Pokemon Violet

Genre: 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:

(Note: Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet are for all intents and purposes the same game copy-pasted with minor differences. As such, my reviews of the two games will be similarly copy-pasted with minor differences)

(Note: This game is included in the Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet Double Pack bundle along with Pokemon Scarlet)

Pokemon Violet (as well as its paired title, Pokemon Scarlet) comes at a strange time for Nintendo’s series of megahit Turn-Based Monster Collecting JRPGs. While the series is, as always, absurdly successful in sales, its track record on Nintendo Switch has been far less reliable in terms of quality. Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield, the first console releases in the mainline series, abandoned the much-beloved “national dex”, and replaced it with… well, not a whole heck of a lot, actually – the game was visually underwhelming and the much-anticipated Open-World elements were extremely underbaked. Then, Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Pokemon Shining Pearl were even more disappointing remakes of a pair of Nintendo DS games that failed to build on what little Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield established. It seemed like there might be little hope for this series righting its course at this point, but then in early 2022 we were all surprised by the shockingly refreshing Pokemon Legends Arceus. Legends Arceus, while highly unpolished, with presentation issues and lacking content, was nevertheless a breath of fresh air for the series, giving players not only the first real taste of what an Open-World Pokemon game could play like (without entirely being an actual Open-World game), but also really streamlining the gameplay in numerous ways that made everything flow so beautifully.

It was at this point that players were met with the announcement of Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet, to release the same year as Pokemon Legends Arceus, evidently designed alongside Arceus. Players were tantalized by what this game promised – the first actual Open-World game in the Pokemon franchise. Finally, a game that would deliver what many fans of the Pokemon franchise had been begging for this series to do for decades. However, at the same time, many Pokemon fans were also wary and concerned – coming so soon after Pokemon Legends Arceus and the disappointing Pokemon Sword and Shield, many wondered if this game would be rushed, as Pokemon games increasingly seem to be. Some of the early footage was also concerning, featuring some worrisome graphical issues that players feared might not be fixed in time for the game’s release.

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The Paldean Inquisition

Well, it would be silly for me to take any longer to address this, because it’s what many are already talking about. Graphically, Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet are an absolute mess. It’s not consistently bad – there are times when you can appreciate the wonderful detail in the characters and buildings, the great animations, and the fantastic artistic design going into much of the game. However, far too often, these elements are quickly overpowered by all of the awful going around here.

Let me make this clear – Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield had graphical issues. Pokemon Legends Arceus had graphical issues. However, this game is worse than all of those. Its flaws run across the board – inconsistent framerates, extremely choppy animations at a distance (and even sometimes up close), brief pauses to load new areas, ridiculous levels of pop-in, ugly blurry textures in some areas, low-resolution shadows, extremely repetitive environmental textures, aliasing, the ugly dithering transparency effect on grass when you zoom in… while I wouldn’t go so far as to call this an ugly game, it is nevertheless a game that is ugly extremely frequently.

Sadly, there’s nothing in the presentation that redeems this technical train wreck with artistic flair – you don’t get a feeling of being in a distinct location like Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon gave players with its Hawaii-inspired locale, nor do you feel like you’re looking at a fascinating snapshot of a unique time in the history of the Pokemon world like Pokemon Legends Arceus’s Hoenn locale. This game’s Paldea region is clearly meant to be patterned after Spain, and there are multiple references to that throughout the game, from Spanish language sprinkled into conversations to Spanish dishes served in restaurants… but mostly this game’s world feels much like the world of any other Pokemon game.

It is unsurprising, then, that the sound feels much like any other Pokemon game too. Once again you have characters speaking without voices, once again you have synthesized Pokemon sounds, and the majority of this game’s largely orchestral soundtrack is fine but forgettable. I will note one exception though – the piano solo overworld theme you’ll be hearing through much of the earlier parts of the game is absolutely lovely (and thankfully sounds nothing like the piano-focused soundtrack of Nintendo’s other big Open-World game, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild).

