The reviews are in for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, with many critics noting that the Nintendo Switch clearly struggles to run the game properly. But it’s one thing to read about performance issues in the abstract. It’s much funnier to see how badly the character models clip through each other in the game while the framerate lurches.
The scenery randomly starts disappearing when you throw the Pokéball
Pokéballs are powerful enough to digitize Pokémon inside their fist-sized capacities, but I didn’t know that they were also capable of distorting the space around them. Well, they did in this instance at least, and also caused the framerate to spasm as if in pain.
People clip through each other
There’s PDA, and then there’s literally being inside of each other while walking down the street. Jesus, these two need to get a room. Or better rendering. One of the two.
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The sandwich doesn’t even go inside of her mouth
I’m not an expert, but I’m fairly certain that a sandwich is supposed to go inside and not beside your mouth when you eat one. I don’t ask for much out of a sandwich-eating animation. Yet Pokémon Scarlet and Violet managed to let me down anyway.
A trainer’s arms go through the…eye sockets?
Twitch streamer “Patterrz” sums it up best:
This is the correct way to ride a Koraidon. If you are not doing it in this way then you are not playing Pokémon Scarlet version and Violet version correctly. If your arms and your fists are not coming through your eyeballs, then you are riding a Koraidon in the incorrect manner. And you should probably fix that. [breaks down laughing]
The camera occasionally loses the player
There’s so much to unpack in these videos, like NPCs randomly appearing out of nowhere. Since that was something that also happened with wild Pokémon in Pokemon Legends: Arceus, I’m not too shocked about it. Same with the terrible framerate. What does surprise me is the second video, where the camera is struggling to keep up with the player while they’re riding a Koraidon. And it doesn’t even go that fast.
Schrödinger’s Pokémon
So these Pachirisu sure are blinking in and out of existence. Oh, and your Koraidon motorbike gets stuck in the middle of some crates.
Pokémon are stuck in a wall
It’s a good thing that shiny Pokémon have animated sparkles, because some of them are stuck in walls. (You’ll have to use your imagination a bit, but that’s a Deino.)
Characters’ bodies stutter as they walk
So I included this video for the stuttering. But what really blew me away was how ugly this waterfall background is. This is a background that you’d expect from the PlayStation 2, not a modern machine like the Nintendo Switch.
Pokéballs make the camera clip into the ground
In this instance, the pokéball somehow causes the camera to fly right through the ground before it finally hits the wild Pokémon. Of course, as we’ve seen in prior Pokéball footage, the framerate is busy dying a terrible death as well.
If you’re looking to start your own collection of worst glitches in a mainline Pokémon game, you can grab Pokémon Scarlet or Violet starting tomorrow.
