Are the 8th and 9th generation pokemon games as bad as people say?

[Xdqwerty]

I heard they look ugly, that they are too easy. too linear, too buggy and they lack like 25 % of the pokemon. (Although i'll never have the chance to play them anyways)

 

[dfp.leon]

They sometimes do look like a 2010 games, and every Pokemon game is easy until post game + online. The best of them all is Legends Arceus, it's very fun and engaging. The story of Scarlet-Violet is more engaging tho and the last bit made me feel like I was playing Black-White.

 

[DrunkOcelot]

They've all got charm. Why not start from Red/Blue and adventure the entire world of Pokemon?

 

[Evaccaneer Doom]

I heard they look ugly, that they are too easy. too linear, too buggy and they lack like 25 % of the pokemon. (Although i'll never have the chance to play them anyways)

People harping on the trees I never got
Dexit, I kinda get it, but the Pokedex hasn't been full since Generation 2 so who cares

If anything Gen 8's real problem is that it's booooooooooooooring. The story is fragmented and non confrontational, the towns range from ok-fine, with Spikemuth and Ballonlea being the worst of them by far due to them being nothing towns, the Wild Area's existence makes the routes useless minus a few fringe Pokemon that for some reason are still exclusive to certain routes, model pop in is model pop in whatever, the weather conditions in the Wild Area do actually look ugly imo. There's also no real postgame this time around until Crown Tundra came out. The Isle of Armor is meant to be visited early-mid game. Sw/Sh are some of my least favorites for being boring but XY was far worse if I'm being honest. Also the linear complaints are true, in fact they've been true since XY, so idk why they're singling out the latest two only. Sw/Sh is functional and not buggy.

Scarlet and Violet is as buggy as you could get, but I hear they actually patched it. I wouldn't know for myself because the $60 price tag combined with college life gates me from playing any Pokemon game. The story from what I hear is 50/50. First half is a boring tournament arc and the last half is one of the best stories since Sun/Moon. Music's pretty good as usual, but there's an area in the last half of the game that may have one of the greatest area and battle themes in Pokemon history, but I won't spoil that (assuming that you haven't accidentally come across said theme as it's gotten quite popular.)
Oh yeah also Toby Fox had a bigger music role in this generation than Sw/Sh.

 

[lordofthekevins]

Sword ans Shield were actually really good for the first like 70% until you get past the ice town at which point it feels like the game is actively hemorrhaging money and the pace ratchets up into a mad dash towards a conclusion, leaving the last 2 gyms as an afterthought as it barrels into the stupidest plotpoints in what was otherwise a perfectly acceptable plot.

Also, the wild area is completely embarrassing to look at. why does it run at like 20 fps while still looking like a 3ds game???? and when you turn on the Online OH NO BRO it feels like your switch is gonna crash at any time

 

[Karnik 2.0: reboot]

Hello lad, I am Karnik, back from the afterlife. Are you happy? As for me, I don't like them, whatever generation they belong to. ??‍

 

[Aziamuth]

Scarlet Violet are fine gameplay wise but Sword and Shield are REALLY boring

 

[E0N]

SWSH is the worst pokemon game I've ever played. Period. Dexit aside everything felt like a downgrade (except music which ironically the best in the series) and an insult to the players. The gimmick was awful and it's the only pokemon game where you are not the protagonist but just a sidekick. The 2 DLCs especially the 2nd one was just worst. Pokemon is one of my favourite series and I've played all the mainline games but SWSH made feel frustrated for the very first time.

SV on the other hand is an excellent game. Good story, again an exceptionally great music and the gameplay felt much smoother than SWSH (probably cause of Arceus's influence). Your rival is pretty good and after a very long time felt like a proper rival. It's biggest flaw is the bugs and performance. Game Freak doesn't know how to make open world games and it shows in this game. Very barren world with low quality textures that doesn't go well in 2023. It also has the worst gimmick in the entire series. But the 2 DLCs were good and I enjoyed them.

So the stuffs that you heard are pretty accurate.

 

[freebie#47]

I heard they look ugly, that they are too easy. too linear, too buggy and they lack like 25 % of the pokemon. (Although i'll never have the chance to play them anyways)

I could explain why, but Youtuber already have flood the zone about why they don't like newer version....(and furry stuff). Heck even one made a SONG about it (I might link it)

Short story short, GameFreak just isn't very good. Even their non-pokemon games are terrible and quality just keeps getting worse. If it wasn't for the furry community, pokemon would be dead. AND I am not joking.

 

[Tengu Plant]

Maybe they're right, but that's also what I said about Gen 3 and beyond when I turned 13, and was kind of done with Pokemon. Youngsters still loved them and freaked out over them.

In other words, maybe they haven't noticed they're not kids any more.

