This is the final article in a five-part retrospective covering the downfall of the Pokémon mainline games. Click here to read the first part, which focuses on Pokémon Black and White. Click here to read the second part, which focuses on Pokémon X and Y. Click here to read the third part, which focuses on Pokémon Sun and Moon. Click here to read the fourth part, which focuses on Pokémon Sword and Shield.
This article contains spoilers for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet.
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet were intended to revolutionize the beloved Pokémon franchise by throwing players into a fully open world for the first time, but instead, they turned the series into a complete and utter laughingstock.
By the time Scarlet and Violet launched in 2022 for Nintendo Switch, the series was already in a desolate state. The previous three generations were plagued with issues stemming from rushed deadlines and an apparent lack of passion from series developers Game Freak, and unfortunately, all these problems would culminate in the sloppy and irredeemably unfinished release of Scarlet and Violet.
It’s a shame, too, considering some of the ideas behind Scarlet and Violet were the most ambitious the mainline games have seen in years, and if this project had been given the proper time, budget and attention to prosper, it could have been the re-invention the series needed.
Let’s start with what worked.
Firstly, the idea to throw Pokémon into an open-world environment felt long overdue, and it feels like a conceptual evolution for the franchise. This was a concept experimented with in Sword and Shield’s Wild Area and later Pokémon Legends: Arceus, but Scarlet and Violet fully embrace the concept of a completely open-world experience for the first time.
With the addition of an open world comes more player freedom, and this extends to the main quests that players must complete to progress through the game. Somewhat similar to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, most main quests can be completed in any order, meaning there’s no set path of Pokémon Gyms to face like most prior mainline titles.
This added freedom complements the open environment and makes the Paldea region feel truly open rather than a narrow walkway like Sword and Shield’s Galar region.
Scarlet and Violet’s set of new Pokémon species is also more creative and interesting than ever, and with 120 new monsters to find, the quantity is higher than any generation since 2011’s Pokémon Black and White.
As usual, not every design is a winner, but what sets Paldea’s new Pokémon apart are the unique ways they expand on previous designs. Not only are regional forms back with Paldean Forms but there are also all-new convergent species, which are new monsters based on the real-life process of convergent evolution. This process occurs when two independent species experience a distinctly similar form of evolution to one another despite being otherwise unrelated. An example of this in-game would be the classic Pokémon Tentacool’s brand new convergent evolution, Toedscool. These additions make the games biologically educational and creates an interesting dynamic for fan-favourite species.
The game also adds new regular evolutions to pre-existing Pokémon, as well as fascinating new “Paradox Pokémon,” which are time-travelling versions of other Pokémon species from the distant past or future. These new additions are an interesting glimpse into beloved species from other time periods, such as Volcarona’s ancient ancestor, Slither Wing.
It’s perhaps worth mentioning that in this critic’s humble opinion, most of Violet’s future-themed Paradox Pokémon are boring since they’re all just robots, but it’s nice to have them anyway.
Speaking of Paradox Pokémon, the game’s story is the most impressive since Black and White, and that’s a huge plus.
Throughout the game, the player is tasked with completing three main overarching quests, which then weave into one another for a satisfying conclusion. There are some interesting story beats throughout the quests, but what I really want to talk about is Arven’s story, which becomes the most important by the end of the game.
Upon meeting Arven for the first time, he is easily frustrated and doesn’t trust the player, but while you work with him throughout the Path of Legends storyline, you uncover the details of his tragic backstory and motivation.
As a child, Arven was abandoned by his mother or his father (depending on whether you play Scarlet or Violet, respectively), who became obsessed with their research and left to pursue their studies in the dangerous Area Zero, located in the giant crater in the centre of Paldea. Arven’s loneliness led him to rely on his Pokémon, Mabosstiff, who is gravely injured upon the events of Scarlet and Violet. This leads Arven to ask the player for assistance hunting down the healing Herba Mystica plants across Paldea, which eventually helps Mabosstiff recover from its injuries.
Once the main quests have been wrapped up, the player gets a request from the region’s professor – who happens to be Arven’s estranged parent – to venture down to Area Zero. Once the player reaches the bottom of the chasm, the professor tells them and Arven the truth about what has really transpired at the bottom of the crater.
