The past one week since the games’ launch has seen a lot of discussion around the technical state they launched in, and rightfully so, because — what happened? How did they release in SUCH an unpolished and unfinished state? How do the visuals and performance feel like a step back from Pokémon Legends, which released just ten months ago? How did a game published by Nintendo, a company legendary for its insistence on polish and quality, launch in this state?

Pokémon games have never actually been technically polished, or even competent really. Going all the way back to the original releases on the black and white Gameboy, and every release since, these titles have launched riddled with bugs, glitches, and just an overall lack of finesse and polish. Glitches have almost always been practically synonymous with Pokémon. In fact, the most famous video game glitch of all time, MissingNo, comes from Pokémon Red and Blue. People continue to discover new ways to break those 26 year old games to this day — because they simply were not technically well put together. 

This continued on — Pokémon Gold and Silver aren’t really great looking titles for the Gameboy Color, and come with glitches of their own. Ruby and Sapphire were actually the most polished Pokémon releases at the time of their release – but they are even further behind their contemporaries on the same system they released for than Red/Blue and Gold/Silver ever were. Diamond and Pearl bordered on being unplayable, coming not just with a series of glitches and bugs of their own, but also a framerate so painfully slow that EVERYTHING in the game seems to move through treacle and mud. X and Y never managed to hold a steady framerate and barely leveraged the 3D feature of the system they were on. Sword and Shield launched with a distinct lack of polish and ambition, and technically felt like 3DS games accidentally ported to the Switch. Even the series’ most “polished” entries, technically speaking — Black/White on the Nintendo DS, Sun/Moon on the 3DS, and Pokémon Legends on the Switch — didn’t look or perform to the standards of their contemporaries on their respective platforms. 

So Pokémon games have always lagged behind technically. How they look or perform has never been a factor in their appeal at all (if it was, the series would have died at the first release, rather than becoming the behemoth that it is today). But even accounting for this spotty history of technical (in)competence, Scarlet and Violet feel particularly egregious. The games LOOK bad, they RUN bad, and they have so many basic QA touches missing, they can often feel like a beta build accidentally pushed out to the public. 

A very large part of this can be attributed to the very unique circumstances surrounding this game’s development. Pokémon Scarlet and Violet are full open world games — massive ones at that — developed in three years by a 200 person team, in the middle of a pandemic that wreaked havoc on game development around the world, and caused innumerable delays across the board. Even developers with existing pipelines for the games they’re making have struggled with the pandemic — for Game Freak, they were figuring out how to do a brand new style of game requiring totally new tech for the very first time in a time frame that is unrealistic for most open world games to begin with, with a team size that is tiny for the scope they were aiming for, WITH a pandemic thrown on top. They were also, during this time, totally overhauling the structure and progression of their games, designing infrastructure for totally seamless online co-op (which is still the best implementation of online co-op in an open world RPG I’ve seen, to be honest), coming up with a hundred plus new enemy types, updating another few hundred enemy types for this game, balancing their entire battle system around PvE and PvP, AND also working on other games (we’ll come back to this in a minute). It’s a frankly insane amount of things to take on with a team this small, in a time frame this tiny, for a game this size, in the middle of a pandemic. It’s almost a wonder that it didn’t come out even MORE broken. 

None of this is to excuse the state the game launched in, mind you, because ultimately this is still a full price product they chose to sell in this state while being aware of said state, but it’s to give people an understanding of why things turned out the way they did. Especially because we haven’t actually really discussed the elephant in the room — this wasn’t Game Freak’s only release this year. It wasn’t even their only BIG release this year. Just ten months before Scarlet and Violet, they launched ANOTHER open world RPG. 

Pokémon Legends: Arceus launched in January of this year, and was an even more dramatic departure from series norms than Scarlet and Violet are. Taking cues from Monster Hunter in structure and Breath of the Wild in flow and gameplay, and being a dramatic rethink of Pokémon in pretty much every regard, from narrative to gameplay (it’s even partially an action RPG! Can you imagine, a Game Freak developed Pokémon game that’s NOT purely turn based?), it was developed by a smaller, splinter team within Game Freak — effectively splitting their internal resources across not one, but TWO massive open world RPGs that represented a total rethink and overhaul of their development pipelines. So that 200 person development team I keep mentioning? It wasn’t actually that. It was even smaller. 

With Pokémon Legends, somehow, things worked out (it ended up as one of the most celebrated and acclaimed games in the series, and was a massive seller beyond Nintendo and Game Freak’s own expectations). But with resources within Game Freak being so thin to begin with, it turning out well was pretty much the death sentence for a second, even bigger open world RPG game that they planned to launch just ten months later. It was never going to work. 

The infuriating thing here is that Legends’ existence gave them an out right then and there — it could have been their game for 2022, and Scarlet and Violet could have been pushed into next year. Even with the near annual cadence that they insist on for some reason, they could have still met that and given Scarlet and Violet a lot more time in the oven (which they obviously clearly needed). Hell, even Legends itself could have gotten more time — rather than awkwardly launching in January, it could have been a Holiday release, getting more time to polish some of its own technical deficiencies out, all while Scarlet and Violet got a lot more time to, well, be finished. But the decision makers at Game Freak and The Pokémon Company decreed otherwise, and, well, here we are. 

People often like to criticize Game Freak as being lazy or coasting on their laurels, but that’s obviously nonsense. No developer willingly choosing to release not one but TWO open world RPGs in the span of ten months, both of which are a total departure from anything they’ve done before in scope and content, can be called lazy or coasting. They’re obviously trying. With Legends, they even succeeded. Hell, even with Scarlet and Violet, the actual core design of the games is brilliant, and they’re probably the best mainline Pokémon generation games since at least Black and White. The developers are obviously talented and ambitious people — it’s the executives and decision makers who are continually making things difficult for them. 

As for what the next step is for Game Freak and Pokémon, it’s hard to tell. Scarlet and Violet were a big success, and given the strength of their core design, they’re likely to continue to be so. Legends received the kind of prestige and acclaim Pokemon hasn’t received in a very long time. In spite of the poor decision making at Game Freak, the franchise itself is in a good spot. But they obviously can’t continue to launch games in the state they launched Scarlet and Violet — do it enough and you burn goodwill and it ends up actively damaging your brand. Something needs to change. 

The path forward for Game Freak and TPCi is clear, actually — it’s just unclear if they will actually commit to it. Game Freak needs to invest in expanding greatly. They need to be double, triple the size they are now if they will insist on pushing out open world games once every 2-3 years. That part is non negotiable. If they want to maintain their current release cadence (which I assume they will want to, because it tied into the whole Pokémon multimedia empire which is the train the IP is so big to begin with) then they need a lot more manpower. Even for experienced and more technically competent developers, open world games can take 4-5 years across thousands of developers to make — and few of those open world games have the scope that an open world Pokémon game is expected to. 

So — staffing up is essential. But they also need to overhaul their tech. It’s no longer suitable for their ambitions. They want to make these big, sweeping open world games, and that’s awesome, and they should do that, but their tech stack is absolutely and obviously not suited to that at all. Look at the state Scarlet and Violet launched in! I’m not asking for Pokémon to move to third party engines (though, to TPCi’s credit, they actually have experimented with that as well), stay with your internal tech if you want — but update that internal tech if that’s what you’re doing. Open world games are dime a dozen on the Switch, and they all almost universally look and run better than Pokemon Scarlet and Violet — so maybe leverage the tech behind some of those other games to make your own games run better. 

