Pokemon Scarlet

⭐ 7.0/10

(Originally written by Joseph)

Man oh man what a roller coaster with this one. Every year I say I'm not playing the new game, and every year I do it anyways. So after reviews called this the funnest Pokemon game in a decade, I was suckered into paying ninety whole dollars. Five hours in and I instantly regretted it because it has all the hallmarks. Boring, annoying story for babies. Forever long animations. Baby-level difficulty. It's almost like I should stop playing games made for babies!

But obviously, I wasn't going to not play a game I paid that money for. So I tried to make my own fun. Turns out it's possible! To its credit, this game has a new emphasis on exploration and catching pokemon (similar to Arceus). I found this to be quite rewarding as I almost finished the Dex during just my playthrough. Constantly finding new pokemon and evolving old ones kept a nice consistent dopamine flow that got me through. Truly, exploration in open world games comes down to having cool things to discover. Pokemon was made for this! I wonder what's around the corner... maybe a new pokemon I don't have!

Otherwise, this game is unbelievably and inexcusably bad. The story is so, so terrible. Everything leads to pokemon battles, and the battles are awful. There is no strategy involved, and there never was, but now the game essentially tells you which button to press. The game also runs like garbage, but honestly I didn't reeeeally mind.

I'm happy they are trying new things, and there are still good elements here. But man, they just can't get out of their own way with how terrible they make these.