Pokmon Scarlet and Violet deliver a fully open world beset by technical problems
good but framey — Pokmon Scarlet and Violet deliver a fully open world beset by technical problems Choppy frame rates and animations distract from an entertaining entry.
Andrew Cunningham – Nov 17, 2022 8:45 pm UTC Enlarge / Winding up to catch a ninth (!) generation of Pokmon. Andrew Cunningham reader comments 41 with 0 posters participating Share this story Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Reddit Game detailsDeveloper: Game Freak
Publisher: Nintendo, The Pokmon Company
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Release Date:November 18, 2022
ESRB Rating: E for Everyone
Price: $60 each
Links (Scarlet): Amazon| Target |Best Buy| Nintendo eShop
Links (Violet): Amazon| Target |Best Buy| Nintendo eShop
The Pokmon franchise has been nudging closer and closer to a fully open world since Sword and Shield appeared on the Switchin 2019. Those games and their DLC packs introduced a few dedicated free-range areas where you could roam around mostly at your leisure, but towns and caves and other areas were still strictly linear.
Pokmon Legends: Arceuscame even closer. Nearly all of its world map was a free-roaming open area, but the sections were still cordoned off from one another by way of a central hub town. More importantly,progression was still largely linearthe game still introduced you to each area in a set order based on the story quests you had accomplished.
Pokmon ScarletandViolet, both coming to the Switch on November 18, finally make the transition to a fully open world. After accomplishing a handful of introductory quests, the vast majority of the world map opens up to you, and you can accomplish most of the game’s quests in whatever order you want.
The result is a game that feels wide-open, welcoming, and ambitious, though the catching and battling mechanics feel like a step back from Arceus in some ways. The main problems are mostly technicalthe Switch’s 5-year-old tablet hardware openly struggles to render the Paldea region, and in some ways these problems are even more noticeable and distracting than they were inArceus. Page: 1 2 3 Next → reader comments 41 with 0 posters participating Share this story Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Reddit Andrew Cunningham Andrew is a Senior Technology Reporter at Ars Technica with over a decade of experience in consumer tech, covering everything from PCs to Macs to smartphones to game consoles. His work has appeared in the New York Times’ Wirecutter and AnandTech. He also records a weekly book podcast called Overdue. Email andrew.cunningham@arstechnica.com // Twitter @AndrewWrites Advertisement Channel Ars Technica ← Previous story Next story → Related Stories Today on Ars