In terms of actual design and ambition, this series is currently better than it has ever been, with Legends being a home run and even Scarlet and Violet being great under all that jank. The designers are doing great, and nothing there needs to change. But the tech and the decision making has to. It has to — Pokémon deserves better. Not just the brand and its implicit promise, but also its fans, and even the developers who are clearly toiling away to deliver the best and most ambitious titles the series has ever seen, only to see their work get disparaged because of the poor decision making and technical debt that causes it to be released in a near broken state. 

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

So! If you are starting out Pokemon Scarlet or Violet, here are a few handy tips to have on, uh, hand. Whether you’re a returning veteran of the series, a first timer, or a lapsed player coming back after a long break, these should help you get your bearings as you set out in the massive world of Paldea. 

ATTACK POKEMON FROM BEHIND TO GAIN AN ADVANTAGE

Much like in Pokemon Legends, you get to encounter Pokemon in real time in the wild in the world. And much like in Legends, you get some choices in how you want to approach them to initiate combat. Try your best to approach them from behind – when they have their backs turned to you, throw your Pokeball at em, and you gain an advantage in battle via an extra turn, while the attacked Pokemon spends some time trying to get its bearings.

MOVES ARE LEARNABLE AT ANY TIME VIA THE MENU

Pokemon Legends was full of inspired changes, arguably the most underrated one being how moves worked. Your Pokemon learned new moves naturally, and you selected four to have in your active “load out” at any time. Your Pokemon never “forgot” moves. You could always go back and switch in previously learned ones when you felt were necessary in the party menu. Guess what? It works the same way here. While you will get the prompt to learn a new move when your Pokemon reaches the appropriate level, you can always go into the menu to sub in old moves (or add new ones you may have passed up on) to the active load out. It’s much more convenient this way. You can even go into settings and turn off the move learnt prompt in the middle of battles so that it works entirely like Arceus. Much recommended!

CHECK YOUR POKEDEX. A LOT.

The entire point of Pokemon is to, well, catch Pokemon and register them to your Pokédex. The Pokedex pops up every time you catch a Pokemon with some nifty new animations, but those aren’t just there for show, they’re there to prompt you to actually open your Pokedex. Why would you do this, you ask? Because there are rewards and loot the Pokedex gives you if you complete certain thresholds and objectives, which can range from common but useful items to some truly rare stuff. Check the Pokedex often!

DON’T IGNORE SCHOOL AND CLASSES

You’re a student in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, and while you usually play Pokemon to get away from school (or all reminders of real life), ignoring so in Scarlet and Violet isn’t recommended. The classes are quick and easy, and completing them can unlock exams and tests that will net you some EXP and items. It’s never a bad idea to drop by the school after completing a main objective.

IT IS OKAY TO RETREAT

The extent to which Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are open and non linear cannot be overstated. While Pokemon Sword/Shield and Legends Arceus both experimented with the open world format, they still kept progression through the story sequential and linear. Scarlet and Violet outright let you make a beeline for areas and objectives that may have been intended as endgame ones in a traditional Pokemon game. This means you can enter a brand new area all starry eyed and excited, and then get stomped by wild Pokemon very literally 3-4 times your party levels. So! It’s a good idea every time you enter a new area to enter some wild Pokemon encounters with the explicit intention to scope out the average levels in that area. If things feel too high for you to handle, bail. It’s okay too. You can come back later when you’re feeling better equipped. You can run from Trainer battles as well, so if you mistakenly find yourself locked in with a trainer way out of your league, bail.

JUMP

While your main character cannot jump, your ride Pokemon, which you get extremely early on in the game, can. And jumping can help you get to otherwise inaccessible areas in the world. These can include anything from rare loot to Pokemon you otherwise wouldn’t be able to encounter. Use this to your advantage!

LET’S GO

Following Pokemon are back! The much beloved feature from older Pokemon titles, where your Pokemon would follow you around in the world, returns in Scarlet and Violet, and what’s more, there are actual gameplay benefits to it. Called “Let’s Go” and initiated by pressing the R button, you can send your Pokemon out into the world at any time. It will then independently go off exploring, fighting wild Pokemon, collecting resources, garnering EXP, all while you continue to do your own thing. It even returns right to you when you initiate a battle, so there are no downsides to using this feature. In fact, there are only benefits (some Pokemon only evolve after you walk with them a certain number of steps, so this is greatly recommended).

INTERACT WITH EVERY GIMMIGHOUL YOU SEE

As you are out and about in the world, you’ll often see these little humanoid… creature… things. You can’t engage them in battle, and it might look like they are set dressing. But if you go and interact with them, you can get a Gimmighoul Coin (because these creatures are, in fact, Gimmighoul). Collect as many of these as you can! When you finally do end up catching a Gimmighoul, you’ll need 50 of these coins to be abled to evolve it.

DON’T SKIP TRAINER BATTLES

A very major change Scarlet and Violet make from previous games is that trainer battles are no longer unavoidable. You have not actively go up to a trainer you see on the field and chat them up before a battle will begin. The flip side of this is, it is actually incredibly easy to just… skip all of the, and not even realize you were doing so, especially given the size of the maps. So, keep this in mind – if you see NPCs out in the wild, go to them and talk. Engage in as many trainer battles as you can. Not only do trainer battles get you more EXP than wild Pokemon ones, as well as giving you money, but by battling a certain number of trainers in an area also lets you claim a prize from that area’s Pokemon Center for yourself. There’s no downsid.

DON’T IGNORE THE PATH OF LEGENDS

As mentioned, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet give you three main campaigns – one where you go and fight gyms to earn badges and become the champion of the Paldea region; one where you take on the mysterious Team Star and try to stop them from terrorizing trainers in the region. And lastly, a Path of Legends. The Path of Legends is exactly what it sounds like from the name, and is obviously extremely exciting to try, but there are actual benefits to it other than simple cool battles and rare Pokemon too. Every time you complete a chapter in this quest, you unlock a new ability for your ride Pokemon – from being able to swim, to being able to glide, to being able to move quicker. All of this makes traversal through Paldea that much easier – and, again, given how massive this world is, I think that can only be a good thing.

This is not that timeline.

See, in our timeline, in this timeline, they decided, for whatever reason that shall perhaps forever remain unknown to us, that after releasing a massive pseudo open world action RPG earlier this year, they would release a second one just ten months later. This one would be their first true open world game, first true drop-in co-op game, a total reinvention for the franchise’s structure and mechanics, while also representing all the challenges that come with a new Pokemon game inherently. In spite of there being absolutely no reason for this game to release this year, given the existence of Legends, they decided to go ahead and release a second massive open world RPG in just ten months. In a span of one year, twelve months, this represents the third mainline Pokemon release. From a team that is fairly small, and also has traditionally struggled with tech.

The results are pretty much exactly what you’d expect, because Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are incredibly unpolished, buggy, and just all around janky. The entire experience is beset by technical flaws – pop in, unsteady frame rate, collision detection issues, clipping, flickering, low resolution textures, sparse environmental density, you name it, really. None of these are game breaking issues in and of themselves, they’re the kind of thing you sand and iron out in the final months of development. Which these games clearly did not get.

"Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are incredibly unpolished, buggy, and just all around janky. The entire experience is beset by technical flaws – pop in, unsteady frame rate, collision detection issues, clipping, flickering, low resolution textures, sparse environmental density, you name it, really. None of these are game breaking issues in and of themselves, they’re the kind of thing you sand and iron out in the final months of development. Which these games clearly did not get."

In the days since these games’ launch, a common refrain has been that these games are utterly unpolished and janky bordering on broken – but underneath that all, they are incredibly well designed, addictive, wildly compelling games that represent some of the best design this storied franchise has delivered. That is all absolutely true. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet represent the best Pokemon games, at least the mainline generation ones (sorry Legends) have been in years, if not literally decades. Everything about them is, on paper, pretty much exactly what people wanted from this franchise – a massive open world that leaves the players to their own devices and lets them make their own stories as they set off across the land to meet all the Pokemon available within. They even go a step further and try several new things that people may have wanted, but never expected – or just flat out never even known they wanted.

Take, for instance, the co-op mode. Seamless four player drop-in and drop-out co-op, and designed to be absolutely frictionless. You and your friends can team up and play together with little to no effort, and once in the same session, you can choose to team up and adventure together, or remain separate and explore on your own, only joining each other when needed. You can be independently completing your campaigns, story missions, getting into fights, catching Pokemon, exploring – with zero issues.  

Being able to adventure with friends? This is something that people have wanted from Pokemon for a very long time, and Scarlet and Violet deliver on that promise, and they go above and beyond, and do it exceptionally well, while delivering the first full open world adventure the franchise has had. 

Or, take the structure of this game, which is its greatest win, and unnaturally forward thinking for a franchise that has been so reluctant to rock the boat at all until earlier this year. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are completely non-linear. Once you finish the intro, you can literally go anywhere in the game and do anything you want. There are three main campaigns in the game, the traditional “win eight badges and become the champion” one; a “beat the evil team by defeating their various strongholds across the region” one; and a final “chase down these legends known to be hiding across the world” one. All of them are non linear and non sequential. You can absolutely choose to go defeat what would ordinarily have been the final gym badge in a traditional Pokemon game right after the tutorial, and nothing stops you. You can choose to take on the most fearsome legendary “Titan” in the game right after the intro, and the game lets you. You can do whatever you want. The game never stops you.

This kind of non-linear structure and progression is already unusual for any game, let alone an RPG, given that usually, even open world titles maintain at the very least sequential progression if nothing else – for Pokemon to do it across three intermeshing storylines just leads to a level of player agency and authorship over the experience that it is hard to overstate the impact of. This is your adventure. You get to dictate how it goes, no one else. If you feel you are confident enough to outlast the final gym leader in a battle right now, then you will do that, and the game won’t stop you. If you don’t want to deal with the gyms at all, and want to just focus on catching Pokemon right now? The game lets you. If you just want to explore, and not really worry about what to do? The game lets you.

It’s an incredible achievement of game design, and this is one area where Scarlet and Violet are an unmitigated triumph. There are no caveats here – the open world infused non sequential design in this game is incredible, and finally turns this into “your” Pokemon adventure, something the games have been promising us since the start of Pocket Monsters Red and Green all the way back in 1996, but have never truly delivered – except maybe Legends. 

"Pokemon Scarlet and Violet represent the best Pokemon games, at least the mainline generation ones (sorry Legends) have been in years, if not literally decades. Everything about them is, on paper, pretty much exactly what people wanted from this franchise – a massive open world that leaves the players to their own devices and lets them make their own stories as they set off across the land to meet all the Pokemon available within. They even go a step further and try several new things that people may have wanted, but never expected – or just flat out never even known they wanted."

Here’s the best part! Somehow, they accomplish this without compromising on the story and storytelling either. Usually, when games adopt this level of non linearity, the story and storytelling must take a hit. Look at how The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has to dilute its prescribed narrative as a tradeoff for giving players that much freedom, or even how the expanded openness of Xenoblade 3 leads to a far less concentrated narrative than either of its predecessors. In Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, there is still a story, and it’s actually one of the best ones in the series. You’re not foregoing the story for the openness, you are getting both. Yes, I know no one really plays Pokemon for the story, but just in case you’re that one who does, guess what? Scarlet and Violet represent one of the series’ strongest steps on that front, with some very memorable characters and cool lore to boot.

The world itself is a really fun one to spend your time exploring too. Yes, it looks ugly as sin (and I know I’ve beaten this horse dead, but it cannot be repeated enough, and I will be coming back to this point shortly), but it is definitely one that is a lot of fun to engage with and explore. This actually does not come down to the design of the world itself, which isn’t bad, but isn’t great either (Game Freak’s traditional weakness at working with 3D spaces is less of an issue here than ever before, but the world design still definitely has room for improvement). What helps Scarlet and Violet here is the exact same thing that helped Pokemon Legends earlier this year, which also didn’t necessarily have an amazingly well designed world, but ended up with an amazing world anyway – Pokemon gets to cheat. Rather than relying on the world itself to induce exploration, it uses Pokemon. So yes, traversing across the massive, massive, massive expanses of Paldea to hunt Pokemon, or chasing that new species, or rare one, across the map, and getting distracted by something else? That is all here, and it instantly elevates the world into being great, and one you can (and will) spend hours exploring every nook and cranny of.

This wouldn’t work if the Pokemon themselves weren’t interesting, but the one thing Pokemon has never failed with is making these eponymous creatures interesting. While Scarlet and Violet don’t flesh their Pokemon out as much as Legends did (where every creature felt like a living and breathing part of its ecosystem), the Pokemon in this game are still a delight, from their design to their behaviour in the wild. Seeing smaller herbivorous Pokemon gather together in herds, only to scatter when they spot a predator running towards them, or seeing a Psyduck sleeping lazily by a river bank, only to wake up when it starts raining, is a delight, and sells the fantasy of these Pokemon as creatures you are encountering and taming. Again, these games don’t do this as well as Legends did – but they also offer nearly double the amount of Pokemon that Legends did (including, very literally, more new Pokemon by orders of magnitude) so it is a trade-off. They sell these creatures well enough for the fantasy to work, at least.

An area where Scarlet and Violet are indisputably a step back from Legends, however, is the flow. Pokemon Legends was a quick game – everything happened seamlessly and in real time. Scarlet and Violet get rid of a lot of the QoL strides that Legends made, unfortunately. For instance, you can no longer run from battles by simply running from battles, it’s locked behind a menu option again. You can’t send out a bunch of Pokemon to go scavenge and scour resources for you (you can only send out one, and even then, what that Pokemon can do feels limited compared to Legends). If you’re battling a Pokemon, others in the vicinity don’t really react like they did in Legends, where they might run off from the combat, or join and start beating you up senseless. Everything definitely feels slower than it did in Legends, because Scarlet and Violet have fallen back on some of the things traditional Pokemon games had that Legends got rid of – for instance, you can’t just select which Pokemon to send out in battle in real-time anymore, it will always be the lead Pokemon. 

