware of the gym challenge structure and therefore how little is added to Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet in this regard.

There is very little done with the new battling mechanics from these games (namely Terastallization) to make these gym fights unique. As gym leaders specialise in one Pokémon type they become incredibly easy to predict and play around, with there being generally very little challenge in this regard. Therefore having the player make their way through 8 of these fights eventually becomes tiresome and somewhat of a chore.

This is somewhat alleviated by the gym puzzles that take place before a battle with the gym leader, as these utilise unique mechanics within the game’s overworld that the player has to overcome. These challenges make some of the most memorable parts of the game for their creativity and ingenuity. While these puzzles are fun, they suffer from being a one time thing and only being an incredibly minor part of the overall game.

Victory Road as a storyline is a staple of Pokémon and therefore appreciated in what it adds to the playability of the game. However, there feels as though there is a lot of missed potential when it comes to Generation 9’s interaction with the gym challenge that leads it to being somewhat disappointing.

Path of Legends

Within Generation 7 (Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon) the player was tasked with having to defeat Totem Pokémon. These Totem Pokémon were larger Pokémon with increased stats that would provide a similar level of challenge to the player in the gym challenge’s absence. The Path of Legends, therefore, is an adaptation of sorts of the Totem Pokémon.

Within the Path of Legends the player is tasked with battling and defeating the five Titan Pokémon found across the Paldea region to collect the elusive Herba Mystica and create the ultimate sandwich. These Titans behave similarly to the Totems of past games, being super-sized Pokémon that have increased statistics and behave as more unstructured bosses for the player to fight against.

This storyline finds itself being more enjoyable than Victory Road. This is in large part thanks to the interlinking of exploration and navigation of the terrain into the challenge of the fight. As a Titan is weakened in health it will try to run, necessitating the player to try and follow them, incorporating not only the two main aspects of the game (battling and exploration) together, but also with the motivation of a side mechanic (making better sandwiches).

The incorporation of newer Generation 9 features works to the storyline’s advantage. All of the Titans are newly introduced Pokémon meaning they are a fresh challenge regardless of how long they have been playing the series. Moreover, one of the Titans is a Paradox Pokémon, a new group of creatures that resemble older Pokémon and are integral to the overarching narrative and lore of these games. This ensures that this storyline is especially relevant to the game and important to understanding everything the games have to offer.

Path of Legends is very concise, consisting of only five boss challenges. This ensures that the challenge does not become overly repetitive in nature. As the storyline is set into five parts, each part feels more important and therefore becomes more memorable.

Operation Starfall

Pokémon games have always featured a villainous team for the player to fight against and to drive the games plotline forward. From Team Rocket to Team Yell these teams have had varying levels of maliciousness over years, with Team Star being the latest addition.

Operation Starfall tasks the player with defeating and dismantling Team Star, a rebellious group of younger students who are skipping classes and engaging in general thuggish behaviour across Paldea. There are five branches of Team Star, each specialising in a different type, operating out of bases set up across the region. The boss of each branch must be defeated in a trainer battle to complete each story section.

What differentiates the boss fight of Operation Starfall from those of Victory Road are the modified cars, known as Starmobiles, that the boss will ride on. Each Starmobile is in actuality a new Pokémon called Revavroom that has been modified to have a new ability and a typing that reflects those of the branch’s speciality. Having to fight both the Pokémon of a Team Star boss and a modified Revavroom that the player will have little to no information about makes each fight unique and a challenge.

However, while the boss fights in this storyline find themselves being an enjoyable experience, fighting hordes of Pokémon in Let’s Go mode beforehand can be tedious. This is because it requires very little input from the player (as the mode is designed to allow for more lax play) ensuring that they can make their way through the waves of enemy creatures with very little skill or attention being required. As long as the player’s Pokémon are a high enough level they will have no difficulty with these enemies.

Operation Starfall is a fun storyline with charming characters and memorable boss fights, unfortunately it occasionally finds itself being slightly mind-numbing in design.

Performance

While Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet are fun games, they suffer from tremendous issues in terms of their performance that, while not game breaking, are negatively impactful to the overall experience and quality.

The games face issues with frame rate and lag, stemming from problems in the code surrounding memory leakage. This means that data from the games that needs to be temporarily stored in the memory of the console (RAM) for quick access can be written into the wrong section of memory. Therefore, more time than necessary is spent finding required data. This causes serious lag and frame drops. This can be fixed by restarting the game routinely to reset the memory, but it remains a major flaw for the game that will hopefully see correction in future updates.

