Pokémon Scarlet And Violet Review + Leak

I was 9 years old when the first Pokémon game dropped. The concept, the graphics, the music — it was difficult for an RPG enthusiast not to get hooked at the time. All my geek friends played it. We would go through a 16 pack of AA batteries weekly. Good times.

It’s been a while since we’ve had the chance to play a new main entry Pokémon game. The last main entry, Sword & Shield, was full of controversy. Fans were so disappointed that, at one point, the user score on metacritic was as low as 1.7 out of 10. A basic story, the removal of some Pokémons, the lack of difficulty and end game content, and the overselling by GameFreak were amongst the top cited issues the 8th generation of Pokémon had.

Instead of releasing a main entry series, Nintendo decided to test the waters with a new concept. Thus, Pokémon Legends Arceuus was released. This allowed for Nintendo to get some useful feedback that would later influence the next main entry: Scarlet & Violet.

Scarlet & Violet are set to be released on November 18. However, the rom has been leaked as of today, giving some users a chance to play the game ahead of time. I managed to get my hands on a copy of the leak, but since I don’t want to be sued by Nintendo (they’re always watching), I won’t post any links on how to get the game. I also won’t post any screenshots until the actual release date. Without further ado, let’s get into the details:

1- Story 9/10

Apart from the soundtrack, the story (stories?) is the best part of 9th gen. It plays like other familiar open worlds RPGs like Skyrim in the sense that you are free to progress through different paths but only some paths will have significance on the plot. Nintendo said there were three, but they are more like two. One path is the gym challenge and the the other is one that will ultimately end up showing you the secrets of Paldea. There is nothing special about the gym side of the story, but I’m sure you will be surprised to learn what happened in the new region. One of these also unlocks the ability for your motorcycle, ahem, rideable Pokémon to do other things besides just walking (strolling?) around.

2- Pokémon 4/10

If one single statement could describe them, it would be “GameFreak’s originality has dwindled over the years”. They focused on “cute/silly” and/or just plain weird looking Pokémons in this generation. Oh, and the names. The names in Japanese are okay, but I can’t say the same thing about their English counterparts. If a hip term existed to describe them… oh wait, it does: Cringy. At least they are not as bad as the legendaries in X Y.

3- Combat 6/10

In my opinion, Mega Evolution was the best addition to the Pokémon combat series. The designs look cool, abilities change, stats get boosted. It actually makes the player re-think their strategy. There is not much to say about the combat in this new entry. It’s the same old Pokémon with a new transformation akin to Dynamaxing/Gigantamaxing called Terastallization. What does it do? In practice, it just changes your Pokémon’s elemental strength to make your stab moves stronger. It also makes your Pokémons look silly. I haven’t used it in online battles, but I feel like speed based Pokémons will get a huge advantage, unbalancing things a bit in the competitive world. You do have to farm a lot to get the desired combinations, though. The other major change was auto-battles, which play without transitions. It makes training easier, but I find it difficult to see players using this to actually train for endgame, since raids are generally better. This latter mechanic just makes the game play more like a mobile game.

4-Graphics & World 9/10

Scarlet & Violet take the best from Pokémon Sword/Shield & Arceuus and improves upon it. The Pokémon textures are the best to date and the environment ones are of high enough resolution. The cities and social areas feel like their design was actually well thought (cough, Sword/Shield). The open world feels like if you took Breath of the Wild’s map and perfected it with better locations for towns and (in this case) cities. The areas feel different and there is lots of exploration that can be done. Oh, and you can go literally ANYWHERE. The only thing I have to say about the graphics is that, given the processing power the switch has, games like these shouldn’t have too many variable textures or 3d objects. Be like the Splatoon 3 devs, and just go with solid colors and simple, repeating textures. Graphic fidelity is more important than realism in these types of games.

5- Soundtrack 10/10

The soundtrack is a huge improvement over the one in Sword/Shield & (lack of) one in Legends Arceuus. Perhaps some of us who are old enough to suffer from back pain and acid reflux remember MegaMan Battle Network for the gameboy advance. The soundtrack in towns, cities, and hubs all feel like they got taken out of one of these MegaMan games, and I mean this in a good way.

6- Gameplay 8/10

There are some new changes and cool additions in the gameplay area, but it’s impossible to go into the details without spoilers, so beware of slight spoilers ahead. There is lot’s to cover in this area, so bear with me!

Let’s start with the bad: Movement. Movement was one of the worst aspects in these series. They are clunky and snappy, especially when riding your Pokémon. It’s alright when you’re just moving about, but it can be a pain when you need to move towards a Pokémon or interact with items. I can’t count the number of times I fell off a cliff or spent more time than I needed to in order to interact with an item.

A cool feature they added is the ability to take pictures anywhere. You can take selfies or random pictures of the region. These are saved locally and can be shared on social media.

Hyper training got easier. One of the worst mechanics of previous generations is how hyper training was exclusively an endgame feature. Well, not anymore. It’s seamless, easy, and you can start focusing on your build early on.

Teaching moves became a lot simpler since you can now make TMs with materials. Finally, a useful crafting mechanic in a Pokémon game.

It is no longer required to breed a Pokémon to learn Egg moves. There is a separate mechanic for this. This means not having to waste a shiny or perfect iv Pokémon just to go for an egg move. Here is a hint: It has to do with previous, widely unused mechanics related to camping.

Camping is great now and you will probably find yourself using it often.

Overalll Score 7.7/10

I think it’s a great game overall, but I don’t think it’s a great Pokémon game. Main Pokémon games are defined by their competitive aspect, and the new battle mechanics just made competitive more unnecessarily complicated and unbalanced. There is also little variation in terms of meta. However, I would definitely play this game for the purposes of filling up the Pokédex and transferring Pokémons to the Home app.

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