- Publisher: Nintendo , The Pokemon Company
- Release Date: Nov 18, 2022
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Nov 20, 2022Ultimately, Pokemon Scarlet & Violet finally lets you experience a story in this world that doesn’t feel out of place, marked with a tone of childlike innocence that, for once, doesn’t diminish the seriousness of the subjects that it presents. Unfortunately, the performance is so abruptly bad that it completely ruins, to an infuriating extent, what otherwise could have been the best Pokemon game to date.
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Jul 31, 2023A square wheel spins more smoothly and fluidly than this game. If three Pokémon or characters come into view at once, the whole game creaks and falters. Edge-off unplayable. And that's a shame. Because the addition of an open world is "on paper" a puffy idea to refresh the franchise. No more linear walking that takes you past gyms and ever stronger and different Pokémon, gotta catch 'em all. You can go wherever you want. With some tactics, you can take on some very tough challenges with Pokémon that aren't nearly strong enough. Fun! Except this game just wasn't ready. It's shameless that Nintendo and Game Freak are still throwing it on the market. Nevertheless: 10 million games sold in just three days.
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Jan 20, 2023Took them long enough, but Game Freak finally delivered on their vision for an open world. Pokémon Scarlet & Violet know full well how to mix up exploration, combat and monster collection; and feature abnormally good stories. These start slow, but end up kicking like thunder. Definitely worth experiencing. [Recommended]
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Nov 17, 2022It's Pokemon. It works...Unfortunately, the weaknesses of Pokemon games are very much still present. Interacting with other characters in Pokemon games is always a drag, with reams of dry dialogue reliably halting momentum. Now that exploration is more free and alluring than ever, the plodding interactions with friends and rivals induce correspondingly larger groans. Some of the Gym Leaders are cute, but the vast majority of people you meet have the depth of cardboard cutouts. Lack of voice acting can make cutscenes almost comically ineffective. One interaction with a rapping character falls especially flat. But, like past games, those frustrations abate in the wild. Collecting Pokemon is still addictive, and feeling the wind breeze in your hair as you travel through the open world is a thrill -- even if a stuttering frame rate makes the wind more choppy than you'd like.
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Nov 17, 2022An interesting reworking of the traditional Pokémon gameplay for an open-world setting brought low by its lifeless environments and graphics.
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Nov 18, 2022The age of the Switch's hardware and GameFreak's prowess as a studio is on full display in the newest Pokemon release as we see muddy textures and single frame animations. While we get a new crop of cute Pokemon, a more open world, and new battle mechanics we're unfortunately stuck trudging along at a snail's pace because of the game itself. [Quick Look]
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Dec 1, 2022Scarlet and Violet’s story is also not going to blow you away. As usual, it’s just a means of motivating you into traveling the land to battle and collect every Pokémon out there. Allowing players to complete quests in whichever order they chose is unique to the Pokémon games, but it’s not innovative in the wider RPG genre. But Scarlet’s story is nonetheless an improvement over several previous titles because it focuses on the relationships between people, rather than people and their Pokémon.
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Nov 17, 2022At its baseline, it’s a compelling enough Pokémon game, with stories among the series’ most memorable. However, as I reflect on Scarlet and Violet, I do find myself thinking back on Pokémon Legends: Arceus more fondly. It had some loose screws of its own, but it tightened so many more, ones that still jostle in Scarlet and Violet. I’m hopeful that Arceus is the foundation for the next outing in the series, even if there are lessons to be learned in the open fields of Paldea, as well.
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Nov 17, 2022None of these issues amount to a deal-breaker. I had a lot of fun with Violet and Scarlet, and I’ve already gone back into the world after the credits rolled so that I can fill out my pokédex and dig into the post-game missions. The present of Pokémon is arguably as good as it’s ever been. This new release is huge and varied; it took me 30 hours to wrap up the main storyline, and there’s still lots to do. (I haven’t even been able to try out the online features yet.) At the same time, it feels like we’ve reached the limit of what the Switch is capable of, at least for this style of game.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 755 out of 3197
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Mixed: 290 out of 3197
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Negative: 2,152 out of 3197
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Nov 19, 2022Pokémon scarlet and violet are masterpieces, also I’m first review which is nice but go play this game
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Nov 19, 2022
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Nov 19, 2022