quebecabana

A fantastic game. At times it felt like one of the best games I've ever played. The story took me 34 hours to complete and another 14 hours for 100% completion. The level design was creative and each was unique. The core platforming and health/upgrade management systems were also top notch. There were so many beautiful puzzles, mini games, and secrets to explore. I will also point out that a map was not necessary, as I have heard that critique often. Over time it becomes clear how the world connects, and there are also train stations to take you quickly from points A to B. There is an overview map you can purchase for your underground lab but it's moreso intended to track level progression. Still I found it useful at times for orientation. I do have one important critique though: Out of the 60 collectable trinkets, I only found 10-15 to be truly useful. I found I had so much reliance on these particular trinkets that I never had the chance to thoroughly play with the other 45. Because of this, it would have been nice to have more than 5 active trinket slots at a time. One other thing: By the time I had 100% completed the game, I had accumulated 75,000 currency. It would be nice to have a use for currency even after you buy all the items and upgrades. Even if it's simply a donation to the orphanage or cleaning up the homeless problem. Other than that, I would only argue that levels and boss battles got progressively easier with time instead of harder, because you level up and apply more trinkets by the mid game than you can in the beginning. However it's not necessarily a bad thing. The game was still difficult all the way through, it just wasn't as "punishing" as it was in my first 5-8 hours. I loved it, and I hope there will be a sequel some day with just as much love and creativity from the developers. An instant classic, for sure.

A fantastic game. It took me 35 hours to complete the story -- really good value for 20€. The game was really hard at first but got progressively easier. Lots of mechanics and secrets to explore. Admittedly in the final few hours I was just trying to wrap up the story mode so I could get back to 100%ing the collection and upgrade aspects.

I will preface by saying that I grew up playing the original pokemon games on the gameboy and DS. This was my first "new gen" 3D pokemon game and I have to say it felt like a massive let down. Now, on the Switch 2 there are no longer framerate issues. The game runs very smoothly. However I have to say that there are several factors that make this game a dissapointment compared to "old gen" games. 1) The gym battles are stupidly easy. 2) EXP share and auto-battles make it too easy for your pokemon to level up. In the old games, you made a bond with each pokemon on your team because you have to actually use it to level it up. In Violet you can practically forget some exist and they will level up anyways, meaning you never truly explore their strengths and weaknesses. 3) The pre-gym challenges are frankly childish and it was embarassing and tedious to have to do them. (Examples are "pushing a soccer ball into a net", or "collecting 10 items placed around the city") In the old games, you navigate the gym and have to beat several opponents before getting to the gym leader. The new challenges make me feel like I'm playing a game for toddlers and it doesn't align with pokemon in my opinion. 4) The open world aspect , and ability to do the gyms in any order means you can end up in a situations where you are fighting level 10 gym leader pokemon with your own level 50 pokemon. The gyms should scale in difficulty depending on how many badges you have, so they get progressively harder no matter which order you do them in. 6) Part of the beauty of the old games is encountering pokemon in the wild by pure chance. When a rare pokemon appears, you panic from excitement because you have to play carefully in order to catch it. In Violet however, you can see pokemon before you encounter them, removing a lot of the surprise element of wild encounters. 7) The story was horrendous, and I think I was forced to sit through multiple hours of combined unskippable dialogue. Truly, I can't think of anything that was more annoying than this. Despite all of this, it wasn't a BAD game, but I consistently felt I was forcing myself to finish it--maybe because I just wanted it to be over with. However the battles were fun just like in any pokemon game-- especially when they were difficult. I also liked that you could change your team from anywhere instead of having to go to a pokemon center to do so. I did not play the DLC and don't think it should have been advertised every time you open your backpack. When a game is this low quality, the DLC should not cost 30€. It should maybe be free. But I don't even care, because I would personally never sit down to play this again, even if there was more content.

A fantastic game. I never played the original but I think the developers did an amazing job recreating it to appeal to the modern gamer. The regular swapping between the overworld and the dungeons gives the game an excellent pacing that never gets tiring. Some of the dungeons are masterfully built and I really enjoyed ever second of it. However the game is quite challenging by modern standards and I had to use guides/AI many times to figure out where to go / what to do next. I would give the game a 9.5 if metacritic allowed decimals. I will also add that I had no framework issues on the Switch2, as I have heard about problems on the Switch 1.

I haven't finished the game, I'm at the fourth island. So far it's been fun, but it's probably not worth the hype for a lot of people. It could be called "clean-up simulator" , because most of the time is spent watering the grass and picking up garbage due to OCD. It is fun unlocking new transformations and finding pokemon. It's not a bad game. I've sunk 30+ hours into it and every island keeps me intrigued with new building concepts and abilities. But honestly, it's not "fun" in the way a great Zelda or Mario rpg is fun. You really just spend most of the time cleaning and doing basic quests. Even non-creative people should get some satisfaction from building basic bridges or tunnels , but personally I don't think Ill come back to build creatively after completing the story.