Ding! Dong! Chzzzzzzz… Clack! 

There it is. After waiting for an entire week, you beam with happiness as you insert the new Pokemon games into your Nintendo Switch. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are the paired games released as the 9th generation of the Pokemon Video Game Franchise. This time, the region is set in Paldea, and the game takes heavy influence from Spanish culture.

As in all Pokemon games, each character encounters a Legendary Pokeman, a figure who shapes the story. For Scarlet, this figure is Koraidon; for Violet it's Miraidon. Despite their differences–Violet’s themes are more futuristic while Pokemon Scarlet’s are prehistoric–the gameplay and almost all the Pokeman characters are the same in each game. That’s why it’s easier to talk about both games as one.

In spite of having a great plot, an intriguing storyline, astonishing animations, and dozens of parallel quests, there are still issues with the game. Pokemon designers are known for leaving out scenes, so players have had to imagine them. For example, when a pokemon dodges an attack, there is no dodge cutscene (an animated scene in the middle of gameplay). The game designers did a great job on all the other animated scenes. So why leave this one out? It feels like game creators were too lazy to do the dodging clips.

Although the animations and art are all high quality, especially the terastallizing (powering up) visual effects, there is no harmony between different “sprites” (computer images whose actions can be manipulated). When you look at the sprites alone, they are stunning. However, when you put the different sprites and backgrounds together, they don’t mesh. When Koraidon pops up after Titan quests, it looks like some kind of Michael Jackson moonwalk.

The leveling system is cooked. Normally, you're supposed to progress from level to higher level. But in this game, you can travel to different parts of Paldea and go from level 20 pokemons to level 45, which is an enormous jump. Furthermore, by pitting all five of your decent pokemons against a single, powerful wild one, you get a synergistic effect of “1+1 = 10”. This is game-breaking; it allows you to breeze through all the gyms, or “bosses”, without having to figure out your opponents’ weaknesses, which is a critical part of the game.

So, is the game worth the $59.95 retail price? If you compare it to Zelda: Breath of the Wild, another astounding 3d adventure game, which launched at $49.95, you will see that Breath of the Wild has better graphics, a bigger map, and more enjoyable in-game physics. It would be wiser to wait until the price drops before buying Scarlet and Violet.