Pokémon: Scarlet/Violet Review - 8.5 Points, "Is Your PPT Ripe Yet?"

When Pokémon Legends: Arceus was released, many speculated that it was paving the way for the next main installment. Indeed, Pokémon Scarlet/Violet fully embraces the open-world concept. Trainers can finally roam freely in the Pokémon world.

Scarlet/Violet is a game that's both great and flawed. It offers the most enjoyable framework in recent generations, yet it also brings the series' most severe frame rate drops, clipping issues, and pervasive bugs. For a turn-based game, these issues won't necessarily stop you from playing, but they're like pebbles in your shoes, making your journey uncomfortable from start to finish. The evaluation of Scarlet/Violet largely depends on your tolerance for these issues. If you can endure them, then Scarlet/Violet is undoubtedly the most enjoyable mainline Pokémon game in recent generations.

The World That Feels Like a World

What does a true Pokémon world look like for a trainer? It should have diverse terrain and a complete ecosystem, with Diglett and Geodude living in deserts and caves, countless bird Pokémon freely flying in the sky; Magikarp rolling and leaping in lakes, and various Pokémon running wild on the grasslands.

What does an unforgettable adventure look like for a trainer? It should allow for free exploration in a vast world, going anywhere you want, encountering all kinds of Pokémon, meeting all kinds of companions, facing all kinds of challenges and surprises.

In this regard, the open-world Pokémon Scarlet/Violet basically meets my imagination. The game's setting, the Paldea region, looks genuinely like a "world" in terms of scale and content. Snow-capped mountains, deserts, lakes, caves, grasslands—every kind of terrain is available, and the distribution of Pokémon has taken on an embryonic form of ecology. Scarlet/Violet has changed the series' traditional hidden encounters to visible ones. You can see a Rhyperior leading a few Trapinch strolling leisurely, a school of Magikarp leaping in and out of the water in the river, and flocks of Taillow running and flying around on the road.

You can sneak up like a hunter to throw a ball to take the initiative, or you can walk through groups of Pokémon to find your favorite, instead of bumping around in the grass and praying for divine luck.

This vast world is also open enough for players. Unlike the traditional single-thread plot of challenging gyms in the series, Scarlet/Violet offers three freely selectable storylines for players. These are the "Champion Path" to collect badges and become a champion, the "Legend Path" to challenge the five Legendary Pokémon scattered across the map, and the "Stardust Path" to dismantle the base of the in-game "villain" Team Star.

The stories of these three lines are independent and only converge after all are completed. Therefore, players can choose any challenge at any node. The game does not provide clear guidance on the map for the routes, nor does it indicate the level of enemies in each area. You can challenge the highest-level gym early on. Of course, be prepared to be beaten badly.

The route players take forward is also quite free. In most cases, there are no HMs and NPCs to stop you. If you want to go down the mountain, you can glide down from the top of the mountain, or you can choose to walk slowly along the winding path. Some places that look dangerous at first glance are not inaccessible in the early stage, but without Surfing yet, you may need to take a long detour, or have to cautiously pass through an area far exceeding your level with danger.

The high degree of freedom brings a wealth of exploration fun. After challenging a gym or base, the first thing I do is to open the map to see which gym is easier to beat with the current lineup, and then plan the direction of advance. And often, I come to an unexpected place while walking, and then encounter surprises or surprises like "Why are the Pokémon here more than 20 levels higher than me?", "There are Dratini in this lake."

There really are Dratini in the lake.

Since the order of play is not fixed, the experience of different routes will be very different. Players who focus on pushing the main line will often be much lower in level when facing enemies. For example, when I faced the Elite Four, most of my Pokémon were only in their 40s, and I could only watch the 60-level opponents with tears, then turn around and practice.

But I'm not only repeatedly brushing wild Pokémon. I can wander around the map, looking for trainers I haven't defeated yet, go to the snow mountain to catch suitable Pokémon, or simply turn around and complete the tasks of the other two lines first. The newly added Let's Go function also frees players' hands to a certain extent. You can directly release Pokémon and let them fight against enemies by themselves, thus quickly gaining experience and materials.

Of course, old trainers can also choose to change skill combinations and Pokémon's order of appearance, and reasonably use characteristics and skills to complete the feat of challenging a higher level. The sense of achievement of winning the weak over the strong is also very strong.

