Game is out! First impressions?

[Sheep]

SV is out for certain parts of the world! What are your first impressions? What do you like? What do you not like?

 

[Amore]

Not out in my country until tomorrow, but I'm both deeply concerned about the graphics issues (I haven't pre-ordered, probably will today though so at least the bonuses will have some retail value when the combined Game + DLC cartridge is available) and also loving one little detail that popped up in multiple reviews:

Spoiler:

The Grass-type gym leader uses a Grass-Tera Sudowoodo!

Sudowoodo legitimately may be the first episode of the anime I saw, certainly the first I remember (although I knew the original series' title song) so I really appreciate this nice touch!

 

[Sheep]

Not out in my country until tomorrow, but I'm both deeply concerned about the graphics issues

It's definitely noticeable and worse than previous Switch Pokémon games, yeah. I'm a bit bummed about the very clear lack of optimization but having a lot of fun nonetheless. The world is massive and it's fun going around to each corner exploring.

For me, being about 4 hours in:

- Wish the performance was better
- Love how Pokémon are more accurately-sized now! Seeing tiny Pokémon out in the field as they should be is awesome
- Arven is a good character
- Picking up items is so seamless now. No more kneeling down to stop for an animation. Yes!!
- Other little QoL features, like pressing - on a party member to auto heal, are appreciated

Having fun so far. \o/

 

[Amore]

Having fun so far. \o/

That's the important part. I "pre-ordered" last night, but wouldn't have done if the reviews had all said the graphics were a deal-breaker. Wasn't planning on playing much soon as I haven't completed a single Gen VIII game (capturing all the legends, that is. Story done in Sword) but that Charizard event looks cool…

 

[Iceshadow3317]

It's definitely noticeable and worse than previous Switch Pokémon games, yeah. I'm a bit bummed about the very clear lack of optimization but having a lot of fun nonetheless. The world is massive and it's fun going around to each corner exploring.

For me, being about 4 hours in:

- Wish the performance was better
- Love how Pokémon are more accurately-sized now! Seeing tiny Pokémon out in the field as they should be is awesome
- Arven is a good character
- Picking up items is so seamless now. No more kneeling down to stop for an animation. Yes!!
- Other little QoL features, like pressing - on a party member to auto heal, are appreciated

Having fun so far. \o/

The graphic issue, is this after the 1st Day Patch we are supposed to be getting? Or is it still without that patch because today is the official date of release?

Everything I've read says Day One patch will make everything smoother and was just curious. I know that isn't the best excuse, but people are also making the excuse that most people don't have internet, but now day, you can easily got to a Library or any free wifi spot to update the game. And that is coming from someone who lives in Tennessee whos internet is far behind much of the rest of the world.

 

[Zeostar]

Indifferent about the frame drops. Got soft locked once within the first 15 minutes too.

I like the game and so far I enjoy the overworld more than Legends.

Dislike the removal of set mode. Horrible useless decision considering it's been in every game since Gen 1. Also not a big fan of the new TM system and the requirement of crafting.

 

[EmTheGhost]

Indifferent about the frame drops. Got soft locked once within the first 15 minutes too.

Could you share more about this? How the softlock happened?

 

[Zeostar]

Could you share more about this? How the softlock happened?

I was walking around the top of the lighthouse in the beginning. My character got stuck and wouldn't move at all.

I don't recall doing anything else in particular. It was bad enough that the entire switch froze. I couldn't turn it off or hit the home menu.

Other than that incident, have had no other freezing issues so far.

 

[Orion☆]

I was walking around the top of the lighthouse in the beginning. My character got stuck and wouldn't move at all.

I don't recall doing anything else in particular. It was bad enough that the entire switch froze. I couldn't turn it off or hit the home menu.

Other than that incident, have had no other freezing issues so far.

Oh frick, it's scary to hear that your whole Switch froze. Going by the comments I've been reading about this game, though, you're not alone. I really, really hope it doesn't come to the point that the game wipes your save file (as I've heard happened to a streamer) or bricks your console.

 

[Kaisersaur]

The game looks unfinished tbh. I'm having fun still though, but it looks beta rough.

 

[Megan]

It definitely feels unpolished. The game seems quite a bit slower than L:A, especially the battle system (switching Pokemon in particular). NPCs that are a little bit farther away and some of the shadows occasionally keep popping in and out of existence. It's nothing game breaking but it would have been nice if GF took some advice from Monolith Soft who did a way better job at dealing with these issues...

During the fight against the first Titan I also thought I was stuck on a ledge. But that turned out to not be the case.

Stores are mostly menus now? The first time I "left" a store it very much looked like my character fell out of the sky. It might have been just the camera acting up a little, though.

There's no level scaling it seems. I already went into a higher level area without really noticing until I started a battle.

