Pokemon Scarlet and Violet players are already taking issue with one of the game's most frustrating aspects. Despite launching just today, criticism of the new Pokemon games has already grown to a high level. Performance issues leading to serious graphics limitations, pop-in, and glitches have been the main focus of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet unhappiness so far, but a growing number of players are pointing to something else hurting their RPG experience.
Reports from early coverage of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, as well as confirmation from early adopters, detail a variety of performance issues. Some of these issues include clipping through Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's world and into the ground or invisible Pokemon. These issues are unfortunate, but for the most part, don't seriously impact gameplay. At the very least, they can be worked around. That's not the case with all issues, though.
A post to the Pokemon subreddit from Monte_20 calls attention to what they call "waiting second in between little actions." The post says that Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's frame rate drops, camera issues, and visual glitches can be dealt with. The game's lag when opening and closing menus, waiting for the Rotom phone animation to complete, dialogue, and battles, however, stretch what should be quick actions into a slog.
Comments in the thread add further context to these frustrations. One player mentions that just choosing different clothing options in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's store is "excruciatingly slow." Another added that it took 7 seconds to look at a backpack. One common sentiment was how slow it is to swap Pokemon mid-fight, pointing to how players have to wait for their opponent to perform a roar animation before their Pokemon can be summoned. In other words, it's not just lag that's an issue, it's part of the game design.
Players have multiple theories for why the issue is so prevalent across Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. Some say that the open world is loading all the time, even in stores. Others say there's a memory leak that Game Freak needs to fix. A significant number of players say it's simply the limitations of the Nintendo Switch, and that Game Freak is doing everything it can to hide the console's struggling hardware issues.
Game Freak is under a lot of pressure to deliver Pokemon games on a very tight schedule. This certainly isn't the first time a main Pokemon release had issues with slowness during gameplay, with Pokemon Diamond and Pearl being egregious examples. The hope is that now that Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are out, Game Freak can focus on optimization. Pokemon fans probably shouldn't set too high of expectations, though.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are available now on Switch.