After a long wait and much anticipation, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet are finally here, but this generation has proved to be the most controversial one yet. While fans and critics largely agree on several positives and negatives (the new monsters are generally considered great, but the technical performance leaves a lot to be desired), other aspects have proven more divisive.
As is the case with any large fandom, different people have different opinions about what's important in Pokémon games and what developer Game Freak should do to point the franchise toward a brighter future. Fans on Reddit have expressed their thoughts on the new games, and some perspectives have proven more controversial than others.
Performance And Optimization Aren't Important
The first gameplay trailer for Scarlet and Violet worried some fans by featuring clips of extreme FPS drops. Players were worried that if the trailer featured technical issues as bad as it did, the full game must be even worse. Players seem to report different levels of technical issues depending on how they're playing and where they are in the game, but it's undeniable that Scarlet and Violet are poorly optimized to a level not commonly seen in AAA titles.
While this has been the games' biggest criticism, a rare few aren't bothered by performance issues. Redditor ElBisonLoco asks, "Why is performance in a Pokémon game so important for you guys ... i don’t see the reason to be so upset." While there is plenty to enjoy in these new titles, the 's comment currently sits at -5 upvotes, showing how unpopular their sentiment is.
Pokémon Games Have Been Lazy For Decades
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet have been getting a lot of flack for poor optimization and missing features, and the previous mainline games, Sword and Shield, received even stronger pushback for their lack of interesting "dungeons" (non-linear map sections) and a small list of available monsters.
Redditor the best Pokémon games in the series.
Opening The Map Up Was A Mistake
A common and longstanding critique of the Pokémon franchise is that it seems afraid to innovate. Furthermore, each game through Sword and Shield seemed to become more and more linear and "on-rails." That being the case, most players are glad that Pokémon Legends: Arceus and Scarlet and Violet have attempted different styles of open maps.
There's no doubt that Scarlet and Violet didn't quite nail the open world (level scaling would have helped), but the vast majority of players see the move as a step in the right direction. However, some, like MVPG2022, feel that "Linearity was a good thing." Hopefully, future games will continue to explore open worlds and improve on the current concept.
Players Will Vote For Better Performance With Their Wallets
Many players are justifiably frustrated by the performance issues with Scarlet and Violet, and it's sparked debate about how, when, and if developer Game Freak will ever improve from the technical side of their games. However, instigating change is no easy task when dealing with the biggest entertainment IP in history.
Antoton claims that they'll vote with their wallet and are "not going to buy the game until they patch some of the performance issues the game has" (which did happen to a degree with Sword and Shield). While the idea is understandable, the data shows that Scarlet and Violet were the most pre-ordered games in franchise history (per game sales data analysis Pierre485 on Twitter), so a boycott seems to be largely unpopular.
Game Freak Will Never Improve The Games
Amid the controversies involving Scarlet and Violet's performance issues, many fans have shifted the discussion to what it will actually take for Game Freak to fix their storied technical problems, given that the games sell so well. While some are pessimistic that change will occur soon, most agree that, at some point, Game Freak will get more comfortable with its game engine and evolve.
IlMonco1900, however, disagrees and thinks that "[Game Freak] will never have an incentive to actually put effort in." With an IP as lucrative as Pokémon, most are slightly more optimistic and believe that slipping review scores and franchise fatigue will help inspire change sooner or later.
Reviewers Are Artificially Inflating Scores
Many fans were disappointed when the review embargo was lifted for Scarlet and Violet and the scores were fairly middling. While most praised the creature design and story in these gen 9 games, they were commonly marked down for performance issues and their lack of difficulty.
However, lower than most other Pokemon games.
Game Freak Is Making Too Many Games
There's no doubt that there have been a lot of Pokémon games released recently. At least one game (mainline or spin-off) has been coming out each year, and several years have seen multiple projects. This has led fans such as s_98 to believe that Game Freak is stretching itself too thin and focusing too much on branding and not enough on quality.
While the underlying point about market saturation and quality are valid talking points, the opinion that Game freak is "churning out a game a year since Pokemon Go rejuvenated the brand" is disingenuous. There are multiple teams working on different projects, and the spin-off titles are not developed by Game Freak. It's been three years since the last mainline Pokémon games (Sword and Shield), which is a fairly normal window for games of this scope.
Non-Interactabel NPCs Are Good
Though cities in Pokémon games have never been particularly large or full of people compared to many other RPGs, the ability to speak to NPCs and get snippets of lore or helpful hints has always added a certain charm to the experience. While players can still speak to many NPCs in Scarlet and Violet, there are many that can't be interacted with.
This lack of interaction, paired with shops being turned into menus instead of actual buildings with interiors, has been a common complaint in regard to Scarlet and Violet's release. However, less NPC dialogue is fine for players like SnipingDwarf, who says, "unpopular opinion here, the non-story NPC dialogue was always one of the least interesting parts of the game." It is indeed unpopular, as players that don't care for the small side conversations always had the option to simply not engage in them.
Pokémon Games Should Return To 2D
The Pokémon franchise made the jump to 3D visuals with Pokémon X and Y, and there's no doubt that it hasn't been the smoothest transition. Technical issues have marred each game to varying degrees, though the games have certainly remained fun.
Despite technical challenges, most fans agree that the answer is to refine the 3D worlds instead of ditching them. While Redditors like Toothless1886 believe that Game Freak "should hop on the HD2D craze and go back to their roots," this may be a better idea for experimentation in spin-off games instead of the main generational entries.
