User Score
4.0

Generally unfavorable reviews- based on 2050 Ratings

User score distribution:
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  1. Nov 21, 2022
    0
    Foi triste, frustrante. Eles acertam do conceito de jogo mas da dor de cabeça jogar e me deixou furioso e triste jogar. Não recomendo, não valeu o valor que paguei. Me senti mal jogando.
  2. Sep 10, 2023
    10
    Even tho the technical issues and unpolished nature of the game really annoyed me at times, when ignored, the game is absolutely amazing… I even cried at the end, it became very emotional. Can only recommend looking beyond the issues and enjoying the game for what it is. It’s definitely worth it :)
  3. Sep 9, 2023
    10
    One the best games I've ever played its funny when it glitches and new wooper
  4. Sep 8, 2023
    0
    Trash!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  5. Sep 8, 2023
    0
    Unfinished, Trash Game. Charging full Price, shame on them. No Recommendation!
  6. Sep 7, 2023
    4
    Unfortunately, more of the same mediocrity that has been bogging down the franchise for years.
    Taking even a cursory at glance at any other major Nintendo franchise, or even a majority of AAA franchises period, the shortcomings and limitations of Pokémon become impossible to ignore.
    Violet and Scarlet may move some aspects of the franchise forward, namely in the open-world environments
    Unfortunately, more of the same mediocrity that has been bogging down the franchise for years.
    Taking even a cursory at glance at any other major Nintendo franchise, or even a majority of AAA franchises period, the shortcomings and limitations of Pokémon become impossible to ignore.

    Violet and Scarlet may move some aspects of the franchise forward, namely in the open-world environments and less linearity, but still suffer from a chronic lack of ambition, scope, and polish.

    Ever since the franchise's transition into 3D with XY in 2013, Gamefreak have been open about their desire to remove features, difficulty and complexity from the franchise, in an attempt to appeal to the "kids of today". Unfortunately, coupled with an increasingly brutal yearly release schedule, this has led most modern Pokémon games feeling barebones, empty, and at times, unfinished.

    The abysmal performance and presentation of these games alone would be enough for me to not recommend them, but the added context of how little Gamefreak are utilising the Switch, how much better far smaller franchises consistently are, the laundry list of missing, basic features (voice acting, difficulty options and multiple save slots being big examples), and the rapid rate between releases, just make the situation so, so much worse.

    In 2022, Pokémon has far more in common with franchises like FIFA, Call Of Duty, and Assassins Creed, than other premium Nintendo franchises like Mario, Zelda, and Smash Bros.
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  7. Sep 6, 2023
    0
    Un gioco veramente brutto, ho giocato assiduamente pokemon per anni, ma dopo aver visto questa roba sono rimasto veramente triste e deluso
  8. Sep 5, 2023
    3
    Not 0 ONLY because i like the way they tried a real open world .

    But still , this game looks unfinished , tons of bugs , horrible graphics and exept Nemona all the characters are lame to be honest..
  9. Sep 4, 2023
    0
    Junk, buy anything Generation 1-7 instead. Tell Nintendo to revive the 3ds and throw the switch in the garbage.
  10. Sep 4, 2023
    8
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. The story and gameplay was AMAZING! I really loved all of the story line items, such as AI Turo and Penny as Cassiopeia. The bugs can be annoying, but still so funny and goofy. One of the best Pokemon games I've played. Expand
  11. Sep 2, 2023
    2
    This game is an insult in so many ways. Pokemon has always been a very low effort concept but they can't even keep up with that..

    - Low render distance and FPS. Pokemon literally spawn inside you because the render distance is so short. - The whole theme of this game is visiting an academy. You enter the academy a total of TWICE in the main story for a total of 10 minutes. Must've
    This game is an insult in so many ways. Pokemon has always been a very low effort concept but they can't even keep up with that..

    - Low render distance and FPS. Pokemon literally spawn inside you because the render distance is so short.

    - The whole theme of this game is visiting an academy. You enter the academy a total of TWICE in the main story for a total of 10 minutes. Must've graduated off screen!

    - There are barely any new Pokemon introduced in this "new" generation.

    - There is no post game after finishing the story. None at all! Stop looking! Or pay 30€+ for the DLC!

    - All characters have zero personality. They are just happy residents of the continent. How interesting, right?! Even the "villain" team is just a bunch of misunderstood nerds.

