It is no secret that the recently released Pokemon Scarlet & Violet haven’t launched in the best state and that they could have done with more time in the oven for optimisation and to stamp out some of the hilarious bugs that players have encountered. Now video game tech-focussed site Digital Foundry has gotten on the case and their analysis puts Pokemon Scarlet & Violet’s performance and visuals under the microscope. The team says that the games frame rate and textures are all over the place with popup being noticeably rampant and there are even issues with shadow and lighting effects. The subtitle on their article reads “Embarrassing artwork, terrible draw distance, poor performance and a litany of bugs.” Here’s a few choice extracts from a simply damming article:
“Cutting to the chase, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet simply do not live up to the standards of other Pokémon titles. There are so many glaring technical problems that it’s going to be difficult to cover them all, but the most fundamental issue is the poor visual design and asset quality. Scarlet and Violet are bland and extremely basic-looking: environmental assets are of a low quality with basic geometry, ugly tiled textures and simple designs. At a distance, the environmental assets look at their worst, stripped of most detail and completely lacking shadows. Violet makes use of some pretty harsh normal maps to add detail here, clasing with the game’s generally otherwise low-frequency aesthetic.”
“It’s likely that engine limitations probably play a role here and I suspect Gamefreak’s proprietary tech is due for an overhaul if not an outright replacement, especially when it comes to more ambitious and open titles. But even the code issues don’t excuse how crude some of the artwork is, which suggests a production bottleneck elsewhere as well. It’s clear that Scarlet and Violet are well below the technical standards set by prior Pokémon titles, and that extends far beyond the visual and performance complaints we’ve mentioned here. The game suffers from serious bugs and game-breaking issues, most of which have been extensively documented online. These range from momentary visual artifacts to ridiculous traversal exploits. There’s no end to the variety of bizarre problems players have managed to uncover.”
“Ultimately, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet are comprehensive technical failures. Embarrassing artwork, terrible draw distance, poor performance, mediocre image quality, and a litany of bugs plague this pair of very troubled games. Pokémon fans deserve better.”
