Various Thoughts About Pokémon Scarlet/Violet

Pokémon very much shaped my childhood, as it did many others, so I still find myself going back with each mainline release. I wanted to ramble to no one about S/V after playing it through. I do have good things to say, but I'll complain a bit first.

Each subsequent title has shown me new ways in which the Pokémon Company at large and Game Freak are kinda incompetent. A lot of the problems can be chalked up to a combination of 2 things:

1. Game Freak's failure to develop their 3d games with any amount of grace or knowhow (Look up some of the stuff modders have uncovered in their 3d releases and it's hilariously inefficient). Why they cannot produce an art direction that is low detail but beautiful is beyond me.

2. The Pokémon Company's rigid schedule, likely making it hell for Game Freak to actually learn or improve on anything.

S/V is a mess, performance wise. The Switch is an outdated console, but the fact that Breath of the Wild and Xenoblade can pull off (arguably) more beautiful open worlds with stable performance is shaming to the most profitable media franchise in the world.

Fucking - why do I STILL have to sit through the Confused animation, only for it to pause further and show the text box yet again telling me the pokemon is confused? Why does it have to do the same 2-step process of Animation -> Textbox every fucking turn??? Would it have been so hard to play the animation and show the text box telling me the pokemon is confused at the same time, and ONLY do that the first time? Just leave the birds over the pokemon's head until it snaps out of it. I don't need a dragging reminder every single turn. This same thing can be said for every battle/status effect, stop dragging things out! Just get a passive battle log you can scroll through.

Goddamn this world feels empty, why not have more interesting landmarks, stuff to see? Stuff to take pictures of with the camera feature? Make it a sidequest! Why are there close to zero non-trainer NPCs outside of towns? Tell me the lore of this random giant quarry! NAME YOUR REGIONS DAMNIT. WEST PROVINCE AREA 2????? FOR REAL?

On a more minor note, stop making champions punching bags.

I still have fun with these games I swear.

Pokemon designs are great as ever. Would have liked more options for ground types.

The music fucking slaps. Much improvement here over Sword/Shield. (actually that's most of the game)

They actually got someone to write this one too. I actually ended up caring about the "main" characters by the end. They were more than just one-note.

The Finale was, full-stop, the best of any Pokemon game. Genuinely extremely pleased and surprised by the entire sequence.

If they can refine this new open-world base they have built, and add voice acting damnit, the next games could very well be amazing.