Published 15/01/2023

Pokemon Violet

I know people who live and breathe Pokemon. Collect the TCG, devour the anime, play each and every game for hundreds of hours. I’m not one of those people. Don’t get me wrong; I love Pokemon. I’ve played a game from pretty much every gen to completion, watched my fair share of the show, but I’d never say I was a fanatic. There are just too many games, too many wonderful alternate experiences to play with to dump all my focus on Pokemon. And yet, despite its near total lack of polish, the lack of challenge, the… well, just how the game looks… I love Pokemon Violet, and it’s made me more obsessed with the world’s biggest franchise than I have in a long, long time.

The last few years have been a bit of a drought regarding my relationship with Pokemon. Honestly, the last time I was really ‘into’ the franchise was when Sun and Moon released; I put a pretty decent amount of hours into Moon, and with it’s awesome selection of ‘mons and pretty heartwarming story, I’d rate it as probably my favorite entry in the series. But since then, I’ve just kinda been on the outskirts. I bought Ultra Moon, but barely put time into it, and I pretty much skipped Sword and Shield entirely - the wild area was cool, but its reliance on linear, bare-bones routes just did nothing for me. Honestly, I didn’t think the open world of Scarlet and Violet would be the thing to pull me back to the franchise I love, but it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. In a bout of depression (I thought I had Covid (I got Covid the next week anyway)) I decided to just leap into the abyss of Pokemon once more.

At its core, this is the same game it’s been for over two decades; you, a plucky youngster, are set upon the world to catch Pokemon, battle gyms, fight villains, and save the region as a bit of an extra. Instead, however, of a fairly linear experience, moving from town to town, intermixing gyms and villains in a set order, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are open-world titles; and when I say open-world, I *mean* open-world. After an hour-long tutorial, you are set upon the world, with almost no limits to your explorations except your Pokemon’s levels. Whilst this has the usual ‘Oh man, I can go anyway!’ feeling, easily the best part of this new paradigm for the Pokemon series is the fact that you can just go and catch pretty much any Pokemon you want for your core team. Sure, catching them is going to be a huge pain, but all you have to do is get them on your team, get them to lay an egg, and bam! The world is your oyster. The concept of an open-world Pokemon game has always been fantastic in theory, and the limited open-spaces of Sword and Shield’s Wild Area and Arceus’s open zones had shown the potential. Sure, there isn’t the biggest variety of non-story activities to do in Scarlet and Violet’s open world, but exploring it, wandering about, hunting Pokemon and making your way to towns… It's a joy unlike anything else in the series. It’s not perfect, but it brings a freshness to a series that has been needing it desperately for years.

I feel like I’ve said this every generation since Sun and Moon, but I genuinely feel this is the best new set of Pokemon Game Freak have ever designed. Just about every single Pokemon is a decent design, and when they hit, they hit real, real good. You’ve got old concepts brought back - a draconic pseudo-legendary, a Pikachu-esque rodent, and so on - with a new coat of paint, to incredibly creative and endearing designs, like the absolute fantastic Scovillian, or the adorably cute Maushold. Picking a team of six to ride through the game with was really tough; since as a self-imposed challenge, I didn’t fight any non-required Trainers, forcing me to earn EXP solely through catching/battling Pokemon, which exposed me to the vast majority of Pokemon this game has on offer. Yes, it does not have all 1000+ Pokemon available to catch (and Jesus Christ, there are a thousand of these buggers!?), but honestly, ‘Dexit’ never really bothered me, and having a smaller ‘mon selection helps deal with my crippling decision paralysis. Though I do miss my favorites… still hoping the DLC will bring Xatu and Rowlet back into the fold. But anyway, this is a fantastic selection of Pokemon from start to finish; not everyone's a winner, but the baseline average is very decent, much higher than the normal - and we even got new evolutions of old Pokemon! It’s 2022, and we got a Primeape evolution! And a Bisharp one! It’s amazing! And, for those who are wondering, my final team was as follows: Skeldirge, Lokix, Houndstone, Baxcalibur, Scovillian, and Kilowatt. Also kings and queens alike - and isn’t it good to have a quadruped fire final form for once?

