Wyatt fractal Starlight 👼🪞🎤

Pokémon Scarlet/Violet DLC Spoilers

they generally don't improve on any of SV's weak points

• the game kinda doesn't look great, which i wouldn't mind; if it weren't for
• the game does not perform well at all. you do not look good enough to be dropping down to 10fps for me just walking near a waterfall or a city
• the LOD in the distance also still flickers and flashes and has egregious enough pop-in that i swear it could cause someone a photosensitive seizure

i will say that, compared to the bethesda-like "wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle" feeling of the base game Paldea map, Kitakami and especially the Blueberry Terarium are beautiful smaller open world playgrounds that i think feel a lot more thoughtful and a lot more interesting to explore

the writing and storytelling remain very good, mostly hitting the same highs that the base game does and maintaining them, though with a bit of a problem of a lack of complete resolution (though i can withhold judgement on that until i get a chance to play the epilogue releasing in a couple weeks)

which just contributes to my broader problem with SV, and modern pokémon in general: they rush these games out in fucking pathetic states for the most profitable media franchise on the planet, in a 95 dollar package that just... doesn't match up to what i paid for it. but there's enough good there (most especially the story and ending because... jesus fuck area zero is perfect) that i can't bring myself to fully hate it, but i can't allow myself to actually love them either, so i'm just stuck between them awkwardly. i wish i could just feel one or the other for the series that's been important to me since childhood (i have a fucking tattoo from the series on my arm for gods'-sake), but i just... can't.

as always, the problem with modern pokémon remains as capitalism.