    - You can ride a Pokemon like a bike, even glide on it. Sounds good right?! NO. The faster you travel, the more problems you see with the render distance and FPS drops mentioned previously.

    - You can customize your character! Only problem, the majority of outfits straight up suck massive D!

    - There are barely any legendary Pokemon. The only ones you can find are hidden behind a stupid mechanic that forces you to explore the whole map to look for stakes in the ground. 32! Placed so badly, half of them you probably won't find without a guide!

    If Game Freak continues like this they deserve to go bankrupt. Sword and Shield at least got the performance and looks part right. This one doesn't even get that done. Hope they either pull their heads out of their asses or another franchise takes up the dropped torch.
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  12. Sep 1, 2023
    6
    after the realease we all know that the game had controversies , because of its poor performance and because of the game optimization , is by far the worst point about the game but there are a lot of other negative aspects .

    1. the first negative aspect that you realise just in the beginning of the game is that the variety of the first pokemons you encounter is SUPER blank , in terms of
    after the realease we all know that the game had controversies , because of its poor performance and because of the game optimization , is by far the worst point about the game but there are a lot of other negative aspects .

    1. the first negative aspect that you realise just in the beginning of the game is that the variety of the first pokemons you encounter is SUPER blank , in terms of looks , choice and even powerfull pokemons , the pokemons that generally we are looking for in a new gen is of course the new pokemons , but the first couple of pokemons in the route makes that impossible and every person you see playing the game ends up leaving the first route with a fletchling and hoppip.

    2. the poor performance of this game is what it makes almost impossible to enjoy , at the beginning everyone who played the game thinked for themselfs " ah this isnt to bad , clearly has some graphical issues but i can deal with it" but all of us thought about it before getting into the academy , after that we can see how lame the graphical issues and the performance are even 3ds pokemons games had better performance than this game .

    3. the concept of Crystallization at first look it looked interesting and fun but after playing the game for a while you see how useless and boring it is , was something just to "had" since shield had dynamax version but tbh it would be better without it .

    4. the story , it is good , i saw some people saying that the game was probably one of the best stories in pokemon and could compete with black and white but that is the biggest lie anyone could tell you about this game , the story is good? debatable , why you ask? because the only thing really good about the story of the game was the final who gave us a little bit of more emotion about the story and nice little flavor like " this was a interesting experience , not the best , not the worst , but it had potential" but the final apart the story is like a 6/10 .

