Pokemon Scarlet & Violet review: a super-effective new vision – with painful performance woes

Pokemon Scarlet & Violet represent a sea change for the Pokemon series – yes, yet again – but arguably this is the most important adjustment to date. This is the template that the series will follow going forward: and I’m thrilled to report that it’s an invigorating, thrilling, and wildly lovable game that meshes together old and new with impressive precision.

I like it just as much as I did Pokemon Legends: Arceus – which I described in that review as the best Pokemon game in 20 years. So let me say it plainly: Scarlet & Violet are now the joint-best Pokemon since the Game Boy era. High praise indeed.

To be honest, I wasn’t entirely convinced that Pokemon Scarlet & Violet would impress me all that much. I’d found the previous generational shift, Sword & Shield, stuffed with interesting ideas, but also too often flawed. I figured this might be similar, a fact not helped by the fact that in the interim we got Legends, a spin-off so thoughtful and so experimental that it quickly made the traditional Pokemon formula feel obsolete. Going into the review period, I was convinced of one thing: no matter how much I liked this game, I’d end up missing some of that spin-off’s changes. But then something magical happened: I didn’t.

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