"An area where Scarlet and Violet are indisputably a step back from Legends, however, is the flow. Pokemon Legends was a quick game – everything happened seamlessly and in real time. Scarlet and Violet get rid of a lot of the QoL strides that Legends made, unfortunately. "

These regressions are undeniably unfortunate, because of how much they contributed to Legends being the great game that it was, but thankfully, some of the more meaningful things Legends did are maintained by these games. For instance, the excellent way that moves worked in Legends returns here – your Pokemon never really “forgets” a move once learned. You can, at any point, go into the menu and change the active load out of the four moves it can use, but any new move learned will be remembered forever. You can also, thankfully, start battles by aiming your Pokeball at a wild Pokemon and sending your Pokemon out to battle it (simply catching it without engaging it in battle is, unfortunately, an option no longer available). 

Interestingly enough, Scarlet and Violet include a lot of great new QoL additions of their own too. These are small things, but ones that are appreciated nonetheless. For example, every time you mark a destination on the game’s map, you instantly get oriented to be facing that direction in the world too. NPCs that have something to say or give you (whether battles or items) are clearly highlighted by their dialog boxes. The Pokedex looks, feels, and functions than ever before. You are given a ride Pokemon to traverse the world almost right away. When you buy a new item or get a new TM, you get to deploy it right away (if you want t0) rather than quitting out of the menu and going into the inventory to use it. So it’s a mixed bag here – these games do a lot right on their own when it comes to QoL, and maintain a lot of what Legends did right too. But at the same time, they also give up a lot of what Legends did right when they didn’t have to, and hopefully, future Pokemon games will just unify the improvements these games made with the ones Legends made.

An area where Scarlet and Violet are absolutely not a regression in any shape, way, or form, is the music. This should come as no surprise to pretty much anyone ever – Pokemon has never, not even once, failed at delivering amazing music, and Scarlet and Violet continue that streak with an incredible soundtrack that is as beautiful and amazing as the graphics are ugly (seriously, we’re getting to this soon, I promise). It feels like I say this with every new Pokemon review, which is honestly the ultimate testament to just how well the series has performed on this front, but these could well qualify for having the best music in the series – and when a series has a storied history of amazing music like Pokemon does, that really is saying something.

Two more things these games do great at – content, and the new Pokemon. The latter should come as no big surprise. We are now at over 1,000 Pokemon officially, and generally, the bulk of them are great designs that captivate millions around the world (see also: what I said about how Pokemon can “cheat” with its open world design). This new batch of creatures, which is bigger than any new generation has introduced in a while, continues the streak of excellent, inspired, strong designs, including some that I imagine will go on to become mainstays and favourites of the fanbase.

"Scarlet and Violet have an almost overwhelming amount of things to see and do, and it feels great. Just the main campaign is cumulatively longer than all but perhaps one game in the series – and there’s still stuff left to see and do in the post-game after all that. "

As for the former, that is where I was legitimately surprised. Once upon a time, Pokemon games came loaded with an absurd, obscene amount of content. In the last decade, Legends and the Ultra games excepted, that hasn’t been as true. They still have an unreasonable amount of content – more than most AAA releases – but they don’t meet the bar their own predecessors set. Scarlet and Violet are not like that, they have an almost overwhelming amount of things to see and do, and it feels great. Just the main campaign is cumulatively longer than all but perhaps one game in the series – and there’s still stuff left to see and do in the post-game after all that. This is another area where Scarlet and Violet deliver what players have been asking for for a while.

Okay, now let’s talk about how these games look, because goodness, they look awful. Earlier this year, I said Pokemon Legends is an ugly game, ugly enough that I can see it being a dealbreaker for many, but you know what, I take it back. Next to these, Legends looks… well, okay, not good, but at least coherent. Scarlet and Violet are not good looking games. There is no getting around these, they are ugly. They may be the ugliest major release a first party publisher has put out in a long time. Even with Pokemon’s history of never impressing with the visuals and tech, these games stand out, because they just do not look good. There are times when they sort of threaten to – moments where the art style comes together, and the environmental design and density doesn’t struggle – but by and large, these are ugly games, which I can totally see being an issue for people playing them, because the whole conceit is the world beckoning you on to adventure. If the world itself looks repulsively ugly, the premise sort of falls apart at the first step.

Ugliness or compromised visuals would at least be excusable if there was a visible trade off for the concession. You know, the games look like crap but run very well, or they look like crap but they are consistent in how they look. Something like that. With Scarlet and Violet, you do not get that. They look ugly and run even worse, with constant performance issues (I am actually not sure there is any time these games maintain a steady frame rate for an extended period of time), and the visuals themselves being distracting with constant flickering, pop in, and just no environmental density. The core design of the games is very strong, strong enough that if it does get its hooks in you, you can sort of, not ignore, but not care as much about, the visuals, because the game itself is so much fun and so compelling and so addictive – but with how these games look and run, how many people will get to that point? It’s Pokemon, so I am sure many will – but how many more won’t, who would otherwise have been able to appreciate the best designed mainline Pokemon game in years?

"They look ugly and run even worse, with constant performance issues (I am actually not sure there is any time these games maintain a steady frame rate for an extended period of time), and the visuals themselves being distracting with constant flickering, pop in, and just no environmental density. The core design of the games is very strong, strong enough that if it does get its hooks in you, you can sort of, not ignore, but not care as much about, the visuals, because the game itself is so much fun and so compelling and so addictive – but with how these games look and run, how many people will get to that point?"

And it’s not just how they look, they’re just buggy as all hell. It’s actually surprising a Nintendo published game is this janky and this buggy. None of these bugs and glitches are game breaking – most of them are actually funny in a haha Bethesda game sort of way (and that’s why so many of them went viral on social media). I can’t even call them distracting, necessarily (at least they weren’t that to me). But why are they there? They should not have been there. This game should not have been this janky, this buggy, this unpolished, this unfinished. Because that’s what it feels like. They got the game content complete, and then that last stretch of development, where they actually polish that content? They never did that, and just shipped it as is.

And it is infuriating that the top brass decided to do that, because the designers held up their end of the bargain. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are incredibly well designed games and ridiculously, almost dangerously, addictive to play once they get their hooks into you. They take several long overdue steps forward for the franchise, make good on many promises the series has implicitly made for decades, bring several forward thinking new ideas to the table that they more or less nail on the first go, and even end up as the most well rounded and content packed entries this franchise has seen in over a decade. Everything was in place for a slam dunk, even with how ugly they looked, but why did they release in this state?

If you are able to look past how janky and buggy they are – and I know many, if not most, players will eventually be able to do that – then what awaits here is an incredible adventure that represents some of this franchise’s strongest moments yet. But the fact that that brilliance is buried under a literal mountain of crap is heartbreaking and infuriating. What should have been a victory lap, a triumphant return to form and glory for Pokemon, is therefore another frustrating half step, besot by unforced errors and caveats. If you can get over the general jank, a very great game awaits you. And if you can’t, well, I can’t really blame you. The Pokémon Company and Game Freak need to rethink their release cadence. It is clearly no longer excusable. And it is starting to impact what should be these excellent games, and making them much less than that.

In the here and now? Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are great games that look ugly as sin and almost totally lack polish and optimization. If they ever get polished, they will be as close to an effortless recommendation as this series has ever gotten. Right now? They’re just good games buried under a mountain of caveats – caveats that you must decide for yourself whether or not they are worth putting up with.

This game was reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

Creatures is looking to hire a 3DCG Character Modeler, and the listing for the position mentions that the role will be working on “research and development for next-generation hardware”, which might suggest that the work in question is in its relatively early stages.

