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Pokemon Violet (and in turn, Scarlet) is the debut game for the 9th Generation in the series, featuring an fully open-world environment with three different storylines in the form of paths and a brand new gimmick in the form of Terastalization.

Despite all those fancy words, however, in my sincerest opinion, this may have been the worst mainline Pokemon game in the modern era, even though it had the most potential to be one of the greatest.

The story in Paldea is presented in the form of three paths: Victory Road, Starfall Street, and Path of Legends, each showcasing their own take on the overarching theme of the game:

「What is your treasure?」

Screenshots from the game, namely the screens when you beat: Monteverra Gym (Victory Road), Stony Cliff Titan (Path of Legends), and Team Star Fairy Crew (Starfall Street)

In Victory Road, we join Nemona as she encourages us to take on the 8 gym leaders, and eventually the Elite Four and the Champion of Paldea. In short, it’s your typical traditional Pokemon experience.

In Starfall Street, we are recruited by a mysterious hacker known as Cassiopeia, who asks us to take down each of the different Team Star leaders. This is the equivalent of fighting the antagonistic team from previous games.

Lastly, in Path of Legends, we join Arven as he seeks out the different Titan Pokemon, all of which guard a special ingredient known as herba mystica, for him to form the ultimate sandwich.

Of course, if you’ve played through the game, then you know how each of them answer the question of what their treasure is.

Now, I will admit, in my honest opinion, the story presented here (except for Victory Road) may be one of their best attempts at overthrowing the legendary story of Generation 5’s Black/White and Black 2/White 2. However, it falls a little short and sometimes a little flat. Between the three, Path of Legends is the best among them, and for reasons beyond the three paths that I will not go into here lest I spoil everyone.

Unfortunately, most of the good is just that.

As everyone knows, this game was and still is riddled with bugs and glitches, most especially graphical glitches, which seriously ruins the experience for the player. It’s not hard to walk around and suddenly be able to see past the cliffs because you’re standing too close to one and it isn’t blocking your vision. Not to mention how memory seems to leak more frequently, which is already a problem in general with the Switch further exacerbated in this specific game.

Screenshots of the user's character in-game

On the note of graphics, while I appreciate the deviation in style, I think it wouldn’t have been such a let down if they actually made better use of it. This game is their first attempt at a true open world game, yet this has somehow managed to be a region that feels so empty. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed exploring through the Region early on, but when it became obvious that most of the region is empty, no matter which biome you’re in, it became a chore. The character customization’s pretty neat though! But I wish we got to customize our uniform in some way…

Gameplay wise, I wish we got a bit more of a slightly challenging game. I think due to the inherent nature of non-linear open world stories, it eventually becomes pretty easy to just grab the nearest level 60 Pokemon and call it a day (because I did that), making a lot of the fights somewhat easier. Similarly, I wish the Terastalization mechanic was better used. The whole appeal of it was that adding a new type to the mon, potentially covering their weakness, making it a bit more difficult to fight against. Unfortunately, the game only really did that a few times I can probably count it on one hand.

All in all, Pokemon Violet (and Scarlet) had serious potential with the direction they were trying to take it. It’s just very clear they didn’t have the time for it. Here’s to hoping that Legends Z-A is a much better game.

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