There are some problems with this game and while there are some bugs there was nothing major in my playthrough. I only encountered visual bugs and nothing game breaking. I didn’t hate this game, but also didn’t like it. I find it as a game with some potential yet not reaching any of it.

Gameplay

Pokemon Scarlett is a open world turn based RPG. Honestly, this neither helps nor hurts this game as systems are pretty much the same as older Pokemon. You now have to talk to Trainers to have a battle and while this is better than simply walking around some or mandatory battles there was very little experience given to the point you may as well just use wild Pokemon. The only real use is if your party is low on health you can at least avoid fighting and don’t even have to if you don’t want to the only reward is someone will give you a TM at the Pokemon Center.

Another problem this game has is unlike Legends Arceous where higher level areas were cut off until the game says so you can walk straight to higher level and immediately lose to something 20 levels higher than you this is because the game has a set order if you ask Nurse Joy about what you should do she sends you to the next area you have levels for. Unfortunately, more often than not you will end up losing a few battles simply because one area is closer to you than another. I feel like this problem could be fixed if areas were labelled with a recommended level on the destination so people know where to go with minimal grinding.

Another issue I have is open world tends to feel repetitive or empty without much to explore. Legends Arceus avoided this issue by making the challenges specific to areas and having an at least interesting plot to go with it as well as multiple different maps. Here it feels like someone threw the challenges at a single empty map and hoped for the best. I hate to say that something new to Pokemon is one of the worst things about it doesn’t feel as fleshed out of even one area in Legends so feels like the world is open just to say its open.

Plot

The revolves around three paths that eventually intertwine with you starting as a student enrolled in a school. The Victory Road is the standard for Pokemon as it is centered on collecting Gym Badges and fighting the Champion. Starfall Street is focused on fighting Team Star and helping them not get expelled. Finally, Path of Legends where you fight a giant Pokemon with enhanced stats twice each. All paths intertwine at the last chapter of the game. The paths each make different rewards. Victory Road makes traded Pokemon listen to you and the amount of badges increasing ability to catch Pokemon, Path of Legends lets you unlock abilities for Karidon and Miridan allowing you to travel to new places, and Starfall Street unlocks TMs for crafting and materials as well as League Points which is just another currency alongside regular currency. I found that none of the TMs unlockable were actually useful and the TMs found on the ground either containing better moves or weren’t a pain to unlock due to lack of materials.

Conclusion

This is a game with a lot of potential, but fails to actually reach that. Interesting concepts and ideas are shown, but never go anywhere. This forces the game to just be another open game with nothing to do and nowhere to go the lack of a proper post game is very evident. The post game just has Gym Leader battles and replacing the elite four battles with a tournament of random trainers in a game. Pokemon Sun, Moon, and the Ultra games already did the random trainer for the champion and Pokemon Sword and Sheild already had the mechanic of battles in a style similar to this. Finally Pokemon Arceus already had an enjoyable open world. Three main line Pokemon Games already exist that are better than this. What is lacking now is anything new or different from other games in the series it has a core idea and never explores that idea.

Grade: 4/10