In the world of business, money talks. Pokemon is practically equivalent with the word “profitable” as it currently holds the spot for the most profitable media franchise in history earning billions upon billions throughout its history. The recent release of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet for the Nintendo Switch was no different. The games broke several records including selling over 10 million combined copies in 3 days, which completely obliterated God of War: Ragnarok’s sales of over 5 million in 5 days. I’ll be comparing these two titles further since they had close release dates, and for some reasons yet to come. For now understand that from a business perspective, you can’t ask much more from the perfection that was Scarlet and Violet.
However, in the world of gaming, quality talks. And the quality of these Pokemon games has been called into question by just about every reviewer on the planet. It’s no secret that despite their miraculous launch, the two games are riddled with about every bug/glitch imaginable. Animations working improperly, clipping, low framerates, assets popping in and out, all of the familiar faces that indicate a lack of polish for a title. These glitches range from downright hilarious and minor to game breaking and completely immersion-destroying. Reviewers were quick to criticize the most profitable franchise for resorting to release such an utter mess that clearly needed more time. It’s certainly not a matter of resources. Hell, Pokemon has already had its head in the crosshairs for years now as Game Freak continued to pump out essentially the same game over and over again with little innovation. This year, Pokemon: Arceus gained much respect for trying to innovate the formula and thus was mostly forgiven for its lack of polish. Yet this time no such sympathy is found as Game Freak released the two new mainline Pokemon games IN THE SAME DAMN YEAR. And what was the consequence of rushing the game out unoptimized for players? A huge payday that decimated the market competition.
When you look at God of War and Pokemon side by side, it’s hard to imagine both are from the same era. While both are smashing sales for their respective parent companies, the leap from one to the other in terms of work put in and time in the oven is insurmountable. So far my watchthrough of God of War: Ragnarok is about 4 hours in and the direction, animations, graphics, voice acting, narrative, hell everything looks top notch and generation defining. Then you have Pokemon where everytime I see a screenshot I hope that some kid’s Christmas out there won’t be left with disappointment. There’s really no excuse for developers and publishers with such dedicated fan bases to be rushing out products as horribly undercooked as this, apart from greed of course.
Something is different here and it isn't just the artstyle.
At the end of the day, Pokemon is a massive cash cow (now the picture makes sense, right?) and it’s doubtful that Game Freak will either try or be allotted the proper amount of time to handle innovating a new title. The Switch itself is no top of the line piece of gaming hardware so plenty of time is likely needed each release to ensure a game can handle running on the lesser parts. And well, it’s clear nobody ensured that this time. All you can do is cross your fingers and hope that staying in the customers’ goodwill will eventually be vital enough to cause someone somewhere in this pipeline to get the franchise back on track. Are you playing any of the new games mentioned today? Will Game Freak be able/want to change their development cycle after this backlash, or is it still too small? Buy some Pokeballs, head out into the wild, and catch some glitches in the comments below!
