Pokemon Scarlet and Violet Complete Journey Review

 Hasta la Vi-Star

The Ballard of the ninth generation of Pokémon will go down as one of the most interesting in the franchises history for it's many lows but commendable highs in Gamefreak's attempt to go beyond themselves and somewhat change the face of the franchise forever. It's been over a year since release now and we've finally received our last DLC. (See that Starfield? We should be wrapping up DLC after Year One- not just getting started!) What this means is that with the entire adventure of Pokemon Scarlet up to grabs, and the game feeling mostly complete as a consequence, I feel comfortable reviewing this game in it's entirety. Barring any sudden explosive developments, this is about as complete of an impression as I can feasibly get.

Firstly, it's worth noting that Pokemon Scarlet and Violet suffered from a legendarily painful launch that had the game riddled with the kind of glitches and bugs that are actually game breaking, not just the odd hiccup that sets 'gaming purist' forums off. What Gen 9 wanted to achieve was to hop off the momentum of Pokémon Archeus to present us the very first fully open-world Pokemon game uncoupled from the narrow design foibles that made the franchise feel so stale recently. Many blame the technological limitations of the Nintendo Switch, but given the release of 'Tears of the Kingdom' and the state that game managed to achieve- I think this is probably more of a comment on the team themselves. They did not have experience building and testing for a game of this size before, and they were stuck to the same extremely narrow window for development that the franchise has been on since the dawn of Pika-man. Early buyers ended up suffering the consequence of those factors in a truly shocking first few months of life.

Being lucky enough to pick up the game a bit after all that mess, I could focus a little bit more on the actual world of Scarlet and Violet and the team's dedication to their open world design; which was stronger than I honestly expected. Generation 8 brought us a giant open field of exploration, and the Isle of Amor expanded that out to an entire, tightly designed, training island to explore. Generation 9 brought the entire game world into the open world, free camera, realm and it slides in just about as well as everyone who has been begging for this believed it would. Rather than give us routes that slowly get tougher, the sectors of the game world are split into levelled regions that players are free to explore at their leisure, and the total elimination of grass encounters means that every single Pokémon is rendered in the game world- imparting a requirement on the design team to be mindful of habitats and thematic consistency, which the game tackles in an admirable attempt.

However, there are draw backs. Whilst I still don't think the Switch is the ideal whipping boy for all of it's problems, it's hardware limitations are no doubt the reason why the game has an abominable draw distance for entities; you'll see Pokémon pop into existence less than a yard from you, and literally feet in front of the player when mounted on the mascot legendary. Pokémon still lack that level of coherent intergration into everyday life that we see demonstrated beautifully in Detective Pikachu, and somehow even with these new deign philosophies all the world's Pokémon still feel like little more than pets. In fact, all the towns feel woefully poorly designed, with wide open nothing spaces one would anticipate from a high-traffic MMO hub-town and not a breathing and living space in a mostly single player game that you are expected to frequent. And don't even get me started on the loading screens! The academy was a nightmare to travel to for all the poxy loading screens!

Curiously, there aren't loading screens into battles anymore. (Which blew me away to realise was still standard until literally this entry.) And the ability to sneak up on Pokemon actually enables a 'stealth Pokeball' move which initiates combat with an initial catch-rate bonus, actually promoting clever use of shrubs and approach angles for those most infuriating-to-catch mons. There is genuine thought that went into evolving the Pokemon playstyle, and if the team were given more than the bare minimum amount of time to get it done, I suspect the released product would have felt a lot more fully formed. As it happens we've had to wait for all the DLC to launch to finally get features that feel like they should have been present off rip- such as the ability to fly on the back of our mount Pokemon, not just glide. But I'm getting into specifics a little early.

The narrative of Scarlet and Violet has the player step into the uniform of a newly inducted student to Paldea's most prestigious, and only, Pokémon school- a giant tower sticking out of the middle of the capital city. As you'd expect from the curriculum of a school set within the Pokémon world, all the school consists of are exceptionally drab (and mercifully optional) school lessons with a memory test at the end of each of them. Thankfully, lessons themselves are not the meat of the game. As soon as you arrive the game gives you a quick introduction, introduces to your rival and best friend- this time wrapped up into the same character: the battle-crazy rich girl Tomboy Nemona- and sets you loose on a free form narrative in the vein of Breath of the Wild or Far Cry 5. Now I'm not typically the biggest fan for this style of narrative because it always seems to sacrifice any situational momentum and all opportunity for agency building in favour of 'choose as you go' objectives who's only benefit is the ability to drop them on a whim like an ADHD struck child. But in the case of a Pokémon game, there isn't much story to jeprodise in the first place- so it actually works to the game's advantage.

The progression of the narrative is split into three paths that are equitably spread across the game's giant world to ensure you visit everywhere on your journey to championhood, with the level of the local Pokémon in each region presenting the only actual roadblock to progression. You have the challenge battles against the mysterious Team Star, former problem students that are shirking lessons for a secret reason that becomes blindingly obvious upon your first investigation because this game was written for children. The typical 'road to championship' which pits you against the world's gym bosses in order to qualify for a shot at the top position, which feels impressively not-important this go around of the game. And finally the investigation into the mysterious giant boss Pokemon from a different time period that are scattered across the plains, which are tied to the game's unique gimmick: Terrestrialization.

