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Forum - View topicGAME: Pokémon Scarlet and Violet
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FireChick
 Subscriber Posts: 2497 Location: United States |
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I've heard rumors going around that working conditions at GameFreak aren't exactly the best, though I don't know how true those are. Though personally...I'm just happy I get to play one of my favorite Pokemon of all time, Deerling, in a Switch game now, since Sword/Shield excluded it.
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db999
Posts: 347 |
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I think the reason the game looks so bad is that Gamefreak is being given either not enough time, or not enough resources to create the game. They’ve been having consistent problems ever since they moved to 3d, and those issues have seem to have gotten worse with each subsequent game. X&Y looked good, and then Sun and Moon came out and especially if your running it on the old model of the 3ds is the slowest moving game in the franchise despite looking pretty good. The Sword and Shield came out and had a bunch of problems with graphics, and now this. It’s clear that the 3 year production timeline they’re given is not working anymore, and they need to give them more time. As to why they didn’t just delay the game, they can’t because it’s a multi-media franchise so the anime, the trading cards, the merchandise, the video games, etc all have to come out at around the same time and delaying one means delaying all of it, and the Pokemon Company is obviously not doing that. I’ve heard chatter on the internet that Gamefreak might be working on a patch for the game, although take that with a grain of salt.
As for the game itself I’m loving it despite the horrendous performance issues. I’m only around halfway through the game so far, and I’ve had a couple of legitimately difficult battles, I think they’ve finally found out how to correctly balance the exp. share and the storyline is really good. It also has probably the best developed characters so far, and I’m loving all of the new Pokemon and the open world structure. If they ever are able to patch the game so it runs smoothly and doesn’t have so much stutter, this would probably be my favorite game in the franchise, but it’s performance issues knock it to the bottom of my top 5. |
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JoelBurger
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It's so funny that this is the straw that broke the camel's back for game reviewers. Because this game has about ten times the flavor, story, and character of Sword and Shield, the game sites tried to convince people was the greatest Pokemon game of all time.
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boldulysses
Posts: 91 |
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Same. I'm loving it also despite the performance problems. It's leagues better than Sword & Shield. I still wish it retained a few more of a game mechanics developed for L:A (LOVED that game), but it does a fantastic job of taking some of the best parts of that game while still retaining enough old-school Pokemon flavor to satisfy longtime fans. I just wish I could wear something besides my uniform! |
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wolf10
 Posts: 931 |
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I was happy to have Lycanroc back after a generation skip, and that was enough to push these into "buy now" territory. Mostly worth it. The individual stories are good, if mostly recycled from Sun and Moon, but the final story that unlocks after completing the first three is... intense. It's very different from mainline-Pokemon's usual wheelhouse (and much more like Pokemon Special), but kind of makes me long for an entire game done in that style, rather than just the final few hours of one. (The final encounter handily dethrones Cynthia as toughest final boss in the series, but that's partially because of a very unique gimmick.)
I do wish characters got to interact with each other more. I was missing the complex dynamic between Lillie and Gladion, or Hop and Leon. Your character becomes the focal point around whom all other characters interact, and it leaves them feeling a bit more shallow, though they're still fun individually. Gameplay itself is the best it's ever been. Combat is generally fast, though status ailments slow the pacing to a crawl. (*crackling animation* *long pause* "Lycanroc is paralyzed! It can't attack!" *long pause*) I was able to find a shiny in the field just by walking around, which I suppose is bound to happen when monsters spawn in at around a hundred per minute. There's a nice spot up in the mountains where wild Pokemon helpfully group up by EV type, making training a breeze. The berries for lowering EVs are also quite plentiful, so you can't really mess up your stats just by exploring normally. Most importantly: it's consitently fun. On a visual level, Silicon Studio was brought in to help optimize the graphics engine, so it's a huge step up from the Wild Area in SwSh, or any of Legends: Arceus. Field areas are lacking in detail, but the actual area design is varied enough that it never really feels repetetive. Still not Xenoblade 3 level, though SV renders at a much higher resolution than Xenoblade, which uses dynamic resolution and generally stays around 720p (with only the UI rendering in 1080p). Terrain draw distance is extremely far, grass volume is excellent, trees no longer pop-in suddenly, and most Pokemon now have low-poly models outside of battle that are almost indistinguishable from their high-poly battle models. Almost. A few monsters did not fare so well, but it's nothing distracting. Character customization has a lot more options now, like eye shape and eyelashes/color, but it came at the apparent cost of outfit customization. Hats, gloves, and shoes are still plentiful, but you're stuck with the same four school uniforms for the entire game, with color schemes by version. If you're playing Scarlet, that means learning to coordinate around blue and orange. I made it work, but I missed the variety of Ultra Sun and Moon. As for the technical, I turned off auto-save from the beginning just out of habit and had only one app-crash in 50 hours of playtime, while organizing boxes after a catch. That one really hurt, though. I wish I could say the same about Xenoblade 3. It's also way ahead of Rune Factory 5, though that comparison feels like a cheap shot. The rest of the experience was a little weird, but only about the level of unmodded Skyrim (so, a little less than Genshin Impact, and a lot less than Tower of Fantasy). By far the weirdest bug is the one that turns the empty placeholder object used by events into your current lead Pokemon's PokeBalll, only because I'm not sure what they would even be doing in memory to cause that. In spite of all that, it's fun, but I found myself oddly nostalgic for the older entries. |
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boldulysses
Posts: 91 |
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I LOVE this and the overall expressiveness of your character (in photos and such) but I wish basic facial features weren't customizable beyond the start of the game. Feels a bit like having plastic surgery on the fly... Lol. |
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Aura Ichadora
 Posts: 2305 Location: In front of my computer |
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I love this game so much. I feel like this is going to be the one Pokemon game that I'm willing to restart over and over again, just to enjoy the story again, while also keeping a main file for shiny hunting and exploring. This was already the first game that I actively invested in getting the double-pack, and I don't regret doing so.