I'm sorry but this is too much of a get out of jail free card. Children deserve quality entertainment even if they don't know any better and honestly I don't see how kids would sit through the new games.
They're extremely hand-holdy and tutorial dialogue heavy in the beginning, the rivals are super friendly and the villain teams are goofy, there's little exploration, and they've gone from being easy with a little challenge to being a pushover. Red and Blue were hits and they just dropped you into the world after the rival fight and Oak's request. Where's the adventure now?

Anyway, you can very easily tie all of this to the fact that B2W2 didn't sell that well and a lot of staff left Gamefreak before XY. I forget who it was but one of the higher ups stated that everything from XY onward was made super easy and straightforward because he thought kids would drop it and go back to mobile games if they encountered any difficulty at all.
It's not just that fans have gotten older, they've made weird decisions and so far their cultural inertia has shielded them from it.

 

[bigthecat_]

Yes

 

[Egg (McMuffin) Man]

I actually loved Scarlet, but it looks like shit and it runs like ass. I think the game was a huge improvement over the last few generations as a game, but they need to put more care into visual fidelity and how well the game runs. I don't expect it to look like Ghost of Tsushima on ultra settings, but it needs to look like..... Well, better.

 

[Lee__Kanker]

I heard they look ugly, that they are too easy. too linear, too buggy and they lack like 25 % of the pokemon. (Although i'll never have the chance to play them anyways)

All of the above

I cannot stress how linear they are, forget exploration, most places are like straight paths! This means the setting has so little character...

Post automatically merged: Feb 23, 2025

I actually loved Scarlet, but it looks like shit and it runs like ass. I think the game was a huge improvement over the last few generations as a game, but they need to put more care into visual fidelity and how well the game runs. I don't expect it to look like Ghost of Tsushima on ultra settings, but it needs to look like..... Well, better.

Is it unreasonable to want something that looks like this?

I mean ni no kuni came out on the ps3, can the pokemon company really not afford an engine that can do this? It's like the second best seeling nintendo series

 

[bigthecat_]

the Pokedex hasn't been full since Generation 2 so who cares

I actually disagree. At least they were obtable at one point, now some of the mons are just nonexistent. "But no one cares for this one", even the shittiest stats one is going to be the favorite of someone. That's why pokemon became popular in the first place.

 

[VampireLord1024VampireLord1024's icon]

Scarlet and Violet is as buggy as you could get

Weird, I've never have too many problems with it when I played.

and when you turn on the Online OH NO BRO it feels like your switch is gonna crash at any time

I also never had that problem when using online in Sword/Shield.

 

[lordofthekevins]

Weird, I've never have too many problems with it when I played.

I also never had that problem when using online in Sword/Shield.

I meant specifically in the wild area, where when the game first game out online out there made the game run in slow motion

 

[VampireLord1024VampireLord1024's icon]

I meant specifically in the wild area, where when the game first game out online out there made the game run in slow motion

It might have though I never really buy games when they first come out.

 

[Evaccaneer Doom]

I actually disagree. At least they were obtable at one point, now some of the mons are just nonexistent. "But no one cares for this one", even the shittiest stats one is going to be the favorite of someone. That's why pokemon became popular in the first place.

Maybe for the earlier gens but they started making certain Pokemon harder to get without transfer since around Gen 4. Gen 5 is arguably where it really started to ramp up because even with Nat Dex, most Pokemon couldn't be obtained without the transfer lab, similar to Home. Now granted, the idea of Home gating a lot of Pokemon was just kinda stupid, cause at that point why not just keep Bank around?

Post automatically merged: Feb 24, 2025

Weird, I've never have too many problems with it when I played.

The bugginess was version dependent, you found way more in Scarlet than Violet and there's a fair few that pretty much were only found from experimentation, but there are a couple of compilations, memes and even fan comics about the glitches closer to when they first released. The glitches aren't really gamebreaking and were just really funny. There was this one glitch where you had a battle in town and an NPC just casually walks through the battle like it's a normal occurrence and there was some Mario 64 shenans with backwards long jumping

 

[VampireLord1024VampireLord1024's icon]

The bugginess was version dependent, you found way more in Scarlet than Violet and there's a fair few that pretty much were only found from experimentation, but there are a couple of compilations, memes and even fan comics about the glitches closer to when they first released. The glitches aren't really gamebreaking and were just really funny. There was this one glitch where you had a battle in town and an NPC just casually walks through the battle like it's a normal occurrence and there was some Mario 64 shenans with backwards long jumping

I did see a clip of the NPC walking through a battle.

 

[Ian Naxieas]

I'm sorry but this is too much of a get out of jail free card. Children deserve quality entertainment even if they don't know any better and honestly I don't see how kids would sit through the new games.
They're extremely hand-holdy and tutorial dialogue heavy in the beginning, the rivals are super friendly and the villain teams are goofy, there's little exploration, and they've gone from being easy with a little challenge to being a pushover. Red and Blue were hits and they just dropped you into the world after the rival fight and Oak's request. Where's the adventure now?