And for players who have cleared the map before challenging the gym, or those who have challenged high-level gyms first, it's easy to crush the enemies in low-level areas when looking back, which makes the game unchallenging. However, this problem only exists in the early stage, after all, the level gap still defines a general direction for players to move forward.

Although the open-world design of Scarlet/Violet brings a lot of fun, it is still quite rough. Wild Pokémon mostly only walk and charge at you, with almost no advanced interaction. I caught one of a group of Applin in a cave, and the leader of the group, Flapple, saw its kin被抓走 and actually had no reaction. The symbiotic relationship between rivals portrayed in the Pokédex and the plot is not well reflected in the game.

In addition, the open野外 scenes of Scarlet/Violet are quite vast, but the explorable locations in the towns have been greatly reduced. In previous games, the first thing I would do when I arrived in a town was to break into all the houses in the town and force the people inside to chat with me. But in Scarlet/Violet, these towns look magnificent, but most of them can only be seen from afar and not touched. You can only go to various stores and some plot locations, and the stores don't even have indoor scenes.

The open world brings a novel experience to Pokémon, but it also brings the worst visual performance in recent generations. Although the picture has always been a heavily criticized area of GF, no one expected it to be as bad as Scarlet/Violet. The most obvious problem is the endless frame rate drops. In the game, there are almost no places with normal frame rates. Whether it's NPCs or wild Pokémon in the scene, as long as they are a little bit further away from you, they will move forward frame by frame like a slide show. I still can't forget the weirdness and panic when I came to the first town in the game, facing the windmill that rotated frame by frame, and the NPCs who slid and moved. To see such a picture performance in a turn-based game in 2022 is really speechless.

21st-century stop-motion animation

In addition, myself and Pokémon often disappear from the perspective for no reason, and the models far and near often look blurry, and clipping issues are endless. Although I didn't encounter any malignant bugs during the通关 process, these issues have always been affecting my mood for adventure.

Campus Circle Dream

The near-nonexistent plot level of the game in recent generations, and the loose form of the main plot divided into three lines in this work, made me not have much expectation for the plot of Scarlet/Violet at the beginning, but it gave me a surprise.

The game's plot looks a bit "petty" at first glance. Players come to the academy to study and participate in extracurricular activities called "treasure hunting." The plot is interspersed with long sections of academy daily life, which seems to lack the aura of the previous works where 10-year-old young trainers challenge divine beasts. However, it depicts the most emotionally charged story in recent works.

Compared to the villains in the previous works whose names I can't even remember. The Team Star in Scarlet/Violet is no longer just a group of "chaotic evil" guys who want to destroy the world with divine beasts. They are just a group of students who were bullied in the campus and fled the school to huddle together for warmth. They dress quite boldly and rebelliously, but their hearts are very kind. These "weak" students in the school can only gain a sense of belonging on each other, and their common experience of being bullied has made their friendship unbreakable.

After N in Black/White, few villains can resonate emotionally with me like Team Star.

And in the Legend Path, Pippa, who fights with the player to challenge the Pokémon Masters and collect dishes, does so just to heal his severely injured Pokémon; in the Champion Path, both the distinctive gym leaders and the rival who has been with me all the time leave a deep impression on me.

1!5! Dude, I'm rapping for you here!

When the game reaches the end, the three story lines converge, and the secrets of the world are revealed to the players, and the emotions of the game reach their climax. What I felt was the bond and warmth with the Pokémon I raised and the friends I battled with when I first came into contact with Pokémon.

It was not until this time that I truly understood the meaning of "treasure hunting." The treasure found is not a physical treasure. The real treasure is the company of friends, the growth after the adventure, and the sincere love for Pokémon. Therefore, when the game ends and Huang Boss's "Celestial" rings out, I felt a sense of loss for the end of the adventure and the separation from friends that I haven't experienced in Pokémon games for a long time.

Although the plot of Scarlet/Violet is commendable, there are still some flaws in the performance. For example, many repetitive and meaningless dialogues cannot be skipped, and you can only watch the long dialogue performance again when you challenge again; the characters' expressions and movements are stiff, and there are weird void handovers, etc. However, the flaws do not conceal the beauty, and Scarlet/Violet still brought me the best plot experience in recent generations.

Diamonds Last Forever

Since the sixth generation's Mega Evolution, Game Freak has introduced new tricks every generation to create variables in battles. Compared to the Sword/Shield, which increases the intensity and speeds up the pace of battles. The newly added Crystallization in Scarlet/Violet focuses on the core of Pokémon battles - type resistance.

