Disgruntled players are review bombing Pokemon Scarlet & Violet. Over on Metacritic, while the latest mainline Pokemon game has a score of 77 based on critic reviews, the user score is telling a far different story. And it seems players are getting increasingly angry.
At the time of writing, Pokemon Scarlet has a user score of just 2.8 based on ratings from 860 people. One user scored it zero and commented: "Everyone giving that game more than 5/10 points is straight up lying. The game is the worst running game I've played in 20 years". Another angry review gave it a slightly higher score of 2/10 and said Scarlet is "barely playable on Switch Lite" and that the game is "ugly".
Pokemon Violet, on the other hand, has a slightly higher score of 3.4 based on 409 ratings from user scores on Metacritic. "This game is extremely broken in many ways. The game itself is a broken and buggy mess," wrote one 'joaresazrio123' who scored Violet a zero.
Like the debates and heated discussions that followed the launch of Pokemon Legends: Arceus, the arrival of Pokemon Scarlet & Violet seems like it's no less contentious. Players and fans have been hotely debating the game's performance and graphics. The titles' performance issues have been noted across games media with outlets commenting on problems such as framerate drops, bugs and glitches.
While a game's visuals and how they are perceived is a more subjective interpretation, many have made unfavourable comparisons for Game Freak's titles. While the Switch is aging hardware, many have pointed out how titles like Xenoblade Chronicles 3, which is also an open world game, is able to look far more graphically impressive. Other comparisons have been made to Breath of the Wild and Capcom's Monster Hunter Rise.
The clamour has risen to the extent that Scarlet & Violet owners are calling for refunds such is the anger for the game's performance issues. While review bombing is never a nice thing to see when devs have been hard at work on the games, and considering the scope of pressures they are under from publishers, Pokemon Scarlet & Violet perhaps really could've done with more spit and polish considering the series' popularity and its importance to the Switch. Things need to improve.