Video Games

Pokémon Scarlet and Violet Are Full of Glaring Technical Problems

People are starting to access them once the review embargo on Pokémon Scarlet and Violet has been lifted and will last until November 18th around the world. It means that you can now recognize

We discussed this in our ongoing review. There’s a lot more about the game discussed there, but here’s a quick excerpt summarizing the issues I encountered specifically.

Framerates are all over the place and horribly low, even when only minor effects such as flowing water or weather are on screen. A character model just a few feet away will sometimes pop out very quickly, or move at the speed of a stop-motion animation. Everything has a strange, shimmering blur, with shadows frequently disappearing and suddenly reappearing illogically. Pokémon digging into walls and floors at odd angles, or getting completely stuck in walls and floors – the entire gym battle was spent with one Pokémon half-buried in the floor. It cuts through and provides a panoramic view of the video game void that can ruin cool moments (like my Wooper Evolution, for example). Everything from combat to menus to cutscenes is constantly lagging behind. Two of his writers have had their crashes on the hard game. This is by far the worst Pokemon game I’ve ever played and he’s one of the worst AAA games I’ve ever played on the Switch.And yes this is When First day patch.

To clarify, from my own playing experience, the problem was well beyond framerate. I ran into a bug. In one area I explored, it refused to pick up items lying on the ground.

In fact, as I was writing this article, one of our guide writers informed me that he had just encountered this strange problem.

A Pokémon trainer strangely intrudes during a wild Pokémon battle, and a Poké Ball is thrown from his feet. Image Credit: Titian Lent

polygon, euro gamer, Guardian, and basically everyone else cited issues in their reviews like we did. So it’s no surprise that more issues are uncovered now that the general public is playing too. Below is one of the most egregious examples circulating on Twitter.

And another, somewhat similar:

As more people get their hands on these games and break them, either accidentally or on purpose, we can expect to see more bugs and weird technical issues like this in the coming days. There is now a day one patch that seems to improve performance, but given that the entire review period was spent playing that patch, I’m not optimistic for everyone else. You will need a patch.

IGN has reached out to Nintendo to ask if further improvements are planned, but has yet to receive a response.

When battling bugs, check out our Wiki guide for everything you might need to know during your Pardean adventures.

Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. you can find her on her twitter @duck valentine.

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