Previously, I bemoaned Game Freak’s inability to keep a new generation’s battle ‘gimmick’ for more than one, two at most generations. We had Mega Evolutions through Gen 6 and 7, Z-Moves in 7, and Dynamax in Gen 8. And yes, whilst none of those mechanics are present in this newest generation, I think Game Freak have really, really hit the nail on the head with Terastalizing. Whilst Mega Evolutions really only benefited already good Pokemon, and Dynamax was kind of just a stat boost without much counterplay, Terastalizing is such a rich mechanic all on its own. From almost the start, you’ll be able to Terastalize your Pokemon, giving them a crystal-like appearance, and also changing their type to their Tera Type - replacing their normal type and empowering any moves of that same type. Whilst most Pokemon’s Tera Type will be the same as their base type, certain Pokemon, either in the Wild or the instanced Tera Raids, can be of any Tera type. And even if you don’t like a certain Pokemon’s Tera type, you can farm up items to change them. Want a Water Tera Type Charizard? I don’t know why you would, but you can! Basically, Tera Types provide a whole new dynamic to the Pokemon battling landscape, especially when you factor in online battling. It becomes a game of predictions, wondering which of your opponent's Pokemon are you going to Terastalize, and which type it’ll be. With all the combinations, there are some Pokemon where Terastalizing can border on being totally ridiculous, but it’s still fun that pretty much any Pokemon has a niche or whatever to fill through this new mechanic. I still love Mega Evolutions - mostly because of the new designs - but Terastalize is objectively the most fun mechanic to play around with.

Now, let’s address the Mamoswine in the room; yes, this game is *ugly*. Not in an artistic sense - I rather like how the world of Paldea is laid out, with vast, open vistas, crowing mountains, and small, sleepy towns. Its art direction, especially in its character and Pokemon designs, are on point. But no, the game *looks* terrible. Anything more than a few meters away from the player is a pixelated, untextured mess, with Pokemon only popping into existence at extremely close range, and anything rendering further away having their FPS staggered into the single digits - if I’m being kind. The frame rate, whilst *sometimes* approaching thirty frames a second, frequently plummets and stutters, especially during Tantalizing and the more visually demanding moves. In the real-time, multiplayer environments of the Tera Raids, frequently you’ll be left sitting there, waiting for the game to catch up. Animations frequently break - I haven’t had my Trainer animate at all when eating Sandwiches for days now, and whilst I haven’t experienced any of the more potent and hilarious bugs, all you have to do is glance at the internet and you’ll see just how broken this game can be. The fact of the matter is that it is embarrassing how poorly this game runs. Yes, the Switch is a seven year-old, outdated piece of hardware. Yes, it runs on a mobile processor. Not only is Pokemon one of the most profitable and world-renowned franchises in the world, we had Xenoblade 3 release only months earlier, which runs *incredibly* despite its massive scope and the exact same hardware. GameFreak are obviously not as talented in open-world design as they are, and that’s okay, but still… How did it look this bad? It’s embarrassing, and I really, really hope GameFreak takes a look at this piece of reception and understands they need to do better. If the game wasn’t simply, possibly, the best Pokemon I have ever felt to play, this easily could’ve been the worst Pokemon game ever. I hope there’s change… but considering how well these games sell, who’s to say?

Okay. Let’s go back to the positives, ay?

Whilst the visual experience is subpar, the soundtrack for this game is something else. Just about every song is a banger, largely due to the ever-acclaimed presence of Toby Fox in the staff. I don’t want to throw out any specific song names due to spoilers, but pretty much every late game song, especially against important characters, are absolute bangers. Fantastic soundtrack, honestly probably up there with the best - if not the best - in the series.