Still, we’re talking about relatively few high points in what is otherwise an absolute mess of a presentation.

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Opening a New World of Possibilities?

Okay, now that we’ve gotten past that unpleasant business, let’s talk about the gameplay. How does Pokemon Scarlet and Violet manage mixing its new Open-World elements with its traditional Turn-Based JRPG gameplay, and is it really all that different from Pokemon Legends Arceus?

Well, unlike Pokemon Legends Arceus, Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet have one consistent open world (well, almost consistent – like Skyrim, the major city and all indoor environments load separately after passing through the doors to enter). However, at first this seems like a somewhat pointless distinction, as the land’s natural features act to segment the territory into areas you cannot freely traverse, but must instead take paths to get from one to another, though within these areas they are generally pretty large and free-roaming. It is only after obtaining new traversal abilities that you’ll gain true freedom to come and go from one place to another as you please, which is a bit disappointing.

Still, while traversal is limited at first, Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet do make it a point to give players multiple options of goals to pursue as they play the game, and it is here that this game truly stands above and beyond Pokemon Legends Arceus. In that game, players were limited to just a few choices – they could catch or fight Pokemon, of course, gather materials or work to fill out the Pokedex, or they could progress the main story. As vast as the areas in Arceus were, it ultimately felt like you were only ever doing the same things in them over and over again.

In Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet, on the other hand, you can also focus on fighting and catching Pokemon and expanding your Pokedex, and you can try to search for crafting items, but in addition you can now also fight other trainers and take on the region’s gyms (missing in Legends Arceus), you can fight your way through the latest successor to Team Rocket, Team Star, and you can hunt down mythical ingredients guarded by “Titan” Pokemon (really just giant-size versions of normal Pokemon), in turn unlocking traversal abilities for your partner legendary Pokemon that acts as your ride. There’s also the new Picnic system to interact with your Pokemon, and the new Tera Raids that take the place of the Mega Raids and Max Raids of prior Pokemon games.

These varied activities do have their ups and downs though. The Gyms in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are… honestly pretty pathetic. One early gym involved an odd game of soccer through a maze with no timer and no real opponents. Another involved a search through a town for multiple Pokemon that were not in any way trying to hide or blend in, again without a timer. Yet another gym involved a silly game of “Simon Says”. Look, I know the Pokemon games are meant to be enjoyed by children, but this is just absurd.

The “Legendary” Pokemon quest involves searching an area for a “Titan” Pokemon, which will in turn reveal the location of a “herba mystica”. Or, to put it more plainly, players must fight a giant-sized (but otherwise normal) Pokemon to find a plant that can help your rideable legendary regain some of its traversal ability. The titan Pokemon themselves are a bit of a disappointment (not only are they just big versions of normal Pokemon, you can’t even catch them after defeating them), but the brief introductions to them can be interesting, such as one titan that has you dodging rockslides to reach it.

The Team Star stuff has you seeking out their bases spread across the region, completing a timed challenge using the auto-battle mechanic, and then taking on their boss, unlocking new TMs you can craft as a reward. Of all of the game’s three main quest lines, this seems to be the least vital, but it’s an enjoyable change of pace all the same.

The picnic stuff is this game’s “pet the Pokemon” minigame, but it’s under-developed. Players can “wash” their Pokemon, or take photos with them. They can also use ingredients they’ve found or bought to make sandwiches that bestow various bonuses, but I think the main reason anyone is even going to bother with picnics in this game is that this is the primary way this game uses to breed Pokemon.

As much as I may complain about the various parts of each of these elements that feels underbaked or disappointing, I will say that this game does still feel like it provides players with some good variety, and exploring in this game truly feels rewarding – finding a new TM, a new variety of Pokemon, or some unique landmark with its own secrets to reveal. Then there are of course the Gimmighoul coins, a collectable item in the form of a Pokemon that you’ll find hiding in various places. Suffice it to say that while any one element of this game’s open world may be lacking, altogether they make for a rewarding experience.