I also don't like that some bodies of water I can enter while others I just got teleported back on land?

I also find it funny that a Pokemon might have no issues whatsoever beating another Pokemon in Auto Battling mode but ends up having severe issues in a proper fight. xD
I think that auto battling is based more on level difference and type advantage alone?

 

[Poke fan number 489]

It lacks scaling.
It's a good Pokémon game, but it's a complete failure at open world. I'd argue the game would have been better as a normal Pokémon game, then they wouldn't have to model as much.

 

[virtualpet]

Ended up playing like... 9-10 hours yesterday.

Overall we love it so far, the town environments especially are fun to explore and at last of the ones we've seen so far they just look gorgeous and this region probably has one of my favorite starting houses, I can't remember the name but the town with the bug-type gym leader was pretty, especially with your Pokemon following you, and the school did feel like wandering around a massive campus. The picnic feature is probably our favorite Pokemon Amie-like gimmick so far with it taking what we liked about Pokemon Camp but now being able to move around and I enjoyed the sandwich making minigame a lot more than I expected, and it's kind of cute to me that the legendary Pokemon is just kind of your seventh team member you can't use but can still be interacted with. The QOL improvements are really nice like easily visible Pokeballs and the auto-heal, as well as the settings to disable nicknames, box prompts, and move learning, but we don't really understand why they removed set mode (though I guess you can do a self-imposed set mode).

We don't really play a lot of open world games so kind of struggled with not knowing where to go, but eventually got the hang of it. I sort of preferred PLA's open world mechanics with catching Pokemon at least and we were hoping that given the school gimmick they'd be like "catch a lot of Pokemon to help with your studies and release them later" as a replacement for PLA's research, but it's still exciting to see new Pokemon at least and there are a lot of fun environments that can be explored (and it's nice to have a ride Pokemon right off the bat). There was the level scaling issue where we ended up wandering into a high level area (struggling against level 20s at level 11 lol) and catching Pokemon resulting in us being like 10 levels higher than the first gym, but we somehow clutched a fight against a level 33 Salazzle with most of the team at level 13.

Then there are the graphical and performance issues but they aren't too hampering for us. We encountered a handful of camera-related bugs and a weird lag spike during a cutscene, and the culling isn't good and would frequently cull models that are close or don't make sense, causing a lot of things like randomly floating purses when the human model didn't load in. There's also a lag before engaging in a battle that's a little annoying but not the worst we've experienced with gaming and at least it doesn't lag during the battles themselves like we had with some of SuMo's battles. As far as the graphics goes it feels like the wildlife environments still need work, but they've got towns and cities down at least it seems.


So overall it feels like the game had heart put into it, but it was rushed. Still very fun though and I could see us still looking fondly back on this and it might end up being up there with our favorite main series games and Paldea so far seems like such a cool region.

Edit: I also forgot to mention I love the amount of customization but the only downside is I was hoping that they'd do something like Animal Crossing where characters just use a neutral pronoun but... no.

 

[Iceshadow3317]

Haven't had a chance to play it much, but I just made it to the first big town right before the pokemon school, and though I am seeing small things, I am not really seeing much in the way of just terrible performance like so many people have mentioned and I have an older switch. It is hardly bothering me.

I feel like the open world is a little too big, at least on the first route, because I stray from the path so much just to get items. I can't say too much on story.

I do love the auto battle of wild pokemon, but the xp could be increase just a little. The first pokemon actually doing it is ok xp wise, but the secondary pokemon in your teams are getting 4 to 8 xp, which I think should be 12 to 15. Still a good way to lv quickly if your pokemon got behind.

I do wish trainers would show up on the minimap. I am one of those who likes battling every trainer.

 

[Yoshi808]

Just picked it up yesterday around lunch time. Was happy since I didn't have time to pre-order. Target was out of physical copies but GameStop had stock. After one night starting with Scarlet, I like it a lot. Didn't find any road closures whatsoever in game so I could get to all of the gyms before taking them on. Getting to the psychic gym was a gargantuan task. So I didn't follow the proper order: only the last two gyms were in proper order since the levels were too high (ghost and ice). Still deciding on my team as I prepare for the final four and champ. Total time about 12 hrs., Pokédex caught 69, battled 157.

 

[ForsetiMaster06]

My Thoughts on Scarlet/Violet So Far

Hey guys. I thought I would make a quick post about Gen 9 and what my thoughts on it are. Do keep in mind I haven't gotten terribly far (just arrived at the 3rd gym) but enough to make an informed opinion about the game. Anyway, here are my likes and dislikes about the game:

Likes:
1. I adore the open-ended nature of this game. You're getting around the same ammount of content as usual, but the ability to go do the story in any way you choose is a massive step forward from the overly-linear nature of Sword and Shield.
2. Terra Types are a really creative addition. I like them a lot more than Dynamax because of how much more interesting a type change is than a 3-turn stat boost.
3. The new ride Pokemon are great. I already was one of the few that liked that Sun and Moon mechanic, so an improved version of it is welcome in my book.
4. Follow Pokemon actually work this generation! It's a bit basic, but i'll take what I can get with this one.

