Pokémon Scarlet and Violet are… Paradoxical

For this review blog, all images are in-game screenshots taken during the adventures of yours truly. Hope you enjoy these little mementos!

Going into Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, my expectations were honestly quite lofty. Fresh off the heels of the successful experiment that was Pokémon Legends: Arceus, I and many other folks were eagerly anticipating the games that were supposedly going to take everything the Hisui Region got right and inject it into the traditional Pokémon formula with an open-world, any-path-you-choose sort of adventure. In fact, I had spent the week before celebrating all the baby steps the main series games had taken since its jump to 3D that brought us to where we were today.

So, was I right? Were Pokémon Scarlet and Violet the grand culmination of modern Pokemon’s progress I was hoping for?

Well… yes and no.

Let’s dive in and see what I mean.

(NOTE: While I’ll be covering the story very vaguely, outright spoilers are avoided. Additionally, as all of the new Pokémon have been introduced in official promotional material, be advised that this blog includes details for said Pokémon.)

Pro: It’s a Whole New (Open) World We Live In…

The prophecy has been fulfilled. The age of open world Pokémon adventures is finally upon us.

The marketing for these games proudly paraded that the player could go wherever they wanted and tackle the game’s challenges in any way or order they pleased. If the first thing you want to do was reach the highest point in all of Paldea, they could. If you want to catch a level 40 Deino before you get a single badge, then by all means. Want to do everything in the exact reverse order the game wants you to? No echoing voice or bothersome roadblock can possibly stop you from doing so.

The game still maintains a sense of progression, of course, so that players can still feel rewarded for their hard work. The Path of Legends story branch specifically will be the one that enables your games designated ‘Raidon to help you access otherwise inaccessible areas with the abilities to jump higher, surf, climb walls, etc., but when and in which order you get these power-ups is, again, entirely within the player’s control.

As a result, this is perhaps the most customizable experience when it comes to Pokémon adventures as the ones you want on your team are available pretty much the moment the game let’s you off the leash. Not only does this allow for proper personalization of Pokémon teams between different players, but it also provides them with all sorts of alternative options should they decide to play through the game from the beginning again.

It’s clear that the open-ended game design philosophy that took root in the series with the release of Pokémon Legends: Arceus is paying off, and I hope that the series continues to take steps in the right direction while not abandoning its own identity (or its quality standards, but… more on that later).

Con: …But There’s Still a Correct Way to Play

Grusha will always be the strongest Gym Leader you’ll face, regardless of whether you fight him as your first or final.

The games may be open world, but they’re far from a proper sandbox experience. While the game technically abides by its mission statement of “go and do whatever wherever and whyever” mission statement, the fact is that the game still has an intended way to play.

Anyone hoping for level-scaling to accommodate doing certain gyms or challenges akin to what was seen in the Pokémon Origins web series and locations earlier or later will be disappointed to find encounters at the same levels every time regardless of whether they are tackled first, last, or anywhere in-between.

Furthermore, while it’s entirely possible to catch a level 40 Deino before getting a single badge like I said, you won’t be able to use it properly without having acquired at least four or five gym badges, which determine the ease of capture for Pokémon caught at certain levels and their obedience (as well as the obedience of traded Pokémon, as per usual). You could bypass this process entirely by taking advantage of the new picnic feature to acquire a level 1 Deino from an egg, but that might be just a bit too off the beaten path for some.

(NOTE: Speaking of Picnics, I may as well mention that if you’re like me and trying to avoid the “affection” mechanics like the plague. They effectively serve the same role as Sword and Shield’s camp feature and similarly can raise friendship above the soft cap that differentiates a regular gameplay experience to one fraught with unfair, challenge-killing advantages. Once again, I’m incredibly sad to see such fun features tied to such silly mechanics without any way to effectively turn them off, but I guess I’ll count my blessings as the Let’s Go feature remains completely separate from any of these features and mechanics.)

There’s nothing wrong with making an open world game with structure, or even an intended path, but doing so the way Pokémon Scarlet and Violet does while simultaneously advertising the player’s freedom to do gyms and equivalent activities in any order is rather misleading. It’d be more accurate to say that the player has the freedom to sequence break at their leisure, which could be appealing to some, but ultimately isn’t what I was hoping for.

Pro: The Pokemon of Paldea are Goofy (in a good way)

A Pokémon battle invites a rather silly spectator.