Moreover the hardware the games are on (Nintendo Switch), and their general optimisation result in low quality assets frequently appearing. The textures for the game’s environment are nothing short of abysmal. When loading in large areas of the map environmental assets, especially those at the edge of the render distance, are severely reduced. Individual polygons are clearly visible on mountain ranges and textures occasionally lose all fidelity. 

Performance issues are also seen in the loading of general assets. The games struggle with pop-in (assets suddenly appearing suddenly) making navigation of the world difficult at times due to the player not having constant feedback to what is then in their immediate surroundings. Not only is this immersion breaking but also creates unnecessary frustration.

By limiting the render distance of the game (and adding a fog effect to hide drop off) this performance can be improved by reducing what the game has to render at any given time. Pop-in would be reduced due to fewer assets requiring being kept track of, and the level of fidelity in both the models and textures could also be refined.

Numerous visual glitches are also present in the games.

The camera is plagued with pitfalls. Numerous instances exist where the camera is caught on a random object preventing focus on an important target, leading to issues where players are unable to see events, like battles, occurring. Moreover, the camera will occasionally clip through the ground, causing the player to be able to see into the void the game is built upon. 

Both of these issues with the camera lead to a destruction of player immersion. The sense of exploration that is integral to the gameplay is entirely reliant on the world being successfully immersive and interconnected and the ability to go through it seamlessly. As a result, these camera issues break this sense of exploration, harming the overall enjoyment of the games.

These issues are not completely game breaking. However, when compounded they produce incredibly noticeable results that grievously impact player experience. For a full price game this is utterly disappointing and bordering unacceptable.

While there are various fixes for these issues that can be done, they are simply a plaster on the larger problem that is at hand for Pokémon. Game Freak, as a development company, are stretched far too thin for their resources. Multiple mainline Pokémon games are developed concurrently by a team of only 169 people.

Game Freak being forced to harsh time constraints such as these by the larger Pokémon Company is hurting the franchise as a whole. As the games diminish in passion and quality from the conditions they are made under, the reputation of the brand begins to falter. The fun games that are Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet are hampered by their performance, an issue that can only ever be fixed by giving the games the time they need.

Art Design

While the general performance of Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet may hinder how the game looks at times, its art direction is not to be understated. 

The stylisation of these games (specifically the human characters) blends the worlds of people and Pokémon together perfectly, creating a cohesiveness to the world that makes everything in it feel natural and as though it belongs. Due to the game being stylised, and not chasing realistic graphics unobtainable on its platform, the flaws found in its performance are reduced. As the graphics are intentionally on the simpler side, leaning towards a more childlike, anime-inspired aesthetic the fall off in graphics towards the edge of the game’s render distance previously mentioned are somewhat elicited, blending into the overall world better than they otherwise would.

Moreover, a lot of the Pokémon themselves (the main draw of the games for most people) are very appealing to look at. Thanks in large part to the updated models and textures many monsters received, they appear at their best within these new games.

Sound Design

Pokémon games have always had fantastic soundtracks. Every game in the series has had memorable and enjoyable music that greatly suits the world and tone the games are trying to present. From the gentle piano of Generation 4 (Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl) to the blaring trumpets of Generation 3 (Pokémon Ruby and Pokémon Sapphire) the franchise has always been able to flaunt its sound design.

Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet continue this trend. Covering a wide variety of genres and instrument types, these games see another great addition to the series’ musical library. The main trainer battle theme is upbeat with a hint of intensity fitting the atmosphere of a casual Pokémon fight incredibly well. The gym leader’s battle theme retains the vocals from Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield that added a much needed layer of intensity and general hype to these important fights.

Appreciation must be given to Toby Fox, one of the main composers for the game and creator of indie darling Undertale. His contributions to the soundtrack align perfectly with the series’ pre-existing identity. The addition of his own creative flair, however, helps keep things fresh.

This sound design extends past the soundtrack as well, as the general sound design of the overworld is immersive and adds a lot to the game. The atmospheric ambience the game provides makes the Paldea region feel alive and teeming with life. The cries of wild Pokémon can be heard wherever the player is, not only letting the player know what species they may find but also adding an idea that these creatures exist in their own world, regardless of what insight the player may have into their world.

Rating

7/10

Conclusion

Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet find themselves being difficult games to make a concrete judgement on. They are easily the most fun and engaging Pokémon games for a long time, taking what worked from Pokémon Legends: Arceus earlier in 2022 and weaving it into a more mainline title perfectly. However, as enjoyable as the games may be, they suffer tremendously from the very noticeable flaws in their performance. Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet are incredibly fun and genuinely good games at their core, but the way they are presented to the player leaves much to be desired.

Trailer

Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet are available for Nintendo Switch.

Specifications of system used for review:

Nintendo Switch – Standard Model

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