• Light/Dark

A year ago Nintendo apologized for the state of Pokemon Scarlet & Violet and promised that they were working on improvements. Did they lie?

claudelabonte

claudelabonte

Member
Oct 27, 2017
130
St-Lambert
They didn't lie, no. They didn't acknowledge anything super precise and didn't commit to anything super precise either, so I don't think it can even be a lie.

...but it really is a shame to see a franchise this popular and this culturally important releasing a game in this state. The rose has truly lost its bloom.
 
Calamari41

Calamari41

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,164
So my kids are really into Pokémon, and I have a lot of exposure to the merchandise. The interesting thing to me is that I've found everything to be really top quality and reasonably priced. The action figures, the coloring books, the art sets, the TCG, the clothes, the show, the party supplies, the plushies, etc. It's all very good quality and presents the image of a 10/10 franchise.

At this point, the mainline games are the shoddiest part of the entire Pokémon ecosystem, and it's not even particularly close. I find that very, very interesting.
 
Corsick

Corsick

Member
Oct 27, 2017
979
They lied and it doesn't matter in the slightest due to the fanbase. The games would have to get much, much worse for it to hurt them.
 
Watershed

Watershed

Member
Oct 26, 2017
7,933
I think there was one performance patch and several big fixes but that's it. The games are still a technical mess the last time I played. Hopefully there will be a greater commitment to shipping a more technically competent game next gen.
 
Serebii

Serebii

Serebii.net Webmaster
Verified
Oct 24, 2017
13,242
Watershed said:
I think there was one performance patch and several big fixes but that's it. The games are still a technical mess the last time I played. Hopefully there will be a greater commitment to shipping a more technically competent game next gen.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Each patch has come with bug and/or technical fixes to be fair
 
Tidalwaves

Tidalwaves

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,568
Calamari41 said:
So my kids are really into Pokémon, and I have a lot of exposure to the merchandise. The interesting thing to me is that I've found everything to be really top quality and reasonably priced. The action figures, the coloring books, the art sets, the TCG, the clothes, the show, the party supplies, the plushies, etc. It's all very good quality and presents the image of a 10/10 franchise.

At this point, the mainline games are the shoddiest part of the entire Pokémon ecosystem, and it's not even particularly close. I find that very, very interesting.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Well, the games exist almost specifically to push new mons, which in turn push the merchandise which is where the majority of their money comes from so it kind of makes sense.
 
Fuchsia

Fuchsia

Member
Oct 28, 2017
6,701
Sigh. This game might be my most disappointing game of the generation so far.

So much potential! Please just give them more resources and time to make these games.
 
takriel

takriel

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
10,221
Here's hoping Legends is their 2025 game so that the devs will have an additional year to polish Gen 10 and release it in 2026.
 
NintendoSwitchLover

NintendoSwitchLover

Member
Jun 6, 2018
808
After picking the game up again to do the DLC I've had Pokémon not rendering or appearing so I'll see their reflection in the ground and have to guess where they are relative to that to fight them, I've also had them completely invisible. I've had union circles where I couldn't move my character or the camera and been soft locked into restarting my save. The main thing that still bothers me is how regularly the fps dips when throwing a pokeball or surfing on water and changing areas it really does not feel like a different or better experience than launch.

I don't think they've lied as others have pointed out each patch has fixed something but the game is still in terrible condition the main thing it gets away with is being a pokemon game, I'm just too addicted to wanting to stay on top of my pokemon home dex I only have 200 entries to go 😬
 
Meelow

Meelow

Member
Oct 31, 2017
9,216
It's crazy that Tears of the Kingdom is doing way more than Pokemon and looks way better. I really hope this is a wake-up call for Game Freak, and they get their shit together for Pokemon on Switch 2.
 
Pepsimaaan

Pepsimaaan

Member
Oct 20, 2023
273
Releasing a broken game, "apologizing" for it, promising to fix it and then never doing so has become a staple of the industry. Just look at Jedi Survivor. Success cases like NMS and Cyberpunk are few and far between.
 
Foffy

Foffy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
16,407
Unless I'm wrong here, they did address the issue with the game crashing. That is an improvement. I still can't believe actual footage of this game looks like something you'd expect from a very early emulator with the levels of technical jank it has. But that's actually the retail game on legit hardware!

Digital Foundry was right saying there are OG Xbox games that look better than this title. Can you imagine this shit being a technical mess on Switch 2 and at a possible $70 price tag? I can, and Game Freak will find a way.
 
onibirdo

onibirdo

Member
Dec 9, 2020
2,416
Let's be real, GF will never get their shit together if their minimal effort still guarantees millions of sales. And who can blame them from a financial point of view.
 

