Pokemon Violet First Thoughts vol. 7

Well, I've done it. Beat all the gyms, all the titans, all the Team Star bosses. Saw each storyline through to its conclusion, defeated the Elite 4, and became Champion (ended up going with a team of Palafin, Glimmora, Toedscruel, Ceruledge, Gholdengo, and Annihilape). Then, I ventured into Area Zero to finish the endgame, unlocked Miraidon's full potential, and saw the credits.

It took me 96 hours, mostly because I made sure to fill out the Pokedex as much as possible along the way - I pushed it to 364, just need the rest of the Area Zero 'mons and some trades from Scarlet, but I got everything else I could find naturally in-game. Which was interesting, because I found myself not having to train up low-level Pokemon just to get their evolution. Instead, I mostly caught their next stages in the wild. Even for Pseudo-legendaries, Stone evolutions, and Eeveelutions! Usually, the games aren't like this.

but... wow, where do I start? I want to give my immediate impression now, because by the time I finish reviewing this generation's Pokemon it will be 4 months later (oh, who am I kidding. 9 months later) and the memories will have faded. But just be aware, when that day does come, I reserve the right to completely flip my opinion. What are you gonna do about it? It's my blog!

Long post to follow, so hit the link for my full review:

anyway, let's get the bad out of the way first: It runs like shit. The slowdown and lag spikes are a constant annoyance throughout the game. The models have a low draw distance, so they noticeably pop in. And when they do, they play their animations at a distractingly low framerate until you get closer, at which point you'll notice they're using their low-poly model, until you get VERY close. Simply changing boxes in the PC takes a second or two to load all the little images, which makes is frustrating to maneuver through the boxes. And none of this is due to the Switch's limitations - there are plenty of other open-world titles that run better (while looking better) on Switch.

Secondly, it often looks ugly. Even if the performance issues were fixed, you'd still have the low-resolution textures, low-poly terrain, obviously repeating textures, and matte plastic look to everything. Also, the lighting and shadows are wack. Some of this is no doubt for performance reasons, but the overall art style feels weaker than SwSh or PLA. I miss the lack of hard outlines and cel shading. And the lack of anti-aliasing, so common among Nintendo games, doesn't help.

Finally, there are a few miscellaneous gripes I have with the game:

• Pokemon can follow you, but most of them are too slow and they get left behind, rendering the feature almost useless. Others are too fast and stop-and-start constantly.
• The UI design is still archaic, and simple things like learning a new move take upwards of 10 button presses with multiple pop-up windows to click though.
• You can't change your pants or shirt, aside from the 4 basic bitch school uniforms you get at the start (although you can still change hats, shoes, etc).
• The school's theme song gets really repetitive, especially when you're trying to jam through your classes. It should change whenever you start a class.
• They removed Set Battle style, so it's always Shift. You'll always get the "Trainer is about to send out X!" prompt, aka Easy Mode.
• Visibility sucks, lots of Pokemon are literally shorter than the grass and it makes it hard to avoid getting drawn into battles with them them while zooming around.
• Similarly, it's hard to actually spot any Shinies, so small and sometimes hardly different from the original colors. Plus there's no sparkles or sound in the overworld like in PLA.

But, with all that aside, here's the good points: Pokemon is still fun. Turns out that the core gameplay loop of catching Pokemon continues to be fun as hell, even after 25 years. And the way this game throws such a variety of Pokemon at you from the very start is great. Plus, like in PLA, the removal of random encounters makes catching 'em all addictive, since you can avoid redundant encounters.

But also, the story is good! Team Star's backstory felt like the natural endpoint of the "Evil Team is Actually Nice" arc we've been on since Team Skull, and while I hope we get a truly villainous one next time, this was neat. Arven seemed like a dweeb at first, but his quest to heal his sick dog won me over. But things really click in the endgame, after becoming Champion - everything in Area Zero was aces.

Granted, for the first half of the game, the story just kinda simmers in the background. Fortunately, the characters are great. Team Star is a lovable group of outcasts, and I wish we got more scenes with them all together. Arven ends up carrying the game's emotional depth on his shoulders. Nemona is a new type of rival, one who's excited about you catching up to her level, instead of a fellow newbie acting smug or getting blown out of the water. Larry is a candidate for best Gym Leader ever, although Rhyme is also super based. The Elite 4 even got properly introduced prior to the end. And the teachers at the school! You gotta do the classes, man. That's where the best writing in the game is. Raifort, Dendra, Saguaro, Hassel, they're all just so good.

it's also nice how they made building your team easy. I know you still need to breed a perfect IV Pokemon, or grind for Bottle Caps so the guy can do Hyper Training, but you can just BUY the Nature-changing Mints, find EV-resetting Berries all over the place, and buy or find the EV-boosting Vitamins. I usually don't care about that stuff, cuz the in-game battles are already easy, but it was so simply to fix up my team and max out a few stats, I figured "why not?"

Despite being ugly, the level design is solid. There's great verticality to the world, especially in some caves and in Area Zero. Before you unlock all the abilities for Miraidon, getting around the environment involves a fair bit of platforming, but you CAN get nearly everywhere, which is neat. And once you do, navigating the world becomes fun in the same way PLA opened up with all the Ride Pokemon - making long leaps, gliding, and climbing up walls without breaking pace. The sauce to every open-world game is "make the act of exploring the world itself, engaging". And this game succeeds.

And finally, but perhaps most importantly - there's plenty of cool new Pokemon. We'll get to them each in time, so I don't want to spoil too much, but you can see who I put on my team and guess which my favorites were.

...Some people have said this would be the best Pokemon game ever, were it not for the performance issues. I still think it has inherent graphical flaws, and a few design annoyances that weren't the result of shoddy optimization. But in so many ways, this game delivers.

Does it quite capture the majesty and wonder of a game like Elden Ring, or Breath of the Wild? No, not hardly. I feel like the biggest franchise on Earth should be able to hire more muscle to ensure the game runs properly. Or maybe hire more teams and rotate them like Call of Duty does, so each team gets 3 years to work on their game but we still get a new one every year. Or, keep your team size, but take longer between games! This doesn't have to be a yearly franchise (it's not like I depend on this blog for income lol). Alas, none of those options are optimal if your goal is "spend as little as possible to make as much profit as possible", and that's how The Pokemon Company/Nintendo/Gamefreak operates.

So, I liked this game. I really did! but it's frustrating, because for the 4th time since Sun & Moon we have a Pokemon game that makes me say "okay, this is almost great. I think they really have something here, if they just refine this formula!" and I'm getting tired of waiting for that perfect sequel. You can tell this was developed alongside PLA, instead of coming after it and building upon its foundation. Gamefreak, I'm begging you - please just slow down and take your time with the next game. Whether it's a remake, another Legends title, or a new generation.