One of the more gimmicky, but still fun, aspects of Gen 8 was the Dynamax and Gigantamax forms of Pokémon that ballooned Pokémon up to giant proportions and powered up all moves to type-specific superforms. They were typically only useful for dens, as the animation to summon them took so long, but the desire to hunt all the special 'Gigatamax marked' variants with their special form-altering giant mode was enough to keep me interested. Terrestialization offers precious little in the way of collectible potential, but is admittedly a lot more sensibly balanced. It's a power up to a single pre-picked element type which makes STAB attacks more powerful and weaknesses just as buffed. There are no special forms outside of those adopted by the cover-exclusive Pokémon in the DLC, and the animations to summon them are still painfully long. At least the dens are better this time around.

Dynamax dens were a bit of a joke in Gen 8. Terra Dens are a lot more serious in Gen 9. Terra Dens are four person raids against powerful raid Pokemon powered up by Terra effects and pumped up with periodic stage effects it can whip out for free at certain timer and health parameters. It also employs a painfully strong damage shield halfway through the fight which is a pain to whittle down without taking advantage of type advantages, your own terra-charge and, to be honest, as much STAB as possible. At the top most end of them, the limited time 7 star dens, these guys are pretty much unbeatable without a team of properly built Pokemon, creating genuine end-game challenge which I hope sticks around in future Pokemon titles. I like the idea of having high-level endgame content that isn't just player Tournaments- it stimulates the adventure.

This adventure counts itself as rather unique to the Pokemon games that came before it, in that the front cover Pokemon is not the end game boss. Actually, the front cover Pokemon is your partner throughout the entire adventure. (albeit only for mounting purposes. You have to unlock their fighter form.) They are basically bikes for the player to ride atop of, capable of swimming, climbing walls, gilding and, at the end of the very last DLC, flying. And good lord is this the optimal way to get around in Pokemon from this point forward. Even the instant fast travel of Sword and Shield started to grate after a while, gliding across valleys and sprinting down canyons is just a much more engaging way to travel, even when there isn't a great lot to be looking at along the way. The fast mode of transport makes the largely plain features of the Paladian landscape actually somewhat forgiveable.

Of course, with all this travelling you'll be doing there would need to be a moment of rest, which is where camping returns with a suitably Spanish-coded variant of the cooking activity- Sandwich making? (Is- is that particularly Spanish?) Once again, we've had significant improvements in this mechanic. Sandwiches are built according to a recipe piece by piece and the player is required to balance all the ingredients on the base loaf and stick the top on without anything falling off- which of course become more difficult for higher level sandwiches. But the rewards are impressively worth the hassle of ingredient sourcing! You get timed boosts for certain damage types, increases to Egg production rates, (Breeding is now done entirely in camp. The convenience is nice but it takes so long that Shiny egg hunting is pretty much dead.) buffs to capture rates which are invaluable for some of the painful Legendary capture rates added in the Indigo Disk and, only available via special ingredients so rare I've literally never found a single one of them in my entire playtime, increased shiny spawn rates! These are all really great buffs!

'Convenience' really does seem to be the 'modus operendi' of the system design for this game, and whereas for most average gamers this improvements seem rather obvious and trite, to us long-suffering Pokemon fans these are tinctures of the god's own juices! You can have a Pokemon remember a move from your menu, without hunting down a hospital! You can change Pokemon names from the menu! Teleport from the map, save anywhere, camp anywhere, throw out your Pokemon independently so it can do auto-battles for you to gather Pokemon resources- the new currency for TM cloning which makes casual battling worth while. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet feel like Gamefreak speeding towards reaching modern game design values so fast that they tripped over and hurt themselves along the way. And though the scraped knees are a little ugly to look at, and they're hobbling about with a limp now- it's so good to see them in such form! Pokemon feels modern- mostly. And I'm here for it!

And yet, Gamefreak always do manage to veer in some directions that irk me. For one, they are pushing really hard in the 'play with friends' angle in a franchise that is traditionally rather solitary. (If I had friends, I wouldn't be pretending to have them in Pokémon- now would I?) The aforementioned 7 star dens can be almost impossible if everyone doesn't know what they're doing, the Orge Ousting minigame for The Teal Mask is genuinely unbeatable without 4 players, the annoying BBQ grinding minigame for The Indigo Disk receives insane multipliers for group play (which is actually non-sensical. They already get more BP because all group side quest rewards are unified, shouldn't the solo players get the extra profitable bonus missions for balance purposes?) and there is one evolution that simply won't occur unless triggered in another player's world. This would all be fine if Pokemon Scarlet and Violent had any modern matchmaking standards but... that's where the team ran up dry. Outside of Raid Dens it's all 'Link Code' matchmaking. No joining randos. A real kick to the nads for players like me. Makes us feel unwelcome.