    yeah overall its not a good experience just for the fact that any possitive aspect will be almost unrelevant because of its performance , makes it almost impossible to enjoy , its not the worst to tho its a experience that you end with mixed feelings , but majority of your walkthrough will depend of how much you love pokemon.
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  13. Aug 31, 2023
    9
    The most overhated game of 2022, Violet will not fail to deliver in quality other than a few FPS drops and 1 or 2 small glitches.
  14. Aug 29, 2023
    0
    People that vote good have serious problem, that game its almost a scam and a ruin for pokemon, like all the pokemon switch games
  15. Aug 27, 2023
    0
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. One of the biggest pieces of trash I’ve ever played. A dead world, uninspired gameplay (lol at the gym where you just roll an olive), and bugs from the moment I started. And once again Pokemon won’t let me do anything for two hours because it forces me through the same tutorials I’ve been doing for 25 years. It’s worse now because your rival is this annoyingly friendly pest rather than a rival who is a jerk, but at least interesting. I’m giving this game a 0/10. Not because of a protest or anything, but because it genuinely deserves a zero. Expand
  16. Aug 25, 2023
    0
    I've played almost all the Pokemon games over the years and this is the worst game ever, it has nothing to offer, an almost completely empty open world with nothing to do, short and boring plots with nothing to do with each other, stupid challenges, very easy battles, terrible graphics and terrible performance. A huge downfall from the previous games, you can't enter houses, or talk toI've played almost all the Pokemon games over the years and this is the worst game ever, it has nothing to offer, an almost completely empty open world with nothing to do, short and boring plots with nothing to do with each other, stupid challenges, very easy battles, terrible graphics and terrible performance. A huge downfall from the previous games, you can't enter houses, or talk to people, the character design is minimal. Expand
  17. Aug 25, 2023
    10
    good game sgfddsxzkdsxpifjspcps;x;jddfsfsfddffdssfddfsdfsdfdfsdffdfsdfsdffd
  18. Aug 24, 2023
    4
    This game killed any hope I had left for Pokémon. Wether it be Pokémon Presents full of mobile game ads for 25 minutes with absolutely no substance, the lack of effort & passion from GameFreak & the mentally ill take that we NEED a Pokémon game yearly. You could be fooled by the disgusting amount of money these games made, but this franchise has ROTTED from the inside out. The sense ofThis game killed any hope I had left for Pokémon. Wether it be Pokémon Presents full of mobile game ads for 25 minutes with absolutely no substance, the lack of effort & passion from GameFreak & the mentally ill take that we NEED a Pokémon game yearly. You could be fooled by the disgusting amount of money these games made, but this franchise has ROTTED from the inside out. The sense of hope that Legends gave me was obliterated, I really can’t put into words how much Violet crushed me. At least the music is still good even tho I wouldn’t put it in my top 5 of the franchise’s OSTs. Area Zero is my favorite area in the history of Pokémon with it’s Xenogears-like theme. There’s some new Pokémon that have good designs but I wouldn’t call most of them super memorable.
    But this is easily the worst looking “modern” game on the market & the worst optimized. It’s been talked about to death but these games are nearly a year old with ZERO updates to fix the CONSTANT frame drops. It turns my stomach that they’re selling $35 DLC before addressing a SINGLE ISSUE that got this game clapped in review scores. Nothing will change either, cuz YOU IDIOTS keep buying these broken PS1 products. Sorry Nintendo d*ck eaters, merchandise deadlines are NOT a valid excuse for how these games were released. When you really want to suffer, just play online! The raid system & online functionality + interface is *somehow* even worse than Sword & Shield. Raids are simply broken, they weren’t even fun for a short time like D-Max in the last gen, they are a SLOG to this day & you’re better off doing it with AI trainers offline. After playing other RPGs this year like Final Fantasy X & Xenosaga III, there is no reason the battle & catch systems are so SLOW in these games. Those are PS2 games that I could do 2-3 battles in by the time the slogs in Violet were done. BTW, Legends Arceus fixed this issue LITERAL MONTHS EARLIER, if they didn’t have time to implement the QOL features from PLA, MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE DELAYED THESE PILES OF CRAP. Why ditch PLA’s lighting fast catching mechanics? Why ditch PLA’s shiny spawn noise when this game forces you to look at the 240p environments for the slightest difference in a Pokémon’s model, some being too small or indistinguishable to even notice? Especially when a lot of them don’t spawn until you are LITERALLY RIGHT ON TOP OF THEM, WASTING EVEN MORE TIME GETTING IN & OUT OF BATTLES WHEN THIS WASNT A PROBLEM IN PLA. The gulf in quality between the 2022 games are staggering. This game seems custom made to waste more of the player’s time than ever. Fans had the nerve to overlook the CONSTANT technical issues cuz “the game is still fun”. This is the most MISERABLE I’ve ever been playing one of these horrid modern Pokémon games. Were they going for a Death Stranding ripoff? Cuz 90% of this game was mind numbingly boring, an entertaining ending doesn’t save the rest of the game. But I’m giving it too much credit, who thinks this Jurassic Park wannabe plot was well written? You’re telling me SCIENTISTS wanted to bring Pokémon from the past & future to live among the present? I shouldn’t even bother talking about a Pokémon plot but this is the same franchise that gave us the Unova games & we’ll never get a level of quality like that again from these duds.
