Hey have you heard? This year's Pokemon game finally rele- Huh? What do you mean this is the SECOND POKEMON GAME RELEASING THIS YEAR?
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are this year's november Pokemon releases, with Pokemon Legends Arceus being released as recent as January, and Brilliant diamond/pearl released last November. I'm sure we've all seen the funny graphical glitches on twitter and youtube compiled in neat little clip videos, read about the memory leak, and wondered to ourselves, If this is the game WITH the day one patch, what was it like before?
I'm not here to talk about the specifics of all the things wrong, software wise, with the new pokemon game, nor have I played the game (not spending 80 bones for a game that barely plays) for me to be complaining about the story (Which, despite everything, I've heard is good. Hope that isn't just cope). I want to talk about what this means for the Pokemon Franchise, to release something so unfinished and so buggy, right at holiday season, for full price.
There are informational posts out there about the memory leak, bugs, and how The Pokemon Company International is structured, the explanation for why Scarlet and Violet are this way. The news is so widespread by now (The game is on it's day 13, by now), so a simple internet search should suffice to finding this information.
Pokemon. The Pokemon franchise has brought endless joy to me, and many other people, over the decades, and it's games, the origin of the franchise, have usually been techincal masterpieces, or at least functioned well enough to be played without restraint, with the exception of some silly glitches in gen 1 and 2. When Scarlet and Violet released, I expected the games to feel a bit empty and lackluster, with the extra bonus of boring, as the time crunch would indicate. However, I was not expecting horrible games to come out of Pokemon, ever, and I'm not sure anyone else was expecting this either. What does it mean for Pokemon as a whole? I'm not sure most consumers can trust them anymore to a. release good games (good games are ones that function as intended. This reminder is needed, as pokemon fans are often brainwashed to settle for less, myself included) and b. respect the practice of their developers, which we can all assume did not get to sleep at home, or get to finish the game on time. One can only hope that the next mainline pokemon game won't release until 2025, but we all know next april there will be a pokemon direct announcing the new games for next fall.
Until next time,
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