There was a Pokémon Dirtect last week Wednesday (or the day I started writing this post). It covered a bunch of stuff, as the Direct series of videos are wont to do, but most of it was not of particular interest to me. I’m sure that the news about the TCG games, introduction of some new lifestyle gamification applications, and updates to existing lifestyle gamification apps were very interesting to the people who enjoy those things, but Pokémon Sleep (as a representation of the gamification of sleep) still kinda skeeves me out and I’m not particularly interested in finding new ways to give the Pokémon Company more and more data about me and my life. I could probably write a blog post about the upcoming Pokémon Legends: A-Z and how that looks interesting, but I’m not excited enough by it to really write all that much about it. I will say that it is interesting to see how the Legends series is growing and that my initial suspicion, that Legends Arceus was an early release of the tech they were developing for the games that eventually became Scarlet and Violet, was essentially correct as we see it finally come to it’s full fruition in the demos we saw of Legends A-Z. We probably would have gotten to that point with Scarlet and Violet if the Switch had better hardware, but it did not and now new Pokémon games will have the strength of the Switch 2’s hardware behind them. As will Scarlet and Violet, apparently.

That was the big announcement for me. Scarlet and Violet are getting a free upgrade for Switch 2 compatibility and support. I haven’t plugged my Violet cartridge in yet since all my Switch 2 time is currently being spent on Donkey Kong Bananza, but I’m excited to eventually play Pokemon Violet on my Switch 2 and get what will hopefully be a much better experience without all of the lag and glitchiness. I haven’t found any information about what that will actually look like, or what it has already looked like since the upgrade has reportedly been out for a while despite the Pokémon Direct being the first mention I’d ever seen of it (none of the Switch 2 videos said anything about it, as far as I can recall). There’s some articles about this update back in early June, as the Switch 2 was releasing, but then nothing until the Direct announcement, so maybe it wasn’t actually released until just now and the reporting is about an early review release kind of thing. Regardless, I’m interested in giving the game a try so I can see Pokémon load in from further away, not deal with as much stuttering, and actually experience the game in good graphical quality.

Mind you, none of the problems I experienced with playing the game prevented me from enjoying myself when I first played Pokémon Violet. I had a great time exploring this world, catching Pokémon, meeting up with my friends to play together, and slowly working my way through what is probably one of my favorite Pokémon experiences. I know that liking the latest generation of mainline games puts me at odds with a large chunk of the more vocal online Pokémon community, but I never really got the hate. It’s a Pokémon game. I’ve never played Pokémon for sixty frames per second, realistic graphics, or a flawless experience. I grew up playing these games on various handheld consoles with much lower framerates! My bar for fun is incredibly low when it comes to Pokémon games and while I won’t say that people are wrong for wanting more out of the franchise at this point (while working in software has made me more patient with buggy video games that don’t actually break the experience of play, it has also made me aware that adequate testing and time spent developing would have likely prevented all the major issues of the Violet and Scarlet games), I do think they’re maybe being a little too critical of what has always been an artisically stylized franchise that never really needed to worry about how well it was running.

That said, I am still excited to play the game and hopefully be able to walk around areas without the game slowing to a crawl that I previously couldn’t enter with massive and ugly stuttering. I’ve been wanting to do a second play-through of the game at some point, but I’ve never really pulled the trigger on it. I didn’t want to delete my save data or deal with the hassle of transferring a bunch of my Pokémon out of the game. I also meant to go back and play more, do raids and online stuff, but I never really got around to that since there was ALWAYS another game to be playing that just felt more engaging or interesting that picking away at Pokémon for shinies or online battles. Now, though, with an improved experience? On a 4K TV? That might be enough to make it worth it. Plus, it’s been a couple years now, so I can feel the desire to play Pokémon growing in me again. Hell, I might even go back to Legends: Arceus to finish that game, too. I beat most of the game’s story, but there were more Pokémon to catch or evolve and more end-game stuff to do, so maybe I should see if my save data transferred and go wrap that up eventually. Whenever I’ve got the kind of time a Pokémon game needs, anyway. Who know when that’ll be, though.