After Almost 30 Years, Japan Finally Has A New Best-Selling Pokémon Game

This franchise is literally the new Assassin's Creed.

It was fun and added a lot of good mechanics and quality of life fixes. But with the games performance issues that were never addressed and rather empty world it feels undeserved.

Whelp, I got nothing... 😳
As little Pokemon are heading to the bomb shelters of the Internet.

I really enjoyed Scarlet and Violet, and I can see why it's sold a lot of copies considering it's the first open world main title. Although for me personally I still prefer Sword/Shield over Scarlet/Violet.

Well, don't expect getting good, technically solid pokemon games anytime soon. It's a shame really. I used to love the franchise.

I recently just picked up Scarlet version, haven’t played it yet though. I did play Sword/Shield but I kinda slacked off on playing Pokemon games during the Switch era. Trying to get back in it.

Jim, you act as if making the next game on Switch 2 will mean it’ll run better. But as long as GameFreak’s devs continue to be incompetent, that will not happen.

Also it saddens me that this buggy, ugly game is now the top seller. We have only ourselves to blame for sending the wrong messages to The Pokémon Company. However, 10th Gen is going to be the first one where I don’t automatically buy the game. If it doesn’t review well, I’m out. I barely played Scarlet/Violet.

Ah yes the new face of the phrase crap sells.

And it doesn’t deserve it one bit.

The games launched in 2022, not 2023.

Brand sells. Sigh

@LastFootnote
People never learn this even beyond Gamefreak or Switch always thinking new hardware is gonna to magically cure problems that are ingrained in the developer or the engine they’re using and when they feel no market pressure they have little reason to change anything.

Having been on board the wagon since the first generation, I guess fans have different standards now. They lost me when I no longer couldn't "Catch 'em All." I looked forward to completing the National Dex for every generation (and successfully did), until that ended with Sword/Shield.

Still wishing for a return of the "Catch 'em All" mechanic. It doesn't have to be in another 3D game. I'll be happy with HD-2D, or even just well-animated 2D like with Black/White and their sequels.

I've long since said my piece about these games. People who've seem me post around know how I will feel about this. But hey, good for the fans of these installments. 🤷🏻‍♂️

To me, this game was very empty. Sure, it had new mechanics such as freely roaming the world, but it lost a lot of charm of an rpg in my opinion. It wasn’t an adventure, it was just a quest of going everywhere once without context and catch a mon. Then go someplace else.

And yes, I still got the national dex in the game. I’m a sucker completionist

Massively underrated games and I love the heck out of Violet and the DLC.

Top 3 Pokemon game from me of the entire series.

By the time I played them, they look good, play pretty well and the world is huge and full of moving and objects and pokemon literally everywhere. Any console would have struggled pumping all that out at once, even during battles in the background

So far have 130 hours of fun with more to do in Violet/DLC.

Good news!
I feel like the games are getting better after Sun/Moon, for me that was the absolute lowest point in the series.
Hoping for the next Legends to be a hit, that was the best pokemon game ever made.

If justice were to prevail, Legends Arceus would be on top.

Or anything Gen II.

I enjoyed whatever there was to enjoy of Scarlet/Violet, but they sucked overall. Sword/Shield were far superior games.

I personally had a good time with Violet...

I pine for the days of simpler Pokemon. Not as much the game mechanics per sé, just that the designs and general vibe just got more and more over the top.

Sure, the OG had some silly and questionable creature designs, but things just got crazier and crazier and I kinda miss the smaller vibes...

Or I just got old. That may have something to do with it too.

I guess this means we're destined for more mediocre, lazy and poorly thought out dross that becomes samey and tedious after a while

But enough about the NL comments...

I loved Scarlet and Violet.

Best characters and storylines in more than a decade. Arven in particular is one of the best in the entire series's history.

that's depressing

I am not surprised. Even given the mass amount of problems it has had (and many still have), it is still one of the better MODERN Pokémon releases. With many mechanical decisions that have bodded many other previous versions down.

