Scarlet & Violet First Impressions and General Reviews Thread | Page 4
The good+The world. It could have had more secrets or more noteworthy items but taking into account the relatively little experience Game Freak had with them. It's fun and relaxing to explore. Pokemon spawn just like in Legends Arceus, but feel more welcoming and it's fun to see them forming families and clans.
+The four storylines. The Victory Road one could have felt more epic but is serviceable, and the other ones have fun and enjoyable mechanics. The characters are amazing across all four. But the best part is that if you felt tired of one you can just go to another one! The freedom is really refreshing.
+The Pokedex and distribution. Each area has tons of Pokemon to find, which feels like a big departure from previous gens, catching Pokemon is as funny as always and the new species are among the easiest Pokemon to find, I think you can encounter all of them during a regular playthrough. Also, I really like that for returning mons they gave some priority to the ones that haven't been in a regional dex in a while, like Venonat or Deerling.
+Raids. I haven's tried too many of them but I like what I've seen so far with the quick pace and the rewards.
+The Let's go feature. It's a nice evolution of the walking Pokemon concept (which by the way it's also good and much more polished than in SWSH DLC), though I still wish the Pokemon was a little more active and that you could change between them as easily as you do in the Team Star raids.
+The Academy. I think school is shown too much in media so see it creep its way into a fantasy world like Pokemon's of all things sounded irritating, but the result is surprisingly fun. The system is solid, the music is catchy, the classes are quick and the teachers are diverse and likeable!
The meh
+/- The gyms. The trials are veeery simple, but fun, and I'll take them over non-repetible puzzles (but not over repetible puzzles) but it's weird how many lack trainers, and the gym leaders should appear more.
+/- The cities. I think the lack of interiors is due to world loading issues, so having only the mandatory ones available is understandable, and at least they aren't hidden under a thousand "loading" scenes like Galar or Kalos'. They do their job, but their biggest crime is the lack of subquests and stuff to do in them. The food gets irritating quickly, and all the important stores being located in Mezagoza ends up being more inconvenient than anything as you frequently enter the wrong one.
+/- Area Zero. Great music and great ambientation, but the Pokemon selection is very meh. How am I supposed to take it seriously as a dangerous place when there are Dugtrio and Dunsparce around? Maybe it's my fault for thinking it could be some kind of substitute for the Wild Area (which relates to my "Postgame content" point from below), but even then it could have been better.
+/- The Paradox Pokemon. The idea is amazing and gets your brain thinking about how they relate to their present selves but it feels a little too unpolished. Many designs are ugly or simple, and the lore about them is minimal.
The bad
-The performance. How could they ship a game with extremely noticeable frame drops, no patches in the first month, and expect people to not get angry about it? It really hurted my experience in the Poison and Fairy bases to the point I wanted to be done with them not too long after the challenge started. Fortunately I didn't have any big problems with the bugs.
-Terastalazing. It's not as bad as it's...boring. I get the appeal for the competitive with the Ghost Tyranitar, Water Lucario and all that, but for a casual playthrough it feels extremely situational (and this is coming from Dynamax, which you could only use like 15 times during the story!) and unpractical, it should really have had bigger and more attractive boosts than just "more STAB". If you want a playthrough team that takes full advantage of it you have to do like a hundred raids, either to get the shards or the Pokemon you want.
-The lack of level scalling. Remember how I praised the freedom? If it was such a big element of the game why didn't they go the extra mile and make challenges adjust to your level or at least more visual indicators of how you should move? I didn't had a problem and I did each challenge in order except for battling Iron Treads before Ortworm, but I know it has bugged some people and is something they have to work towards.
-The postgame content. Ouch, so many problems with this one, it needs an expansion (pun intended)
1. No Battle Tower
2. The League and Gym leader rematches are once-and-done for some reason.
3. Not only there's zero new locations, but the whole region has zero changes (okay, there's a couple, like that legendaries and Paradox are now available, but no level scalling of everything to level 60 like in the Wild Area or new facilities).
4. Swarms worked for PLA because of the objective of that game and its agile battle style, SV's version is inferior on so many levels, starting with the fact that the Pokemon are just in the regular level curve of the area and thus aren't that strong.
5. My main complaint is that there aren't many trainers to battle and grind. There's the school tournament, but that has league-level difficulty, and the Team Star bosses, but some of them are quite far from a flying point making the battle not worth it.
Overall a very great experience that blends PLA's upgrades to the main series and that I'd definitely recommend for fans who'd left the series, even if they clearly cut corners here and there.
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