It’s very easy to say that Pokemon has come a very long way in the years it’s been out, but it’s also pretty easy to say that it’s come a long way just since getting on the Switch. Originally I wasn’t too crazy about Scarlet and Violet because while I knew that it was going to be a fully open world game, Legends Arceus kind of scratched that open world itch. If we went straight from the Diamond and Pearl Remakes to open world Scarlet and Violet, my mind would have been blown. But since we had a semi-open world game recently, I mostly cared about the new Pokemon and region more than anything else.

But then Nintendo started throwing so many videos at us that would explain so much about the game and I slowly started to realize that this might end up being an incredibly fun game. As a result, not only did I pick up the game earlier than I would normally pick up a Pokemon game, but I also planned on investing a lot of time into it to see if it would be as fun as it sounded.


GRAPHICS

Many of the issues that people have with the game, whether it be performance or something else, fall under the graphics category for the most part. But it’s still a very good looking game, even with all of the visual issues. You also notice the issues less as you progress through the game. For instance, in my case, the FPS issues were really noticeable for the first few hours. Any NPC that was more than 20 feet ahead of me looked like they were teleporting an inch every second and things like flags, windmills, and Pokemon looked ugly when moving if you were far away.

Nothing was smooth, and that gave the game a very lackluster look, but after playing for a few hours, I was able to pay less attention to the FPS and focus more on everything else so I slowly started to care less about the performance from a visual standpoint. There’s also been a ton of lighting, shadow, and texture issues throughout the game, I noticed at least three different problems with lighting and character models before even moving my character for the first time.

But here’s the thing. From a visual standpoint, the performance issues are pretty bad, but they aren’t game breaking, and they fall under a category that has a lot of good things going on. If the graphics grade was solely based on performance and the issues were the only thing you could see, graphics would probably get a 4, but there’s so much good in this areas as well. There are four aspects of graphics that I consider to be really good.

The first aspect is the character models, which I think is the best aspect when it comes to graphics. Every Pokemon looks really good, both in battle and in the world. They all have a good amount of detail, seem to be the correct scale, have decent world animations, and performance when you’re close to them is pretty good. The models for NPC’s are pretty good as well.

The second aspect is the buildings. From a visual standpoint, not a technical one, I think Scarlet and Violet have the best cities and towns to look at. For a game that’s fully 3D and open world, there’s a lot of buildings and structures. I absolutely loved exploring Mesagoza, Levincia, and Medali and seeing what all the buildings looked like. For years, Pokemon fans had to look at buildings that were limited by the top down perspective or games that couldn’t fully render the tops of buildings. But in these three cities, they actually gave off the feeling of a bustling thanks to the number of buildings, their sizes, and their designs.

The third aspect is the world itself, which is kind of an extension of the buildings. When you look at the world as a whole, there’s a ton of performance, lighting, shadow, and texture issues, but it still looks like a world. It’s also quite impressive that you can see so much of the world from almost anyway, I was able to see the Academy all the way from the top of Glaseado. You can also have 20 or more Pokemon nearby at a time, and the game still runs smoothly when they’re close to you.

I also haven’t experienced any issues with movement because all the FPS issues and all the render and texture issues are for things off in the distance. For example, even though you can see a bunch of characters ahead of you moving at like 5 FPS, your character will still be moving normally and when you get to those characters, they would start moving normally too. The FPS issues of the world don’t affect the FPS or movement of your character as you explore it.

The fourth aspect of graphics that I wanted to touch on are the battles. Since battles are up close, I have rarely seen any major FPS drops or texture issues. For the most part, battles look really good with good looking attacks and fairly solid Pokemon animations and models.

Many of the issues are with what you see ahead of your character but aren’t game breaking, they don’t even affect your character at all. As a whole package, the game looks good. The issues are a 4/10 while the visuals themselves are an 8/10. Overall, the graphics section gets a 6/10 but in some cases it might be closer to a 7.


SOUND

It’s been many years since the last time that I truly loved a Pokemon soundtrack. The last one that I thought was actually great was from Gen 5. I put a decent amount of time into Pokemon X and all these years later, there isn’t a single song that really stood out to me. The same thing happened with Sun and Moon because I only liked the legendary songs. This was very disappointing because there were dozens of songs that I loved growing up but liking only two songs across two entire generations kind of hurt.