Arven and the player learn that the real professor died prior to the events of Scarlet and Violet after being attacked by an aggressive Paradox Pokémon. Over the years, the professor had become obsessed with learning about Paradox Pokémon, causing them to build a time machine that risked great ecological damage once Pokémon from other time periods began entering modern-day Paldea. The current “professor” is actually an AI recreation of Arven’s parent who disagrees with the real professor’s ambitions, and requests the player’s help in stopping the environmental crisis spurred by the professor.
It’s a sad story in which a scientific genius’ ambitions caused them to forget about everyone they ever cared about and prioritize scientific growth over the well-being of the world’s inhabitants. Even though Arven never got to know his parent while they were alive, he is still tasked with putting a stop to their destructive plans and saving the world from their selfish actions.
This is, by far, the best story that a Pokémon game has presented in years and is leagues better than the poorly conceived story from Pokémon Sword and Shield. The game has an interesting villain with thoughtful motivations, and the twist that Arven’s parent died years ago is the best one the franchise has ever seen.
Unfortunately, that’s about where the positives end, and as usual, it’s all downhill from here.
Let’s start with the elephant in the room; the main reason why Scarlet and Violet turned this once-respected franchise into a showcase of ineptitude:
These games run poorly. Like, they run very poorly.
Let’s try that again. These games run so embarrassingly, abysmally bad that it’s shocking they made it out of the beta stage of development.
What we have here isn’t a conceptually unfinished game like Sword and Shield. What we have is a literally unfinished mess filled with jarring framerate drops, constant bugs in the lighting system, blurry textures and glitches galore.
It cannot be understated how big of an embarrassment this release should be for Game Freak. This game is nothing less than a disgusting mess on a similar level to Goat Simulator – a game that prides itself on its glitches since they add to the intentional humour of that game’s experience.
But when you’re paying full price for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, a triple-A game from the largest-grossing media franchise in the world, things become a lot less funny. Instead, we have a game so bad that Nintendo outright apologized for it publicly – and those who are familiar with Nintendo’s usual level of quality should know that this is absolutely not normal.
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet don’t just display the signs of a decaying franchise; they are definitive examples of a product that demonstrates that the higher-ups at Game Freak, Nintendo, The Pokémon Company or whoever else is behind this mess has completely lost any semblance of care they ever had for this franchise. There are certainly traces of passion here and there throughout the game’s core design, but it can never be truly appreciated because the games are presented in such a sloppy manner. It’s not that Game Freak’s development team isn’t capable of success, it’s that they’re not allowed to succeed because of presumably tight restrictions on budget and time.
It’s a release emblematic of the companies’ new philosophy: it doesn’t matter if the game is good, it doesn’t matter if the game has passion behind it, it doesn’t matter if the game is finished – people will buy it anyway.
But at this point, should this really come as a surprise?
For a decade now, the higher-ups at Pokémon have been slowly implementing this philosophy.
It doesn’t matter if the games abandon their beloved style to go further mainstream – people will buy it anyway.
It doesn’t matter if the games treat the player like an idiot and cut out any semblance of difficulty – people will buy it anyway.
It doesn’t matter if the games cut crucial features that made the franchise popular in the first place – people will buy it anyway.
The truth is, it was only a matter of time before they completely gave up on this franchise. It was only a matter of time before they realized the franchise is nothing but an eternal cash cow that exists only to be milked for profit. It doesn’t matter how it’s treated; it doesn’t matter if it’s cared for; it doesn’t matter whether it’s allowed to reach its fullest potential.
People will buy it anyway.
There are other issues with Scarlet and Violet, but it’s hard to even acknowledge them when the game has such a glaring flaw that everything else takes a distant second.
The world design isn’t great; too many areas are just empty; there’s a lack of side quests and meaningful extra content; the level scaling of Trainers and wild Pokémon makes it feel like some areas are discouraged against visiting early despite the promise of an open world; and the continual process of introducing and replacing generational battle mechanics returns with the introduction of Terastallization and the disappearance of Dynamaxing.
But all that takes a backseat to the real issue here.
It’s one thing to look at a franchise and observe the way things have changed over time. It’s okay to miss what you once had, or to wish game designers would realize what worked about their older projects and return to form.
But that isn’t the case here. This isn’t a story about developers moving on to new ideas and concepts, or trying to fix what isn’t broken.
This is a story about a franchise that lost its soul and accepted the existence of endless mediocre releases for the sole reason of churning out millions of dollars. It’s a story in which a beloved property became abused for profit; a story where greed wins over the desires of fans and the quality they deserve.
But let’s be real – none of that really matters.
We’re all just going to buy it anyway.