Pokemon Violet

Playtime: 57.9 Hours

Finished 31 October 2025.

Played Violet on Switch 2, so I never experienced the worst of the performance issues; the game ran perfectly fine for me all the way through, with momentary hitches during some cutscenes. It still looks like absolute dogshit though, which makes it really funny to me that it ever had performance issues to begin with. As usual, I took the Grass starter who's actually very good in this generation, and just brought a team of fun Pokes through the entire game and both DLC. It's worth noting I did the DLCs after finishing the base game, so I got all the bumped up 70-85 levels; it didn't feel right having any of my homeboys sit out the new adventures so I never swapped anyone from my initial team, meaning that they were pretty much all Lv100 by the time I finished the game.

I did some Wonder Trading at some point but kept getting botted dupes (perfect shiny starters and other Pokemon) so stopped since it felt like a cheap and illegitimate way to fill my Pokedex. I got a couple of Ability Patches this way though, and used one on Meowscarada because Protean is absurdly good. Also FWIW, I finally set up Pokemon Home so I found a couple sets of starters that way as well.

I enjoyed this enough to the point that I ended up getting Scarlet as well; I'll probably play that sometime down the line when I'm back in the mood for Pokemon again (probably finishing USun first though). I might also consider doing the Shield DLC since the DLC for SV was pretty fun, if a bit silly.

For all of the very significant issues that plague this game, I actually enjoyed it immensely for what it was. Pretty much all of the faults I had with it are already well-documented and thoroughly complained about online; the game absolutely does not live up to the potential of what a Pokemon game could be, but that's just how this series is. It looks like shit, which should be obvious from screenshots - horrible modeling, questionable texture work & matching, just a mess visually. Performance was decent for me with no significant issues other than some hitches in Area Zero, but the Switch 1 versions looked completely unplayable to me; it's pathetic that a game that looks this terrible would also run so poorly, particularly given the size of the franchise. I also agree with almost all of the gameplay-related issues, but don't feel a need to repeat them all here - that's already been done to death. This game is mediocre, or even outright bad by most measures.

That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it, though! There's a number of pretty interesting changes made from SwSh and the generations prior that completely upset the overall flow of the game, and made it feel a lot more open in general. With SwSh's strangely limited Wilderness Area, they started experimenting with large open areas on the overworld - which I believe was itself extended from Poni Canyon in Gen7 and other similar ideas in previous games at a smaller scale. Taking this trend to the logical extreme, the entire map in this game is mostly freely explorable; no more routes barricaded by aggressive trainers, but rather open fields and roads between the different towns and cities with trainers that you have to seek out for fights. With all the Pokemon freely roaming these wider areas, exploring and catching new Pokemon is much more fun than in previous games; you spend more time focusing on finding the right spawns instead of running around mindlessly in grass. I am still a bit salty that there's no mechanic to refight any trainers or to really participate further in the aspect of the game, as it makes the world feel a bit dead once you've gone through it once. That said, I feel like I actually spent more time out in the wilds, compared to the other games where I'd always just beeline for the trainer battles.

The story was also split into 3 completely separate plots as well; given that there's always some combination of a Gym challenge, an evil Team, and an overarching plot for the legendary Pokemon (sometimes tied in with the team), SV splits them into 3 parts that you can freely choose to explore. The Gyms are the same concept as ever, though with the same lame challenges as in SwSh which was a disappointment to see. Funnily enough, they kind of give up on that idea with the later gyms; some of them are just gauntlet battles as usual. The evil team is once again lame as fuck; Team Star are just basically kids who are truant from school because they got bullied or whatever and make gang hideouts all over the place for some reason. This storyline was kind of weak, and the characters are pretty dumb to be honest. Lastly, the storyline centering around the legendary Pokemon has you finding a bunch of Herba Mystica, which are supposedly super-herbs that have incredible curative properties; Arven needs them to cure his normal dog Pokemon (for some reason, unspecified), and you use them to feed your box legendary, who basically acts as your bike and general transportation tool the entire game, unlocking new abilities with each one (ie. gliding, swimming, etc.). All of these storylines culminate into a final trip into Area Zero at the center of Paldea, where you learn about the origins of your pocket dragon bike. None of it is particularly compelling, but splitting them up like that is kind of interesting.

The DLC exist; Carmine is a pretty fun character since she's kind of a brat with some fun lines, Kieran is annoying and goes through various arcs of being annoying, and I wouldn't say there's much to care about as far as the characters or story go. The structure of the two expansions is kind of interesting and I like the areas though; the first kind of has you fighting a bunch of "Titan-like" bosses similar to Arven's storyline in the base game, and the second has you seeking out the Elite 4 of Blueberry Academy, which are in actuality more similar to 4 Gyms & a leader battle. I played them post-game so levels were bumped up a ton (to ~70-85), and I particularly found the second DLC to be a decent challenge with my unoptimized team. My only Ground-type move knower also being Water-type (Tauros) bit me in the ass hard here, though I learned the joy of Protean Meowscarada w/Play Rough, Triple Axel, etc. DLC2 forcing every fight to be Doubles is actually really cool, since they're otherwise such a rarely-seen component of the games. Enemy AI essentially gravitated towards basic or annoying tactics only which dashed my excitement a fair bit, though sometimes there would be really cool sets - especially on the more significant trainers. Interestingly, Kieran still had a pretty boring party; I'm surprised he was champion of the academy to be honest.

Not much to say about battling or other gameplay for the most part; there are lots of options for improving your Pokemon - IV & EV boosters, ability and nature changers, etc. that allow you to really optimize your party without resorting to eugenics. Sneaking up on Pokemon for boosted catch chance and a "stun" turn is really nice for hunting Pokemon in the overworld, but the annoying Picnic mechanic makes it seem quite tedious to do serious hunting for shinies or optimized Pokemon. I tried Wonder Trading a few times but only ever really got hacked mons (Lv. 100 shiny, perfect stats) or just basic earlygame garbage; pretty much what I expected, but still annoyed nonetheless. Also I forgot to mention the Tera mechanic; it's WAY better than Dynamax and better than Z-Moves, but nothing can really match how awesome Megas were. That said, for a simple gimmick that doesn't require a ton of redesigns, I had lots of fun with the Tera mechanic (and the raids as well).

It's difficult to ignore all the glaring faults, but the fundamental formula of Pokemon is too much fun still; the difficulty has gotten increasingly casual, but it's ramped up the focus on making catching and optimization a more accessible and entertaining gameplay loop, and I'd say it succeeded quite well here! This is probably the first gen that I've actually gone this far out of my way to just run around catching stuff for hours instead of making progress, largely due to these improvements. Comparisons to other RPGs don't quite work, given that the AI/in-game trainer battles aren't really meant to show the true potential of fights; you get that in online play, which most other games still don't have proper systems for. With everything said, I enjoyed it enough to the point that I decided to get Scarlet, and might consider trying to a CMA for this gen between the two games!