Then things started turning around when gen 8 came. With Sword and Shield, there were three songs that I really liked, which were Marnie’s theme, the gym theme, and the Battle Tower theme. But it took me a while to start really enjoying them. Then with Pokemon Legends Arceus, there were four songs that I liked, and I started liking them immediately.

Then came Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. At first, I didn’t really care much because I felt this was the soundtrack that felt the least like what you would expect a Pokemon soundtrack to sound like. But then I really started liking many of the songs and believing that they were genuinely good songs, even without the Pokemon label attached to them.

The thing about the soundtrack that I liked the most was how much of an influence Toby Fox had on it. In Sword and Shield, he did only the Battle Tower theme but in Scarlet and Violet, he did or assisted with nearly two dozen songs, which is crazy considering how limited Pokemon soundtracks have always been in regards to who does the music. But not only is it crazy how many songs he’s done for the game, but it’s also crazy how many of them are actually really good.

A couple of the songs he’s done that I consider to be really good or catchy after a while include Nemona’s theme, the Tera Raid battle theme, the Area Zero theme, and both of the South Province Area themes (Walking and Riding). I’m sure some of the others he’s done might be just as good, but I probably just haven’t heard them enough. But the Toby Fox songs weren’t the only ones I liked. I also really liked the gym theme, Iono’s theme, the professor’s theme (non-battle), and the champion theme.

The entire soundtrack as a whole was very much all over the place with different instruments and styles in different areas but it was very easy to enjoy many of them. There weren’t really any songs that sounded like a theme in the traditional sense of the word, but so many of the songs were upbeat and energetic, catchy, or intense. There will be some people who don’t like the jazz, who don’t like the style, or who would prefer something that sounds more like the standard Pokemon music, but there are going to be lots of people who agree that the songs are just good, period.

From my personal experience, I can happily say that this is the best Pokemon soundtrack in a decade. For the other aspects of sound, there isn’t really much to say though. It would be amazing if there was voice acting, and at time it kind of feels awkward seeing character models move as if they are talking but not being able to hear any voices. But because Pokemon has never been a game about voice acting, it’s not really something to discuss. If this one did happen to be the first one with voice acting, it would have been a huge plus, but without them, it’s no different than any other Pokemon game so the lack of voice acting literally can’t be a negative.

As such, the music is the only major way to measure the quality of sound of a Pokemon game (outside of cries, and open world sounds) which are minor. Since the soundtrack is amazing, better than any recent game, it has to get a 10/10 from me.


STORY

The story of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet is another aspect that I really like and there's so much to talk about but there isn't really much to talk about since there would be a ton of spoilers. It's basically the same as any other Pokemon game except for the fact that the gym, team, and legendary paths are now three separate routes and can be completed in any order that you want. I like this a lot more than the standard Pokemon formula because each path now has a concise story.

In other Pokemon games, all the plot content is bundled into one long linear story that alternates between what you do. For example, when you do some battles and content against a team, the next step in the linear progression would be something else and it would be quite some time before you make it to another team arc. While you can still do that in Scarlet and Violet, you now have the option of starting one path and then finishing it all in one go.

I prefer this route because you get all the content of the specific path you want all in one linear story without the others taking any form of priority. If you're doing this, you're doing each part right after the other instead of spending hours upon hours in between doing other story stuff. It allows you to really focus on that specific storyline without forgetting anything and I think it really makes the experience much better if you choose to go that way.

For example, in one session that I did, I did all five of the legends path in one go. It only took my like two or three hours total to do everything and I ended up really enjoying it. Then in my next session, I did all of the stuff for the Starfall Street path. It was two direct, concise, and linear storylines that didn't get interrupted by something else. By the time that I had all the content that I needed from these two paths, then I went back to working on the gyms.

Once you wrap up all three of these paths, there's basically another chapter that you need to complete before you end the game. This chapter basically served as a finite end to each of the three paths. Then once you're done with that, there's some more story stuff that goes on into the post game.

