Pokemon Scarlet / Violet

2025-10-31
Holy shit they did it, an open-world mainline Pokemon that's fun. After the stinker that was Sword/Shield followed by the rough but absolutely addicting and fun Legends: Arceus I was really praying they'd be able to synthesize the two into something great and by jove they did it. Sure it's a little rough, it's got performance problems, my mount humped a lamp post and then was sent into the astral plane, the world is largely empty and ugly but god damn it's chock full of Pokemon.

For me, the joy of Pokemon has always been seeing new Pokemon and trying to Imprison Them All™ and in Scarlet/Violet it feels like you’re constantly seeing new Pokemon. Delightfully, they introduce a mechanic where you can see the types of Pokemon in your local area on the map. This turned into me endlessly scouring the map trying to see what new freak I could add to my collection and was a large source of my enjoyment of this game.

On top of this they bring a bunch of QOL improvements that ameliorate the drudgery us uncs have had to put up with for literal decades. For starters you’re always picking up items that increase Pokemon levels which means you can level up Pokemon and try new ones out really quickly. The availability of stat and nature changing items means training up EVs and IVs is painless. It also means if you have a favorite Pokemon but you trained them wrong--no worries! You can retrain them.

Oh man, the cherry on top for me personally was how early you can get a Larvitar, my absolute favorite Pokemon. It meant I was able to dump all my leveling items into my Larvitar and get a Tyranitar very early. Then it was a simple matter of maxing out his EVs and IVs with all the drugs I found left around and I had an unkillable monster that could basically single handedly sweep every gym leader and trainer. Finally I’m living out my dream of being a small child who shows up with a gargantuan monster that absolutely brutalizes the beloved pets of everyone in a foreign country. “Hey you, pedophile-looking guy being rendered at 5 FPS, wanna fight my stone dinosaur? Haha no? Yeah you do. Get those Poke-balls out, you freak. It’s time for me to destroy all that you love.” Ah what a great game.

I was really hoping to be able to complete the Pokedex but it was just too unwieldy. They fell down the live-service trap of locking a bunch of Pokemon behind time-locked raids. And after two of them it became clear they were just trying to extend the life of the game while also sacrificing the feasibility of completing the ‘Dex. Oh well, it’s been a pipe dream for all but the most elite NEETs since the third generation.

I love coming to this in 2025 and retroactively seeing all the hate this entry got. It baffles me because my only real caveats are basically the performance and emptiness of the world (which is kind of brazen). And hell, the performance is now fixed on Switch 2 it sounds like! Also, who complains about performance in a Pokemon game? Pokemon has been the most embarrassing looking suite of games to ever have a spot in Nintendo’s pantheon. And the best part is the performance wasn’t even that bad! Whatever, there’s no accounting for taste. And listen we’re all here playing a Pokemon game: we have no fucking taste. So take it from this tasteless motherfucker: Scarlet/Violet is actually the first good Pokemon in years.

2023-01-05
Holy shit they did it, an open world Pokemon that's fun. After the stinker that was Sword/Shield followed by the rough but absolutely addicting and fun Legends: Arceus I was really praying they'd be able to synthesize the two into something great and by jove they did it. Sure it's a little rough, it's got performance problems, the world is largely empty and ugly but god damn it's chock full of Pokemon.

You're constantly seeing new Pokemon. The fact that you can see the new Pokemon in your area on the map means you're constantly just wandering around seeing what you can find. All the QOL improvements means since you're constantly picking up items that increase Pokemon levels you can level up Pokemon and try new ones out really quickly. The availability of stat and nature changing items means training up EVs and IVs is painless. It also means if you have a favorite Pokemon but you trained them wrong--no worries! You can retrain them.

Oh man the cherry on top for me personally was how early you can get a Larvitar, my absolute favorite Pokemon as well as other badass ones like Dratini and Deino. It meant I was able to dump all my leveling items into my Larvitar and get a Tyranitar very early. Then it was a simple matter of maxing out his EVs and IVs and I had an unkillable monster that could basically single handedly sweep every gym leader and trainer. Ah what a great game.

The post game I almost stuck around for of fighting rare Pokemon in raids. They have time-locked ones which forces you to keep playing to catch the current rare Pokemon, and while it's a great idea to increase the longevity of the game I had to move on. I was really hoping to be able to complete the Pokedex but it was just too unwieldy.

My only caveats are basically the performance and emptiness of the world is kind of bad. And yeah as per usual the story was basically trash. Almost entirely forgettable. Except maybe that one moment when the one trainer saves his sick dog and cries about how happy he is to hear him bark. That was cute.