Each of the three main quests in the game, the “Victory Road” quest, the “Path of Legends” quest, and the “Starfall Street” Quest, has its own associated story, and… sorry, none of these really do anything for me. I still feel like this is just too close to the cookie-cutter Pokemon plot that most games in the series follow.

There is one other issue with the Open World that’s a bit frustrating, though – the world doesn’t scale with the player, and it doesn’t warn players when an area is possibly too high level for them. Players can place the cursor on any wild Pokemon to see its level and determine whether or not they’ve encountered or caught it before, but this requires you to be pretty close, and more than a little fiddling with the camera. However, this issue is far worse when it comes to things like gyms and legendary Pokemon encounters. There, you can only really judge the difficulty by looking at the level of the Pokemon in the surrounding area, meaning you might cross the map to get to a gym only to gradually realize this isn’t the next gym you’re “meant” to challenge… a notion that really doesn’t belong in an Open World game.

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Evolving the Pokemon Formula Further?

This game is very similar to Legends Arceus in other ways as well – not only is it giving players freedom to explore a large world, but it also streamlines parts of the gameplay to make for a smoother, faster experience. Interestingly though, the gameplay elements that have been streamlined here are not always the same as what was streamlined in Legends Arceus, but in many ways it builds on what Arceus already did.

Much as the case was in Pokemon Legends Arceus, Pokemon retain a list of moves they previously learned and subsequently had replaced by new moves, and they can re-learn these prior moves at any time. However, this time around this is supplemented by the way the series’ TMs” (move-learning items) are worked into a new crafting system – every Pokemon drops a species-specific material when caught or defeated in combat, and these items can be used in crafting recipes to create TMs, with a TM’s recipe learned by simply obtaining one of these TMs and the ingredients needed to make it. This gives players a reason to go back and fight a specific Pokemon repeatedly for reasons other than grinding for experience.

And where Pokemon Legends Arceus made it easier to swap out your party of Pokemon, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet removes all restrictions and just lets you do so anywhere at any time outside of battle. Your only limit here is that Pokemon you bench in the “boxes” still have all their damage and ailments until you reach a Pokemon Center to heal all your Pokemon – both your active party and those in storage.

The one major element from Arceus that’s missing here is the ability to toss Pokeballs at Pokemon without stopping, and that’s sadly not an option here. Instead though, you have the option to toss your lead Pokemon into an automated battle you don’t have to micromanage, theoretically making grinding for experience much easier and less tedious. In practice this has its upsides and downsides – the experience you receive this way is greatly reduced, meaning much of the time you save not participating in these battles will be spent on repeating these auto-battles more frequently. On the other hand, the way this system determines the winners of these fights based on type and level does allow for players to game the system in some ways – for one thing, leveling up your Magikarp into a Gyarados just became a lot easier, because its water type means it can take down fire-type Pokemon in auto-battles easily… despite that it doesn’t know a single attack move.

Players can also fast-travel to any Pokemon Center they’ve previously visited (plus a few other points of interest), and get map indications of what Pokemon are in the player’s immediate surroundings. This latter part is particularly helpful to spot Pokemon you may have overlooked because some Pokemon are absolutely tiny when players are riding their partner legendary Pokemon and the camera zooms out. These tiny Pokemon also have a downside though – it is far too easy to trip over them and get into an unwanted battle when you’re simply trying to get from point A to point B.

Finally, because I have to mention it somewhere here, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet continue the unfortunate tradition of all Nintendo Switch Pokemon games – yes, the national Pokedex is still dead and gone, it seems. Support for the Pokemon Home app will supposedly be added at some point, allowing players to transfer Pokemon to and from that app… but only Pokemon already within this game’s Paldea region Pokedex. Not surprising at this point, but disappointing all the same.

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Great New Gameplay Element or Tera-ble Feature?

