Pokémon Scarlet & Violet Reviews
Every decision Scarlet and Violet make are good ones. The huge expansion and changes to the single player campaign are great, the size of the world and the joy of exploration are the best in the series, and the new Pokemon and battle mechanics introduced all sing. However, it’s just impossible to shake the thought of how much better the game would feel if it was on more powerful hardware, or simply ran acceptably on Switch.
How proud one feels to know that one belongs to a place that is seen with such beauty from the outside. Long live Pokémon... Long live Game Freak and the mother who gave birth to them.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet capture all the magic of the past and merge it with the improvements of the future, resulting in two fresh installments with very good ideas. The graphics is still their biggest weakness, but they shine so brightly in everything else and they are SO special games... that they get our A's.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Pokémon's first fully open-world title has a lot of ideas but never quite manages to stick the landing with any of them
Scarlett and Violett, in all their hicupps and issues, try to do something new for the franchise. We can't definitely say that they are good at everything they do (not at all) and they still run pretty bad on Nintendo Switch, but some of their ideas are way more entertaining than what we saw in Sword and Shield. And, maybe, in Sun and Moon, too.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Do the latest Pokémon games get everything right? Not always, but when they do, therein lie adventures that is giving players the keys to crafting their own experiences in a wonderful world filled with fantastic creatures. Whether you are chasing down the title of the best in the land or hoping to detail the hundreds of Pokémon out there, there is always something fun waiting for you down the line, and that’s a world we can all agree is one that is exciting to be a part of, much less a key figure in.
In one point, however, opinions are likely to differ on "Pokémon Crimson and Purple": the technical implementation. The performance goes to its knees from time to time, Pokémon or NPCs pop into the picture a few meters in front of us. And "normal" graphics errors occur significantly more often than in any other "Pokémon" game on Switch before. How serious these and other weaknesses actually are, however, is, as always, in the eye of the beholder. We like the style overall, which is why we can usually overlook even the sometimes gross weaknesses in performance or texture quality. Nevertheless, these weaknesses are the reason why "Pokémon Crimson and Purple" has to take a back seat to "Pokémon Legends: Arceus", although we ultimately like the playful concept of adventure in Paldea at least as much, if not better.
Review in German | Read full review
One thing Game Freak does have working for it is that people want to play this game. People want open-world Pokémon. Game Freak may be struggling to get there, but it’s been really cool to be able to see it getting closer with each new generation.
The open world sparks a sense of adventure and the typical Poké collecting fever, but also has playful but hardly any exciting ideas.
Review in German | Read full review
Summing up the new Pokémon game always means triggering a conflict between heart and head.
Review in Italian | Read full review
The game world is excessively empty, not only because of the lack of density of vegetation and other elements, but for the lack of activities. Cities contrast a bit with this, expressing life, with happy NPCs walking back and away, and lots of shops to enter, where you can buy clothes and accessories for your character. Outside the cities, you'll only find huge beams of light on the horizon, symbolizing the crystals where you can participate in Tera Raid Battles (which are virtually identical to the Max Raid Battles of the previous game). Pokémon Scarlet and Violet had a lot to gain if they had been postponed.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
The ninth generation of Nintendo's popular series gives players a huge free-to-roam world brimming with weird little guys to catch. Read on.
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet adds a number of changes to the classic Pokémon formula, and most of them pay off, particularly the auto-battles, vast open world, and the three distinct storylines. The games do suffer from performance and stability issues, as well as some troubles with scaling the open world difficulty. Those problems are far from game-breaking, leaving them an overall enjoyable experience.
While Scarlet and Violet aren't a complete reinvention of the formula, and technical performance issues certainly hold them back, they're still an essential leap forward – both in storytelling and gameplay mechanics. New features and clever tweaks along the way make this adventure feel fresh and encouraging, in ways that past games haven't. As a reinvigoration of the Pokemon formula, Scarlet and Violet are some of the best modern games in the long-running franchise.
Pokémon Scarlet & Violet manages to deliver a sense of freedom and has gone from being a traditional JRPG to a genuine open world game. It's nice to choose a path on this adventure, but the game maintains his linear approach through the experience. Unfortunately, it has several technical problems in that do not let it stand out. However, its is the first step of the renewal that the franchise sorely lacks.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Unfortunately, the performance is so abruptly bad that it completely ruins, to an infuriating extent, what otherwise could have been the best Pokemon game to date.
Pokemon Scarle and Violett for the series blew a wind of change. It broke the Pokemon series used for more than 20 years of linear design. But it still reflects the low technical ability of the GameFreak. It's far from a good game, but it's still the most fun Pokemon game on Switch today, enough to make me look forward to the next generation.
Review in Chinese | Read full review
As a whole, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet is the most fun I’ve had on a Pokemon adventure in a long, long time. But this is completely in spite of itself. There are unforgivable graphical issues, and despite endless charming creatures and characters, the open world itself lacks nearly completely in personality or a sense of progression. Nonetheless, it has never felt better being a Pokemon trainer than it does in Gen IX, thanks to the smoothest mechanics yet and quality-of-life improvements.