Last blog, while talking about the Pokémon of Paldea, I described them as feeling “auxiliary,” which basically means they feel like they’re meant to be the secondary Pokémon in a dex meant to fill out the roster rather than stand out as representatives of a generation, region, etc. However, don’t mistake my wording for insult: despite their whacky, second-fiddle vibes, most are still really solid in the design department, and some are even bizarrely endearing.

Here are some examples that really stood out in my opinion:

Pawmot, but you knew that already
Dachsbun, whose sweet and loveable energy makes it make personal favorite of Paldea’s Poké-pups (with no offense to Houndstone or Mabosstif, of course).
Charcadet, an adorable little guy who won my heart the moment I spotted him as a snuck-in, unannounced Pokémon during a pre-release trailer (and has a pair of cool evolutions).
Glimmet, a Pokémon that inexplicably radiates this feeling of etherealness whenever I see one floating and jingling around.
Espathra, an all-around funky-looking scrunkly whose special eyes really sell me on it.
Tatsugiri, the little sushi fella behind every busted Dondozo.
Dudunsparce, the long-awaited punchline to a twenty-three-year-long joke.
…And Kingambit, whose existence as the first post-gen evolution for a Gen 5 Pokémon spells hope for any Pokémon desperate to get an evolution in the post-Eviolite era.

Maybe it’s just me finally feeling like my “age of Pokémon” per se is behind me (which I would describe as being Gens 3-6), but I do end up getting a rather uncanny feeling whenever I see these Pokémon, especially when lopped next to older ones. Maybe it’s just the designer’s flair shining through, or maybe it is just Pokémon itself beginning to veer in a different direction regarding Pokémon designs, but I won’t label this as an outright bad thing, not when I’m able to love plenty of them and even look at the one’s I don’t like and say “well, at least I like the one I’m using.”

Con: The Drip is “Mad Cheugy, yo” (in a Cheugy way)

As someone who works in education, I can’t help but relate to this particular statement…

Fashion will always be a subjective topic, but in my opinion, Scarlet’s and Violet’s customization option and approaches is the worst in the series since the introduction of the feature in X and Y (or Battle Revolution if you really want to split hairs).

While uniforms naturally restrict a player’s ability to customize, I don’t believe them to be naturally detrimental to customization—unless the uniforms are overly restrictive and/or just don’t look that great. Unfortunately, such is the case with Scarlet and Violet, which restricts the player to four preset outfits by default including a standard pants-jacket combo, suspenders, awkward short shorts, and less awkward regular-length shorts with a flashy-colored vest. Players can choose from a variety of backpacks, gloves, shoes, socks/tights, hats, and eyewear, but only the headwear (and socks/tights on outfits with shorts) have any chance of helping players stand out from others given the lack of variety in tops and bottoms (NOTE: An additional four outfits are added with the purchase of the game’s DLC, with more, less school uniform-y outfits coming when said DLC eventually releases, but even with these options, I still believe too many of the outfits fall flat in the style and comfort department).

Hairstyles also felt overall underwhelming. Although the game has greatly expanded on customization options by allowing both male and female characters to have access to any and all customization options, all that really does is force me to change my complaint from being about the lack of male hairstyle options to the lack of masculine options. I suppose if you’re a fan of block cuts and fade cuts, then you’ll probably find something up your alley in this department. However, as someone who personally prefers… whatever the term is for “not a block or fade cut,” you’ll only have your pick of about one or two hair options before besides the default that might suit you, as the remainder will either be vague or too overtly feminine for what I’m trying to go for.

I know, I know… this is a very personal complaint and there will be plenty of people, perhaps even a plurality, that don’t agree with me on this point especially. My point is that despite numerous advancements in the customization department that mean a whole lot to character personality—such as changing eye shape, nose shape, mouth shape, and other physical features that couldn’t be customized before—I ended up struggling to make a character that resonated well due to the options being not only rigid, but generally unsatisfactory for my tastes.

I’d personally love to hear what some of the other folks who played the game thought about the game’s customization. Maybe there are some kindred souls out there, or maybe they didn’t really think much of it at all. Either way, customization ended up a con for me, at the very least.

Pro: The Game’s Stories are the Series’ Best in Generations

“Y’know, Miraidon, maybe the real Pokemon Violet was the friends we made along the way.”

When it was first revealed that the story for these games would be divided into three separate arcs, I was concerned that we’d end up with an ultimately half-baked plot. By the time I finally reached the credits though, I was more than ready to declare Scarlet’s and Violet’s the best story experience since Black and White.