Thus far, I haven’t mentioned the other major new gameplay element here, terastallized Pokemon. All Pokemon in Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet, in addition to their one or two standard elemental types, have a “tera type”. This is something that can be activated in battle only once (before needing to recharge at a Pokemon Center), and it changes the Pokemon’s type to this tera type and supercharges that type’s moves. This mechanic takes the place of Mega Evolutions, and the Dynamax/Gigamax mechanic of Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield, but is more strategic in the way it can be used – in competition, players can use it to give a fire Pokemon extra oomph by activating its fire tera type, or to surprise an enemy who thinks their fighting type Pokemon has a type advantage over your normal type only to find the tables turned when you activate its flying tera type. The potential for this to be a fun change to the strategy of the competitive side of Pokemon cannot be understated here.

While most Pokemon have a tera type that matches one of their own types, players can find Pokemon with completely different tera types in tera raids spread across the game’s world. To catch them, players will generally want to seek the help of three other players in a battle that’s still turn-based, but plays out as if it was happening in real-time. These battles are a fun way to try to add in a co-op element here, but the strategic value in this sort of co-op play is somewhat dubious, in my opinion.

Of course, that leads me to talk about this game’s multiplayer…

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A Reason to Bring Your Poke-Pals?

Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet both offer the standard local wireless and online battling and Pokemon trading that have been present in the series from the beginning. However, this game actually allows players to have up to three friends join them on their journey, exploring the world together, or splitting up and going your separate ways while still knowing your friends are elsewhere in the same world as you.

In theory, this addition to the gameplay is thrilling, a way to share your experience with friends. In practice, it’s underbaked and largely pointless. There’s nothing that you and your friends do together in the game – battles with Pokemon and the various quests you take are still solo affairs even if you have a friend with you, and their presence will not help you. They can communicate via gestures, and I suppose if you wanted you could all use the in-game camera to take photos together, but all of this seems gimmicky more than anything. Even the aforementioned tera raid battles don’t actually requite your friends to be in the same area – the one the tera raid is assigned to sends an invite to all other friends in the group, and if they join they’ll all be transported to the otherworldly tera raid battle before being deposited back in their separate locations.

I suppose, if you’re basically all just playing the solo experience and maybe you might run into each other while you’re running around, you might just wonder “why not?”. After all, if you and your friends are playing the game at the same time, what’s the harm in doing exactly the same thing in a version of the world where you might see them (even if you can’t interact with them in any significant meaningful way)? The answer is that doing so seems to tank the game’s already-poor framerates. Yes, even if you’re in an entirely different area of the world than they are, and they are nowhere to be seen. No, I have no idea why this would be.

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Ultra Violet or Scarlet Fever?

Pokemon Violet is a deeply flawed game. The graphical problems and performance issues are shockingly bad, but on top of this there are issues with tedious gameplay elements, difficulty, and poorly-conceived and underbaked co-op multiplayer. Yet despite all of these issues… I still find it to be a highly enjoyable game.

The core Pokemon gameplay formula is still as enjoyable now as it ever was, and we finally, finally have a game that brings that formula to a true open world. What’s more, in many ways this game builds on the streamlining of the gameplay that we saw in Pokemon Legends Arceus.

I have said before that what I look for the most in a mainline Pokemon game is some presentation element or gameplay feature that sets it apart and makes it truly something unique, to give players a reason to enjoy the Pokemon formula again in a way that makes it fresh and new. Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet do exactly that with a massive world of possibilities to explore here.

So you have a magnificent, fun game that truly brings the series forward… but it’s also a deeply flawed, broken, and in some ways still disappointing game. Ultimately, the fun wins out for me – this is a game I absolutely want to keep playing despite its many flaws. At the same time, I am not blind to those flaws, I do not ignore them, and I am just as frustrated with them as I’m sure everyone else is. These are flaws that unquestionably make this a worse experience than it could have been… but they don’t ruin the experience.

