Pokémon Scarlet and Violet is finally available for players around the world to pick up and play, but the initial reaction to the game has been about as widely negative as the franchise has ever seen.
Sure, you’ll find vocal pockets of fans complaining at the release of every game in the series about things like reused assets, lack of National Pokédex, or a hundred other things. The main difference for the ninth generation of games is that almost everyone online seems to be in agreement that Pokémon Scarlet and Violet is a hot plate of performance issues, glitches, and everything in between. Cue the ominous music.
Just because Pokémon Scarlet and Violet is fun doesn’t mean it gets a pass for running like garbage
While the games were initially leaking ahead of launch, fans were worried that Scarlet and Violet would not improve much on the shaky ground where Pokémon Legends: Arceus stood when it launched earlier this year—-pinning their hopes on the day one patch fixing the issues. But that didn’t come to pass and now the internet is being flooded with clips, screenshots, and stories showing just how poorly optimized Game Freak’s latest core project is.
Related: How to improve Pokemon Scarlet and Violet’s lag and poor performance issues on Nintendo Switch
It got so bad that fans started workshopping their own fixes in hopes of optimizing the game, with a few locating what could be the main issue during this process and listing a potential fix for the issues.
Despite performance issues, Pokémon fans are still raving about Scarlet and Violet
Unfortunately, Pokémon fans have adjusted to disappointing performance over the franchise’s time on the Switch, even if they don’t pull punches when pointing out flaws. However, while Scarlet and Violet are being panned as the worst-performing titles Game Freak has put out, a lot of those same voices are praising the developer for successfully bringing the fun at Pokémon’s core into a truly open world.
If you look around at the complaints, most will solely focus on how Gen IX runs rather than pointing out flaws in the gameplay systems themselves. Early on in its life cycle, it appears like Paldea has hit home with fans in a way that signals good things for the franchise moving forward.
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet is taking Twitch and YouTube by storm with monster-catching viewership
The world of content creation cares not for stories of poor performance and fun factor, as Pokémon drives its own ship across sites like Twitch and YouTube regardless of how the games perform. In fact, the more divisive the better, as hundreds of creators are already generating millions of views with their videos, streams, and clips.
On Twitch alone, Pokémon soared past games like League of Legends, Overwatch 2, and Fortnite before it was even available globally. Now it only trails Grand Theft Auto V and Twitch’s most popular category Just Chatting in overall viewership on the platform at the end of launch day.
Don’t forget Pokémon’s new online TCG game also launched this week
Oh, and just in case you missed it due to all the pre-launch hype for Scarlet and Violet, The Pokémon Company also launched its new online platform for the Pokémon Trading Card Game (TCG) into a global open beta on Tuesday.
Pokémon TCG Live will eventually replace the older TCG Online app as the way for players to collect and compete in the Pokémon TCG digitally, and it is downloadable now for all players on the Apple App Store, Google Play Store, Windows devices, and Mac OS. Just be careful if you played the original, because once you load it up, you can never go back—sort of.
Ash Ketchum can retire happy after becoming the very best Pokémon trainer
This week was a huge one across all segments of the Pokémon fandom too, as Ash Ketchum finally achieved his ultimate dream—dethroning multiple Champions to become one of if not the best Pokémon Trainer in the world.
This moment made history as it capped off Ash’s 25-year journey to reach this point, despite never aging. Now he is the Monarch of the Pokémon World Coronation Series and the Alola Champion. Quite the glow-up compared to just a few years ago.
