Pokemon Scarlet & Violet is the latest mainline entry to the Pokemon series, followed up by two DLCs: The Teal Mask and The Indigo Disk. Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying.
List of Contents
Scarlet & Violet Review Summary
| Pros | Cons | |
|---|---|---|
| Story 9/10 |
・The base game has a diverse, branching storyline with each path driving the game's message home. ・The expansions flip the script on the game's main ideas, providing a compelling contrast to your initial journey. |
・The conflict is not as black and white as previous Pokémon iterations. |
| Gameplay 8/10 |
・Story battles are made to test trainers with preconceived notions about battling in mind, making the game challenging. ・The entire map in each region is explorable, and riding Koraidon/Miraidon makes traversal a fun activity on its own. |
・Gym Tests are no longer thought-provoking, which makes gameplay outside of battling and exploration lack depth. |
| Visuals 7/10 |
・ Pokémon and the impact of moves are well-animated. ・The Switch 2 port improves animations, visual clarity, and loading times while running at 60fps. |
・Constant frame drops and slowdowns occur on the Switch 1 port. ・The Switch 2 port is still just an enhanced version of the original game rather than looking and feeling like a brand-new Switch 2 exclusive. |
| Audio 10/10 |
・The game's music emphasizes and elevates the game's atmosphere. | - |
| Value for Money 9/10 |
・The expansive world and story, including the DLC, give you a lot of fun content to work through. | - |
Scarlet & Violet Overview
An Expansive World Held Back by Performance Issues
The Pokemon series is the highest-grossing franchise of all time, and for good reason: The various regions we explore and the multitude of unique creatures that we encounter shape the tried and true formula that has made these games so beloved. Fast-paced battles kept trainers hooked to their handheld Nintendo consoles, and immersive storylines, such as Emerald’s ecological warfare between Team Aqua and Team Magma, enticed these trainers to push through the game until the very end.
Furthermore, with each iteration, new aspects are introduced to spice up the gameplay, whether that’s new Pokemon, moves, types, or battle mechanics. And as the series has evolved, so has the hardware that trainers have played them on. While you’d expect the series to look more appealing as it moved away from the sprite-based art and into the 3D landscape, outcry has poured regarding the graphical quality and performance of Pokemon’s recent mainline releases.
Pokemon Scarlet & Violet exemplifies the series’ best qualities: Colorful regions to explore, a compelling story, and fun battles, but the game’s initial Switch release is unfortunately a prime example of the playerbase’s complaints. However, the Switch 2 port has remedied these visual and performance issues to turn the game into a complete experience.
Scarlet & Violet’s Simple, Persuasive Narrative
The Base Game Offers Multiple but Converging Storylines
Scarlet & Violet revolves around your trainer, a student of Naranja/Uva Academy, and you'll be assigned to search for your own treasure. This Treasure Hunt sets you up to follow three different storylines, representing different aspects of a typical Pokemon game’s story:
| Story Path | Summary |
|---|---|
 Victory Road |
This path represents the Pokemon League, where trainers battle until they become the very best. It emphasizes the strength of a trainer and their Pokemon, with their bond being the foundation of that strength. |
 Starfall Street |
This path represents the “Evil Team” that appears in each iteration, such as the infamous Team Rocket. However, Scarlet & Violet’s team is not nefarious at all, and instead exhibits how trainers become stronger due to the bonds that they have with other trainers. |
 Path of Legends |
This path represents this game’s region and explores its unique phenomena, such as the healing Herba Mystica. This path shows that Pokemon are not just partners in battle, but friends that you must strive to care for. |
Scarlet & Violet Story Walkthrough
This iteration doesn't pit you against an evil organization determined to either conquer or destroy the world, but the lack of explicit good and evil doesn't make the story any less effective. The game's narrative is pure, and it focuses on the relation between a trainer's strength and their bonds with others, whether that's between trainers and Pokémon or, more importantly, between fellow trainers. These bonds, whatever form they take, represent the treasure that you’re set out to look for throughout the game.
The relation between strength and bonds is clearly exhibited through each storyline, culminating in an epilogue that uses those bonds to triumph over the imminent destruction of Paldea. Overall, these themes were well-executed and well-presented through your trainer’s Treasure Hunt.
The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero is Linear but Compelling
On the other hand, the storyline that you'll follow for both expansions is one straight path. This new adventure begins in The Teal Mask, where you'll be flying to the land of Kitakami on a trip alongside other students. Your timid new friend, Kieran, feels powerless as you search for the truth behind the region’s legendary folk tale. At the story’s climax, you defeat him in battle, and you eventually end up capturing the Pokemon he’s been looking for.
