Gonna abstain from giving this a star rating. This might be a tough thing to swallow, but Pokemon Scarlet and Violet do not deserve your praise, even if you think they do.

If you had fun with these games, unironically, please keep that shit to yourself. I'm not saying these are the worst games ever made. I can certainly understand why people are enjoying them in spite of the massive flaws. It's pokemon, the gameplay loop is the same, and the music rocks. Of course you're enjoying it.

What I think a lot of people don't understand is that there are people behind these games, behind TPC and Game Freak, and all around the games industry who are affected by this franchise. Game Freak has been experiencing massive crunch for a long time, starting with them being dragged into 3D game development, kicking and screaming. Recent years have created even more crunch. Interviews with developers during the release window of Sword and Shield said that Game Freak was working on a HD backlog of high quality pokemon models and animations, and that turned out to be a flat out lie. Legends Arceus, despite all the praise it got for switching the formula up, is still fucking disgusting to look at, and it has clunky controls and mechanics. BDSP were outsourced entirely and were awful excuses for video games. Given all of this, I am still reluctant to blame the developers at Game Freak. Pokemon is a multimedia francise with strict deadlines that also must align with merchandising, anime, and trading cards. The Pokemon franchise has been overcome by corporate greed, period. Endorsing Scarlet and Violet given their quality level, even if you still personally enjoyed the games, sends a horrifying message to the games industry, TPC, and Game Freak that flat out says, "I am okay with developer crunch and half baked products! If you sell me this, I will buy it!"

Discourse with this series has also always been bad, with genwunners dominating conversations, and players prioritizing pokemon walking around behind the player as opposed to pokemon games telling competent stories with interesting bosses (looking at you, johto apologists), just to name an example. Dexit took the already garbage-level pokemon discourse and plunged it deeper underground. Players chose to complain about the lack of Tropius and Purugly in Sword and Shield's pokedex, instead of focusing on the rushed story, poor quality animations, empty towns, lack of voice acting, the list goes on...

So many gamers care more about their instant gratification instead of the lives of real human beings, and I think this issue extends far beyond pokemon. If you go to Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick's Twitter replies, a vast majority of his hate comments don't even pertain to his horrifying harrasment scandals or massive corporate greed. It's Call of Duty fans begging him to fix their game. This is a deep rooted social problem with gamers in the midst of consumer culture, and pokemon fans aren't exempt.

To reiterate, if you enjoyed Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, keep that shit to yourself. The lives of developers are more important than your instant gratification. I swear to god, if I see one more post on r/pokemon titled “unpopular opinion…but I actually love scarlet and violet” with tens of thousands of upvotes, i'm gonna lose it.

If you still want to try this game out, buy it secondhand.