Early Impressions of Pokémon Scarlet and... Oh no.

I was watching SmallAnt play this game, and some one in chat mentioned that the slow frame rate actually affects the in game timer, so SmallAnt decided to compare how many hours he had streamed the game versus the in game timer. He found out that he had streamed about 16 hours, and the in game timer was a 14.5 hours, meaning he lost a whole 1.5 hours to the terrible frame rate

The positivity of the Arceus video that has been brewing for almost a year only to be dashed immediately by the Scarlet and Violet reviews mere hours later. Such is the life of a Pokémon fan.

This game has been the best slideshow I've ever played

Minor improvements I notice from the video: -Picking up items is no longer (animation of character kneeling down) "X found a Y!" (wait for jingle to finish) "X put the Y in the Z bag." and going through the item/bag menu to find the description; instead it's just collected with a little pop-up on the side of the screen, and a description for new items that doesn't interrupt the game. -Pokemon attack animations can start while the "X used Y!" text is still on-screen, instead of waiting for it to disappear first. Sometimes? -Battle/Pokemon/Bag/Run battle commands have little icons now. -Trainer battles being optional, and repeatable after some time. -Quick starts and ends to wild encounters: no long combat-transition animation, no "You encountered a wild X!" or "Y defeated the wild X, Y gained Z Exp. Points" messages. -It looks like wild Pokemon drop (crafting?) items on defeat? Whether it's actually useful for something or just a small source of money, it seems a bit more rewarding than just the usual Exp. -No random encounters, Pokemon are always visible. The bad: -Oh my gosh WHY are they still doing individual animations and text boxes for "X's Attack rose!" "X's Speed rose!" "X's Defense fell!" etc!?!?!? How have they still not consolidated it to "X's Attack, Sp. Attack, and Speed rose! X's Defense and Sp. Defense fell!"? Especially Klawf's ability that cause 5 stat changes in a row, did not a single person look at it and think "wow, this is horribly slow and annoying for no reason at all"??? -Confusion/Paralysis/etc animations still have to fully play out and have separate text boxes that don't overlap the animation, before the actions can continue. How and why did they (slightly) fix this with moves but not with status effects? -Combat, battle camera, and battle animations are still ridiculously static, bare-bones, and underwhelming. (granted, this footage is from early-game, so early moves are going to be more basic, but still) -Long pauses before starting a battle. Does it need to separately load the battle programming every single time? -Obviously, everything else Arlo already mentioned, especially visuals and performance. The clips of bugs and performance drops popping up are actually hysterical. Honestly, I'm not surprised in the slightest. It's hard to tell if it's sheer genuine incompetence, or literally having no time to polish anything before shoving it out the door. "My expectations were LOW, and this is SO FAR below those low expectations" sums it up pretty well. A reminder: Xenoblade Chronicles 1 was on the Wii, and games like Final Fantasy 10/12 were on the PS2. And Breath of the Wild was more-or-less a Switch launch title. There's absolutely no excuse for such a low quality product as this.

"We are all playing it, we are all having- ... playing it... it's getting played" -Arlo EASILY my favorite quote of his.

When developing Pokémon Gold and Silver, Game Freak had such difficulty that they asked Satoru Iwata to fix up the code. He did such a good job that they were able to then include the Kanto Region with all the free space. Clearly, they've never got any better at programing since the 90s and won't ask Nintendo help again.

My favorite thing about Arlo's videos is when he's been talking for so long that he forgets he's speaking as a muppet and his voice has become too humanlike, but then he remembers and gets muppity again

I feel like you hit the nail right in the head with your early impressions. I would like to just add that for the first time ever they nailed it with the online. It works really good. We got a party playing last night and it was amazing. No one got dropped for a long, long while... until the host's (me) game crashed. And I can tell you I wasn't doing anything. Just coming out of a town. The game needs an optimization patch pronto or else people will start freaking out.

When I walked into my first open world town, folded inside out, and then clipped through the map at a 1000mph, I knew this game would be special.

Scarlet and Violet are a great example of why you shouldn't rush to release before the holidays. They should have been delayed at least a few months.

This game is a true diamond in the rough. I finished it one week after release and... I hate the people that made this wonderful, wonderful game release in this state. It's honestly the best Pokemon game I have played in a very long time. The ending even ranks up there among moments like my first two encounters with Red in Silver all those years ago. Two because I did not know about him and was not prepared. But I can't defend the issues it has. This Gen needed more time in the oven. I want to see the conversations we'd be having in a timeline where that happened. The only upside about the current situation is that spoilers are not too too common unless you look for them.

I feel like Arlo needs a hug after this video. Sorry the game’s running so badly man, take a virtual hug

As a person who usually doesn’t care about graphics and performance of a game, this genuinely had me concerned as well upon firing it up. If you go into the storage room in your moms house before you leave, your switch goes completely black. I thought it crashed or fried my system lol. But you can get out of it. The game is aware that it does that. It’s just super weird because it goes black without warning

The worst thing is when you ride on Karaidon/Maraidon and some random group of Pokemon spawn right in front of you, forcing you into a battle

The one saving grace for me in this game is the co-op mode. I played all weekend with my sibling and it was great just running around together. I wanted to catch a particular pokemon and when he found one he stayed by it so I could run to the location and catch it. I found a cool area and led him to it. We did Tera raids together, we shouted at each other whenever we found a good item, tackled the gyms simultaneously, and took selfies. It was actually a fun experience overall! I have things that I wish it had, like sidequests and more stuff to do, but I'm having fun at least. That lag though.... Edit: it's been a couple weeks now and have to say I also appreciate that the characters feel like they have more depth to them than the last couple games. I still personally would prefer a more linear and coherent story, but I really did care about these characters by the end.

For swsh and arceus it was pretty easy for me to brush off and ignore the rough edges and I still really enjoyed the games but oh my goodness the horrible framerate makes very movement feel like you are moving through sludge it feels so bad to play!!! I love the characters (especially Arven and Director Clavell) and the titan battle story is particularly endearing. I love how much personality the legendaries have in this!

The jigglypuffs being yeeted into the great beyond has been one of the more interesting moments in Pokemon glitch history

The worst part is the battle animations. Legends was interactive and the Pokémon would approach eachother to attack; now they stand still and a bite animation appears 🥲

I feel like the legends games are gonna be it's own separate series and i really hope so, which is maybe why the legends battling style isn't carried over to scarlet and violet. I prefer the typical battle system but oh boy.. this game tech issues are really hindering my fun.

I got so happy when the crab thing was brought up, I was just explaining to my boyfriend how much it slows down the pace of the battle then I heard it mentioned in the video. There’s no reason each stat has to be announced one at a time anymore