Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet Double Pack

Genre: Compilation / Open-World Turn-Based Monster Collecting JRPG

Players: 1-4 Co-Op / Competitive (Local Wireless, Online)

The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

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Review:

Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet Double Pack is a Compilation containing the two named games. I’m not going to waste your time here by going into detail and repeating my reviews for the those games. If you want to see my thoughts on those games, you can click on the links below. In any case, released alongside those games in 2022 is this “Double Pack” that includes both. Here’s the short version of what I thought of both of those games:

Game	Genre	# of Players	Grade
Pokemon Scarlet	Open-World Turn-Based Monster Collecting JRPG	1-4 Co-Op / Competitive (Local Wireless, Online)	A-
tl;dr Pokemon Scarlet (as well as its counterpart, Pokemon Violet) is the first true Open-World game in the Pokemon series, and in addition to this, it also introduces multiple new elements to streamline the gameplay, as well as the wealth of strategic opportunities added by the new “tera type” feature. Unfortunately, all of these great qualities are marred by some nasty graphical and performance issues, as well as some gameplay frustrations. This is still one of the best games in the Pokemon franchise, but it’s a great game that is damaged severely by its significant flaws.
Pokemon Violet	Open-World Turn-Based Monster Collecting JRPG	1-4 Co-Op / Competitive (Local Wireless, Online)	A-
tl;dr Pokemon Violet (as well as its counterpart, Pokemon Scarlet) is the first true Open-World game in the Pokemon series, and in addition to this, it also introduces multiple new elements to streamline the gameplay, as well as the wealth of strategic opportunities added by the new “tera type” feature. Unfortunately, all of these great qualities are marred by some nasty graphical and performance issues, as well as some gameplay frustrations. This is still one of the best games in the Pokemon franchise, but it’s a great game that is damaged severely by its significant flaws.

In short, this pair of Pokemon titles are the first games to truly deliver on the concept of an Open-World Pokemon game, and they deliver on that concept beautifully, albeit not without some rough edges that could do with improvement… and that’s what I would say about this game if it didn’t suffer from massive graphical and performance issues that are frequent and distracting. These issues take this game from something that could have been the best Pokemon game ever to a game with extremely high highs and extremely low lows. Very fun, but not without some major caveats.

Of course, that’s me talking about this as if it were just one game, and technically it isn’t, this is two games, as with most mainline Pokemon games. So what’s different between the two?

As per usual, you have some varieties of Pokemon that are in one game but not the other. Also, your partner legendary Pokemon that joins you early into the game’s story is different in each game (albeit functionally identical). At least one or two of the characters you encounter throughout the game are different in different versions. And one game has a red motif going through various elements of the game (such as characters’ clothing) while the other game has a purple motif. And… that’s about it.

I can say right now that there’s virtually zero reason currently for one person with one Nintendo Switch to own both games. They are both for all intents and purposes identical with only a few minor elements changed. Even if you’re looking to complete your Pokedex, this combo pack won’t quite work toward that end on its own- as of this writing, these games are not integrated with Pokemon Home so you can’t use that to transition your Pokemon from one title to the other. And one game can’t read your save file from the other game. The digital version of this game is particularly questionable in its value – if you’re not able to split this up between two Nintendo Switch systems, what’s the point? Are you really spending $60 more just to experience the minor differences and get a second save file?

The one situation that kinda’ makes sense to get these games as a bundle is if you’re getting them in physical form, so you can split them between two kids who each have their own Nintendo Switch. However, even in this scenario, buying this package makes zero sense when you could just buy the two games separately. And in fact, this package costs a penny more than buying these games separately.

At this point, there’s almost no point for me to bother with reviews of these Pokemon Bundles, because I come away from all of them saying the same thing – this is a bundle with two copies of the same game, there’s little reason to get it, and it actually costs a tiny bit more than buying the games separately. Tack that descriptor on to the description of the Pokemon game(s) in question, drop the review score a full grade level due to the pointlessness of the bundle, and that pretty much covers everything. In fact…

tl;dr – Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet Double Pack pairs up both versions of the first true Open-World game in the Pokemon series, which it also introduces multiple new elements to streamline the gameplay, as well as the wealth of strategic opportunities added by the new “tera type” feature. Unfortunately, all of these great qualities are marred by some nasty graphical and performance issues, as well as some gameplay frustrations. This is still one of the best games in the Pokemon franchise, but it’s a great game that is damaged severely by its significant flaws. As for this package, this is a bundle with two copies of the same game, there’s little reason to get it, and it actually costs a tiny bit more than buying the games separately.

Grade: B-

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The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet Double Pack

Genre: Compilation / Open-World Turn-Based Monster Collecting JRPG

Players: 1-4 Co-Op / Competitive (Local Wireless, Online)

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Review:

Out of all the games receiving updates on Nintendo Switch 2 at launch, I think it’s pretty widely agreed that Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are the games that needed it the most. This pair of games have become infamous for their terrible performance on Nintendo Switch, which I detailed in my earlier reviews, but I’ll just simply say, it was embarrassing for a major franchise game to look so bad.

So when it was announced that Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet would be receiving free updates on Nintendo Switch 2 on launch day, many fans wondered just how extensive these updates would be.

It turns out, the difference is quite profound. While there’s one other game that received a free update even more extensive at the Nintendo Switch 2’s launch, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet nevertheless feature a profound difference in performance on Nintendo Switch 2 well beyond most other free upgrades.

It’s not a long list of features – the resolution and framerate are improved, and more Pokemon can be seen on-screen at a given time. Yet, that’s all it took to make a huge difference. It’s the framerate that is the biggest change, with the game now running smoothly in a way that’s instantly noticeable. But really, this update makes the entire game seem far, far more polished.

It’s not perfect, though. There’s still plenty of pop-in. And all of the complaints I had about this game’s gameplay still remain. However, with this fix to the performance, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet suddenly became immensely more playable.

And of course, none of this changes the fact that this bundle is a pretty questionable value, since the two games contained within are nearly identical, and it costs the same (actually a tiny bit more) to get this bundle compared to the individual games. None of that has changed.

In any case, If you want to play the first truly Open-World Pokemon games, this is the way you need to play them. They’re still flawed games, but this feels like the way these games were meant to be played. It’s just that none of that makes this bundle of the pair any better as a value.

tl;dr – Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet Double Pack pairs up both versions of the first true Open-World game in the Pokemon series, which it also introduces multiple new elements to streamline the gameplay, as well as the wealth of strategic opportunities added by the new “tera type” feature. The Nintendo Switch 2 update for these games is a huge improvement to the game’s visuals and overall performance, though there are still flaws and gameplay frustrations. This is still one of the best games in the Pokemon franchise, though as a bundle this is basically just two copies of the same game, so there’s little reason to get it, and it actually costs a tiny bit more than buying the games separately.

Grade: B

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