As a result, Kieran sports a completely different look and disposition in the second expansion, The Indigo Disk. Now a fierce trainer who cares only about strength in battle, he awaits you at the top of Blueberry Academy’s BB League and vows to defeat you. However, you’ll need your friend’s help to uncover the strange phenomenon occurring underneath Paldea.
The overarching narrative in both expansions flips the themes that the base game honed in on. While you gained strength through the bonds you've made, your new rival's experiences led him to throw those bonds away and climb to the top with his strength alone. "What does it really mean to be strong?" The base game asks you this question, and the DLC emphasizes it even more. Strength is not just about having the strongest partners or the best techniques. It’s about the power of your bonds and the mutual trust between you and your partners, a message that the game drives home every single time you defeat Kieran in battle.
All in all, the juxtaposition between you and your rival's road to the top makes for a simple but compelling conflict for the narrative to wrap itself around.
Fun Gameplay Loop, Skippable Minigames
Battling is Still Pokémon's Core
Throughout Pokemon’s lifespan, the game has always revolved around training your Pokemon and battling until you’ve reached the top. Progression means getting strong Pokemon of different types to cover different strengths and weaknesses and leveling them up to the appropriate level for your next challenge, whether that’s getting your Gym Badges or thwarting organizations. Does Scarlet & Violet change that classic gameplay loop in a major way? No, not really, but it doesn’t have to.
Sure, there’s new types of battles, such as fighting against strong Pokemon with beefy health bars or auto-battles where you let your Pokemon fight by themselves in the overworld. You’ve also got new moves and as expected from a new Pokemon iteration, a fresh battle mechanic. However, it’s still about using the right Pokemon to battle with and duking it out against other trainers, now with updated and much more impactful visuals. And honestly, there’s nothing wrong with that: While it’s presented better with a couple spices added, the meat stays the same, and it’s just as good as it’s always been.
Minigames Are Diverse but not Stimulating
Minigames, and specifically Gym Tests, have always been intellectually challenging, or at the very least, a cause of frustration for trainers trying to acquire their badges. Whether they involve invisible walls, switches, or warp panels, these puzzles serve as important obstacles that test your mettle and see if you’re truly worthy of even challenging each Gym’s Leader.
| Gym | Test |
|---|---|
 Olive Roll Challenge |
In this challenge, you’ll have to roll a large olive down to the finish line. The course doesn’t really have obstacles, and you can easily get to the end without the shortcuts. |
 Seaweed Bidding Auction |
Here, you’re given a certain amount of money to acquire the Gym Leader’s desired item from an auction, and you can use all of the money to immediately win the bidding. |
 Snow Slope Run |
This challenge requires you to slide down the mountain slope before the time ends while passing through checkpoints. You’re given a lot of time to complete the course, and missing the checkpoints doesn’t really incur much of a penalty. |
Unfortunately, while these challenges have diversified in Scarlet & Violet, these three challenges exemplify why I feel uneasy about this game’s Gym Tests: There wasn’t much skill involved in completing them, and they didn’t require much from me at all. As a result, they felt less like a precursor to the Gym Leader’s difficulty and more like extra gameplay tacked on to make the game longer.
Some of these minigames are available as optional minigames. Personally, I would’ve preferred that they were all placed as optional side content from the get-go instead.
Gen IX's Game-Changing Mechanics
Terastilization is Innovative but Underutilized in the Story
The Pokemon series has had its fair share of battle mechanics introduced in each iteration, from Double Battles to Mega Pokemon and onward, with each new mechanic shaking up how battles played out in their respective generations. Scarlet & Violet introduces its own unique mechanic, Terastallization, which allows you to change the type of one Pokémon on your team once per match.
Before Terastilization |
Miraidon is a Dragon/Electric Pokemon, making it deal increased damage with Dragon and Electric-Type attacks while having Ice and Fairy-Type weaknesses. |
After Terastilization |
Terastallizing to Steel-Type removes its Ice and Fairy-Type weaknesses and makes it deal increased damage with Steel-Type moves. However, it still has its Dragon/Electric Type Attack bonus. |
This mechanic fundamentally changes Pokemon battles as another layer of esoteric information and guesswork has been incorporated into one of battling’s most important aspects: Pokemon typing. You can no longer fully rely on the opposing Pokemon’s known typing as it might suddenly change, making battles more frustrating but also more cerebral. You’ll have to use the mechanic at the right time while playing around your opponent’s timing as well. For a battle system that relies on reading the opponent’s next move, this mechanic adds depth to the gameplay and is definitely a welcome addition.
