This game is the building blocks for where the Pokemon franchise needs to go in its next mainline game. The game has a great story and great mechanics that add to the usual Pokemon formula, but it feels like the game is lacking in a lot of important areas like graphics and performance.

The open world aspect of this game works really well. It was definitely a breath of fresh air not being bound to a set order of challenges, but the game does a great job of recommending where to go in terms of level progression so you're not wandering into the strongest gym with a highly underleveled team. The different "storylines" of Path of Legends, Victory Road, and Starfall Street also do a great job at measuring your progress while driving their own narratives as well. The respective stories had their own fair balance of corniness and plot twists for Pokemon even though many could see right through Clive's disguise.

The biggest reason why this game gets 3 stars is that the game doesn't really perform up to par with other games on the Switch. The graphics are probably the best the Pokemon franchise had seen up to its release, but there's a lot of better looking (and way better performing) open world games on the Switch that don't suffer as many stutters and visual glitches that Scarlet and Violet did at launch. While many of them were addressed within a few months of release, it didn't really warrant a replay from me. While the DLC looks promising, I didn't buy it so I can't really comment on the DLC's additions to the game.

Lists: Completed, Own It, Interested