Scarlet and Violet could’ve been the best Pokémon games yet—if the DLC fixed its problems

With the Pokémon Scarlet and Violet epilogue finally wrapping up the story of our adventures through Paldea, Kitakami, and Blueberry Academy, players revisited the discussion of all the pros and cons of the Gen IX games—and they agreed the games delivered in most aspects, but the bugs couldn’t be overlooked.

When they were first released in November 2022, Scarlet and Violet were slammed for performance issues and bugs that were hindering the player’s Pokémon experience. This became the bad reputation attached to the Gen IX games, often overshadowing all the good things these games did right. Now that it’s been over a year with the DLC and epilogue now released, players can give their full thoughts on the games as a whole, beyond the initial shock of seeing all the performance issues.

In a Jan. 16 Reddit thread, many players admitted Scarlet and Violet were quite enjoyable to play, with great characters, an interesting story, and new Pokémon. The base games alone had fun characters in Nemona, Penny, Larry, and who could forget Arven’s story with his beloved Mabosstiff? Scarlet and Violet did an excellent job of making us care about these characters and embracing their quirks, and this continued with the DLC.

The two standout characters from the DLC were Ogerpon and Kieran. Everyone immediately fell in love with Ogerpon after learning its heartbreaking story, and it’s a Pokémon that continues to get a ton of love and attention, even overshadowing the legendary Terapagos and mythical Pecharunt who were released shortly after it. 

Meanwhile, Kieran might not be the most well-liked character, but he did generate a lot of hilarious memes, interesting theories, and discussions with his villain arc. Many players also enjoyed pissing him off by rubbing their friendship with Ogerpon in his face. Regardless of if you liked him, Kieran brought unexpected fun to the DLC, and that’s what makes him a great character.

Compared to previous Pokémon games, Scarlet and Violet quite possibly gave us the best characters and story so far, exploring darker themes such as Pokémon killing humans and other ‘mons. Some players would even go as far as saying the Gen IX games could’ve been the best Pokémon games thus far—if not for the bugs and performance issues that still plague the games today. 

These issues perhaps could’ve been fixed through the DLC or patch updates, but we’re still experiencing the same laggy and glitchy gameplay as we were on day one. Game Freak has addressed and fixed bugs such as ones affecting certain moves or Abilities, but many quality-of-life updates just haven’t happened. And that’s really the one main con that holds Scarlet and Violet back from being a top-tier Pokémon game in the eyes of many.