Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are out now, and the reception for both of these highly anticipated titles has been at least mixed. Many reviews, including ours at GameSpot, mention that while the open world is a great step forward for the franchise, the games are plagued by technical issues. like pops in, frame rate drops, and muddy textures.
As a result, the current score at sister site GameSpot Metacritic is 77, which is the lowest score for a new mainline Pokemon game ever. Prior to these entries, no new generation of Pokemon had scored below 80 before.
I should note that neither Pokemon Red/Blue nor Gold/Silver have ratings on the site, but their remakes Fire Red/Leaf Green and Heart Gold/SoulSilver also rank highly. Those are of course the best games of all time.
Despite the mixed reception for the new games, it doesn’t appear to have affected sales, as Scarlet and Violet are the most pre-ordered Pokemon games in the series’ history.
Pokemon Company CEO Takato Utsunomiya announced the news at a launch event for the pair of Pokemon games, though did not specify how many pre-orders the game has received. He noted that 440 million units of Pokemon-related games have been sold since the launch of the first title in Japan, Pokemon Red and Green.
The CEO also revealed that due to the new elements Scarlet and Violet have introduced, for first-time players, playtime can last up to 60 hours, a bit longer than Pokemon adventure. normally.
If you’re picking up either of the two new games, be sure to grab your rare, free Pikachu. Once you unlock the in-game Poke Gate, which requires you to initiate the Treasure Hunt activity early in the game, you’ll be able to access Mystery Gifts like in previous installments of the series. Select “Receive via Internet” and the Pikachu will be given to you.
What makes this Pikachu worth buying? Besides the cute element, this special electric mouse also knows how to move Fly, which Pikachu usually can’t learn. Usually reserved for Flying-type Pokemon, Fly is a useful two-turn attack that can kill Battle-type and Grass-type Pokemon on the field, adding some extra utility to this particular Pikachu. This Pikachu will also change typing from Electric to Flying when it is terastalized, the new power-up mechanism in the game.
Be sure to visit GameSpot for a ton of content, and I mean a lot of content around Pokemon Scarlet and Violet.
If you’re still too enamored with Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2 to care about pocket monsters and you also have Xfinity Internet, I hope you haven’t paid for your battle card yet, as you can pick up it’s up for free.
