Game Freak released its latest installment of the Pokémon franchise on Nov. 18, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet.  

Scarlet and Violet is the first self-paced Pokémon game. It also offers players an open-world experience, building upon its prior release in January, Pokémon Legends: Arceus.  

While the game does offer more gameplay with new characters and Pokémon, it received heavy criticism for the overwhelming glitches. 

As IGN, a popular gaming and entertainment website, put it, “the open-world gameplay of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet is a brilliant direction for the future of the franchise, but this promising shift is sabotaged by the numerous ways in which Scarlet and Violet feel deeply unfinished.”  

The game has also received poor reviews for Pokémon, averaging about three out of five stars across websites like GameStop and Amazon. 

Pokémon Scarlet and Violet both received more 1-star reviews than 5-, 4-, 3-, and 2-star reviews on GameStop. Most of the complaints were targeted towards the glitchy gameplay. 

Having played the game myself, I have experienced issues with camera angles, phasing (and getting stuck) through walls, inability to see Pokémon, among others.  

Amid the backlash the game received, Nintendo released a statement that it isworking on patching the bugs. 

“Our goal is always to give players a positive experience with our games, and we apologize for the inconvenience,” according to a corporate statement. “We take the feedback from players seriously and are working on improvements to the games.” 

Despite the issues, it’s worth noting the positives of the game.  

107 new Pokémon were added to the game, along with a cast of new gym leaders, school instructors, enemy bases and more. 

Many of the new Pokémon were well-received by fans, such as Fidough, Lechonk, Tinkaton and Grafaiai. With so many new Pokémon, just about everybody can find one they like. 

The game also added heaps of content to the game, packing in about 30 hours of main storyline content and around 60 to 100% completion according to Nintendo Life.  

While Nintendo certainly needs to address many issues in the game, fans are hoping that enough bugs get patched to make the experience more enjoyable.  

Overall, I’d recommend this game to Pokémon fans who can enjoy the game’s storyline and characters despite its (many) flaws. However, if you’re on the fence, I’d have to recommend skipping over it, at least until Nintendo patches some major bugs in the game.