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Pokemon Violet This is the first mainline Pokemon game I've bothered to finish since I was a little kid (Legends Arceus is a spinoff and I don't care what Nintendo says). I really don't think I've managed to get all the way through a mainline Pokemon game since the Game Boy days. But here it is, the first truly open-world console Pokemon game we all dreamed of playing one day. How is it? Well, it's...goooood? I'll explain. Since it's been so long for me, I'm judging this one mostly on the progress the series has made since I last played it. I hate to use the phrase "a step in the right direction" because I've reached a point where I have to ask myself how many steps you can take without getting anywhere, but SV really did evolve, no pun intended, in several ways I had been wanting for a long time. For starters, tall grass random encounter bullshit is gone and thank fucking god. You want a Pokemon? You can clearly see right on the field which one it is. If you don't want to fight it? Just go around it. Also, trainer battles out in the routes are OPTIONAL. You still have to fight trainers for gym battles and story-related moments, obviously, but you don't have to fight random strangers while you're walking around unless you want to, which I am really grateful for. Some of the bits and bobs about the battle system have been sped up or streamlined. For example, you can set the options to skip Pokemon nicknaming prompts or to automatically box anything you catch while your team is full. There are several little things in there to reduce the number of button presses you have to endure in every battle, which may not sound like much on paper but it really reduces the tedium and speeds up the gameplay. Ride Pokemon are back from Arceus, and while you only get one, the one you get is very versatile and makes exploring the map more enjoyable than just running around on foot. My favorite new feature is the ability to send out a Pokemon onto the field with a button press and let it run around and auto-battle wild Pokemon nearby. You can't catch anything that you automate this way but you still get the experience so this is a great way to quickly grind exp without having to go through a bunch of battles yourself. These are all really good QoL features that improved the basic Pokemon gameplay loop enough for me to want to finish this one. I also liked several of the side characters, which is saying something because I often find them all stupid and annoying. It's not all praise, though. There were some great strides made here, but the series still has a way to go to become truly great. For starters, while I appreciate the open world that lets me go anywhere and do anything, there isn't much in the way of side content besides catching more Pokemon. You get three main questlines, then after that you get a fourth endgame quest before the credits. You can do them in any order you choose, but there's no level scaling so there's still a recommended order. That said, if you want to challenge yourself like I did you can go to higher level areas and attempt higher level missions before the game wants you to, so I appreciate that you are at least allowed to make that choice. It's still rough in other areas, though. The graphics? What else can I say? They range from acceptable to dreadful. The performance? It's poo poo. Pop-in everywhere. Frame drops. Slowdown. This game really makes it sink in just how outdated the Switch is, not to mention how they really need to make a second studio for Pokemon games so that each entry gets another year of development time. But the thing that bugged me the most, the thing that I still hate more than anything, are the constant battle messages for buffs, debuffs, and status effects. In just about any other RPG, stuff like this would be indicated with a graphical effect and maybe an icon, which is more than enough on its own. But what does Pokemon still feel the need to do? GARCHOMP WAS POISONED! GARCHOMP TOOK DAMAGE FROM THE POISON! GARCHOMP'S ATK INCREASED! GARCHOMP'S DEF INCREASED! GARCHOMP'S SP. DEF DECREASED! GARCHOMP'S SP. ATK DECREASED! God damn do I hate this. I dread fighting Pokemon with lots of stat changing moves because this is what slows battles down to a fucking crawl. With all the other improvements they made, why is THIS the thing they still decide to keep in? You don't need it! Just look at Persona! Sure it has a message when someone buffs or debuffs, but it comes and goes in less than a second. This, to me, is still the worst thing about Pokemon battles and they seriously need to ditch it when the next game comes along. At the very least, if there are multiple stat changes, put them all in one text box rather than several different ones one after another. I don't think this is too much to ask. I haven't tried any of the postgame content yet so I can't comment on that, but even with my gripes this was at least good enough for me to finish and mostly enjoy. They're still pretty easy games even if you try to challenge yourself like I did by skipping the field trainer battles which are basically free exp, but not every RPG needs to be hardcore. Sometimes I just enjoy the thrill of catching and raising a Pokemon team. Oh, and while the performance was unimpressive I didn't experience any game breaking bugs like there were at launch, so I think they fixed the worst of the issues by now.