Of course, this isn’t the first indication we’ve had that a Switch 2 (or whatever Nintendo ends up calling its next console) might be on the horizon. Earlier this year, leaked source code for Nvidia DLSS seemed to include evidence pointing to a Switch successor, while Nintendo has also been stockpiling raw materials, suggesting that it could be preparing to ramp up manufacturing.

As per the LinkedIn page of Jonathan Murphy, who’s a senior game programmer at Creatures Inc, the Detective Pikachu sequel is “nearing release” (screencap below). The fact that he explicitly calls it Detective Pikachu 2 is also notable, because of course, that this will be a full-fledged sequel to the 3DS original was never actually officially confirmed by The Pokemon Company or Nintendo.

As for when the game will actually release, or when it will be formally unveiled, that remains to be seen. Earlier this year, job listings did indicate that development on the project was very much still ongoing, so at the very least, it’s good to get continued reassurances that it hasn’t been completely forgotten about.

It seems like it is. As spotted and translated by VGC, on a recruitment page on the website of the game’s developer Creatures Inc., a programmer referred to simply as “KT” mentions that he is working on “the sequel to Detective Pikachu“, and that his work involves “programming the drawing area, while also creating a system in the Environment Development Office that will serve as the foundation for future game production in general.”

Back when Detective Pikachu 2 – or whatever it ends up being called – was first announced, it was confirmed that it would conclude the story of the first game, which ended on a cliffhanger- though there isn’t much else that’s known about the game yet. Hopefully we’ll begin hearing more about it in an official capacity sooner rather than later, because given the current situation, you wouldn’t be blamed for having forgotten that this was even a thing.

Pokemon Unite is already available on Nintendo Switch, and cross-play will be supported across both platforms. In addition to this, a new balance patch for the game will also be dropping – which will of course, tweak a plethora of stats to make the game well, balanced. As reported by Serebii, this update will also be focusing on ironing out bugs before the game hits on a new platform.

Pokemon Unite has been a smash hit, and with the mobile release, the fanbase is sure to grow exponentially. Pokemon as a brand has been growing strong with more entries in the franchise, and fans have Pokemon Legends: Arceus to look forward to when it releases next year, along with Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl in November..

https://twitter.com/PokemonNewsUK/status/1440303781409812483

But it’s out now, and here we are. Pokemon Unite is good. Not great, mind you – it makes far too many avoidable stumbles for it to truly be called the, and there is a lot of work to be done if this game is to survive in the long term as a viable entrant to the genre. But it’s still good, and almost as importantly, it makes a very clearly stated statement about what it brings to the table and why a Pokemon take on a MOBA is distinct enough to warrant being made to begin with.

See, unlike the vast, labyrinthine, complex knots of systems and mechanics and meta-builds and such that are League of Legends or DOTA 2, Pokemon Unite is a remarkably simple and straightforward game – anyone can jump into it with minimal hassle. League of Legends and DOTA are both infamous for how overwhelming they can be for newcomers, and how obtuse they are with onboarding, which, combined with those games’ famously toxic communities, keeps people away from really dabbling in them. It’s hard to to tell what form the Pokemon Unite community will take in the long run, but mechanically, it’s streamlined and straightforward, made even easier to get into because of how surprisingly effective the tutorials and boarding are.

"Pokemon Unite is good. Not great, mind you – it makes far too many avoidable stumbles for it to truly be called the, and there is a lot of work to be done if this game is to survive in the long term as a viable entrant to the genre. But it’s still good, and almost as importantly, it makes a very clearly stated statement about what it brings to the table and why a Pokemon take on a MOBA is distinct enough to warrant being made to begin with."

The setup is going to be familiar to any veteran of the genre – you play in two teams, and the goal is to get to objective on the opposing team’s base, taking one of many different routes (or “lanes”) on the map to do so. Pokemon Unite makes these abstractions tangible by essentially turning each game into a sort of fusion of basketball and Pokemon Battles – you’re earning and banking points by taking on wild Pokemon that spawn on the map, as well as Pokemon playing for the other team, and you can then actually earn those points by scoring at one of the opposing team’s “goals”, which are the objectives that are placed throughout the map, as well as each team’s base. This makes it really easy to communicate the aim of the game even to newcomers, or to younger players (which the Pokemon IP would obviously attract) who may not be up to speed with all the trappings of a MOBA. You know you’re supposed to score points at goals, and you know you can’t earn those points unless you take on the various Pokemon around the map in simplified (real-time) Pokemon battles.

It also helps that Pokemon as a concept lends itself well to the MOBA format to begin with. If you have any familiarity with Pokemon, it’s not going to be hard to even pick up some of the more MOBA-ey concepts Unite presents, because they lend themselves well to that style of play. Yes, your Pokemon always starts out at Level 1 in each battle. But you know you can level up a Pokemon by fighting in battles, and as you fight, you’re going to unlock new attacks and even evolve your Pokemon. All of this ties in pretty well with how MOBAs usually work (and helps ensure that Unite, even in spite of its focus on simplicity, retains depth and nuance to engage longer term players).

All of this makes for a remarkably fun and immediately engaging, well playing game. You’re in the thick of things pretty soon, trying to work your way up to the Pokemon you like the most via the game’s bevy of battle passes, currencies, reward systems, and such (more on this in a minute) and slowly unlocking different types of games (ranked, quick matches). Matchmaking is extremely quick, as are games themselves, which means Unite lends itself really well to a pick up and play style of play – it’s something you can boot up for to have a quick 15 minute match once a day, presumably while you are taking a break from something else.

It also has a lot of the hallmarks of Nintendo multiplayer games – such as the emphasis on comeback mechanics, and a general disregard for balance. The balance of the game is very clearly borked, and the “Golden Snitch” style Zapdos mechanic (which sees a high value Zapdos spawn in the final leg of a match, and the potential of a team scoring hundreds of points in one fell swoop) definitely informs winning strategies. 

"The elephant in the room with Pokemon Unite is the monetization. The game is free to play, but it does include some very aggressive monetization."

The balance issues could potentially lead to the game shedding players over the long term – but they are not the only issue the game has. The elephant in the room with Pokemon Unite is the monetization. The game is free to play, but it does include some very aggressive monetization, which manifests in the form of multiple currencies, which can be used to purchase cosmetics, unlock new Pokemon, or level up held items (which you can put on your Pokemon before a game to gain permanent buffs). Any free to play game has to walk a very fine line between having compelling enough perks paywalled that players feel compelled to spend money for them – while also not blatantly giving players who pay an advantage over the ones who don’t. Pokemon Unite isn’t pay to win – but it treads dangerously close to being so.

As far as unlocking Pokemon goes, yes, it will take a while to unlock all the Pokemon in the game to be able to play with them, and yes you can bypass that wait by paying, but to be perfectly honest, the time it takes to unlock new monsters in general feels… fine? I mean ideally it could be quicker, but the pace of new monster unlocks isn’t the worst, and in a non F2P game, you can imagine a similar pace for character unlocks not really registering much (like I said, it could stand to be quicker, so I’m sure some criticisms would exist regardless). Cosmetics, similarly, don’t really matter much – while they are expensive, you’re unlocking and earning new ones at a really steady clip, and between the login bonuses, challenges, daily and weekly missions, and battle pass, you’re not going to really be wanting for cosmetics much.

