IGN has had the opportunity to briefly test out Pokemon Scarlet & Violet on the Nintendo Switch 2 and have come away suitably impressed. As we already know the new update (available now) brings enhanced resolution and framerate, which is a major boon considering how the games performed at launch. Here’s a sample of their impressions of the latest Pokemon games running on Nintendo Switch 2.
“As soon as I loaded into the game, on a huge 4K TV, I was stunned by how nice everything looked. No jagged pixelated edges on blades of grass, or even Pokémon, here.”
“I saw numerous Pokémon swim along the surface from a distance and didn’t experience any noticeable stuttering once I began to swim. Even when it began to rain, Pokémon Scarlet on the Switch 2 still didn’t struggle even a little. In fact, it continued playing like normal, as if the weather effects were meant to just… work.”
“This, I’m relieved to say, isn’t the case on the Switch 2. Sure, they’re still not perfect–I did experience one stutter when dashing on Koraidon, and there are still texture issues and texture pop-ins–but the visuals and performance are far from garbage. They’re so much better, in fact, that I’m tempted to say the free Switch 2 updates are closer to a light remaster than just an optimization.”
“These were my first impressions from just thirty minutes of hands-on play, so there could certainly be issues I missed or that reveal themselves later, but I encountered significantly less issues in these thirty minutes on the Switch 2 compared to the thirty minutes on the original Switch I spent capturing the comparison footage.”
Of course they haven’t address the issues. The game still needs a bit of polish. It still suffer poor frame rates, animations and graphics.
You referring to the Switch 1 version?
Sonic Frontiers
It’s a bit “normal” that there are still flaws, performance optimization doesn’t fix bugs… that said, it’s already better than nothing and indeed it looks more appealing on the Switch 2 than on the old one (we received our Switch 2 copy this morning…^^)
It’s tough because it performs better but still looks like a barren and uninteresting open world. Which wild considering how Nintendo has gained a lot of experience in making open-world games lately. I’m looking forward to the the XC3 patch WAYYY more since I got that game on the switch but never really played it.
Remember, this is made by GameFreak and not Nintendo
At the end of the day, I don’t know what people were expecting. The Switch 2 updates are basically the same as unlocking the frame rate and changing the resolution options on a PC game, its not suddenly adding in new assets that weren’t in the original, like an actual remaster would.
You can put lipstick on a pig but it’s still a pig, in this case, it’s gonna fix up the frame rate issues and the issues of the resolution changing and occasionally making the game look really murky, short draw distances and the like, but the issues with the way the environment looks and the textures aren’t gonna see an improvement. Not unless GF actually go back and give the game a Switch 2 specific update that adds new assets, which isn’t the case.
If nothing else though, it’ll be nice to play these games without so many visual bugs. But I’ll be interested to see if technical ones will be, too.
I did a playthrough earlier this year where the picnic table didn’t spawn in and my sandwich fell to the floor, I once had my character walk past – then respawn next to Clive in a cutscene and a funny one where Kofu was admiring flowers that hasn’t spawned in so he was just staring at grass. I’d love to see if that sort of thing would be addressed or not.
I hate Avery on pokemon shield. I wish he died instead of Lysandre.