    The sad part is I saw the potential, open world is a direction that can work for Pokémon. But TPC needs to close GameFreak’s doors & get a dev team that has a shred of competence. THEN give the team enough time to make a complete game instead of these yearly proof of concept games we keep getting. A console that’s not weaker than an Xbox 360 would help too! In a just world, we’d get Legends style games as the new norm instead of outdated copy & pasted garbage. Sword & Shield are still worse games, but I can’t lie & say I wouldn’t rather play them than S/V ever again. At least they had a playable frame rate!
    My love for Pokémon is 6 feet under by now, year after year of trash followed by a bit of hope in PLA, only for it to crash back down in the grave again with S/V. Unless we get a Legends style direction for the series, I’m leaving this toxic relationship I have with Pokémon. I’d rather play games that are made with a shred of passion, from people with a shred of dignity. Pokémon Violet is the last Pokemon game I’ll ever touch otherwise. I just wish more fans would’ve stood for something & followed suit in wanting better from a franchise that IS capable of such, instead of giving Nintendo their biggest paycheck yet. The biggest media franchise of all time only has this skidmark to show for itself. Self inflicted wounds tend to suck like that.
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  19. Aug 23, 2023
    4
    As a Pokémon fan since 1996 ( Pokémon Red first Game ), I began to disaffect myself from the saga as the games began to become increasingly immature, repetitive and therefore boring starting with Pokémon X/Y.
    The level of immaturity and qualitative degradation has reached such a point that I have been forced to stop buying Pokémon games.
    These two chapters: Pokémon scarlet and violet are
    As a Pokémon fan since 1996 ( Pokémon Red first Game ), I began to disaffect myself from the saga as the games began to become increasingly immature, repetitive and therefore boring starting with Pokémon X/Y.
    The level of immaturity and qualitative degradation has reached such a point that I have been forced to stop buying Pokémon games.
    These two chapters: Pokémon scarlet and violet are horrid games, both for the level of quality (very low) and for immaturity. Avoid them like the plague.
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  20. Aug 20, 2023
    5
    A ver, está bien, es un mundo abierto de Pokémon que en lo personal me ha dejado satisfecho, pero no me ha sorprendido. Tiene barbaridad de bugs, los gráficos, detalles y calidad es mediocre para un juego de 60€, no tengo mucho que decir de este juego ya que no es algo que merezca totalmente la pena, si te gusta Pokémon te gustará, está muy guay ir caminando por donde quieras y encontrarteA ver, está bien, es un mundo abierto de Pokémon que en lo personal me ha dejado satisfecho, pero no me ha sorprendido. Tiene barbaridad de bugs, los gráficos, detalles y calidad es mediocre para un juego de 60€, no tengo mucho que decir de este juego ya que no es algo que merezca totalmente la pena, si te gusta Pokémon te gustará, está muy guay ir caminando por donde quieras y encontrarte a los Pokémon caminando, lanzar a tu Pokémon a que haga un combate automático, tenerlo acompañándote y hacer las teraincursiones. Es un juego pasable pero solo para un tipo de público en específico Expand
  21. Aug 12, 2023
    0
    It's a disgraceful, messy excuse of a game. If this game has a title of anything other than Pokemon, it wouldn't sell a single copy. The framerate can barely hit 30 and it's full with poor textures and graphical glitches.
  22. Aug 11, 2023
    5
    mediocre at best. I have played every pokemon game that has released and I have witnessed this series evolve through its lifetime. The series has become easier and easier and I can see why the pokemon company would this and that's to make it easier for people to play the game. This game was an absolute joke when it comes to seeking a challenge. The story was okay but the fact that I hadmediocre at best. I have played every pokemon game that has released and I have witnessed this series evolve through its lifetime. The series has become easier and easier and I can see why the pokemon company would this and that's to make it easier for people to play the game. This game was an absolute joke when it comes to seeking a challenge. The story was okay but the fact that I had trouble with only 1 gym leader and that the only place that was even remotely challenging was area zero makes this game obsolete. Over the years pokemons designs have continued to plummet and with the recent news with the dogs like Riakou and Suicune becoming dinosaurs the designs just keep looking like utter crap. It is as if someone from the design team left their iPad unlocked and their children got ahold of it and designed something and pokemon company said "Okay we will go with that" Expand
  23. Aug 9, 2023
    2
    Perhaps the single-most soulless, bland and pathetic Pokémon entry thus far, that only insults the beloved franchise as a whole.

