Pokemon Scarlet

It'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. 

An interesting reworking of the traditional Pokémon gameplay for an open-world setting brought low by its lifeless environments and graphics.

The 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]

Scarlet 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.

At 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.