Unfortunately, the story fails to utilize the mechanic in an engaging way: Gym Leaders will use Terastallization on differently typed Pokemon to conform with their selected type, such as the Psychic Gym Leader changing her Fairy Pokémon Florges into a Psychic Type. The game therefore sacrifices presenting intelligent use of the mechanic for thematic consistency. Throughout my playthrough, not once was I surprised by the AI’s use of the mechanic, nor did I change up my tactics whenever it happened. As a result, the story completely sold the mechanic short when there could have been room to surprise the playerbase.
Sandwiches Make Everything Easier
Pokemon players tend to encounter various hurdles during their playthroughs: Finding and catching rare Pokemon, leveling Pokemon, and of course, finding Shiny Pokemon. Sandwiches, another one of Scarlet & Violet’s new mechanics, serves to remedy these concerns. Making and eating these sandwiches grants trainers different, limited-time bonuses based on what they made.
| Meal Power | Effect |
|---|---|
| Encounter Power | Increases the odds of Pokémon of a specific type to appear. While helpful for finding specific Pokemon to catch, I also used it to spawn specific Pokemon to defeat while training my own. |
| Catching Power | Makes Pokemon of a specific type easier to catch. Different types of Pokeballs already help with the catch rate, but this bonus helped me secure Pokemon I was looking for that had a low catch rate. |
| Sparkling Power | Increases the odds of Shiny Pokémon of a specific type to spawn. While definitely effective at increasing the Shiny spawn rate, acquiring the ingredients does require more work compared to other sandwiches. |
List of All Sandwiches and Recipes
Using sandwiches doesn’t necessarily make the whole game easier; It just makes the menial aspects less stressful. Catching and training Pokemon became more lenient, but I didn’t feel like the game’s skill floor was being lowered. Ultimately, these aspects are just parts of the build up to the trainer battles that the game revolves around, and these sandwiches make that build up much smoother.
Exploration Makes the Treasure Hunt Fun
Freeform Progression Made The Game Feel Liberating
In previous iterations, the flow of the game was mostly linear, and as a result, the accessible areas were limited by where you were in the story. Scarlet & Violet changes things up by making the whole map, as well as its important checkpoints, accessible right off the bat. While some areas do require some progression to access, you’ll be able to explore nearly every nook and cranny whenever you want to. More importantly, you’re free to switch between each of the three storylines, and you’ll receive different rewards based on the path you’re following.
Due to the level scaling of the battles in each storyline, you’re technically still following linear paths. However, being required to head to different, and at times even opposite locations on the map to progress, made the game feel much less restrictive. On top of that, you get to switch between the game’s three paths as well. The ability to freely pursue different storylines made progression smoother, as it eases the scaling between important battles compared to only pursuing one storyline.
Additionally, you have a choice not to follow the direction set by the game’s level scaling at all. If you choose to just train your Pokemon and make them strong enough, you can beat any of the hurdles that the game throws at you. Overall, the game’s progression system made me feel like I had absolute agency despite its existing guardrails.
Scarlet & Violet Interactive Map
Your New Partner Lets You Fully Traverse the Landscape
In earlier Pokemon games, there were mainly two forms of traversal: (1) HM moves, such as Fly or Surf, that were also usable in battle and (2) bikes. While these were eventually phased out in later generations, traversal has become completely unified in Scarlet & Violet through Koraidon/Miraidon. Whether it’s gliding through the air, scaling mountains, surfing on water, or zooming through the grassy plains, you’ll be relying on the game’s Mascot Pokemon for all of it.
For an expansive, open-world game, transportation between different checkpoints and landmarks must be smooth and should not feel mundane, and your main mode of transportation checks both boxes. Not once did I feel like getting from one point to another was a slog: Riding on Miraidon’s Bike Form felt akin to driving along roads in other open-world games, and I even chose to forego the use of Fast Travel landmarks as gliding through the air made the experience more enjoyable. Overall, while travelling across the map acts as downtime in between story sections, riding on my partner never felt like an inactive period in my playthrough.
