I am a sucker for Pokemon. I’ve played every single entry in the series, I’ve played the spinoffs—Pokémon Colosseum, Pokémon Snap, Pokémon Channel, you-name-it—and by and large enjoyed all of them. I was ready to like Pokemon Scarlet when I booted it up for the first time, and I did… sort of.
I was initially willing to overlook quite a lot. I disregarded the lack of voice acting. I disregarded the long, slightly boring introduction. I disregarded the game’s low-poly trees, its occasionally questionable textures, and its abysmal performance. I did all of this firm in my belief that I would have fun because the new regional variant of Wooper was my favorite thing ever.
And for a while, my self-imposed blindness to the game’s flaws pulled me through. It was only when I reached Mesagoza, the biggest city in Pokemon Scarlet & Violet, that my gnawing doubts finally took over. I gazed at the pedestrians in the streets, and I counted every single one of them. There were six in total. I thought about Tokyo in Persona 5, and Kamurocho in Yakuza, and how bustling and real those places felt by comparison, and wondered how a pricey mainstream game in a best-selling franchise could be so sparse.
I decided to forget about my love for Persona and do some clothes shopping. I checked the main square and found hats, backpacks, shoes, and for some reason, a store that specifically sold socks. I wanted a new shirt—something bold and flashy that said “the new kid is here to demolish you with his Wooper.” I searched for a shirt store, fruitlessly, for about 15 minutes. The great metropolis of Mesagoza—and the game as whole—doesn’t have any shirt stores. There are only four main outfits in the game and all of them are, in a word, drab.
On my first visit to Naranja Academy, I sat in my classroom with the bright eyes and bushy tail of a Pokemon fan buzzing with excitement at a new setting. Possibilities whizzed through my brain: would I be using my Pokemon to take on a school bully? Demonstrating my skills in front of the class? Was there maybe an underground betting ring behind the school after hours? Extracurricular activities, dorm mates, or other fun bits of storytelling strewn around? No, there were not.
Instead, as soon as my school year began, I was ushered onto an unchaperoned, freeform field trip that lasted for the rest of my tenure as a student. Again, I thought of Persona, and how its school setting integrates with its JRPG gameplay. In Persona, school is an active part of the setting that players can never forget about. They’re constantly brought back into class with a new scene, or an opportunity for an afterschool activity. I thought of how we’ve had three new generations of Pokemon since we’ve had one new mainline entry in the Persona series. I wondered how Game Freak could’ve expanded on the school setting more with just a bit more time.
In any case, my journey across the width and breadth of Paldea commenced. I appreciated the game’s open structure, its interesting new Pokémon, and its surprisingly fun (if sluggish) Koraidon/Miraidon riding mechanics. I thoroughly enjoyed its Cooking Mama-esque sandwich assembly minigame, and its abundant art of pretty darn good-looking food.
Unfortunately I found many, if not all, of Paldea’s gym challenges boring: “Find ten Sunflora,” “Go get the Gym leader from another city”—these are World of Warcraft-level fetch quests! Iono has a “Where’s Waldo”-style challenge, and Katy’s olive ball obstacle course is decently fun, but none of the challenges made me think “wow, I’m glad I’m doing this instead of fighting my way through a gym the old-fashioned way.”
As my playthrough continued, I realized all of my complaints were along the same lines. The game’s content feels copy-pasted, the towns feel empty, even the competitive aspect of the game feels unfinished. Doors into buildings are boarded from the inside—a trend not uncommon in modern games, but still disappointing to see in Pokemon. There’s plenty of potential here for a deep world, but the further you dig down, the quicker you hit bedrock. The world is wide open and ripe for exploring, but in sore need of interesting things to find, like things like dungeons, extensive caverns, secluded homes, and other points of interest. These are things that could’ve been added with just a bit more development time.
Modern game development is difficult. It takes time. Cyberpunk 2077 was in development for nearly a decade before its release. Grand Theft Auto 6 has been in development, too, for about a decade. It’s not unfair to compare Pokemon to these games. In 2022, Nintendo reported Pokemon Sword & Shield as having sold just over 20 million copies. Also in 2022, CD Projekt Red reported Cyberpunk as having sold just over 20 million copies. Despite having similar sales and prices to triple-A games, modern Pokemon games are developed in a fraction of the time, and the rushed development is very apparent.
Big titles launching with performance issues is the new status quo. It’s possible Game Freak and Nintendo will iron these issues out, but the lifelessness of Pokemon Scarlet & Violet is inherent, and seems unfixable. After all these years, the Pokemon series has (ironically) not evolved. In its complacency, Pokemon is becoming The Simpsons of video games. People will still play it, but will it be worth playing?