In Scarlet/Violet, each Pokémon, in addition to its original attribute, also has a Crystal attribute. In battles, you can change its original attribute through Crystallization. For example, a Blastoise with a Crystal attribute of fire will change its attribute from water to fire after Crystallization, and the power of fire skills will also increase. The change will last until the end of the match. Even if you take back the Pokémon and release it again, it will still be in the Crystal state.

In addition, Pokémon can learn the 80-power supporting skill "Crystal Outburst". It is like the awakening power of the past, causing damage according to the Pokémon's Crystal attribute after Crystallization.

Since the game has just been released, its specific application in battles cannot be fully predicted. However, it can be foreseen that Crystallization will greatly affect the strategic choices in battles - you can directly choose the same type Crystallization to enhance the firepower, and dual-attribute Pokémon can also eliminate another attribute's weakness, thereby interfering with the opponent's judgment; you can also use Crystal Outburst for surface attacks, or directly turn the originally weak ice dragon Pokémon into ice, and then boldly throw meteor swarms. But when you do this, you can't guarantee that the opponent won't become a Crystal fire to launch a big character explosion. It can be said that the addition of Crystallization will make the guessing process of battles more complex and interesting.

There are two ways to obtain Crystal Pokémon in the game. One is to defeat the powerful Crystal Pokémon through a group battle similar to the ultra-evolution group battle in Sword and Shield. Or find those "shiny" individuals in wild Pokémon. Given that each Pokémon has more than a dozen Crystal attributes to choose from, obtaining and cultivating specific Crystal attribute Pokémon will definitely take a lot of trouble for trainers, and also make it very important to call friends.

Speaking of friends, Pokémon Scarlet/Violet can be said to provide the best online experience in the series. The game supports up to four people to play together, and it is a truly free adventure in the same world, not like before, only for battles and exchanges. I rode on the grasslands of Paldea with my friends, took photos to various places, fought for a shiny Pokémon, and then gathered together to show off the rare Pokémon we found. This feeling is unprecedented. The dream of adventuring with friends on the ground for many years has finally been realized in Scarlet/Violet.

As for the online network issues, during my gameplay, 3 people's online occasionally disconnected after opening the accelerator, but most of the time it was quite stable. But I also encountered players who couldn't successfully go online no matter what. It can only be said that it varies from person to person.

Hatching Party Joystick Rescue Plan

The Pokémon in recent generations have been committed to reducing the cumbersome breeding process of the series, and Pokémon Scarlet/Violet is no exception. In this work, the hatching system that has been with players since its inception has finally closed down. The hatching in Scarlet/Violet has been transferred to the game's picnic function. As long as you picnic with two Pokémon that can lay eggs, the eggs will appear one after another in your box. That's right, hatching parties no longer have to put eggs from the backpack into the box one by one, and they don't have to ride bicycles and wander around the nursery door.

Another big change is the acquisition of skill machines. In Scarlet/Violet, skill machines can no longer be purchased directly from stores, but need to be made by collecting various materials. In order to make skills, I often have to run to faraway places to find some specific Pokémon, although the Let's Go system can let Pokémon fight automatically to get materials, but the process of finding specific Pokémon is still quite troublesome.

But on the other hand, the adjustment of Pokémon's skills has become much more convenient. You can directly recall skills on the Pokémon's data page. And once a Pokémon uses a skill machine, that skill will be permanently stored in the Pokémon's skill pool, and can be recalled or forgotten at any time. This has also made me develop a "collecting" habit. I will try to teach the Pokémon I plan to use for a long time all the skills it can learn. On the one hand, it is convenient to change at any time, and on the other hand, it also satisfies my collecting desire to a certain extent. Overall, the cultivation of Pokémon in Scarlet/Violet is still moving towards a more simplified direction, and it will be easier to hatch flashes or cultivate.

Overall Review

Pokémon Scarlet/Violet has brought a gust of change to this ancient series. It has broken through the linear framework that Pokémon has been using for more than 20 years and truly brought the open world into the main works of Pokémon, proving that it has a high degree of fit with Pokémon. However, at the same time, Scarlet/Violet still highlights the low technical strength of GF and the immature design of the open world. It is hard to imagine that there will be frame rate drops and bugs that appear in 2022 NS games, and the rough design of the open world tells us that Scarlet/Violet is far from being a mature work. But it is still the best Pokémon game on NS now, and it is enough to make me have enough expectations for the next generation.