I just lately did one thing form of uncommon: I went to a preview occasion for a recreation that’s been out for nearly three years.
I’ve performed round 400 hours of Pokémon Scarlet, in keeping with my Nintendo Change, because it was launched in late 2022. It’s protected to say I do know the sport fairly effectively. And but, once I was invited to preview Pokémon Scarlet and Violet on the Nintendo Change 2 forward of the brand new console’s launch, I gladly took the chance to see three-year-old video games I already personal. I wished to seek out out simply how a lot they’d improved.
I’ve a excessive jank tolerance with video games — it builds character — however I’m effectively conscious of Scarlet and Violet’s shortcomings on the unique Change. There’s lag. The body fee is… inconsistent. There are on-line connectivity points. For lots of people, efficiency issues overshadowed what was in any other case a terrific new era of Pokémon video games. With the discharge of the Nintendo Change 2, and the accompanying free efficiency replace for Scarlet and Violet, that may lastly change.
Beginning up the demo of Pokémon Scarlet on the Change 2 at The Pokémon Firm Worldwide’s workplace in Bellevue, Washington, I knew instantly the place I wished to go first: Casseroya Lake, typically referred to as “Lag Lake,” the place the video games’ graphical points are most obvious. On the unique Change, the sport actually chugs once you’re on the lake; the body fee takes a dive, and it struggles to render greater than a handful of pokémon in your speedy neighborhood. Exploring the liveliest open areas and encountering the pokémon that populate them is considered one of Scarlet and Violet’s largest strengths, however on the Change, Casseroya Lake is uninteresting and empty at finest and unimaginable to navigate at worst.
Enjoying on the Change 2, nevertheless, Casseroya Lake ran superbly. There have been way more pokémon in view (and I used to be instantly accosted by a torpedo-like Veluza, identical because it ever was), and the lag and stuttering I’d come to count on had been nonexistent. I battled that Veluza with no issues. I stumbled upon a Slowpoke outbreak and despatched out my Clodsire to auto-battle them — no lag. I discovered a wild Tera Pokémon and watched the Tera animation play out, wanting sharper than I’d ever seen it. (I used to be enjoying in docked mode at a station arrange by TPCi, so possibly that final one might be credited to the TV. However nonetheless.)
It was the identical case all over the place I went throughout my 30-minute demo: a steady and clean body fee, considerably quicker load instances, and way more pokémon populating the world. The Change 2 replace just isn’t an entire overhaul of the graphics themselves — the grass textures regarded simply as unremarkable as at all times to my eye, for instance — nevertheless it does appear to remove the efficiency points which have dragged Scarlet and Violet down for practically three years. It’s a noticeable enchancment on this planet, in battle, in Tera raids, and even in menus.
Is it praiseworthy for a recreation to easily run effectively? Perhaps not. I don’t fake to understand how video games are made on a technical stage, or actually any stage, however I do know they’re not straightforward to make. And I had sufficient enjoyable with Pokémon Scarlet to play for 400 hours with out the efficiency points bothering me a lot. But it surely did really feel bittersweet, briefly, to assume how rather more these video games might have shone in the event that they’d run effectively within the first place.
Then, within the final 5 minutes of my demo, as I waded in a distinct physique of water to verify that it too ran easily, I noticed it: among the many pods of Buizel dotting the shore, a shiny.
An excellent portion of my 400 hours in Scarlet had been spent shiny looking, as a result of though the alternate-color variations of pokémon will not be fairly as onerous to seek out as they had been in earlier video games, I get excited each time I see one, with out fail. It’s the proper encapsulation of the form of pleasure Scarlet and Violet have to supply: exploring a vigorous space and discovering one thing particular. I caught the shiny Buizel regardless of understanding that it wasn’t my save file and never mine to maintain.
The Change 2 replace is arguably arriving a bit late for my Scarlet save file, relying on what number of hours you assume are affordable to spend enjoying this recreation. However I additionally personal Violet, and I’ve performed about two hours of that model complete. Trying on the shiny Buizel I didn’t get to maintain, I noticed I used to be actually excited to have a cause to play Violet lastly — to rediscover what I favored most about these video games, in a state that does them justice.
