Most Disappointing Moments Playing Pokémon Scarlet and Violet

Pokémon Scarlet and Violet are the newest games to come out from the Pokémon IP, and arguably the most disappointing by a longshot. With so many short comings with its game design, glitchy release and omissions from prior entries that gave the games more quality of life changes, Scarlet and Violet has been a massive stumble for everyone involved – The Nintendo Company, GameFreak and Nintendo.

Despite the vocal outcry of such problematic elements that still has caused mass heartbreak for the general player and fan of the title and franchise, it has seemingly fallen on deaf ears. No surprise there when the games are breaking records despite its many faults. Let’s name and shame them then.

Geeta is one of the most underwhelming Champions of the franchise ever

We will get our biggest issue out of the way first and it is not a frequently referenced issue for many. But for myself, it’s one that is the most egregious fumbling of the product in question. Geeta, as THE Champion of Paldea is the easier Champion of the franchise ever. Her team composition poses little issue in terms of elemental superiority types no matter what the player character’s own team set-up is. That is because of the sheer amount of weakness her Pokémon units have, encompassing the majority being susceptible to either ghost or fire moves. She is a far cry to Cynthia, let me tell you.

Shocking performance for the highest grossing franchise in the world

It goes without saying that just the heading alone here says enough. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet contains so many minor to game breaking bugs that it is a crying shame that it comes from the biggest selling video game franchise ever. While some are stupidly helpful, such as jumping backwards on the Legendary Pokémon of each game to traverse upward onto platforms you should not be able to, others are distractingly painful.

Characters and Pokémon alike get stuck in walls, models float into and around others and riding around on the previously mentioned Legendary Pokémon’s can get the player stuck in gaps or invisible walls. Luckily, they actually expected this to be a frequent enough issue to warrant the screen fading to black and putting players back on the last bit of land they were previously on. It’s a shame then that despite knowing the poor performance players will experience of the game that they still forced its release out in time for the holidays.

New evolutions are a far cry from the original Pokémon designs

Being a very big point of mine as well as others here on Gamer Journalist, the designs for any new Pokémon have been a far cry to the splendour of its original conceptions. It’s no surprise really when such visions were designed and brought to life by Ken Sugimori. As new Pokémon games would continue to release, new names credited to the character designs would be seen, namely Hiroyuki Tani and James Turner.

While not at all intending to point fingers to anyone specifically, the appeal of what originally made such designs fresh and unique is all but gone now. Pokémon units look all too similar to the real-life inspirations – have you SEEN Flamingo – and the human characters no longer look unique and instead basic.

Getting no backlash for change as it has sold more than 10 million copies within the first three days

Back to our first major point that we introduced in our introduction, Pokémon continues to ride the tides high in being such a runaway success despite the amounts of flaws upon its release and even now. With barely any comment made about its performance and quality issues, it makes sense since players are still rewarding the experience by going out and buying the game – or in the comfort of their home with digital sales also raking in the figures.

No one needs to convince anyone in saying how the game was pushed out in time for the holiday season. It is the perfect time when adults and kids alike are organising their Christmas gift wants, and no amount of needing to perfect or polish a product is considered when the prime timeframe is in mind. It’s exactly what the good old corporative Disney is so well known for now. With little in the way of backlash especially when the numbers game for it continues to endorse such performance from them, things will not change for the better for the player.

Franchise going backwards

We are quickly coming to the biggest point we want to make in this article, and it’s that with Scarlet and Violet performing as well as it is doing here, even the better improvements the franchise made with its past instalment will most likely stay locked into that game. This is because numerous elements of Pokémon Arceus – understandably being in the same development time as Scarlet and Violet – introduced some of the best changes in the franchise that we have ever seen.

Side quests were one such element that was introduced in Arceus and whilst repetitive, we ended up with no such side quests from Scarlet and Violet despite being just as open world. Arceus also had roaming during battles, something that made the core aspect of Pokémon a fluid, quick and rewarding experience. It made the most sense for the transition onto home consoles and looked great while doing it.

With Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, camera angles leave so much to be desired. It causes glitches when the characters start a fight but are off screen or are on the opposite side of a wall. It is instead supposedly seen to be awkwardly revolutionary for Pokémon to have this despite it being 2022 and when games have been doing it for decades now. Add on top of such awkward controlling is how nothing is ever in frame!

Arceus also happened to make it all the more obvious how the structure of Pokémon’s signature battle system is so slow. Now that the franchise has advanced into 3D and home consoles, text boxes and lingering battles that has to throw descriptions out for every move and selection performed feels extremely outdated. It’s made even worse when Arceus perfected such a structure.

On a final note, the EXP share feature needs to become optional to provide any sort of challenge for the veteran Pokémon player or anyone looking for a longer time in its world. This is made even worse with how easy it happens to be to get over levelled in so many areas. With Scarlet and Violet being so open world with no designated path to stick to, players can grow far too quickly in strength that no amount of challenge can be experienced in it unless a certain, linear order is commited to.

We deserve better

Pokémon is one of the most aggravating video games to ever exist at this point. Characters do not talk, and while acceptable in Zelda, it is made all the more awkward when said characters are performing or singing, such as is the case with both Sword and Shield with Piers plus most recently with Ryme in Scarlet and Violet.

Pokémon continues to flip back and forth in what it should really commit to and provide to its loyal and loving fan base. But as always, corporative companies put their greed first, no matter how vocal the complaints and calls for wanting improvements are. It’s not like Pokémon is going anytime soon, but what made it so great in the first place continues to feel more like a memory at this point.