Pokémon Scarlet Review-in-progress Part 1

Pokémon Scarlet came out on Friday. We’ve been playing it and while we’re not ready for a full review yet, that doesn’t mean we can’t start a review-in-progress! Here’s what we think of Pokémon Scarlet so far!

Pokémon Scarlet is the first open world game in the Pokémon franchise history. The game starts out by introducing you to the basics, then the school, and then it lets you out to do whatever you want. There are three major quests: hunting for Titans (big Pokémon), going to gyms, and attacking bases. You can do all three of these quests in whatever order you want and you can also just go explore the huge world map.

The three quests are all pretty interesting, though the Titan quest has our interest the most so far. The gym quest is what you’d typically find a Pokémon game. And the base quest is very hard. The open world will often lead you off of these paths and you’ll find plenty of cool things.

Combat in Scarlet is the usual turn-based combat that you’ll find in most games in the franchise. If you enjoyed this combat in other Pokémon games, then you’ll like it here too. We thought it was really well done in Scarlet. There are plenty of Pokémon to find and collect. There are tons of items to pick up as you explore and shops to visit in the different towns.

The world of Pokémon Scarlet feels very lived in, especially since you see the Pokémon wandering around. You can even, sometimes, avoid them. You can always avoid the trainers who want to fight. This is a great improvement over the previous games. Meanwhile, the graphics are very good but not all that different from what we’ve seen before.

So how does Pokémon Scarlet look? It looks like a Pokémon game. A very good looking Pokémon game, but if you played Pokémon Sword, then you’ll see graphics that are pretty similar. Game Freak didn’t mess with any the designs of the trainers or the Pokémon. It is a good looking game but its not too much better looking than previous efforts.

Unfortunately, though, the game does have some issues that hold it back from being as good a Pokémon game as Brilliant Diamond, Sword or even Arceus. We’ll talk about those issues next time. Stay tuned to GamesReviews.com for more on Pokémon Scarlet!