Pokemon Scarlet

A game I’ve been waiting for, and one in my opinion delivered all I was hoping to get out of it.

The good, it brought back some nostalgia while bringing new life to franchise I’ve played since the first ones that came out in 1996. Not sure how many hours I’ve put into the game but I’ve beaten it and the giant raid battles still prove to be a challenge even with me maxing out my stats completely. The non-linear play and freedom this game gives you was new for a Pokémon game so naturally I went and explored catching Pokémon before I even accomplished any story missions. I also ran into Pokémon and trainers I had no business fighting which brings us to the bad. The bad, there was no scaling so as you went through the “hardest part” of the game the rest was a breeze and while I did get the challenge I was looking for in the beginning I quickly became unstoppable. I will say though the game never got boring and there’s much more to the world of Pokémon than the difficulty of Pokémon battles. The ugly, I’m not sure where the blame comes in at whether it’s a game too big for the switch or if the game was “unfinished” but frame rates dropped terribly low and there were some glitches. Maybe even some games crashing, but I didn’t experience any of it and any issues didn’t affect my gameplay or my love for the game. I wouldn’t say there’s a replayability factor, but the strong Pokémon raids and co-op features keep the game fun and challenging even after you’ve beaten the game.