On the other hand, levelling up held items by paying does have a direct and tangible impact on game balance. The items you make your Pokemon hold can have very noticeable effects on their performance in a match. Leveling up these items in ordinary course of time can be a pretty slow process, but if everyone were on even footing with it, it would at worst be an issue of annoying game balance. The problem is, right now, you can spend actual money to get an instant maxed item where otherwise even a dozen hours spent grinding out one might not be enough. 

"In the here and now, taken for what it is, Pokemon Unite manages to work through a lot of its problems."

Do these maxed out held items tangibly affect game balance? Unequivocally, the answer is a yes. And while simply having a fully maxed item isn’t enough to automatically cruise through matches and win, it absolutely does make things easier for you by giving you a buffer for any mistakes you might make. It’s not exactly pay to win, because, again, even a moderately skilled player with a regularly levelled up held item on their Pokemon will be able to hold their own against a poorly skilled one with a fully maxed out one – but it comes close enough to being exactly that that it’s surprising that this kind of monetization exists in a game from a Nintendo property.

There are some other issues as well. There is a distinct lag in the game’s UI (something that is characteristic of Nintendo’s mobile hame efforts, I have found), presumably because a lot of it is being rendered in some kind of a bespoke browser window. This isn’t a huge issue, but there is just enough of a delay between you pressing a button and your menu selection happening on screen that you do notice it. 

It’s hard to know whether or not these problems are really going to add up in the long run. A lot of these are fixable, and presumably, we will see updates to tweak balance and monetization in the future. We might not, either, or we might even see changes make things worse – it’s really hard to assess a game on what might or might not happen at some indeterminate period in the future. But in the here and now, taken for what it is, Pokemon Unite manages to work through a lot of its problems. As I said, though, it is at its absolute best if you treat it as a quickie between marathon sessions of other games. But as a fun, straightforward, engaging multiplayer game, with a low barrier to entry and some good production values? Pokemon Unite mostly delivers, and ends up being a surprisingly compelling game in the process. It’s free to play – if you have even a passing interest in Pokemon, or MOBAs, or just multiplayer games in general? Not a bad idea to look into Unite, and see whether or not it ends up sticking for you.

This game was reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

So in light of the fact that modern Pokemon games have gotten substantially better at showing the world of Pokemon, and how the eponymous creatures that inhabit it interact with it, as well as the fact that, as mentioned, photo modes are dime a dozen these days – would a new Pokemon Snap even make sense? Sure, the original was beloved. But it was beloved in context of the time of its release. Would there be any market for a full priced on rails shooter with the primary conceit being photography on the market?

New Pokemon Snap makes a convincing case for its existence, in spite of the many factors mounted against it, and it also makes the argument that it, at least, can stand up on the merits of its own core design, without necessarily needing the charm of the Pokemon license for its success. Which isn’t to say that it doesn’t have the charm, to be clear – in fact it has that by the oodles. It has so much of it that, once again, it far outstrips any other game on the market in giving us a window into the world of Pokemon, in spite of the modern Pokemon games being no slouches by themselves on that front. But being able to observe these Pokemon in their natural habitats, and see how they interact with one another, and with their environments, seeing how these creatures, that otherwise can often be reduced to nothing but stats in your PC box, or two line entries in your Pokedex, are brought to life as fully realized and full-fledged creatures that feel believable and authentic is enough to, once again, buoy this game far beyond the reach of its own (already fairly great) core design.

"Being able to observe these Pokemon in their natural habitats, and see how they interact with one another, and with their environments, seeing how these creatures, that otherwise can often be reduced to nothing but stats in your PC box, or two line entries in your Pokedex, are brought to life as fully realized and full-fledged creatures that feel believable and authentic is enough to, once again, buoy this game far beyond the reach of its own (already fairly great) core design."

So, the setup – that’s the same as it was before. You’re a Pokemon Professor’s assistant, helping research Pokemon by photographing them in their natural habitat in the wild. That’s the simple conceit – there is a story here (regarding a mysterious phenomenon that the professor is experiencing that causes the Pokemon on the Lental region the game takes place on to purportedly glow), and a surprising amount of characters and chatter, but the setup is: go out into the wild, take pictures of Pokemon. It’s simple and flexible, and provides all the contextualization needed for what the game asks you to do.

You’ll be running on short on-rails courses, photographing the various Pokemon that show up there. The range of photographs you can capture is surprisingly varied. It depends not just on the photography basics, such as positioning, zooming, number of subjects, framing, and such, but also on several game specific considerations. So, there are different Pokemon that show up on different courses, they have a variety of different behaviour patterns they can exhibit, they have different ways of interacting with the environment, and with the other Pokemon they share their habitats with, their behaviour can differ based on the time of day, and whether or not they notice your presence can make a complete difference as to what they are doing. Additionally, you can catch their attention and get them to act in a certain way too, whether it be by throwing food for them to nibble at, or playing a jingle for them to dance to. And finally, the more you get familiar with a course (represented by you “levelling up” your mastery in-game), the more number of Pokemon, and their behaviours and interactions, you are likely to see on them.

These, combined with the game’s premise, can lead to an endlessly entertaining line of objectives, prescribed and self-determined alike. For instance, you can be asked for something simple, such as taking a picture of a Pidgeot eating, or a dangling Metapod; or you can be asked to take a picture of two Pokemon interacting, which in turn can only happen on a specific course where you know both will appear, at a time you know both are active, in an area you know both are together, which can be a much harder picture to construct. The challenge comes from the familiarity with the courses that you build up over time, as well as your growing familiarity with its inhabitants. The game’s great victory here is that even if you’re not familiar with any of the newer Pokemon, or really, any Pokemon at all, it still makes them stand out such that you can get to know them intimately well just by repeatedly observing their behaviour. Just playing the game can tell you that Hoothoot are nocturnal, that Pikachu are extremely curious, that Slaking sleep a lot, that Scorbunny is mischievous, that Magikarp flounders a lot, that Grookey can be skittish, and that Pidgeot likes to keep its distance. Slowly learning the courses, and slowly learning the Pokemon, and in turn being better able to take great pictures, can keep you engaged with the game for a surprisingly long period of time.

"The game’s great victory here is that even if you’re not familiar with any of the newer Pokemon, or really, any Pokemon at all, it still makes them stand out such that you can get to know them intimately well just by repeatedly observing their behaviour."

The game goes out of its way to gamify these diegetic concepts too. As mentioned, your mastery over the course can be levelled up, incentivizing you to run the same courses multiple times, over and over, and in turn unlocking more Pokemon species and interactions. Your photos are rated by Professor Mirror in a variety of categories, encouraging you to go back and take more ones to get higher points – not to mention an entirely separate rating system where your photos are graded based on the rarity of Pokemon behaviour they’ve captured, inducing you to go back and try to photograph Pokemon in all four possible behaviour rarity interactions. And, since this is a photography based game in 2021, you can upload those photos online to get Likes (Medals in this game) from other players around the world, which of course means you’re likelier to keep going back and get the best photo possible for that online cred. And, finally, there is also a global leaderboard that ranks you on the cumulative total of points you have received from Professor Mirror, meaning that, very simply, the more you play, the higher on it you’ll be.