    The now-infamous performance problems and visual issues aside, here are some criticisms of the game design itself; - The game is presented as 'open-world', this is only true conceptually, not in practice. The lack of a level-scaling system for wild Pokémon,
    Perhaps the single-most soulless, bland and pathetic Pokémon entry thus far, that only insults the beloved franchise as a whole.

    The now-infamous performance problems and visual issues aside, here are some criticisms of the game design itself;

    - The game is presented as 'open-world', this is only true conceptually, not in practice. The lack of a level-scaling system for wild Pokémon, trainers, and gym leaders effectively gates the player into following a linear path around the map, otherwise you are very quickly defeated or trapped in encounters you can't run from.

    - The 'open world' is purely transversal, where no thought has gone into making it in any way unique or interactive. It's simply a stretch of empty space between locations, with the occasional building ruin or broken down pickup truck that serves no purpose other than to try and break the monotony.

    - Pokémon on the overworld only exist to move around, there is little to no interaction between them with each other nor with their environment, they move and lie down to sleep, that's about it. Biomes are poorly constructed and weather systems don't affect species that appear; fire types are present in rain, water types wander around on grass under the sunshine, dark types are found in caves rather than rock or ground types, ghost types appear at night - this is the only attention to detail found within the spawn system. What's worse is that spawns usually result in dozens of the same species appearing and saturating the area, rather than smaller numbers with more species diverse.

    - Pokémon designs themselves are still reminiscent of balloon animals with no depth or discernible features, eyeballs for example are still white orbs with a black dot, slapped on to the face rather than sculpted into it. Some surface textures have been improved slightly, but we're a long way off from believable skin, fur, scales, and feathers.

    - Catching has now reverted back to the battle screen interaction format, despite PLA introducing the widely-praised overworld Pokéball throwing system. Weirdly enough, you can aim and throw a ball at Pokémon here, but only to initiate a battle, not to attempt to catch the Pokémon you're targeting.

    - The gym challenge has gone back to the old format of inconsequential interactions with uninteresting characters that treat the gym leader role as merely a side-hustle. This is a huge step back from the previous generation, which reimagined the gym challenge as a national sport, broadcast all over the region, with battles taking place in sold-out stadiums full of high-energy spectators, with gym leaders characterised as pro-athlete celebrities who were the pride of their hometown/home city.

    - Towns and cities all adhere to the exact same aesthetic, constructed from duplicated assets using the same boring grey-block buildings. Despite having the largest locations in the entire series, buildings generally can't be entered or interacted with in any meaningful way, you can approach the door of some shops or cafés and it instead opens up a menu displaying clothing/accessory assets that take several seconds to load as a preview. Some towns have the exact same shop or café pasted several times in a row and they think you won't notice. All towns are full of copy-pasted static NPCs that again can't be interacted with, instead only displaying a text-box above their heads.

    - Battles are horrifically slow, no QoL changes whatsoever have been made to the combat system which at this point is beyond archaic. "It's supereffective!", "It's not very effective...", "Critical hit!" etc. along with status effects each still require their own unskippable text box following the move used, rather than simply being incorporated as a splash effect upon use of the move itself. Animations are recycled from generations past and have not been streamlined in any way.

    - The in-game camera is pitifully slow and there are no options to change its speed. The camera itself has a fixed active preset so it constantly moves against your own inputs to face in the direction your player faces. The camera can also be controlled in battle, yet defaults to a flat overhead view and resets your movements after every turn, the dynamic camera system with multiple angles from the previous generation is now gone too.

    - Cutscenes cannot be skipped without changing an in-game setting to skip them *all*. Rather than simply provide a means to skip a specific scene as it's happening, as most other games do, your options are binary - you must either watch all cutscenes or none of them.