The standard gym challenge presented by the Victory Road arc naturally doesn’t have a lot of meat narratively speaking, meaning that the “story” quality here boils down to typically two factors: the gym leaders (and Elite Four, if applicable) and the rival. Fortunately, most of the gym leaders, whether it was through their limited interactions or the aspects of their personality presented in their gym tests, were fun and charismatic in their own right (even Larry, who is ironically explicitly written to be devoid of charisma), and the Elite Four being framed as a group whose members actually connect and interact with each other makes them probably my favorite out of all Elite Four groups. As for the rival, Nemona is an interesting and refreshing twist on the challenge-loving friendly rival, as she’s technically already reached the top echelons and is just watching with bated breath as you climb your way up the path to becoming a fellow Champion-rank trainer.

Starfall Street hosts the players bouts with the game’s “villainous organization” and despite their outlandish outfits, Team Star has perhaps the most grounded and relatable arc of any antagonistic team in the series. The narrative is one of those “everything’s already happened” kind of plots where most of the juicy details come from flashbacks and exposition, but backstory and the present-day narrative are done very well, focusing on such topics as bullying and the effects of bullying, finding yourself and your people, and even a little bit of school administrative scandals! Even if the final twist could be seen miles away by the blind and comatose, the finale still delivers a meaningful and emotional conclusion.

With that said, I’d actually argue it’s the Path of Legends that offered the best story experience. Chock it up to some plot beats that hit WAAAAY too close to home or Arven’s arc being the most personal of the three, but despite the lukewarm impression founded on an initial pitch of “look for ingredients with a culinarily-talented student,” I ended up being more invested in this story and character than I have a massive majority of Pokémon’s stories, and even ended up tearing up twice.

Once all three stories are completed, there’s then one last unifying story, taking all the developments between all three stories and paying them off in marvelous fashion. The game’s grand finale is wonderfully atmospheric and surprisingly bleak, going so far as to twist and toy with the games’ mechanics for the sake of constructing intense and rewarding narrative moments.

Con: Presentation has Never Been Worse

No, this Dachsbun is NOT using the move Dig.

If you wanted to know why I held off making a review like this for several months, it’s because I wanted to give this game plenty of room for a chance to clean itself up. I waited patiently and desperately for things to improve, so that I could use this section to speak in past tense about how something like this should never be allowed to happen with the release of a Pokémon game ever again.

…but here we are a small handful of patches and a Pokémon Day celebration later, and barring some bug fixes and quality of life changes, things have barely changed.

Blame it on rushed development, poor development, faulty or outdated technology, or literally any other reason you please, but the point remains the same: this game plays like jank. Janky jank. The jankiest jank that ever jank’d.

I previously complained about the presentation—specifically, the graphic fidelity—of Pokémon Legends: Arceus during my review of that game, but despite the relatively muddy graphics, it at least managed to be relatively consistent. It at least ran smoothly and stuck to an aesthetic while not interfering with my enjoyment of the rest of the game.

Scarlet and Violet, meanwhile, suffer from rampant slowdown and frame drops (the latter occurring especially in certain areas like the Bamboo Forest and Lake Casseroya), as well as graphical glitches up the wazoo ranging from entire horizons’ worth of terrain flashing in and out of existence to my darling Dachsbun phasing in and out of the ground like a Garry’s Mod prop as the earth attempts to consume him. Perhaps the worst and most frustrating glitch for me has to do with the complete disappearance of shadows under various circumstances, watching as the world flashes from shady to bafflingly bright with the press of a button. It was noticeable as early as when I picked my first starter and was so bad that I was sure it was something to do with my system or the cartridge or literally anything other than the game just being the game, but I noticed it happening to other folks too and figured despondently to myself “oh… that’s just a thing that happens…”

Closing Thoughts: Brilliant but Botched

Pokémon Scarlet and Violet could very aptly be compared to a paradox—a cluster of contrasts. The gameplay and story are phenomenal, but the graphics and performance are abominable. Even as someone who has a special knack for loving games for what they are, the negatives have such sway on the overall experience that I can’t in good faith recommend these games to anyone who isn’t fully prepared and willing to wade through the grime to find the treasure that lies within.

In the meantime, I’ll keep on playing the game every once in a while for Tera Raid Battle events, the occasional competitive endeavor via Battle Stadium, and other miscellaneous reasons while hoping that my most severe criticisms are eventually fixed, or at least fixed at all.