I'll still be playing Pokemon Scarlet for quite some time as the post-game content has been really fun so far. Not to mention the usual post-completion Pokemon shenanigans. That being said, having seen the credits roll, I feel more than ready to pass judgment on this game.

In essence, Pokemon Scarlet (and its companion Violet) are good games. So so close to being great, even excellent, but they're held back. Mostly by their technical performance, yes, but a couple other things too.

Let's start with the good. This nails a Pokemon open world. I really liked exploring, cathcing 'mons, fighting trainers, and tackling the various objectives for each of the 3 story paths in (almost) whatever order I wanted. Those story paths especially had fun challenges and wrapped up with some nice writing for the endings. This is a great step forward for the Pokemon franchise, but it's only a start.

You see, exploring this vast open world and catching Pokemon can only go so far when there's really not much else to do. The sense of discovery lasts a good bit as there are items to find, wild Tera Pokemon to fight and catch, and Tera Raid battles to discover. It does help too when you're playing co-op with friends, as everyone can go do their own thing until someone starts a raid battle that all can join. It's a great implementation of multiplayer for the series, and one I thoroughly enjoyed. It doesn't fully save it though as by the end, I was so tired of just wandering around a world that was pretty empty aside from these couple things, and just sprinted to each objective. It would've been nice if there were any sidequests or just a couple more activity types.

Not to mention, all this exploring way overleveled my team, and made the game an overall easy experience. It doesn't help that Experience Share isn't even an item anymore; it's the default setting for your whole team to gain Exp from every battle, and you can't turn it off. This version of Exp Share has been a Catch 22 for me since it's introduction in Gen 6. On one hand, I appreciate the reduced grinding, but on the other, I can't help but be frustrated that Game Freak still doesn't balance for this. It gets boring just steamrolling teams after a while. There were some nice challenges, especially towards the end, but these were short reprieves from the slight monotony. The only thing I can see players doing to help this a bit is starting off their journey in slightly higher level areas to boost the challenge a bit at the beginning. This is only a temporary solution though as you will still get overleveled for later areas through exploration but now you're also automatically overleveled for the easier parts you skipped. Is a Hard mode really too much to ask for at this point?

Also, please bring back the fully crafted puzzle gyms. These challenges, while not all terrible, are a far inferior substitute.

Of course, there's also the visuals and performance to address as well. The poor performance, lackluster visuals, and myriad of glitches has dominated the headlines for these games, and it's hard to argue why. The game looks like a low res mobile game, even in docked mode, and runs like absolute booty cheeks a good amount of the time. You do get a bit used to it and can mitigate it by closing the app after each session, thereby temporarily removing the memory leak that causes a lot of this, but to say it doesn't affect the experience is a lie. It's too bad too because Paldea has some interesting ideas and sights that would've been great to enjoy more. The fact too that my experience wasn't quite as bad because I was going out of my way to perform a workaround isn't exactly a glowing commendation either.

Enough about the negative though. I did really like this game after all. Like I said, the open world was fun, and a huge part of this was its structure. It just felt so fresh and new, that I found myself in awe at many moments despite its flaws. Its audio presentation as well is far better than its visuals. The music is very good, with some particular standout tracks in certain battles and areas. I still have one of the open world themes running in my head; it's just so damn catchy! Like I alluded to before too, the writing is surprisingly well done. There are definitely parts of each of the 3 stories that pull back a bit to let you focus more on the objectives, but each one has some nice moments and a nice sendoff. The characters in particular, are more endearing than expected. I actually cared about my companions as we teamed together for the final leg. I won't spoil it here, but that last path has some absolutely bonkers moments too which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Overall, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are really good games that I think a lot of people will have a lot of fun with whether they're new to the franchise or series veterans. It's just too bad this almost landmark title for the series is held back by some glaring issues. This whole system of rushing out games has got to stop.