In February 1996 in Japan, Game Freak’s Pokémon franchise has taken the world by storm with multiple animated series and movies, video games, playing cards, and merchandise items. 

Over the years, the franchise has released video games that have stuck to a specific format, despite them taking place in different regions and having some different pokémon. This was the case until “Pokémon Legends: Arceus” in January 2022, which was the first open-world game in the franchise that allowed players to follow a loose structure and make their own decisions. This new feature was also added to Scarlet and Violet, which is almost a combination of previous games with the more structured storylines and the “Legends: Arceus” free-roaming aspect. 

A new aspect of this game that has grown popular is that players are given three main storylines that they can either complete in any order or do simultaneously, compared to previous games that only offered one. This led fans to find that the game was more worth their money, kept them entertained for longer, and gave them chances to replay as they could complete challenges in different orders. However, even with this well-received aspect, the game itself seemed to receive more complaints than Game Freak’s previous Pokémon releases.

The most prominent and agreed-upon complaint from fans would be the games’ glitching and lagging. Throughout the game, whether it be graphic glitches or players and their pokémon lagging, bugs have been a common occurrence. This has sparked some outrage online, because although there have been bugs in previous games, they haven’t been this common and usually are fixed by patches that Game Freak releases. However, despite the occasional annoyance, some don’t believe that they have much of an effect on the overall enjoyment of the game. “I’ve seen multiple clips of glitches, I’ve experienced glitches, [but] I still love the game, because overall it’s not something that completely broke the game,” senior Bobby Bready said. 

Many of these bugs were caused by Game Freak going out of their comfort zone and trying to bring something new to Pokémon’s video game series. This made many fans okay with the issues they’ve experienced, as they like the added features and combination of nostalgia with unique gameplay. “[Game Freak] actually went out and experimented for once, compared to when [they] transitioned to 3-D from 2-D [and] they got really generic and boring and kept doing the same thing over and over again,” senior Viv Bali said. “I’m happy they’re finally reaching out and doing things like open-world, even if their reception for it wasn’t the best considering the glitches made by it.”

Although this game had quite a few problems, it was overall extremely enjoyable due to the multiple storylines, special open-world gameplay, and increased play time due to the freedom to be able to explore anything at any time. The positive aspects heavily outweigh the negatives and that is what fans chose to focus on as they traveled through Paldea battling other trainers and wild pokémon. This game was a great combination of previous games and was familiar without being a copy of prior material. We highly recommend this game to anyone who is willing to ignore some bugs and who enjoys open-world adventure games.