But I agree, the poor performance issues does drag things down a lot. I haven't experiences any sort of terrible glitches or game crashes, thank goodness, but there are areas that I actively avoid as much as possible due to the lag. That's really a shame, because these areas are really well designed and are even essential to the plot, but you can't do much in them because you're lagging so much and you are afraid of things crashing. I really hope that, before any DLC is announced or even before they do the update for Pokemon Home (both of which I'm guessing they'll announce in February for Pokemon Day), GameFreak will put out a patch that will eliminate these problems.
Yeah, I honestly kinda hate how little we can customize the outfits. I get it, we need to be in uniforms to match our school, but I feel like they could've gone with a few other ideas for the uniforms that we could've customized with. Like a skirt. A simple orange or purple skirt that matched the uniform would've been nice, instead of just pants or shorts. Or let us play with the colors of the cardigan or vest. But a skirt is what a few of my friends and I really wanted. Dress would've also worked, but skirt would've been best. Whenever we get DLC, I hope they add in some options to change up the uniform. Last edited by Aura Ichadora on Wed Nov 30, 2022 2:47 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Arale Kurashiki
Posts: 781 |
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Even a game being frontlined by Nintendo can't escape the same issues with game development itself (switch development itself??) that existed in low-radar JP games like Deadly Premonition 2 or No More Heroes 3.
I hope gamers realize that the issue is rooted in the games industry and what we think of as "modern standards" and "modern formats". Yeah, each of these games could have used more time in development, but before the modern era, games didn't take years and years of development to make in the first place. What has gone wrong? Is it even possible to fix it now that things like PS4s and Switches have already been released from Pandora's Box? |
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Yune Amagiri
 Posts: 1102 Location: France |
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I was about to write something similar. Gimme better performance, L:A Shiny sound/visual effect and the possibility to release multiple Pokemon at once ( which will return with Home but i need it now for Masuda ) and it will become my favorite Pokemon all times. I can't wait for tomorrow's 7 Stars Raid, S&S raid were too easy to be fun now Buff/debuff/heal are finally a thing in raid. |
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JoelBurger
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Because "I'm not as good as my brother... wait, I'm my own person, and that's okay" repeating 3 or 4 times because they couldn't be bothered to think up anything else in the game's cardboard-thin story is such a complex dynamic. |
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Rentwo
 Posts: 184 |
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I disagree. Scarlet and Violet is much worse than Sword and Shield. The characters are far less interesting and memorable, and the art style is just horrendous. Most of the characters look like generic namless NPCs rather than unique Pokemon characters. Only a few like Iono and Grusha stand out. I agree the amount of defending big corpo that happened when it came to Sword and Shield was pretty dumb, but consumerism is very addicting. I'm pleasantly surprised to see more people being critical of the games this time around. I still see people defending everything wrong with the games, but the fact these games finally got some notice from critics says a lot. |
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boldulysses
Posts: 91 |
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Some L:A features that I wish they kept: - Dodge roll (the crouch is good but I want more) - The ability to quickly toggle between pokemon to release in the main view - Just being able to throw a pokeball at a wild pokemon to catch it. It was SO satisfying to nab a Magnezone out of the air with a Wing Ball or sneak up behind a Snorlax with a Gigaton Ball. Fist pump territory. Among others... At least the battles take place in the main view rather than a separate environment. Makes the game flow SO much better. |
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JoelBurger
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Each and everybody pivotal character in SV has a clear personality, motivation, and arc that are all distinct from one another and tie together by the end. Whereas Sword and Shield had absolutely nothing going on because it felt like everybody involved was asleep at the wheel. What ultimately was Marnie as a character, beyond a good character design? What was Hop's journey, besides incredibly repetitive because they couldn't think up any further plot beats for him besides going through the motions of a trite inferiority complex? Who thought it was a good idea to make Team Yell just a bunch of nameless minions to preserve a lame twist with Piers that offers nothing of substance? Why did they choose to put so much attention on Leon, but fail to give his characterization anything meaningful beyond "is strong" and "has a Charizard"? Sword and Shield is Pokemon at its blandest on multiple fronts (including character), because their focus was first and foremost on the Wild Area, i.e. trying to make an open-world game only to realize they didn't have enough time to accomplish that without half-assing it. |
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light turner
Posts: 190 |
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Pokemon jumped the shark the moment it moved to 3D. Black and White was the series peak. It's all just been downhill since then. I'm sad to see where it is now.
I take back everything bad I ever said about Sword and Shield. It was a masterpiece compared to this. Don't repost transphobic crap from 4chan, thanks. -LL |
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Yune Amagiri
Posts: 1102 Location: France |
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I know right, sniping mass outbreak with Wing Ball while hiding and throwing a Gigaton from above before reaching the ground after dismounting from my Braviary behind a Alpha pokémon was priceless. |
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