None of this, of course, would work if the game simply wasn’t good at delivering on its premise. As mentioned previously, this is a game that can only work if the window into the world of Pokemon that it provides is meaningfully fleshed out. New Pokemon Snap does that with aplomb, aided in large part by its surprisingly great presentation. No one will ever mistake it for a PS5 game, nor is it even necessarily among the best looking games on its own system. But a very strong art style, and a lot of loving care put into the animations and models for the Pokemon, means that it looks extremely charming and really pretty – as well as, almost by default, better than any other Pokemon game to date (though that’s more an indictment of how poor the games in the series have looked so far when they have had no reason to). There are blemishes to be sure – thumbnails of the photos you take can look decidedly and shockingly low resolution, the lack of anti aliasing can be physically painful at times, and there are, shockingly, frame rate drops on loading screens (but only on loading screens in my experience). But for what it’s worth, these never once actually happen during the core loop of the game, which is when you’re out in the wild, photographing Pokemon.

New Pokemon Snap is also the first Pokemon game ever to be voiced, which is something the series will hopefully retain going forward. While the quality of the voice work in this game isn’t spectacular, it’s solid, and more than anything else, it does the important job of ensuring this game remains accessible to younger players who may not know how to read on at least a fundamental level (not all lines are voiced, so a lot of the game is presumably still going to require the help of their parents for them to get). The soundtrack is similarly nothing great, especially next to how fantastic the music in the mainline games has always been, but it’s pleasant and charming, and does the job done.

"No one will ever mistake New Pokemon Snap for a PS5 game, nor is it even necessarily among the best looking games on its own system. But a very strong art style, and a lot of loving care put into the animations and models for the Pokemon, means that it looks extremely charming and really pretty."

New Pokemon Snap is also surprisingly customizable. Unlike so many Nintendo titles, it gives its players a lot of options, from the ability to tweak controls to restricting just how much online interactions the game pushes on you, to toggling the voice acting, and more. Given Nintendo games typically tend to be delivered as a whole, with very little in the way of meaningful options provided to players, hopefully this marks the start of a new trend for them – even though, yes, I know that Pokemon is largely independent of Nintendo and not necessarily indicative of their broader development philosophy (and this is a Pokemon spin-off to boot, so presumably even more disconnected).

How much value you get from New Pokemon Snap will come down to how much you take to its core conceit. It’s incredibly fleshed out and full featured, and feels like an appropriately next-next-next-next generation evolution and follow up of the original. There’s a surprising amount of content here, far beyond the original game, so you’re not spending full price money on something you can be done with in a few hours. And it’s far more interactive than you’d expect, too. But it’s still a rail shooter, it’s still about taking photos repeatedly, and that’s all there is to it – everything else is a variation on that core idea. If the idea of an entire game based on taking pictures of Pokemon doesn’t appeal to you, then New Pokemon Snap can’t change your mind, as great as it is at what it does. But if you’re down for what it offers, then you’re in for an incredibly charming, heart warming, and extremely breezy and heart warming ride through the Lental region that will show you the world of Pokemon in a way you have never seen before.

This game was reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

Pokemon Sword and Shield are, then, the very first time that ideal is made tangible. This, right here, is the full-fat Pokemon experience on a home console, on the big screen, that people have been wanting for 20 years. And in spite of all the controversy and fan furore that Pokemon Sword and Shield were mired in ahead of release, they more or less manage to deliver on just that. Make no mistake, they are extremely flawed games, and in some ways they feel disappointingly conservative, when this move to console could have been accompanied by a radical rethinking of the series’ now 24 year old formula—but they are Pokemon games, through and through, and now, on your big screen. That fantasy has been realized.

There’s so much to talk about Pokemon Sword and Shield, and their merits and accomplishments, as well as their flaws and shortcomings, that it can be hard to know where to begin. So let’s start at the most obvious place—the Pokemon themselves. Sword and Shield introduce what is hands down the strongest batch of new monsters to the overall roster that we have ever gotten. If that praise sounds familiar to you—we did declare the very same for X and Y and Sun and Moon after all—then that’s more to the series’ credit, as, after a few generations of some questionable designs, Game Freak has really stepped their game up when it comes to the monsters themselves. The actual visual design of the new Pokemon is absolutely fantastic, with even absurd propositions like a teacup Pokemon or an apple Pokemon made memorable thanks to the sheer overwhelming charm that these games are dripping of, and made even more unforgettable thanks to some extremely interesting mechanical design quirks given to them too (with the Pika-clone Morpeko’s two-faced ability being a particular standout).

"The actual visual design of the new Pokemon is absolutely fantastic, with even absurd propositions like a teacup Pokemon or an apple Pokemon made memorable thanks to the sheer overwhelming charm that these games are dripping of."

And yes, the charm and the cuteness. Let’s talk about that, because I find it unbelievable that Game Freak is able to constantly top itself and up the ante on this front year in and year out. I honestly thought that last year’s Pokemon Let’s Go games, which focused on embellishing Pikachu and Eevee constantly, had reached the maximum amount of personality and cuteness and charm that Pokemon games could achieve. I was wrong, because Sword and Shield somehow top those games. They do so by lavishing the same amount of detail and care and attention to not just one Pokemon each, but to all the 400-odd Pokemon they feature. From the adorable and frankly hilarious camp interactions that have now gone viral, to the amazing ways the Pokemon the overworld react to your presence—some run away from you, some are curious, and some just rush at you to attack you—these creatures have never once before felt more alive, more real, more tangible. You can almost imagine them existing as real creatures.

Which neatly leads us to the next big thing—following on from Let’s Go, Sword and Shield eschew random encounters entirely, with Pokemon now showing up on the overworld screen. But unlike in Let’s Go, where they just sort of hung about, or repeated a canned animation on loop, the Pokemon here are, as mentioned already, reactive to your presence, which adds a thrill to each encounter—in the overworld, or otherwise.

That overworld also represents the single most daring step this series has taken in a very long time—though in the interests of full disclosure, it is only a half step. I am talking, of course, about the Wild Area. The Wild Area is an open world hub that connects the early areas of the game together, and it is absolutely massive. More than that, however, it is completely open to the player from the get go. You can go anywhere that you see, you can encounter Pokemon that are far above your level, you can do what you want, when you want to, and how you want to. This marks a major change from the philosophy the series has followed since the 3DS era, which has been to deliver increasingly railroaded and prescribed adventures, a trend that reached its nadir with Sun and Moon, and their literal collection of four straight lines with actual roadblocks that were masquerading as a region. While Sword and Shield are still very tightly controlled, linear stories, the Wild Area exists, in all its open glory and its emphasis on player agency, available not just to you from the get go, but always to return to—and you’re expected to return there often, because so many Pokemon spawn only there.

"The Wild Area is an open world hub that connects the early areas of the game together, and it is absolutely massive. More than that, however, it is completely open to the player from the get go. You can go anywhere that you see, you can encounter Pokemon that are far above your level, you can do what you want, when you want to, and how you want to."

The Wild Area is also a systemic open world, in a manner of speaking. Its multiple biomes and areas are all affected by the weather and time of day, meaning that, for example, different Pokemon will spawn if it is snowing and night time, than there would if it was a rainy morning. This adds a level of dynamism and unpredictability that makes you want to keep returning—what other new Pokemon will you run into next? The Wild Area holds the answers.