Dislikes:
1. The performance is...not great to say the least. The frame rate dips a lot, pop-in is only marginally better than Gen 8, and worst of all a lot of my actions feel delayed when playing.
2. Set Mode is just straight up missing. It's not that big of a deal because I can just say no to switching everytime, but annoying.
3. This one bothers me more than most, but I HATE that they stopped giving trainers held items again. One of my favorite aspects of BDSP was that they gave almost every important trainer held items on their Pokemon, and it was fun seeing what kind of cool strategies the devs came up with. Now it's back to the strongest trainers in the reigon not even having Berries.

Feel free to discuss, agree or disagree with me. I'd love to hear what you guys think about these games.

 

[tetrahedronX900]

I see people saying there is no voice acting
And it look rushed and the graphics looks bad?
And maybe there is someone claiming that they running out of ideas?

 

[Squirtkipfan01]

Pros
Very open ended for alot of flexibility in exploration
Pretty good variety of pokemon
Alot of the new pokemon are cool
Tera types is an infinitely better gimmick than dynamax
Good bit of challenge
A new favorite legendary( miraidon)
Cons
Choppy framerate and poor performance
Alot of clipping
Some pokemon are hard to see while walking around(more a me thing)
You have no idea the difficulty of a challenge until you already start it so you can get ruined rather quickly(guilty)
50 tera shards to change tera type is abit much(personally)

Overall im enjoying my time but there are acouple things the irk me, but not enough to detract from the fun

 

[Devalue]

Missed this yesterday. Covers just the first day of playing (~4 hours).

Enjoyed simply scouring the land for new Pokemon. Barely progressed. Passed the Bug gym in search of more Pokemon. Shopped around for permanent team members far more in this generation than previous ones.

Did not notice performance issues too much. Tends not to. Saw underneath the ground a few times, but nothing horrible. Probably helps to have just finished Rune Factory 5.

Made Mesagoza unnecessarily big. Please just merge the clothing shops into 1-2 (and sell trousers).

Appreciated the little things like autoheal, den location markers, customization (except the uniform), easy move relearning, and destination markers. Does not like Set being gone. (Is not really affected by that yet.)

Conveyed Pokemon on the map poorly. Do not put Pokemon on a map if they are not right there. Spent a bit looking for a Happiny that should have been a step away.

Why are Pokemon so small? Started a few battles by stepping on some ant-sized Pokemon. (Could be the appropriate sizes, due to early forms typically being small. Feels wrong when all put together, though.)

Feels a bit offput by Nemona. Describes it as a pushy kind of friendliness...or something like that. Does not like Arven for being a jerk to Koraidon.

Remains conflicted on Sprigatito's first evolution. Why is it so hard to keep a cat on four legs? Stop cosplaying as Lucario. (Looks okay, but still...)

Overall: Positive, despite the negatives listed above. Did not detract from the experience of catching...40+ Pokemon?

 

[Sweet Serenity]

Hey guys. I thought I would make a quick post about Gen 9 and what my thoughts on it are. Do keep in mind I haven't gotten terribly far (just arrived at the 3rd gym) but enough to make an informed opinion about the game. Anyway, here are my likes and dislikes about the game:

Likes:
1. I adore the open-ended nature of this game. You're getting around the same ammount of content as usual, but the ability to go do the story in any way you choose is a massive step forward from the overly-linear nature of Sword and Shield.
2. Terra Types are a really creative addition. I like them a lot more than Dynamax because of how much more interesting a type change is than a 3-turn stat boost.
3. The new ride Pokemon are great. I already was one of the few that liked that Sun and Moon mechanic, so an improved version of it is welcome in my book.
4. Follow Pokemon actually work this generation! It's a bit basic, but i'll take what I can get with this one.

Dislikes:
1. The performance is...not great to say the least. The frame rate dips a lot, pop-in is only marginally better than Gen 8, and worst of all a lot of my actions feel delayed when playing.
2. Set Mode is just straight up missing. It's not that big of a deal because I can just say no to switching everytime, but annoying.
3. This one bothers me more than most, but I HATE that they stopped giving trainers held items again. One of my favorite aspects of BDSP was that they gave almost every important trainer held items on their Pokemon, and it was fun seeing what kind of cool strategies the devs came up with. Now it's back to the strongest trainers in the reigon not even having Berries.

Feel free to discuss, agree or disagree with me. I'd love to hear what you guys think about these games.

Since there is a thread that already covers this topic of what you think about the game, I am just going to combine it with the other thread.