I cannot say it's "up there" with the older releases, but I would be lying to say it is probably better than anything from X/Y and onward.

I like the games for what they were and the new features they brought to the series, but I believe it could've actually deserved the sales if they had an extra year to develop the game.

I thought this was the one (two) that nobody likes

@calbeau I'm not familiar. In what way is the collection limited?

@Gryffin Since Sword/Shield, the games have dropped the ability to have all monsters from all generations in one game. This used to be the games' main draw for me and what kept me playing through the generations despite the series' shortcomings.

I understand the reasons why they've dropped this feature, but that doesn't mean I have to like it nor accept it, so off the wagon I go.

Kinda sad it finally happened with how lousy these ones were. And it’ll probably just let GameFreak continue to release mediocre games from here on…Hopefully I’m wrong though and the next games are the most robust content-packed Pokémon games ever.

@calbeau Honestly, I’d love a new 2D Pokémon game. Just let it feel like it used to, instead of what they’ve unfortunately become…

@calbeau ah, that's right. It's a development limitation of models, audio, special effects, etc. But I see your point.

Good for you I guess...
How about releasing Gen 1 and 2 on NSO to celebrate?

I just don't enjoy the open-world versions of Nintendo games nearly as much as I do the way they were traditionally made. Its the same reason I don't like Breath of the Wild nearly as much as the old Zeldas. The new Super Mario Bros Wonder was my favorite SMB game released on the Switch so far because I just can't get in to open-world games.

@AJWolfTill I feel like they won't until the next system because they don't want people hacking gen 1/2 Pokemon on early Switches. A really dumb reason I know but they have been doing everything they can over the years to remove hacked pokemon from the community (a lot but not really) and this feels like the perfect dumb reason to hold bringing them over when we all agree it would lead to a LOT of people subscribing for their online.

@LavenderShroud I agree. My dream Pokemon game has always been 2D, includes all monsters from all generations, and with animations in the same vein as Black/White, but made even better with animations akin to the Super Robot Wars game series and animating even things like status effects (e.g. a Pokemon actually lying down when asleep).

It'll probably never happen, but it's free to dream.

@somnambulance Yeah its unironically the most ambitious Pokemon game they've made. While it could have ran better.

It delivered the traditional formula along with new ideas in an open world in a way even Legends had to compromise on.

this is embarrassing...

Seriously?!
I still thinking Nexomon is way much better than Pokemon Scarlet / Violet.

Haters can blindly hate, but S/V are one of the best Pokemon games ever, with one of the best storylines, a huge region, great characters, incredible music, lots of content to discover and a large amount of replay value. The technical faults have never ruined the overall experience, despite what the naysayers will tell you.

A proper Switch 2 patch could really display the game's true potential, and would help its legacy age much better.

@batmanbud2

Chill, Gamer. There's a lot to hate, but there's a lot to love.

All this says is more people playing games, and Pokemon is popular. The team has been struggling with the shuffling of key Pokemon creators phasing out of active development the last decade. They'll find their legs again.

This was the first Pokemon game that has stopped me from acquiring it to my physical collection. Pokemon Arceus will be my last for the Switch.

This news alone will only encourage 'Game Freak' to release half baked games in the future, knowing it will sell no matter what.

Now excuse me, kids. I'm going back to playing Romhacks.

I believe I have surpassed 300 hours in Pokemon Violet. I loved it and can't wait for whatever's next.

sad SpongeBob music

Rather bothered by this. I enjoyed Scarlet, but not like, top seller enjoyed it. I remember a number of months I didn't dare touch it because of a save data erasing bug they introduced after launch, and didn't bother saying when it was fixed. After Pokemon Home integration was brought in, raids became overly difficult to do.
The dlc is also a fair bit more expensive than I'm willing to pay.

Also, with switch being the success that it is, this only further encourages lazy releases by Nintendo and company.

I always think "Oh yeah with he new ideas this Pokemon game introduced the next one will surely be better!" And then get disappointed. I really do hope they find their stride with 3D games, it's been pretty rough for GF adapting to 3D.

