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 accordance with my Nintendo Swap, because it was launched in late 2022. It’s protected to say I do know the sport fairly nicely. And but, after I was invited to preview Pokémon Scarlet and Violet on the Nintendo Switch 2 ahead of the new console’s launch, I gladly took the chance to see three-year-old video games I already personal. I needed 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 nicely conscious of Scarlet and Violet’s shortcomings on the original Switch. There’s lag. The body charge is… inconsistent. There are on-line connectivity points. For lots of people, efficiency issues overshadowed what was in any other case a fantastic new era of Pokémon video games. With the release of the Nintendo Switch 2, and the accompanying free efficiency replace for Scarlet and Violet, which may lastly change.
Beginning up the demo of Pokémon Scarlet on the Swap 2 at The Pokémon Firm Worldwide’s workplace in Bellevue, Washington, I knew instantly the place I needed to go first: Casseroya Lake, typically known as “Lag Lake,” the place the video games’ graphical points are most obvious. On the unique Swap, the sport actually chugs while you’re on the lake; the body charge takes a dive, and it struggles to render greater than a handful of pokémon in your fast neighborhood. Exploring the liveliest open areas and encountering the pokémon that populate them is one in every of Scarlet and Violet’s largest strengths, however on the Swap, Casseroya Lake is boring and empty at finest and unimaginable to navigate at worst.
Enjoying on the Swap 2, nonetheless, Casseroya Lake ran superbly. There have been much 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, trying sharper than I’d ever seen it. (I used to be taking part in in docked mode at a station arrange by TPCi, so possibly that final one could possibly 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 charge, considerably sooner load instances, and much more pokémon populating the world. The Swap 2 replace just isn’t an entire overhaul of the graphics themselves — the grass textures appeared simply as unremarkable as at all times to my eye, for instance — nevertheless it does appear to get rid of the efficiency points which have dragged Scarlet and Violet down for almost 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 nicely? Perhaps not. I don’t fake to understand how video games are made on a technical degree, or actually any degree, 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. However it did really feel bittersweet, briefly, to suppose how rather more these video games may have shone in the event that they’d run nicely 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.
A great portion of my 400 hours in Scarlet had been spent shiny looking, as a result of although the alternate-color variations of pokémon are usually not fairly as exhausting 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 right encapsulation of the sort of pleasure Scarlet and Violet have to supply: exploring a energetic space and discovering one thing particular. I caught the shiny Buizel regardless of realizing that it wasn’t my save file and never mine to maintain.
The Swap 2 replace is arguably arriving a bit late for my Scarlet save file, relying on what number of hours you suppose are cheap to spend taking part in this recreation. However I additionally personal Violet, and I’ve performed about two hours of that model whole. Wanting on the shiny Buizel I didn’t get to maintain, I spotted I used to be actually excited to have a purpose to play Violet lastly — to rediscover what I favored most about these video games, in a state that does them justice.