Adventureracing

The Fallen
Nov 7, 2017
8,103
Meelow said:
It's crazy that Tears of the Kingdom is doing way more than Pokemon and looks way better. I really hope this is a wake-up call for Game Freak, and they get their shit together for Pokemon on Switch 2.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

A wake up? Pokémon is selling better than it has in the last few generations despite the huge increase in prices. Not sure what the wake up is.
 
Devil

Devil

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,727
Performance issues aren't even the worst part. Some fans and influencers act like it's 'just' performance issues and that these don't even matter to the gameplay that much (which I'd argue, when you can barely navigate the battle menu while on the lake cause of slowdowns).

I think the atrocious pop ins/extremely short distance at which details, Pokemon and items are visible completely ruin the intended open world gameplay loop. How can they sell this game proudly as the first real open world Pokemon game when technical issues ruin the discovery mechanic itself? When you stand on a hill overlooking the world there is literally nothing in the distance that might tell you it could be fun or worthwhile to 'discover' what's on that cliff you see cause it's just shown as empty. You'd have to walk all the way over there, while Pokemon and items randomly pop up around you, until you are standing right on that cliff to see there is either nothing at all or maybe a random item or rare Pokemon placed. How exciting.

Nothing feels natural about this kind of open world discovery, it's like playing a very, very short-sighted character who has to almost bump into anything to know it is even there.

A game like BotW also hides ton of details from afar for obvious reasons, but anything that is remotely interesting or interactable remains seeable from miles away. This is crucial to make the open world work in the first place. Pokemon fails to deliver the vision it presented due to technical shortcomings that are not framerate issues.
 

Ara63

Member
Nov 21, 2023
339
Devil said:
Performance issues aren't even the worst part. Some fans and influencers act like it's 'just' performance issues and that these don't even matter to the gameplay that much (which I'd argue, when you can barely navigate the battle menu while on the lake cause of slowdowns).

I think the atrocious pop ins/extremely short distance at which details, Pokemon and items are visible completely ruin the intended open world gameplay loop. How can they sell this game proudly as the first real open world Pokemon game when technical issues ruin the discovery mechanic itself? When you stand on a hill overlooking the world there is literally nothing in the distance that might tell you it could be fun or worthwhile to 'discover' what's on that cliff you see cause it's just shown as empty. You'd have to walk all the way over there, while Pokemon and items randomly pop up around you, until you are standing right on that cliff to see there is either nothing at all or maybe a random item or rare Pokemon placed. How exciting.

Nothing feels natural about this kind of open world discovery, it's like playing a very, very short-sighted character who has to almost bump into anything to know it is even there.

A game like BotW also hides ton of details from afar for obvious reasons, but anything that is remotely interesting or interactable remains seeable from miles away. This is crucial to make the open world work in the first place. Pokemon fails to deliver the vision it presented due to technical shortcomings that are not framerate issues.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

What also took me out of things almost every time is when you do discover a Pokémon and catch it, there's the zoom in on the ball that's just awkwardly hovering above the ground, with said ground having a really ugly texture a lot of the time. It's very jarring and never looks nice or rewarding.
 
Mario_Bones

Mario_Bones

Member
Oct 31, 2017
3,533
Australia
Ara63 said:
What also took me out of things almost every time is when you do discover a Pokémon and catch it, there's the zoom in on the ball that's just awkwardly hovering above the ground, with said ground having a really ugly texture a lot of the time. It's very jarring and never looks nice or rewarding.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It's like when they keep doing scenes where a character says "Look at the beautiful world around us!" while the camera pans around the most uninspiring landscapes and zooms in on the blurriest textures known to man
 
TheEchosOfTheCyborg

TheEchosOfTheCyborg

Member
Feb 24, 2018
5,405
From what I understand, they have but the issue with some of it is that trying to fix it would mean trying trying to rebuild the game from the ground up given some of the oddities in it's design such as the bizarre size of the game's ocean and skysphere (which honestly makes it impressive the Switch can run the game at all).

I remember this blog getting some coverage a while back that went into depth about the weirdness and I do why Game Freak went with this approach:
melonsap.tumblr.com

IMPORTANT EDITS This is here to answer questions and clarify things.