Not only does the story work really well, I also think it's just a very good story to begin with. From a story perspective, this is one of my favorite Pokemon games of them all, though I think it's mostly about the characters than anything else. The story just seems way more relatable since each path is rooted in realistic friend, family, and life conflicts instead of the usual story that revolves around people that want to take over the world or whatever ancient event is the MacGuffin of that game.

From a story perspective, this just seems like it's one of the most grounded Pokemon games and because of that, I think it did a really great job at getting emotional at times. By the time I was done with Starfall Street, I was really happy with how it turned out. I was also really enjoying Arven's storyline throughout the Legends path but it ended up getting even better in the final chapter. Even the gym path had a few really nice moments.

My only concern with story is that there could have been so much more. For a game that's a fully open world RPG, I think there should have been a bunch of side quests like your average RPG that builds on the lore. If I had to guess, all the lore and story stuff that's present amounts to just a handful of hours worth of content. But in my opinion, it's a really good and well crafted handful of hours.


GAMEPLAY AND DIFFICULTY

For this review, I’m going to talk about the gameplay and difficulty together because the game has so many new features and changes and they all change the difficulty in one way or another. Pokemon Violet is very similar to any other Pokemon game with the focus being on battling, catching, and training. The way I see it, there are four main gameplay changes that really affect the game.

The first one are the Tera Raid battles, which I think is one of the coolest new features in a Pokemon game, even though it’s basically just a buffed up Sword and Shield raid. When you terastilize your Pokemon, it will have a second (or third) type, and the tera type can be of literally any type. A lot of people don’t really understand the point, but it’s a pretty cool way to make different Pokemon stronger and it’s an additional route for competitive teams.

It’s a lot of fun too. If you already have in mind a Pokemon that you want with a specific tera type, you can start hunting for that Pokemon the same as you would shiny hunt. Not only that, but you get a ton of really cool rewards when you beat a raid. You already have one and two star raids unlocked right out of the gate and it looks like you unlock the three star ones when you beat the third gym. I’m not too sure about four star ones, but then you unlock five star when you beat the game and six star when you beat the main post game content.

If you do a higher star raid, the Pokemon will be a higher level when you catch it, but you also get things like XP boosts, herba mystica, and other rare and valuable items. Raids are also always available because at any given moment, there will be dozens all across the map you can also access them from the Poke Portal. I had a lot of fun with raids, especially with the Eevee event because I was able to put together a team of six different eeveelutions that each had a tera type that would normally be a disadvantage.

The next big gameplay change are the gym tests, which are different for each gym. For instance, with lono, you need to play the easiest game of Where’s Waldo while also battling a few trainers. I get that the gym tests are able to add some variety to the mix but I’m not a big fan and would have just preferred doing regular battles before battling the leader.

The next big one that I want to talk about is the Let’s Go feature, which is a huge gamechanger but also makes the game so easy. You’re able to send out your Pokemon to travel alongside you and battle other Pokemon. Your Pokemon will refuse to battle if its health is too low or if the opposing Pokemon is too strong, but it’s an easy way to chain together lots of battles in a short amount of time. The only downside to Let’s Go is that you don’t get as much experience, but this is okay because of how quick it is.

I think you’ll get on average two to three times as much experience by battling a Pokemon the normal way, but with Let’s Go, you send out your Pokemon while running and the battle is legitimately over in a second and then you move on to the next one. It’s easy to get through a dozen or so battles in just a minute depending on how close together Pokemon are. All your Pokemon get experience too, so it’s an easy way to earn infinite experience.

There was one spot I was in at the top right of the map when my Gardevoir was level 60 and I was gaining two levels every five minutes and all I was doing was running around collecting items while Gardevoir auto battles everyone. All my other Pokemon gained a level too in those five minutes. This can make the game too easy though because you can just be mindlessly running around the map and your team will become OP, without having to do any actual battles.

The last big feature that I wanted to talk about is obviously the huge open world. There’s a lot more emphasis on exploration and adventure in Scarlet and Violet than in previous games and at some point, you’re going to unlock the ability to swim, glide, and climb, making the exploration aspect fun. The world is also filled with a plethora of Pokemon. Sometimes you will be able to see ten or more Pokemon on screen at once.