I may have grown out of this series and that’s sad. Red/Blue and Silver/Gold/Crystal were immense. I even had a really good time with Ruby/Sapphire but not long after that it started to go down hill. The magic was lost. Legends Arceus was pretty good, but felt like it was massively missing a battle aspect.

@betterthanvegas
That or their similarly over protectiveness around the fact that they :
Don't want to enable save states (trading?).
Don't want to deal with integrating Pokémon Bank (or whatever replaced it?) which some people would want.

Leave it to Pokemon fans to talk about S/V issues, acting like the games used to be quality titles. When Red and Green were also technical messes that needed a third version to fix issues, and even redid the sprites.

This series always had issues with bugs and technical issues.

I love ScarVio. Fix the performance and give us more everyday activities besides battling/shiny hunting, and these would be S-tier games.

That's great to hear. I personally liked 'Pokemon Scarlet' and never got the hate for it. I liked exploring the Paldea region, finding the Titan Pokemon and unlocking new moves for Koraidon and defeating all the Gym Leaders, members of Team Star, I also liked the characters especially Nemona and the DLC was fun too and I enjoyed the story of the Ogerpon in the Teal Mask.

My youngest Niece who is a big Pokemon fan loved it too even more than 'Pokemon Legends: Arceus' and she didn't like 'Pokemon Legends: Arceus much 'cause she thought having Pokemon attack you was scary and had a bad experience with a certain Rapidash with glowing red eyes that scared her.

@Arehexes I don't think the glitches or performance issues were anywhere near as bad as some people make them out to be and the way they talk about them is like 'Scarlet' and 'Violet' are unplayable which they aren't. Unless my youngest Niece and I got different versions than everybody else I can honestly say I didn't have any major problems with 'Pokemon Scarlet' and the DLC worked fine too.

@DollyrotsFan1 I have done a few playthroughs of S/V, and I can say there are some issues. For some reason the screen to buy outfits is choppy (also the outfits are kinda lame compared to Sw/Sh, but that's personal opinion). There is a weird bug with the picnic table if you have the dlc. Besides that I had one hard crash to menu, but that's it. None of the issues were unique to S/V in my experience with playing Switch games.

The level of discourse about the quality doesn't match what I experience at all, and it feels like people share the worst examples going "See, look at how bad it is".

@FaroreAbhorsen

I always holdout for the 3rd Poke releases, so I got the expansion pack physical for both Sword and for Violet. I am around 130 hours in Violet, doing post-game stuff but not yet even started the DLC. Doing a break for other games before going back in to do the DLC. Looks good to me though, but not played yet.

Several patches are usually out by the time I play so I get what I feel are totally playable and decent games. I love 'em as an adult gamer.

@FaroreAbhorsen

What I mean when I call it empty is the lack of trees and forests. The environment of the world seems severely lacking in plant life, especially based on the topography of the area. Most of Paldea feels like an open prairie which is rather dull to wander through.

Congrats to SV for this massive achievement! SV and Legends are the most fun I've had with Pokémon since Emerald!

I think this means SV is now the second best selling game of all time in Japan, because the record was previously held by Pokemon RGB until Animal Crossing: New Horizons dethroned it a few years ago.

@AJWolfTill The lack of cloud saves is definitely my biggest complaint with mainline Pokémon and is far worse than any of the performance issues that the usual haters are always whining about. As far as integration with Pokémon Home (Bank was for the 3DS), that was actually added a while ago. You even get rewarded now with a shiny Meloetta if you transfer the full SV dex into Home.

@FirstEmperor
I was speculating on what was stopping them adding the Game boy range of titles to NSO rather than dishing on the S/V. New Pokémon Snap is the only Pokémon game I have on the Switch 😅. I imagine integrating Home (thanks for the correction) is a challenge for these older games, (although they did on 3ds right?) and some of the more hard core fans would be fuming they didn't put that work in.
I'd be quite happy playing them disconnected from the wider Pokémon ecosystem.