A Generation Better Suited For This Generation's Hardware
The Switch Port is Bogged Down by Performance Issues
It’s normal to expect the next game in a series to not only look better, but also feel smoother to play. Quite frankly, it should, at the very least, be demanded. Pokemon’s early years were defined by its beautiful pixel and sprite-based art which also ran well on Nintendo’s older handheld consoles. However, since the series’ transition to 3D with Pokemon X & Y, it seems like Game Freak has struggled to figure out how to make Pokemon games render and/or run well on their respective devices.
For Scarlet & Violet, constant frame drops and slowdowns occurred throughout my playthrough. While I described in-game traversal as smooth and enjoyable in an earlier section, the single caveat is that the slowdowns scrap that positive experience. Traveling from one landmark to the next could become at least 25% longer as the game suddenly feels like it attached heavy balls and chains to Miraidon’s wheels.
Not only do these occur in the overworld, but they happen during battles as well. Move animations take even more time to finish, and even worse, moving around the menu and selecting an action can be laggy too. For a turn-based game where I preferably want the turns to go faster, the constant frame drops feel like a massive waste of time. Do these frame drops completely ruin the Scarlet & Violet experience, not really. However, the potential of the game is absolutely clear in all of its aspects, but these performance issues greatly tarnish that potential, resulting in an inferior product.
The Switch 2 Port is A Perfect Improvement of A Switch 1 Game
However, Scarlet & Violet performs almost flawlessly when played on the Nintendo Switch 2's improved hardware. Thanks to a performance patch that downloads automatically when the game is loaded on Switch 2, the games' most significant performance shortfalls are solved: The game constantly runs at 60 FPS, image quality has improved, such as distant terrain and groups of wild Pokemon being more visible, and animations are much smoother. These improvements turn Scarlet & Violet into what it should have been in the first place: A refined game representing the latest generation of the Pokemon series.
However, the Switch 2 port is ultimately just an upgrade instead of a dedicated Switch 2 game. Switch 1 limitations still exist in-game, such as low-resolution textures and character geometry. The game doesn’t truly feel fresh or “new-gen,” in a sense. At most, it acts as a definitive experience of the game. While the players shouldn’t expect the visuals and aesthetics of a bespoke Switch 2 release a la Mario Kart World or Donkey Kong Bananza, the Switch 2 port should absolutely be the standard choice for anyone who wants to play Scarlet & Violet.
The Music Clearly Sets the Tone
Finally, an underrated, yet very important aspect of the Pokemon games is its music. Whether you’re rummaging through the tall grass or facing the most intense trainer battles in each game, the music has always set the tone and elevated the mood in each scenario. Scarlet & Violet’s music accomplishes these feats as well.
The theme for Indigo Disk's final boss truly made you feel like you were fighting against a phenomenon greater than you've ever witnessed. The instrumental is bright, which speaks to the final boss' nature, and the tempo makes you understand the urgency of winning the battle and the difficulty of the boss itself. The DLC Epilogue's main theme also creates an eerie sensation while being catchy and danceable at the same time, which perfectly encapsulates what occurs in the epilogue.
These are only a few stellar examples, but Scarlet & Violet’s sounds fill in the game’s remaining holes and crevices, even making downtime atmospheric. The game feels peaceful when it should be, intense when it has to be, and everything in between. The music not just assists, but it dictates what you should feel in the situations that the game puts you in, and overall, the game’s music completely rounds out what is already a complete experience.
Is Pokemon Scarlet & Violet Worth It?
Worth Getting On the Switch 2 with Both DLCs
Pokémon Scarlet & Violet is a very extensive game, offering classic but exciting Pokémon battles, a large, heavily explorable region, and a new mechanic that changes Pokémon battling as we know it. All of these aspects are explored through a compelling narrative that follows different storylines and is expanded upon in both DLCs. However, due to the performance issues on the Switch, it's advised to get a copy for the Switch 2 and make the ride on Koraidon/Miraidon's back as smooth as possible. Overall, through its core gameplay loop, Scarlet & Violet effectively conveys that strength is not gained alone but through the bonds you make, and you'll definitely want to see that theme play out by playing the game yourself.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet Related Guides
Pokedex
Story Walkthrough
Train and Breed
Tera Raids
Tier List
Movesets & Best Builds
Competitive Battle
Rental Teams
Maps and Locations
Tips and Tricks
Moves
Abilities
Items
Sandwiches and Recipes
Clothes and Accessories
Game Mechanics
Characters
News and Game Info
The Teal Mask DLC
The Indigo Disk DLC
Ditto Trading Board (NA)Game8 Reviews