Video games tend to do this thing called "culling," where they don't render things that aren't in use. In Breath of the Wild, there's no reason for Link to be able to see how many apples are on a tree...
melonsap.tumblr.com melonsap.tumblr.com
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
 
Phendrana

Phendrana

Member
Oct 26, 2017
7,110
Melbourne, Australia
I lost respect for Game Freak a long time ago, but each new release keeps that fresh in mind.

And before somebody starts -- yes, the games are ridiculously successful in spite of the issues that they have. Maybe most Pokemon fans don't care about this stuff as much as the average Resetera user. But does that matter? Shouldn't the studio have some...idk, artistic integrity?

They make so. much. money. They could easily seek solutions to this problem, and are repeatedly choosing not to. It's pretty gross imo.

And as Serebii mentioned, it's NOT the Pokemon Company keeping them on a tight schedule. The heads of Game Freak are the ones who decide this. There's also no indication that these issues are the result of them being in some sort of constant crunch situation, as I've seen people suggest. If anything the studio actually seems uniquely good in that regard (especially for Japan), with optional four day work weeks and so on. Again, this is just the management deciding that the games are A-Okay to ship in these states. I'm sure a lot of the devs are frustrated with the situation as well, but can't do anything about it.
 
Lost Heaven

Lost Heaven

Member
Aug 20, 2021
1,150
They specifically mentioned performance and the game still runs poorly despite DLC, so i guess they did lie. Maybe lying is a strong word however, probably they did all they could but the performance is just beyond saving, or would take CP2077 levels of effort. Not a justification, they should have released a game that runs well, but ultimately i dont know how much it can be done after launch. Like, the Tlou1 remake got a lot of patches, but in the end its still a poorly optizimed game, despite being made by a much more competent team.
 
gardfish

gardfish

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,639
WrenchNinja said:

View: https://twitter.com/WeedleTwineedle/status/1739971634314826102?t=C4sQRJsKAlSxZY6W5FqgGg&s=19


View: https://twitter.com/AndyLaVGC/status/1740517992675557596?t=-jP6Wkn_tLbubTzcPYoYlg&s=19
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...


The game doesn't run great, but...I see clips like this and genuinely wonder how there can be so much divergence in performance. Across 2 playthroughs and probably over 150 hours on a launch period Switch at most I've seen some framerate drops and minor visual bugs, nothing remotely close to this.
 
MatrixMan.exe

MatrixMan.exe

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,503
Playing a shit ton of Tears of the Kingdom and Future Redeemed this year only made me more furious about the state S/V shipped and continue to remain in post-DLC. The fault lies squarely on Game Freak's own incompetence when it comes to planning and production.

It's obvious to me that the team is talented, but their production schedules, workflows and tech clearly aren't coming together cohesively. They need to use better tools and for god's sake, give themselves more time to make these games. Barebones vanilla game content, lack of polish and rampant performance issues shouldn't be the expectation for a game series which makes as much money as the Pokemon games do.
 
takriel

takriel

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
10,221
This game looks like shit upscaled to 4K on emulation. Other Switch titles look beautiful. This is pretty telling.
 
Serebii

Serebii

Serebii.net Webmaster
Verified
Oct 24, 2017
13,242
Nickerbocker98 said:
I assume a lot of the issues will get fixed in the Switch 2 patch



Yup, this. I can put up with the bugs because this has been my favorite Gen since Gen 5.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
This is the general consensus from Pokémon fans too. Yeah the bugs sucked and performance is ass but it's easily one of the top Pokémon games
 
andymoogle

andymoogle

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,372
Performance is bad, but that's not even the main issue with Pokémon. They still have ridiculously slow battles for no good reason. I come back to Pokémon every now and then, but I never finish the games anymore because they are way too slow. Battles should be multiple times faster with far less text.
 
SlyShinobi

SlyShinobi

Member
Dec 3, 2018
875
andymoogle said:
Performance is bad, but that's not even the main issue with Pokémon. They still have ridiculously slow battles for no good reason. I come back to Pokémon every now and then, but I never finish the games anymore because they are way too slow. Battles should be multiple times faster with far less text.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yeah I've been thinking about this for so long. The battles are sooooiio slow and 90% of the text boxes can be replaced by more streamlined graphical cues.

When you throw in status ailments and weather effects, it gets even slower!
 
night814

night814

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 29, 2017
15,100
Pennsylvania
They definitely tried and they did fix some glitchs and bugs but I think eventually it came down to continue working on the basegame while splitting resources with the dlc or going all hands on the dlc and they went with the latter.
 