Coming along with the open world is a new structure to tackling the game’s story; or rather then there being one main storyline, intermixing gyms, an evil team, and whatever else shenanigans previous Pokemon games would throw you into, Scarlet and Violet have three distinct storylines for you to tackle in any order you wish. The first, Victory Road, is a traditional Gym experience. Guided by Nemona, a Champion level Trainer, and your character’s first friend at the Academy, this will lead you on the path to being a Champion yourself. The second, Path of Legends, follows Arven (also known as the best Pokemon character ever) hunting Titan Pokemon - basically, gigantic boss-level Pokemon - to seek out the Herba Mystica for a mysterious purpose. Finally, there is Starfall Street, involving the enemy team of this entry. An army of academy delinquents known as Team Star have been causing trouble around campus, leading you to be enlisted by the mysterious Cassiopeia, and aided by Penny and totally normal student Clive, to defeat each of Team Star's commanders.

Any of these storylines can be attempted in any order - and in fact, I recommend mixing and matching your path through Paldea, experiencing a bit of everything. It creates a nice flow of variety, and you get a wider look at the game’s storylines. And what a story; whilst the concepts never go anywhere too high, the amount of just decent storytelling and characterisation present in this game is incredibly consistent. Major characters, Gym Leaders, antagonists, almost every character feels fully formed, no matter how small their presence is. Above all, I think Arven, and everything that comes with him, storyline and all, is my favorite character in the entire series. There are no world-altering consequences for his storyline - it’s a very, very personal story that I won’t spoil. I dunno, this game just really pushes the storytelling forward for the franchise; the stakes might not be as high, but the personal stakes are something else. Great stuff all around. Well, mostly…

And this leads to probably the game’s biggest issue beyond it’s shoddy graphical fidelity. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet have absolutely no level scaling - everything has a set level, which kind of puts a bit of a damper on the whole ‘tackle any objective in any order’ concept GameFreak were really pushing. If you’re like most people, you’ll be running out in the open world, catching Pokemon and battling Trainers alike with nary a care in the world. Well, the weakest Gym Leader has Pokemon at around Level 12 - without knowing this, you’ll outlevel her almost immediately, and it just gets worse from there, especially when coupled with the always-on EXP Share. Whilst I was able to counter these handicaps somewhat - I followed a map, showing each target’s general level, AND only got EXP from catching Pokemon and doing Tera Raids - I shouldn’t have been forced to gimp myself to have a decent level curve, but it really was the only way to have a challenge. I do recommend following this method, at least in regards to seeing the level curve of the major foes you’ll be facing, ust to get a better sense of satisfaction from conquering this game. It’s just a shame you have to do it at all.

I was also surprised to see Scarlet and Violet having a decent, if not amazing, postgame to play around in. Whilst you can’t rematch the Pokemon League is disappointing, it makes sense in the context of the story. Instead, you’ll be doing a rematch of each Pokemon Gym, before forming the Academy Ace Tournament, a four-round gauntlet of foes that pull from your key friends like Nemona, Penny and Arven, but also the various staff members at the Academy. You’ll also have some loose ends to tie up from the final moments of the game, go on the hunt for further Legendary Pokemon, and play around with high level raids and online battles. Along with new items that make building online-ready teams easier than ever, there’s a lot to do, for those who are looking for it, in Scarlet/Violet’s postgame. It’s not amazing, and nothing like Gold and Silver’s second region, or Emerald and Platinum’s Battle Frontier, but it was nice to something of real substance as opposed to X/Y and Sun/Moon’s practically absent endgame content.

All in all, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet is a prime example of beauty not being skin-deep; it is a shockingly ugly and poorly running game, far beneath what’s not only acceptable from the Nintendo Switch, but from one of the most profitable franchises in the world. But beneath these shoddy visuals is probably some of the deepest, most versatile battling in the entire series, and perhaps the most fantastic new set of Pokemon we’ve gotten in a long, long time. I really had so much fun with this game, with such a solid story and a genuinely fun open-world environment to play around with. It’s not perfect, and I hope GameFreak takes a hard look at player’s reception to how this game looks and runs. But that’s for the future, and for now, Scarlet and Violet is some of the most fun you can have in the series in years.