There’s a bunch of other smaller changes too like how you can only breed Pokemon in picnics now and there are now sandwiches that can give you boosts for a ton of different gameplay aspects. Other than that, the gameplay is very much the same. You catch all the Pokemon and train them, battle trainers and wild Pokemon, fight the gyms and team on your quest to become the champion. Of course, if you want to take things a step further, you can work on shiny hunting and competitive teams too. There was already a lot going on in the gameplay department and these changes added even more.

But if you want a challenge, you might not really be able to find one here. Let’s Go isn’t the only way to make your Pokemon strong. Don’t forget that you get an unlimited supply of EXP boosts from tera raids. You can easily get any Pokemon you want to level 100 by just doing raids, finding items, and doing Let’s Go. You don’t even have to battle a single one of the optional trainers. Just by doing raids and Let’s Go, I was able to make it so that my team was all at level 50 or higher by the time I had only three gym badges and I barely fought regular trainers.

It's physically impossible for the game to become too challenging for you. If you’re doing a battle and you can’t win, there are so many ways for you to get stronger. Back in the day, the only way for you to level up was to grind in a patch of grass and slowly level up but now there’s many ways to get OP between the let’s Go, buying items, using EXP items, and more. But the best thing to do if you’re having trouble is simply to do something else.

Because the game isn’t linear anymore, you can move on and do something else until you’re strong enough to win the challenging battle. You don’t have to keep grinding over and over until you win. Let’s say you have three gym badges but you can’t beat the fourth. You can leave the gym path for a little while and start doing the titan or Starfall path and by the time you beat one or two of those, you should be strong enough to head back to that gym.

The game can be way too easy. Gameplay gets an 8 out of 10 while difficulty gets a 1.


ADDICTIVENESS AND DEPTH

For this section, I’ll be merging together the two categories again because a lot of the fun comes from all of the different things that you can do in the game. I’ll also be talking a lot about my own personal experiences with the game because this ended up being the most fun that I’ve had and the most invested that I’ve been in a Pokemon game in a really long time. I think my reviews are a testament to that as well because while I loved Sword and Shield, it took me a year to talk about it, and I didn’t even bother with the Diamond and Pearl remakes or Legends Arceus.

For starters, this ended up being the first Pokemon game that I fully beat since Alpha Sapphire and it was the first time that I ever really invested in shiny hunting or competitive teams because of how much fun it was. The game is so much fun and there are a ton of reasons to keep coming back to play more.

1. Shiny Hunting

The first thing that I want to talk about is shiny hunting. I can’t really say a lot about shiny hunting because I never invested a ton of time into it in the past, but I really believe that it’s so much better and so much fun now. On top of that, I believe that it’s impossible to see what shiny hunting is like now and then go back to what it was like before. I tried shiny hunting in older games but with random encounters, transitions into battles, and not being able to see what Pokemon you’re battling until you battle, it was difficult.

If you weren’t breeding shiny Pokemon, you had to get really lucky and find them in the wild. Sometimes you get lucky and just find one but if you would actually hunt and had the charm, it was a long and tedious grind. But now that you have all the Pokemon in the overworld, lots of Pokemon on screen at once, and no real battle transition, shiny hunting has become a lot more accessible, easier, and fun. I haven’t gotten lucky and able to find a full odds shiny while just casually running around, but I never unlocked the shiny charm either but by actively hunting, I was still able to find four shiny Pokemon in my first full playthrough on my main account.

I figured it would be a lot easier because you see all the Pokemon as you run around and you can see upwards of a dozen Pokemon at a time. You can just run from one town to another and see 50 to 100 Pokemon. That alone is a 1 in 40-80 shot at just casually seeing a shiny Pokemon in the wild at full odds. There’s no time wasted encountering each Pokemon and no time wasted transitioning in and out of every battle. Getting through a thousand encounters has never been easier or faster.

Look at my first shiny hunt in Violet. For my first hunt, I was looking at mass outbreaks. I would search the map for a good and accessible mass outbreak and if there weren’t any that I liked, I would reset the time on my Switch to get a new batch of mass outbreaks. Eventually I found one for Gastly and I figured that I would go for it. First, I did the Let’s Go method so I could beat 60 Gastly in like 5 minutes, doing so dropped my shiny odds to 1 in 1,365. Next, my plan was to let a bunch of Gastly spawn in and I’d check if any of them were shiny. If there was no shiny, I would start a picnic and immediately leave it, which would cause a new batch of Gastly to spawn in.

