Pokémon games have long been a force to be reckoned with when it comes to sales potential. However, their quality hasn't always been top-notch. The latest installment on Nintendo Switch, Scarlet and Violet, received harsh criticism for its technical presentation. Here's what Nathan Birch wrote in Wccftech's review:
At this point, you likely have the impression I really enjoyed Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, and frankly, you’re right. That said, these games’ presentation is a Snorlax-sized matzo ball that can’t be ignored. Pokémon S&V aren’t quite as ugly as the worst screens and clips being circulated would imply. The game is brighter and crisper than Pokémon Legends: Arceus and, believe it or not, there are times when it actually looks rather nice. That said, there’s no denying there are some very low-poly objects and blurry Gamecube-era textures in this game and performance can be dreadful. At times, 20fps feels like a best-case scenario, with the appearance of lots of NPCs and/or weather effects making things even worse. Like many recent Nintendo games, objects at a distance run at even lower framerates, except in this game “at a distance” can often mean five feet in front of your character. Wonky visual glitches are also common, although thankfully, I haven’t encountered any crashes or anything that required a reset.
Usually, The Pokémon Company does not directly address this kind of criticism. However, in a recent interview conducted by ComicBook.com at the Pokémon World Championships, Chief Operating Officer Takato Utsunomiya shared an interesting comment about ensuring the products' quality going forward.
I think in general, if you look at the past, the path we've taken up until now has been this constant release, always regularly releasing products on a fairly fixed kind of a cadence, you might say. Always having these products able to be introduced and new experiences for our customers, and that's how we've operated up until now. I think we're still operating in that way, but there's more and more conversations, as the development environments change, about how we can continue to do this while making sure that we're ensuring really quality products are also being introduced.
Could that mean new installments may be delayed if necessary from a quality standpoint? It's certainly what fans hope to avoid a repeat of Scarlet and Violet. As a reminder, two DLCs will be published later this year for that game: The Teal Mask (due on September 13th) and The Indigo Disk (due in Q4 2023).
In other Pokémon news, the AR smash hit Pokémon Go has been downloaded over 678 million times, according to Data.ai.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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