By: Daniel Kendle

And now, the saga continues…

CHAPTER TWO: I LOVE (HATE) LOOKING AT SAWDUST!

The Nintendo Switch, the console that ‘Pokémon Violet’ exclusively runs on, is turning 7 years old soon, being first released in the US in early March of 2017. So, that means that it’s a pretty dated piece of hardware, relatively. I love the Switch, but I can’t deny that it’s seen a lot, and it might be time for the next console successor from Nintendo soon.

When ‘Violet’ released in November of 2022, it was over 5 years past the Switch’s launch, and we’d obviously seen some very high-end graphics from the platform’s games in prior games, especially open-world ones. The Switch was never the most powerful console; it had the visual fidelity for games rivaling early 2010’s systems. Then again, for a handheld-stationary console hybrid – something not seen very often – it was perfectly fine, in my opinion.

On that note, ‘Pokemon’s’ ranged in terms of their games’ graphics. The pixel-art era is a revered time for the series, featuring some of the best visuals shown on their respective consoles. Then in the 3D era, we’ve had some… mixed results, to say the least. Nothing terrible, but nothing really looking like “the pinnacle” of their visual possibilities. Just kind of generic scenery all-around.

We’ve had a good few other 3D Pokemon games on the Switch who’ve – again – ranged in quality. Some games look really great! Some games look like dog water! It’s all up in the air, frankly. The only other ‘Pokémon’ game I’ve reviewed looks like the latter, and I can safely say that ‘Pokémon Violet’ is definitely in the middle of the scale.

To begin, we’ve had models for the actual creatures themselves remodeled. Now, instead of looking plastic-y and fake. They have bumps and grooves, more natural proportions, and realistic textures. For instance, a Pokémon made out of metal will have a bright sheen to it, reflecting light like an actual shiny iron object. Furry ‘mons now have a faint fur texture to them, instead of solid colors. It’s like the difference between a stock image drawing of a sunflower and an actual sunflower.
This is overall a net-positive, and I haven’t seen many people complaining about this change.

As for the graphical representation of the world, things become murky. Human characters look alright; the artists went in a [slightly] more-realistic direction in designing them. Models look alright, but the animations for them are very stilted, and are very limited in how they move and express themselves. A lot of the time an important character will have 1 or 2 key poses that they’ll strike every now and then and it looks real stinky. Other than that though they’re fine.

Then we come to the actual environments, and they’re… interesting-looking. Like, they’re all-around better than the only other Pokemon game I’ve reviewed, ‘Pokemon Legends: Arceus,’ but comparing the 2 is like comparing a pile of literal garbage and a pile of sawdust. Either way, you’re kind of screwed.

Textures are very muddy and of low quality; any detailed sign lets you count the pixels it’s made up of. THAT’S how bad it is. This also holds true for more natural textures, with grass and leaves being flat, monochrome images spread across a field. Rock faces aren’t as bad, but you notice the fact that they only use one repeating image for the cliffs, as you’ll get the same image in a grid-like pattern and it breaks immersion.

Buildings look fine, but they suffer from an adjacent problem to the pixelated signs, in which being a few meters away from a texture causes it to look blurry and unrendered, but moving closer causes it to become crisper. This is a mild headache and makes certain areas of the region a pain to get through. Also, I don’t know if this’ll sound strange but if you’re out in the wilderness and walking near a hill, the hill will terraform around you (not on purpose, of course) and it’s physical model will warp and bend at the base, making for an odd optical illusion that gives me an ACTUAL headache.

You might be able to tell that I don’t have a lot of energy in this chapter, mainly because, other than the “highlights” above, there’s honestly not a lot to talk about in terms of ‘Violet’s’ visuals, because while some parts of the game look bad, there are other parts that look pretty good, honestly, like the Pokémon models or the User Interfaces (UI). These look good, but the mix of good and bad make this a middling experience to look at. Like, I’ve seen much worse – even from Pokemon – but then again, I’ve seen better. Compared to the franchise’s other 3D outings, ‘Pokemon Scarlet’ and ‘Pokemon Violet’ land around the middle of the pack. They don’t look good, but hey, they don’t look bad! Just sawdust, that’s all.

Gosh, I can’t believe I didn’t hate the graphics of the game as much as I thought I would. Despite what I’ve said so far about the region’s just-okay region design and middling graphics, I’m feeling pretty good about this review so far! What could possibly bring down its score now?