In it's basic narrative wraps the story of Scarlet and Violet around the mystery of 'Area Zero' and the 'time paradox' Pokemon who all appear to be variants from across history brought into the modern age. (The future or the past depending on your version.) It's a pretty loosely tugged on narrative thread, even more so now that Pokemon splits it's narrative efforts down three paths, and events only really pick up in the final act where the professor of your game finally drags you down into a thematically really exciting looking finale, with no weight behind any of it because you know next to nothing about the area, the mystery of the terra Pokemon, or even why your Legendary Pokemon has a special place in the story. It's not even unique, this is the first Pokemon game to present two capturable versions of the franchise Legendary. (It allows you to capture one and trade to complete your Pokedex, but narratively- it slightly knocks you down.) The actual meat of the story was left, presumably, for the DLC to pick up on.

The Teal Mask was the first DLC released in the early months of this year and it introduced the player to a field trip that took them to the land of Kitakami, one of Gamefreak's weaker locations in visual design. It's kind of just a small Japanese town with a mountain range, there's no real individuality beyond those basic geographical elements. Rather than touch on the narrative of the main game at all, this DLC focuses around the legend of the mountain Ogre and builds up the Legendary's... well... Legend to a degree that the main game lacked. It also introduces us to two new best friend characters in Kieran and Carmine, which seems bizarre given that the main game already had a cast who don't show up in either DLC. What, is Nemona busy having dreams about when she next gets to ambush me for a Pokemon battle? Is Penny hiding for fear of another tongue-assault from Koraidon? Thiers is a pretty bizarre omission. At least the Ogre ousting minigame is fun, if solo player exclusionary.

And finally, the second half of the DLC slate: The Indigo Disk. An excursion to the Blueberry Academy off the coast of Unova where you, an exchange student, embark on a mission to battle some sense into the emotionally broken young brother of your Nemona-replacement, I mean 'Carmine', following the events of the Teal Mask. I'm quite impressed with how the DLC's were able to maintain a consistent narrative and the characterisation of Kieran's descent into obsessive perfectionism was rather well done, if hugely derivative in the anime space of storytelling. (It might have been more impressive if they didn't get it right with all the reference material to 'borrow' from.) The tighter focus on this one plot point does wonders with enforcing what actually matters to the story- which is why it is so galling then that the ending chapter is so bad. Having you finally address 'The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero', which was the naming convention of the pack we bought to access this content, the game proceeds to unveil nothing.

I wish I was kidding, but this game's final chapter must have been written by the same screenwriter who penned 'The Secrets of Dumbledore' because there is no narrative substance to this 'hidden treasure' whatsoever. The Legendary, Terapagos, is given absolutely no build up. No backstory. No explanation as to it's connection to the Terrestialization phenom that is said to be the entire purpose of the study into Area Zero. Nothing is resolved by your capturing of Terapagos aside from the 'goodening' of Kieran and it leaves the story of the entire game in a kind of weird limbo state of non resolution- closing out nothing of significance to the world. And speaking of non-satisfying conclusions- I'm sorry to say that despite the recent eye-brow raising trend of requests from fans, (fans who I assume are hopped up on Baldur's Gate 3) Gamefreak have not introduced the ability to rizz up characters from the game. Sorry, Rika fans. Nemona stands. Penny lovers. Dendra simps. Carmine Carers. Pokemon just ain't that sort of game.

At the very least we have a secret hidden epilogue scene where you are caught in an inexplicable time paradox with the real version of your version's professor whereupon you initiate a paradoxical time loop by instilling in them a curiosity to begin the studies that you will later become involved in to learn about Area Zero to being with. A cool idea if it wasn't so slapdash and poorly explained. (Clever concepts don't quite work unless their presented... you know- in a clever way!) We do know there's an 'as of yet' unannounced secret hour of content with a brand new Mythical Pokemon at the end of it waiting to be unlocked, presumably with the next few months, but I doubt they're going to get around to patching the flapping maw of void that is this game's finished story. Such a shame that Gamefreak failed to stick the landing even in a story as basic and straightforward as this one.

Scarlet and Violet is easily Gamefreak's most ambitious game to date, and it's in the spirit of that ambition that I feel softer on some of it's rougher elements. The rendering failures, the arguably empty feeling world- the nowhere narrative is less forgivable, but they had a lot on their plate- maybe they forgot to actually sit down and do the writing until the last week or something. Still I was actually surprised about how much Gamefreak had to pull out of their sleeve in order to make the free world plains of their first totally open game not a boring waste like a Ubisoft Far Cry game. Paldea has personality and charm, and I genuinely enjoy travelling around it on the back of my winged Pokemon. (I have Scarlet.) Barring the excessively rough launch, I would have to call Scarlet leaps and bounds in the right direction. But there's still a prevailing sense of the developers not being quite there yet. Pokemon is still a few generations off from it's 'masterpiece' game that nails an identity for this franchise down- but if every generation evolves leaps and bounds like this one does- I'm certain that game will come out someday. In that spirit I'm willing to grade the full version of Scarlet and Violet, DLC included, a solid B- Grade, which is much improved from the C- I was looking at for the base game before the more focused DLC snippets brought everything into cohesion. I think we're 80% of the way there to a revolution for this franchise, I can feel it buzzing on the air... maybe next game?