Hilltop Sunset

Yet the games continue to demonstrate apathy toward innovation and improvement in a way unprecedented for the highest-grossing franchise ever. Even if the performance of the game was immaculate, running at 60fps 100% of the time with no visual glitching anywhere to be seen, I have identified a collection of recurring and new issues that I’m grouping under the single umbrella of “immersion” issues. Textures are still reminiscent of N64 era resolutions, the game’s animations are still extremely low-quality, and Pokémon are still just roaming around aimlessly with no purpose or sense of belonging in the world. They even reverted the out-of-battle catching mechanic that made Legends: Arceus (L:A) feel so fluid and improved over the old “fight-and-catch” method, and have made a number of new poorly executed additions specific to the new games.

But why does immersion matter? Similar to how a book draws readers into a story, videogames should draw players into the gameplay. When reading a good book, people often forget they are even reading, mindlessly turning pages while completely engrossed in the pleasure, excitement, fear, or romance created by the words on the pages. Video games have the ability to offer a similar experience. Now, imagine you’re reading a book and encounter an entire page where each letter is a different color, and there is a random image behind all the letters with even more clashing colors on it. Or maybe you turn the page and suddenly the book slams shut, forcing you to remember what page you were on and relocating it. This would be distracting to the reader, and likely would disengage them from the story. Similarly, the aforementioned issues with the Pokémon games often pull players away from the immersion of the gameplay and create a dissatisfying experience.

Many of us remember the infamous tree from Sw/Sh. When it was first shown in a preview for the then-upcoming games, fans were understandably concerned. Many voiced a hope that the textures would be improved before the official release of the game. We’ve now seen similar or worse textures in 3 games since—Sw/Sh, L:A, and now S/V. Textures are often so bad that they are difficult to look away from. Just like the example of the colorful page in a book, the poor textures draw attention away from the game itself and ruin any immersion players may have been feeling up to that point.

Image: Giant human hands strike the enemy Pokemon.

Similarly, it is extremely distracting to see massive white-gloved human hands suddenly appear out of thin air to strike enemy or friendly Pokémon when using moves like Arm Thrust or Double Slap. There is no justifiable reason for this anymore at this point. The human hands and feet served their purpose within the 2D games due to graphical limitations, and were forgivable on the 3D handheld games due to limitations once again. But now they are just a slap in the face to players. Pokémon should be allowed to use their physical bodies to physically strike other Pokémon during battles. To be honest, it’s embarrassing that these artifacts from bygone generations continue to plague modern-day Pokémon games.

And then there’s the issue of Pokémon themselves popping into existence out of thin air as you approach them. This issue was present in Sw/Sh and L:A and doesn’t seem to have been adequately dealt with for S/V. When Pokémon do show up from a distance, it is often at an extreme lack of framerate, sometimes dropping to what looks like probably 3 or 4 fps. Framerates in S/V are constantly hit or miss from the few streams and examples I’ve seen floating around. The very first stream I went into showed a classroom full of children kicking their feet and swaying their heads at a solid 4 frames per second.

And when Pokemon do show up on the field, what are they doing? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Which brings us to the issue of wild Pokémon behaving like automatons rather than real, living creatures. Ever since Pokémon started appearing in the overworld beginning with Let’s Go: Pikachu and Eevee, I have been yearning to see Pokémon behave more like real creatures. This issue has existed within every title since then: hoards of monsters just meandering in bushes and open fields, walking in circles and waiting for players to come battle or catch them. There is no reason so many creatures should just be hanging out in the open, often in groups integrated with other species which one may expect to be more hostile, and the only thing that causes any sort of reaction from them is the player’s existence. Every Pokémon in the wild exist solely for players to battle and/or catch them, and the games make no attempt to hide that purpose or integrate Pokémon more seamlessly into the world.

Image: Pokemon just...standin’...standin’ around...

Alongside better Pokémon integration with the world, making finding/catching Pokémon more meaningful and exciting would do wonders for the games. Players got a sense of this in L:A. Imagine if many of your encounters felt the same way as the first handful of alpha Pokémon you dealt with? Finding strong or rare Pokémon in the world should feel scary, tense, and/or exciting, and battling or catching them should feel challenging and fun. With that being said, I think they should move forward with the out-of-combat catching mechanic from L:A still in place. I don’t think I will ever play a Pokémon game again if that mechanic does not return, as it was some of the most fun I’ve ever had in a Pokémon game, despite L:A having plenty of other problems. In fact, finding a way to make battling occur while still being able to control the player character would open up a LOT of opportunity for interesting interactions and gameplay (I’m imagining something like Kingdom Hearts style combat where you can move around while choosing commands for your Pokémon, but this is a big jump and not something I expect).

Besides these recurring issues I’ve had, I know that there is a new problem in S/V of level-scaling—i.e. there is none. I have already seen players charting out best paths to take where you are more likely to encounter challenges within your team’s levels. A simple scaling mechanic would have done well in this game to allow players to choose their own paths while still encountering reasonable challenges all along the way. I’ve also read anecdotal experiences of folks lamenting the lack of interior exploration available in the game with buildings only existing as facades, and some buildings leading only to a store menu. I was watching a streamer play through a part of the game within a school, I believe, and to get from one room to another, the player walked to the doorway and POP! a menu screen asked where the player would like to go. Was modeling an interior so difficult? They couldn’t just let the player explore the building as they like? What is the purpose of requiring a menu to go to a room that is likely just down the hall? Anyway, regarding the stores, I’ve also read that they are exactly the same in each city/town, leaving no reason to make a journey from one location to another for unique goods, which could have been an interesting motivation for players to want to visit new locations.

None of these problems would be solved by the performance issues being resolved; they are inherent parts of S/V that ruin game immersion and bring what could have been an absolutely incredible addition to the franchise down to a barebones minimum, scarcely managing to crawl across the threshold of acceptability even for some of the staunchest supporters of the games. Coming from the most affluent and popular franchise to ever exist, the bare minimum is not good enough, especially when taken in combination with an absolutely atrocious technical and graphical performance on release.