Each batch would spawn in between 12 and 15 Gastly and I was able to one new spawn in every minute. So I figured if I kept doing this, it would take me 90 minutes or better to make it to 1,365 spawns. I ended up finding the shiny in under 20 minutes. That was with no shiny charm and no sandwhiches, but once I unlocked those, I started having way more fun with shiny hunting. After a couple hours of post game raid hunting, I had enough Herba Mystica to make a bunch of sandwhiches and I went on a shiny hunting spree.

First I made a sparking power/encounter power 3 fairy sandwich and went to Area Zero for Iron Valiant. Then I made a water sandwich and went to the lake for whatever water shiny I could find, and then I went to the area by the final Team Star base with a fire sandwich. Each of those three sessions took under 20 minutes to get a shiny Iron valiant, Marill, and Growlithe.

For me, there’s been a lot more fun and strategy going into shiny hunting instead of just luck and because you need Herba Mystica to make sandwiches, it was a good way to keep me invested in raids.

2. Competitive Teams

I’ve never cared about competitive teams before. I don’t think I’ve ever done any sort of ranked battle and have only ever done online battles with a few teams. I always focused on the Pokemon that I liked or the ones that were simply strong, but Pokemon Scarlet and Violet had so many features that would make me want to make my Pokemon better, even if I didn’t plan on using them in real battles.

You have things like bottle caps and a plethora of EXP candies, then you have things like ability capsules and patches. Plus you get the ability to see every IV and you can now purchase all the items that permanently boost your Pokemons stats like HP. The game actively promotes building a competitive team throughout its gameplay and that got me interested in actually giving it a shot. Then I eventually had too much money so I invested even more into competitive teams because I had so much money and nothing to spend it on so I bought all the boost items.

Plus just like with shiny hunting, you get all the overpowered EXP candies plus bottle caps, capsules, and patches when doing high level raids so if you want to invest hours into competitive teams, you’ll also end up investing hours into raid hunting.

Beyond those two, there’s so much else to do. Obviously you can do a ton of tera raid battles just for the sake of finding the right Pokemon or the right tera type. You can also work on catching every Pokemon in the region. There’s also an intense ecosystem where players trade Pokemon and rare items. The main game has a lot to offer but if you really invest in the postgame stuff, tera raids, shiny hunting, competitive teams, and completing the pokedex, you’re going to waste so much time and it’s going to be a blast. Addictiveness gets a 9 out of 10 while Depth gets a perfect 10 out of 10.


FINAL THOUGHTS

There's so much to like about both Pokemon Scarlet and Violet and the games can only get better from here really. There was an update at the start of December that fixed a few minor performance issues and finally added ranked battles and it looks like there's going to be a lot more added in the future. The map makes it look very obvious that there's going to be DLC at some point in the future and it's very likely that we can get at least one more performance fix which should make the game run and look better.

Even with all the negative stuff, it's still a really good game and I'm willing to argue that if people say that the game isn't worth it or are getting refunds, that they weren't big fans of Pokemon to begin with or just got into the series recently. Yes, there are many games on the Switch that run much better, but when compared specifically to Pokemon, these are some of the most fun games in a really long time.

Pokemon is now more accessible than it's ever been before, the gameplay is more fun, and the new features and changes make sure that you keep playing. If you're the kind of person that only plays a Pokemon to experience it and you only get like 20 to 30 hours out of it, then yes there might be a lot that you don't like. But if you're one of the many people that love Pokemon and really invest in competitive teams, shiny hunting, and the online function, then it's going to be so easy for you to put in 100 to 200 hours or more. It will be even better if you can get the game when it's on sale.

Even with all the performance issues, this is still the most fun that I've had playing a Pokemon game in close to a decade.

PERFORMANCE: 4/10
GRAPHICS: 7/10
SOUND: 10/10
STORY: 10/10
GAMEPLAY: 8/10
ADDICTIVENESS: 9/10
DEPTH: 10/10
OVERALL: 8.3/10

If there were no/minimal performance issues or the game gets multiple updates, it would be between a 9 and 9.2.