CHAPTER THREE: THE THING THAT BRINGS ITS SCORE DOWN NOW

If you haven’t heard already, there are some notable glitches in this game. If you’ve searched up some of said glitches online you’ll find some interesting results. I can’t show anything because of the wonderful world of the US copyright system, but I assure you that they’re bad. REALLY bad. Say, here’s a [short] list of notable bugs and issues in ‘Violet.’

• Rendering issues with come textures
• Shadow problems (shadows of large cliffs or buildings will appear and disappear at will)
• Sometimes hair on people will flicker and move around weirdly
• Problems with the aliasing on objects in water, where the object’s borders will appear pixelated and gross
• Sometimes when riding your bike-dragon (more on this later), if you jump with it into a small-enough gap it’ll become frozen in the air and cause you to be teleported back onto solid ground after 10-or-so seconds
• Lag spikes
• The FPS (frames per second) drops to single-digits if you’re in the giant lake area
• Sometimes when setting up a picnic table, it won’t appear. If you try to do anything that interacts with the table, like making a sandwich, you won’t be able to see it.
• During one cutscene your character is supposed to be talking to someone else, but instead they’ll awkwardly continue walking in a strange fashion, almost walking off-screen until teleporting back to where they were supposed to originally be, letting the cutscene commence. It’s hard to describe this bug in words but it’s one of the most bizarre bugs here.
• Pokémon disappearing into walls
• You’re actually able to escape the first area in the game and bypass the opening tutorial. Simply go to the left corner of the first area and chuck one of your Pokémon at another wild ‘mon from a cliff beyond, and if you’re lucky you’ll be teleported into the battle menu, with your character now in the new area. You can then run away and explore the whole map. I haven’t done this myself, so I don’t know if there are any notable changes before the tutorial is completed.
• Music not appearing in some instances

And there’s much more, I could go on!

But for the sake of speeding along in this review I’ll cut it here and say this: remember the metaphor in the beginning? Here, these glitches, these obstructing bugs and problems, this is the weasel. This is the snake in the kitchen, the problem that gives these games such a controversial guise.

And honestly, the people who call out these issues are in the right, in my opinion. I think there’s a line between “the developers being rushed for time and not being able to fully-polish their game” and “the developers programming ‘Sandwich Simulator 2042’ instead of making a working product.” Like, I’d rather have a bland-as-sand game that runs relatively-well over a (somewhat) packed title that makes me reminisce about the days when video games looked about the fidelity of a ketchup packet filled with salt.

Why did ‘Pokemon Scarlet and Violet’ come out like this? The most astute and probably-correct answer is time. The ‘Pokémon’ franchise operates with a new generation of games coming out every 3 years. You’ll get a game with a new region and creature designs to kick off the generation, usually a follow-up package the following year being either a second, similar pair of games that act as an “enhanced package, or DLC.

Then next year they’ll have a separated package, either being a remake of a past game or something else entirely.

Then, the generation ends with the next leading game for the NEXT generation.

This means that, for one company, this is a lot of stuff to do, and especially in the 3D era of games has caused the franchise to have a select few half-baked end products from the lack of time. This has caused a lot of people to say that the series should relax and maybe take some time between games, letting developers put more content – and better content, frankly – into future games, as well as higher-quality graphics that don’t make me want to chug quicksand.

This problem comes with that the games essentially “lead” the series forward: with each new generation of games comes a new batch of creature designs and characters, and so forth new trading card lines, plushies, clothing and apparel, movies, the on-going TV show… the Pokemon franchise is so large and has so many facets of entertainment that taking time to iron out and not rush a new game brings a detriment to the rest of the show.

The television series can’t run new seasons in the new region forever, the trading cards can’t print new sets forever, and merch lines won’t last. It’s an ever-repeating cycle of new content becoming old, and eventually being filtered out by the newer, which is then filtered out by the newest, each having a 3-ish few years to shine.

The Pokémon franchise is the kitchen, and these glitches are the irritable animals. However, instead of being inside one’s minute apartment, the kitchen is a part of a network reality cooking show. Just because you’ve got some pests in the kitchen doesn’t mean you can slow down; you’ve got an audience waiting for you, judges to value your dish within an hour’s fray. Just because you’ve got some glitches in the game doesn’t mean you can slow down; you’ve got an audience waiting for you, players waiting to buy your products within 3-years’ time.

And that is the leading issue with ‘Pokemon Scarlet’ and ‘Pokemon Violet,’ as well as the Pokemon franchise as a whole: time is the enemy, and your audience – and surrounding cooks – will not wait for a better dish.

…But YOU can! That’s right kids, this here article’s, again, a 4-parter, due to several factors such as the inevitable heat death of the universe looming closer and also length. We’ll pick up with the gameplay section in this review of a video game in the third part.