    - The lack of voice acting and the text box with the chiming sound effect is no longer a quirk of the series but an example of how far behind the times it is. Emotional scenes are completely diminished by the lack of spoken line delivery, music is used constantly and inappropriately to cover up the lack of voice acting, otherwise there would only be silence.
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  24. Aug 8, 2023
    0
    After the best pokemon game ever (Pokemon Legends:Arceus), the Pokemon company releases their worst game yet. Really bad performance and visuals. It has many bugs that ruins the experience of playing the game. Terastal Pokemon look stupid. The idea of bicycle legendary Pokémon is just ridiculous. The design team should go back to school and learn a few things with the Zelda BotW and TotKAfter the best pokemon game ever (Pokemon Legends:Arceus), the Pokemon company releases their worst game yet. Really bad performance and visuals. It has many bugs that ruins the experience of playing the game. Terastal Pokemon look stupid. The idea of bicycle legendary Pokémon is just ridiculous. The design team should go back to school and learn a few things with the Zelda BotW and TotK teams. They charge you US$60,00 for a R$5,00 game. Huge cash grab. Expand
  25. Aug 5, 2023
    8
    People are to harsh on this game. They are very fun story is great characters well written sure it has a lot of bugs but if you look over them the game is fantastic. Would recommend.
  26. Aug 2, 2023
    8
    This game is amazing I love everything about it the open world the ability to walk with your Pokémon and the ability the make sandwich’s. The one thing that is bad about this game is that there is no notification when a shiny Pokémon appears like not even a sparkle or sound or both
  27. Jul 26, 2023
    9
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. This game brought me back into the series and since release I have clocked in well over 1k hours between the two versions (SV), across 3 full playthroughs and 2 pokedex completions. It honestly astounds me how low the user score is, because both games have some huge QoL improvements over previous generations, massive replayability, and overall great gameplay. The open world aspect feels very fluid and an amazing change of pace that will hopefully continue forward. I'm trying to give as fair of a review as possible; and the only reason I'm deducting the point is due to tera raids having their issues (which is ultimately a limitation of a time based battle with multiple animations going across several players at once); but these are still playable and still a huge draw for me back into the games month to month with their ongoing event raids. Expand
  28. Jul 22, 2023
    0
    Pokémon has always had its fair share of shortcomings and hiccups. The games have always been rushed most of the time, yes even and especially before X and Y, but if someone told me during Gen 7 that in two generations they'd release $60 main series games significantly more half-baked than any other core series game, are less stable than Generation 1, not even have basic lore explained forPokémon has always had its fair share of shortcomings and hiccups. The games have always been rushed most of the time, yes even and especially before X and Y, but if someone told me during Gen 7 that in two generations they'd release $60 main series games significantly more half-baked than any other core series game, are less stable than Generation 1, not even have basic lore explained for the legendary mascots in the main story, give less postgame than any of the games from Crystal to USUM, and have their actual postgame placed behind a $35 paywall while other companies are pushing out some of the most legendary releases ever on the same console, I would have not believed them. They've stooped to far bigger lows than ever here and it's quite shocking to get this for not only the pedestal Pokémon is on, but the console it's on and the company allowing those games to be published in the first place.

    Unfortunately we're in this position because they know their games will sell millions no matter what. There has to be no bigger component than this.

    What we received from Gamefreak is fully unacceptable for a AAA company ran by the biggest media franchise in the world, especially as games meant to run an entire generation of events, merchandise, competitive scenes, fanmade content, anime, TCG, and other forms of media. The "story being good" simply cannot cut it here. Pokemon will die with Scarlet and Violet being defended. If you genuinely care about this franchise at all, stop defending these games.
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  29. Jul 22, 2023
    3
    trash, unpolished, this game looks like it is 3 or more years premature, the only thing saving it from 0 is the fact that it's pokemon, however, again, its pokemon, one of the most sold series to date. the game might have been fine if it was made by a indie game studio with a team of 10 or so people, but it's gamefreak. Gamefreak gets loads of money every year, yet they couldn't have usedtrash, unpolished, this game looks like it is 3 or more years premature, the only thing saving it from 0 is the fact that it's pokemon, however, again, its pokemon, one of the most sold series to date. the game might have been fine if it was made by a indie game studio with a team of 10 or so people, but it's gamefreak. Gamefreak gets loads of money every year, yet they couldn't have used an actual budget and a over 1 year development cycle? really? this game had 500 people working at a company with money that most gaming companies would never be able to accumulate over their existences, yet they couldn't just make a decent game, to add insult to injury they literally released pokemon arceus just a few months prior which is an excellent game. WHAT HAPPENED? WHY? I NEED TO KNOW!!!
    3/10 garbage, absolute trash, (im suprised I didn't rate this a 2)
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  30. Jul 22, 2023
    0
    Really bad performance and visuals. It has many bugs that ruin the experience of playing the game. But it's okay as it will still sell thanks to blind nostalgia and brand loyalty.
Metascore
71

Mixed or average reviews - based on 118 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 55 out of 118
  2. Negative: 2 out of 118
  1. LEVEL (Czech Republic)
    Jan 24, 2024
    60
    Not a bad game. It still has its solid core, new Pokémon, and what's worked for years continues to work. The open world is a questionable addition in my opinion. [Issue#324]
  2. Dec 14, 2023
    70
    Pokemon Scarlet and Violet take the long-awaited step into a fully open-world, but one poorly implemented and marred by frustration. A compelling story and characters are a saving grace in what is ultimately a fun game, but Pokemon's attempts at modernising continue to fall disappointingly short.
  3. Jul 31, 2023
    20
    A 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.