Cronogear

Cronogear

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,056
gardfish said:
The game doesn't run great, but...I see clips like this and genuinely wonder how there can be so much divergence in performance. Across 2 playthroughs and probably over 150 hours on a launch period Switch at most I've seen some framerate drops and minor visual bugs, nothing remotely close to this.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Could be the memory leak, which I don't believe was ever fixed.

Could also be DLC 2, which has by far the worst performance of any part of the game, and can slow to an absolute crawl in many spots, just like in that video. In fact, in each release performance has been getting worse (Base game -> DLC 1 -> DLC 2), not better.

Nickerbocker98 said:
I assume a lot of the issues will get fixed in the Switch 2 patch
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
lol
 
Roliq

Roliq

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Sep 23, 2018
6,271
Mario_Bones said:
The state of the games is disgraceful and the fact they went on to charge as much as they did for DLC that was also sold separately per version and ran even worse than the main game pissed me off so much.

And they're gonna release another game next year that'll be coming in just as hot because they have no incentive to improve.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I never undertood this complaint anyway, they are separate games internally so they have separate DLC internally, we also know if somehow you buy the wrong one you can get a complete refund for the correct one

It feels like when people complaining about the two versions in general despite those same people being literally unaffected as they know already you don't need to buy both to get everything
 
Jinfash

Jinfash

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,120
All this talk about a false dichotomy — reduce scopes/releases or quality will suffer — while there's a more logical choice that's consistent with market reality: hire more talent. 200 employees isn't enough for a release-ambitious company as successful as Game Freak. However, they seem to enjoy their net profits so much they're willing to let the games suffer and let lots of fans down. That's the part I think is most egregious. Reinvest in the company for god's sake.
 
takriel

takriel

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
10,221
SlyShinobi said:
Yeah I've been thinking about this for so long. The battles are sooooiio slow and 90% of the text boxes can be replaced by more streamlined graphical cues.

When you throw in status ailments and weather effects, it gets even slower!
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
This is the thing that gets me. People like to excuse Game Freak because the core gameplay is so fun, but then you have these slow-ass battles that scream bad design every two seconds. They aren't even good game developers that respect their audience.
 
TheWooniestWoona

TheWooniestWoona

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,905
Even if they did a Switch 2 patch I can't imagine it helping much since it's not like the game is held back by the Switch 1. The hardware already handles games with better graphics and larger scope without issue.
 
Nax

Nax

Hero of Bowerstone
Member
Oct 10, 2018
6,708
andymoogle said:
Performance is bad, but that's not even the main issue with Pokémon. They still have ridiculously slow battles for no good reason. I come back to Pokémon every now and then, but I never finish the games anymore because they are way too slow. Battles should be multiple times faster with far less text.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yup. People complain about the performance too much. This game has deeper, fundamental design problems that would take far more effort.

But Game Freak will never evolve at this point.
 
HylianSeven

HylianSeven

Shin Megami TC - Community Resetter
Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,379
SlyShinobi said:
Yeah I've been thinking about this for so long. The battles are sooooiio slow and 90% of the text boxes can be replaced by more streamlined graphical cues.

When you throw in status ailments and weather effects, it gets even slower!
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
This was the reason that I was dreading doubles in Indigo Disk. While it's absolutely the more interesting battle format, but it takes FOREVER with the way the text box currently is. It boggles my mind how that still has yet to change in the TWENTY years since double battles were introduced into the franchise, including even having some games that exclusively had them in their single player campaign.
 
Cronogear

Cronogear

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,056
Serebii said:
This is the general consensus from Pokémon fans too. Yeah the bugs sucked and performance is ass but it's easily one of the top Pokémon games
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Genuine question: Where are you getting this to be the general consensus?

It isn't critic reviews, as SV are the lowest rated mainline games in the series. It isn't Twitter, Reddit, or ResetEra, as those places are quite critical on the game. Era's stance is pretty obvious, and r/pokemon just did a poll that placed Gen 9 as second lowest in the series only above Gen 8.

So where is this general consensus coming from? Is it just based on sales numbers?
 
Digital Dinosaur

Digital Dinosaur

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,167
Rita Repulsa's Moon Palace
Every time this subject comes up, it does remind me what a surreal black eye mainline Pokemon games have become for everything under Nintendo's umbrella.

Nintendo usually goes above and beyond with games they publish under their name. They've become known for "miracle games" like TotK that seem impossible on the hardware they target. They will delay profitable releases by years just to polish them inches further.

And here's Game Freak's management just sitting over here spinning around in their chairs going "hyuk hyuk ship it boys who cares we're having MONEY for dinner... again!"
 
You must log in or register to reply here.