When it comes to The Pokemon Company, they are the mastermind behind the biggest media property in the world. That might sound like we’re overselling the importance of Pokemon, but if you look at the sales? They’re the ones who clean up the most. Anyway, for over 25 years, they’ve been making all sorts of titles attached to their pocket monsters. From the mainline RPGs that started the craze to the NUMEROUS spinoffs that helped build up the brand even more, they’ve been cranking things out almost every year or so. But when it came to the ninth generation of their beloved series, they hit their first true speed bump.
Sure, in the past, not every title or spinoff was “perfect,” and some of the games they approved were a bit “basic” or “low quality,’ but this was different. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet was to be their biggest triumph and expansive game, and it was in the sales sense. However, when you look at the reviews and fan feedback from when they launched in November 2022, you’ll see that while the game was good, if not great, in its story and gameplay, the bugs riddled within it held it back.
While there are ALWAYS bugs in video games, Gen 9 had some of the most obvious bugs you can possibly imagine! The Pokemon you would ride on would disappear, leaving you floating in midair! Or how about how the camera sometimes splices into the ground and exposes the empty void under the game world?
Pokemon and characters spazzing out, character models running into each other during storyline battles, framerate issues, and more plagued the game, and fans gave them flak for it. But now, an insider claims that The Pokemon Company has heard these complaints and will ensure that their next titles won’t make those same mistakes:
We’re happy to hear that for multiple reasons. First off, Gen 9 really was good! It had more freedom than any title before it in the mainline games, and the ability to do the “story mode” in whatever order you wanted was great. When you added that to the great characters like Nemona, Arven, and Penny, you get something special that gamers did enjoy…when they weren’t rolling their eyes at all the bugs.
It’s possible that some of these issues could be fixed within the Nintendo Switch successor, especially the framerate issues, but we won’t know until the system launches. Either way, the company is on thin ice right now, and they better not make the wrong step going forward.