So… is this the “Breath of the Wild moment” people have been looking for in the Pokemon franchise? Well… no, not quite. Is it an absolute disaster? Definitely not. Rather, this is one of the best games in the Pokemon franchise, but only if you can overlook its flaws. It’s a shame that we had to get such a great game in such a terrible mess of a state, but it’s still a great game despite the sad state it’s in.

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.

Grade: A-

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Edit: So, after putting a lot more hours into the game, I realized I had changed my mind about on one major element of the game. However, it’s probably not the major element many here might think.

Earlier, I said that the majority of this game’s largely orchestral soundtrack is fine but forgettable, save for the excellent piano solo (apparently properly named Overworld Theme 04). However, I find myself gaining new appreciation for this game’s soundtrack over time. While I still feel like it largely lacks a feeling of being in a specific place, many of this game’s themes are extremely catchy.

This game’s version of the classic Pokemon Center theme is really growing on me, the Penny Theme is lovely, the Cave Theme and its Alt Version are fittingly mysterious, the Montenevera Gym Battle Theme Ver. 1, Ver. 2, and Ver. 3 are all really catchy, Area Zero is wonderfully epic, the North Province Theme is nicely mood-setting for a dangerous mountainous area, and then of course there’s the excellent end theme, Celestial by Ed Sheeran (which doesn’t sound much like a “Pokemon”-style song, but is quite good regardless).

There are also, to the game’s credit, at least a few tracks with a bit of Latin-sounding flair to them, such as Naranjan Academy Main Theme 3, Artazon & Zapapico, and the wonderful Overworld OST 06 – I really wish that the game led with songs like these to really give the game a unique flair early on.

However, what really convinced me that I needed to talk about this game’s music was the excellent synthesized music you hear in Levincia, with Iono Livestream (Part 1), and Iono Livestream (Part 2) being very good, but specifically the Levincia Theme was just so catchy I couldn’t help but stop and notice.

So, why did I think this game’s soundtrack was largely forgettable, and why did I change my tune? Well, apart from Overworld Theme 04, nothing really stood out to me in the game’s starting area in the South, and when I ventured out mostly toward Western areas, I found that many of those area’s musical themes not only thematically clashed with the rest of the game, but were just outright terrible. I’m looking at you, Medali, Porto Marinada. It turns out, a lot of the game’s better music, in my opinion, is found in the Eastern-most areas, which I wouldn’t go on to explore more until after this review was written.

Does this change my overall opinion of the game? No, not really. But I felt I would be doing this game a disservice if I didn’t go back and correct my thoughts on this one element of the game – the soundtrack is great. Still could do with more of a Latin feel to fit the location, and some songs are stinkers, but overall this is an excellent soundtrack, one of the better ones in the Pokemon series.

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2022 Game Awards:

Winner:

Best Song (Overworld Theme 04, by Minako Adachi, Junichi Masuda, Go Ichinose, Hiromitsu Maeba, Teruo Taniguchi, Hitomi Sato, and Toby Fox) – The soundtrack for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet has a lot of heavy lifting to do. Being the first truly open-world game in the Pokemon series, players need to get a feeling of the massive world, the grandeur of it all… and the graphics of this game are simply not up to that task. Yet early on, this simple piano solo manages to convey to players that feeling, the feeling of adventure, or a beautiful massive world waiting for them to explore it. In addition, despite being a piano solo in a Nintendo Open-World game, this theme sounds nothing like the soundtrack to Nintendo’s other big open-world game, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. No other song from 2022 shaped my opinion of the game it appeared in quite as much as this one.

Runner-Up: Game of the Year, Best RPG, Best Music, Most Disappointing

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The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

Pokemon Violet

Genre: 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 review, 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.

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.

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. The Nintendo Switch 2’s free game update fixes many (though not all) of the game’s graphical and performance issues, though a few gameplay frustrations remain. Despite that, this is one of the best games in the Pokemon franchise, and this feels like the way this game was always meant to be played.

Grade: A

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