Metacritic scores for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet are the lowest for any game so far in the franchise, which may have players who've enjoyed the game scratching their heads. Set in the Paldea region, players have more freedom over their experience than ever before, with Scarlet and Violet allowing them to explore and progress the story in whatever order they'd like. Gen 9 has introduced over 100 new Pokémon to the game, including ridable Pokémon Koraidon and Miraidon and the ability to Terastallize Pokémon in battle, but these fun additions haven't distracted from the games' bigger problems.
There are three main campaigns in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet for players to follow, centering around Gym Leaders, Titan Pokémon, and antagonists Team Star. There are eight Gym Leaders that players can challenge in any order they choose, each with their own Pokémon specialty, while the Titan Pokémon storyline centers around acquiring a mysterious healing herb called Herba Mystica. Team Star is a group of rebellious students that have bases located all around Paldea, where players will journey to challenge Squad Leaders. Altogether these different goals make for an engaging storyline, but it's not even to keep Pokémon Scarlet and Violet from being the lowest-rated game in the series on Metacritic.
Pokémon Scarlet & Violet's Technical Issues Are Impossible To Overlook
The biggest flaw of the Pokémon series in general can be boiled down to products being rushed to release before they're finished, and perhaps no entry exemplifies this more than Scarlet and Violet. The low player ratings of the game showcased in a recent Centro Pokémon Tweet - which showed user ratings clocking in at 2.9 - are largely not due to the title's gameplay, but rather its many visual glitches and bugs. They've impacted every element of the game, with problems ranging from pop-in to low frame rates and disturbing distortions of player characters.
This wide range of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet bugs has severely damaged almost every aspect of the experience. The myriad wild glitches discovered for Scarlet and Violet have ruined some of the game's potentially beautiful environments - for example, frame rate issues have made windmills in one area of the game move in embarrassingly segmented strides, and some players have experienced falling through areas of the world entirely. Other issues like pop in have led to some players getting into unintended fights, as Pokémon suddenly appear in front of them without a chance for them to be avoided, which is an annoying time waster when players are on their way to their destination.
One of the key elements of an open-world game like Pokémon Scarlet and Violet is the ability for players to immerse themselves in the game's massive, explorable world, and this is rendered nearly impossible by the constant bombardment of visual issues. While some of this is due to the Nintendo Switch's hardware, with Scarlet and Violet proving a Nintendo Switch 2 could be incredibly beneficial for better performance, the underlying issue is much more linked to the fact developers have rushed to release these titles. Even a strong plot and new open-world mechanics can't save Pokémon Scarlet and Violet from its rampant performance issues that impact essentially every aspect of gameplay, leading to it receiving the lowest rating of any title in the franchise.
Source: Centro Pokémon/Twitter