The Wild Area is also host to the other major innovation these games introduce, something I have been wanting in the main series for a very long time now—full co-op in the form of Max Raids, which are battles against supersized, superpowered Pokemon that you engage in with up to three other players, with a chance to catch that Pokemon if you manage to defeat it. I cannot stress how amazing an addition Max Raids are!

But those Max Raids are absolutely worth it, and I hope, I really hope, that they are here to stay. They are such an obvious addition to the series’ core formula, and add so much longevity to it, that it would be truly perplexing if they were removed from the next games in the series. Max Raids aside, the Wild Area also acts as a culmination of other long held Pokemon dreams—for instance, that of a Pokemon MMO. Because now, yes, you can see other players playing the game on screen, in your instance of the game, running around, and you can go up to them and talk to them, and they may even give you rare items or treasure.

For as much praise as I have for the Wild Area, it is important to note that this is only a first step, a transition. In an ideal world, the entire region would be a Wild Area, not just a part of it. There would be dungeons and caves hidden away for the player to discover (dungeons and caves appear to be in perilously short supply in Galar as a whole). There would be more biomes (though there already are a lot of them). NPC trainer encounters in the Wild Area would be possible. More nuanced interactions with player characters populating your instance of the Wild Area would be possible (right now, you can only get items with them—to actually fight or trade with them, you have to use the Y-Comm, which we will get to shortly).

"These gym battles are electric, and charged with atmosphere—they take place in massive stadiums, there are crowds in the stands, and they are cheering and chanting, gasping when your Pokemon land an attack, in shock when they faint, and it truly elevates the whole experience."

How you take to the Wild Area, and all it has to offer (including the Max Raids) largely determines how much you will like Sword and Shield, because this aside, they are fairly standard Pokemon games. Galar, of course, is a marvelously well realized setting, dripping with British charm, and featuring some of the best designed cities (at least visually) the series has ever had. In another stroke of inspired genius, Game Freak has taken the central gyms conceit of the series, and tied it into the whole British theme—so while Britain is crazy for soccer, in Galar, Pokemon battles are a national sport that everyone follows obsessively, with the gym challenge, which sees a lot of promising trainers take on the eight gyms of the land in sequence, followed by the national championships, being the star attractions.

These gym battles are electric, and charged with atmosphere—they take place in massive stadiums, there are crowds in the stands, and they are cheering and chanting, gasping when your Pokemon land an attack, in shock when they faint, and it truly elevates the whole experience. It truly and absolutely feels like you are right there, in the stadium, fighting Pokemon, and the whole world is watching. Much like the tangibility and sense of reality added to the Pokemon themselves, Pokemon Sword and Shield make Pokemon battles feel real.

Arguably the best thing about these games, in my opinion, is their lack of a story. There barely is one—the driving motivation this time is not for you to stop some evil team in their evil plans, and take on a Legendary Pokemon, it’s simply… to win the Pokemon League. It’s refreshingly honest, and adds to the sense of ownership over the journey and adventure, along with the Wild Area. This is your story. Your journey. Your adventure. You decide where you go, when you go there, and it’s about charting your rise to the top of the Pokemon League.

Ultimately, there does turn out to be a larger plot, but it’s honestly extremely rushed, and while there are some strong themes it touches on, it botches the landing. This would be a far bigger knock against the game if it actually emphasized its story as much as, say, Pokemon Sun and Moon do. Thankfully, as I have mentioned, the story mostly stays out of the way, so ultimately this turns out to be a rather insubstantial failing.

"Pokemon is the world’s biggest media franchise, and its flagship release should be among the best looking, best produced game on its console, but Sword and Shield are categorically not that. It’s a big missed opportunity, because Galar, and the Pokemon, and all the charm and the atmosphere I have talked about, deserve far better."

What is a bigger failing for these games is their overall lack of polish, which is, perhaps, best exemplified by the graphics. Don’t get me wrong, the art style is absolutely charming (which takes the games a long way), and in handheld mode, they look fine. But the simple geometry, low resolution textures, and comically short draw distances make you wonder—why? Why exactly do these issues exist? Pokemon is the world’s biggest media franchise, and its flagship release should be among the best looking, best produced game on its console, but Sword and Shield are categorically not that. It’s a big missed opportunity, because Galar, and the Pokemon, and all the charm and the atmosphere I have talked about, deserve far better. The strong art style of the games goes a long way—but as games like Breath of the Wild and Luigi’s Mansion 3 have shown us, it doesn’t have to be one or the other, you can have strong art and great technical graphics.

Other, smaller failings in the games include, obviously, their removal of the National Dex—though I have personally never found this to be a problem (I have actually caught more Pokemon in Sword and Shield than I ever have in any previous games in the series), but for those of you who do care, that indeed is still a thing here. The Y-Comm, which is this game’s suite of online functions, is also a mixed bag. I love the social media style feed, and I like how seamless it makes random trades, or Max Raids, or battles. Matchmaking is a breeze, and if these random battles and trades are all you want, you shouldn’t find it wanting much.

Unfortunately, much like most other games on the Switch, things start to fall apart when you try to play with friends. There is no way to directly access your friends list directly from the Y-Comm, and to set a private session (for anything), you must set up your battle or trade, and lock it behind a numeric code that keeps everyone except for those you have shared it with out. And in what might be the game’s most baffling cut, the Global Trade Station, which allowed you to trade with random people across the world, making specific requests for Pokemon, while fulfilling others, is also gone.

Like I said, then, there’s a lot these games do well, and a lot they do not. How well they stick the landing for you ultimately comes down to how meaningful you find their accomplishments to be—to me, the sense of wonder and adventure that I felt as I first stepped into the Wild Area, and saw a high level Steelix slowly skulk away into the distance, finally fulfilling the promise of open world Pokemon, was more than enough. That the Wild Area is such a great hub, that I keep returning to and spending time in, only added to my sense of ownership over my adventure. The Max Raids, the de-emphasized story, the charm, atmosphere, the great music, the fantastic art style, the great online interactions, the fantastic region, and my sense of slowly becoming a national star as I worked my way through the Gym Challenge—at last, I had the Pokemon game I have wanted ever since I first saw the anime all those years ago.

"If you don’t take to the Wild Area and the Max Raids, then the game’s other shortcomings will stick out to you more. The online features maybe now seem antiquated, rather than a frustration you have to work around, and the art seems infantile given how technically deficient the games are."

But if you don’t take to the Wild Area and the Max Raids, then the game’s other shortcomings will stick out to you more. The online features maybe now seem antiquated, rather than a frustration you have to work around, and the art seems infantile given how technically deficient the games are. And the smaller scale of the adventure, and lack of story, make you wonder what exactly the justification for all the cuts, National Dex or otherwise, was. That, too, is a fair takeaway from these games, after all.

But as far as I am concerned, these games represent a return to form after the disappointments of the last few years. Pokemon Sword and Shield don’t fully deliver on any of their promises—open world Pokemon, MMO Pokemon, systemic Pokemon, console Pokemon, HD Pokemon—but they deliver just enough, while delivering on other things in sheer abundance, that they represent the best games the series has seen since the start of the 3DS era, and a promising foundation for the franchise to build on with future games.

This game was reviewed on Nintendo Switch.