Anyway, you can very easily tie all of this to the fact that B2W2 didn't sell that well and a lot of staff left Gamefreak before XY. I forget who it was but one of the higher ups stated that everything from XY onward was made super easy and straightforward because he thought kids would drop it and go back to mobile games if they encountered any difficulty at all.
It's not just that fans have gotten older, they've made weird decisions and so far their cultural inertia has shielded them from it.

Extremely well said, you nailed it. I remember getting into a heated disagreement with one of my former co-workers about the difficulty of Pokemon games. I said they've gotten easy to the point of boredom and he said that isn't a real complaint and Pokemon games were always super easy. I don't agree with either of those sentiments. If too hard can be considered a flaw, so can too easy. Pokemon was never Shin Megami Tensei, but I watched a lot of an LP of Red not long ago and the new games have nothing on it in terms of difficulty. Like, the Team Rocket Hideout wasn't a ball-buster, but you had plenty of battles to go through and then Giovanni at the end, as well as a little floor puzzle. You might actually run out of PP and there isn't some NPC around every corner to fully restore your Pokemon before Giovanni. The game has a lot of glitches and you can easily break it's balance over your knee if you know what you're doing, but I am not convinced it's as easy as the newer games.

But sadly, as you said, the games have way too much momentum going and they will sell millions regardless of the bad decisions they make. Hell, the last two games have sold better than most of the series up to this point. They really need to be humbled and have incentive to do better, they've been coasting for well over a decade now.

I cannot stress how linear they are, forget exploration, most places are like straight paths! This means the setting has so little character...

You also hit the nail right on the head, as usual. Don't really have much more to say than that. x) I would even accept really nice art direction, you don't need a trillion polygons per model to have a good looking game. The Switch could do better regardless. I mean, look at this. C'mon Game Freak, you can do better. Or maybe you can't with the current team, that's entirely possible, even probable at this point.

Hot take, but I'm 100% okay with Dexit, I'd be happy if they cut even more Pokemon and had better models, or at least better animations. I know some people play the series to "catch 'em all" still and there's plenty who would be super upset if their favorite Pokemans were not present. I do think that's an unreasonable expectation though. There's over 1,000 Pokemon now and that number will only increase, I'd rather them reel in the scale a bit and have a really polished experience instead. Ultimately, it doesn't really matter what I think. I believe in voting with my wallet and I will gladly do so, but unless you get millions of people to feel the same way, nothing will change. The heat death of the universe will render all of this pointless in the end, that's something to look forward to.

 

[starseeker300]

They are buggy glitchy messes that are shipping incomplete, and also no longer have all the pokemon in them, if you think that is unreasonable you are just wrong. game freak refuses to expand their workforce to keep up with a higher production demands and a stricter schedule, and it really shows. the games are afraid to let you fail for 90 percent of the game, and that has been an issue since gen 6 actually, yes the games are on the easier side(which is not and never will be a bad thing) but they certainly weren't braindead. You at least had to pay attention to what was going on in major fights.

pretty much every issue with modern pokemon can be traced back to jumping to 3d when they honestly didn't really need to. and also that they didn't do anything with being in 3d until legends arceus. I just wish this series would do better. Back in gen5 i thought I was gonna be a pokemon forever. But now aside from the remake of the first mystery dungeon game, i haven't bought a single pokemon game that's come out on switch.

Just compare them

how does a game from 2010 from the same creative team look so much better?

and if you think its unfair to compare a 2d and 3d game visually, heres a screenshot of gen 7

I don't hate the creative team at gamefreak, I want them to do better because they have done better

 

[King Koopa's iconKing Koopa]

Scarlet and Violet has problems but it's much better and more fun than Sword and Sword. The DLC is also great.

 

[Hotwer]

I enjoyed it honestly, the graphics were janky yes but the story for Scarlet/Violet is pretty damn good, the music in it is good too.

Same with Sword/Shield, except the story is a bit on the weaker side while the graphic is much better, both have some amazing music too.

I don't know, perhaps my barrier of enjoyment level for pokemon games are low, but for me personally I enjoyed both of those gens. But it still can't beat Legend Arceus for me. That game is goated.

 

[Prescott]

Honestly, for Pokémon fans, other than the two really big issues with these games, I have no idea what else is wrong with these games, as they have the same winning-formula Pokémon gameplay since Gen I.

However, there are two major issues that everyone agrees one. One is that these games do not have the entire National Pokédex, which is just dumb. Even dumber, is when you consider that most of the existing Pokémon still use the same animations as they did on the 3DS. If they aren't going to give all the returning Pokémon new animations, then there really was no excuse for not having the entire National Pokédex.

The second issue, is that the game runs...no it crawls like crap. Game Freak did nothing (or at least appeared to do nothing) to optimize the games, so they regularly struggles to reach 30 FPS...even with the cursed dynamic resolution!

If it weren't for those two massive issues, I don't think people would've been so harsh on these games.

 

[ThirteeTooBeets]

For that price? Yes