Two screenshots have been released for the Pokémon Scarlet & Violet Nintendo Switch 2 patch
Serebii Update: Two screenshots have been released for the Pokémon Scarlet & Violet Nintendo Switch 2 patchhttps://t.co/NWlAdn57aQ pic.twitter.com/QeXYudJGiq
— Serebii.net (@SerebiiNet) May 16, 2025
by Amiibofan101
37 Comments
Welp, it’s still an ugly game.
Honestly, I’ll never understand how Gamefreak weren’t more ashamed of releasing a game that looks like this.
is it me or does it somehow look worse?
Still looks like dogshit
Wind Waker on Switch 2 looks much better.
Something that really bugged me about S/V on the original switch was it could only load ~~10~~ 15 pokemon on the screen at a time. It felt super weird to be constantly seeing pokemon right next to you load in and out. So at the very least, that’s cool that it looks like you’ll be able to see way more pokemon on the screen at once now.
I mean it’s still a bad looking game… it’s just that the resolution is higher
Probably doesn’t help that the images are on X and not 4k. The only change is a resolution increase and frame rate increase. If the screenshots aren’t in 4k then you’re not seeing the only thing that has changed visually.
Wow they didn’t even bother increasing the draw distance of the grass…
So the same game at more resolution and hopefully more frames…
I hope this update is free 😂
Hey i know they’re not going to update the assets necessarily i just want to see if performance is smoother. I loved scarlet but there were some parts riding around on koraidon where it gets super choppy.
It still looks like a 20 year old game. Embarrassing
I wasn’t holding my breath for the graphical updates to do much, and I can’t say I’m surprised. S/V is an ugly game to its core, aside from the Pokémon themselves. Sharper visuals and higher framerate will only make those fundamental flaws more obvious. It’s probably not even worth booting up the Switch 2 version.
Framerate is improved at least.
Man really does highlight that 9 outside of its character and monster designs, really had bad art direction.
I just want a smooth framerate, that’s all I’m asking for. I love Scarlet and Violet, they’re great games in my opinion, and having no stutters and slow downs while simply traversing would be all I need to enjoy them even more.
Edit: Yeah, the comments are the same as they’ve always been. Discourse about anything Pokémon on here is just a waste of time.
Nice, us Pokémon players can now enjoy high-detail Pokémon models in stock Unreal Engine environments with choppy animations at 60fps!
the mountain textures have me dying. OoT holds up better than this
Honestly I don’t even want 4k just give me stable 60 fps if legends ZA is running at 60fps.
Cool, instead of poor textures and geometries in 720p, we’ll get to see poor textures and geometries in 4k 😊
oh gods, please do not add MORE pokemon in the overworld, it’s just gonna feel worse navigating through them 😭😭😭
It looks sharper and will run better. That’s all I need. Really enjoyed the game.
Man Legends Arceus looked even better than this…I wish they’d go revisit that engine…
I guess it looks slightly better in the sense that it’s a bit more crisp, which is good. I do like that. But I really just want to see a stable frame rate. It can be 30 it can be 60 if it’s 60 that’s great but if it’s 30 that’s fine. I just wanted to be stable.
Those images are honestly too blurry to tell how improved they are. The lighting looks slightly nicer, maybe.
Pokemon needs art direction, not performance
That screenshot is running at 0 fps.
It looks worse than some GameCube games, wow.
Have they ever looked at their own games and wondered why they look so ugly?
No graphic power can save bad art direction, bad programming and bad assets.
Every time I see this game I can’t believe the Pokemon company approves games that look like a fan made 1 hour Unreal Engine tutorial on YouTube.
What an embarrassment and how do people spend money on this stuff?
I love hating on Scarlet and Violet as much as anyone, but please let me be real on this one.
These games have been out since 2022. The next big Pokémon game is going to be Legends Z-A coming out later this year, and THAT’S the Pokémon game that’s gonna get the big $10-more Switch 2 Edition, and there will be plenty of people complaining how it doesn’t look like it’s worth it then. We’re getting a *free* performance update for SV in less than a month for anyone who wants to play the game on their NS2. Scarlet and Violet aren’t gonna get a completely revamped art style, with higher res textures, and Paldea completely redone or whatever. No one should be expecting any kind of miracle like for Tera Raid Battles to actually function and be playable.
But!!
Scarlet and Violet perform like absolute Trubbish on the NS1, and a common complaint since DAY ONE has been poor optimization. Countless players have complained that it felt like the Nintendo Switch really wasn’t powerful enough to handle everything that Scarlet and Violet were trying to do on it, and honestly yeah, it’s true. But if you wanna take one second I’ll break down some of the complaints people have with these games and how I’m cautiously optimistic that these free updates might be better than most people realize.
SV have this huge open world, but the draw distance is terrible. The world loads in chunks, and as you swiftly traverse it, you’ll see the world around you trying to keep up. Mountains in the background will load in lower poly, then slowly add geometry. You’ll watch everything load in real-time, seeing water effects and shadows getting added into everything, Pokémon popping in, etc. It’s not even uncommon to go through a wall or floor before it even gets a chance to fully load properly. Play the game long enough and it’ll happen at least once to anyone. It’s like a rite of passage. The game has lots of tricks to help offset load times–for example, NPCs in the distance will have their animation frame rates greatly reduced. Pokémon which are farther away will also use lower poly models, since the stuff closer to the camera should look better but the stuff in the distance doesn’t need to be as detailed. But because this game has such a hard time balancing everything, a lot of that is still noticable. And mistakes still slip through! I was playing just about a month ago and a low-poly Meditite just never even upscaled itself to the point where I even battled it like that!
When you actually let the game load in all the way, you can find some really nice scenic locations, and the game will actually look really nice. When you look at a Pokémon like a Magneton and take a little time to admire its beauty, it looks fine. It’s not like it doesn’t have good mapping or anything, because it does. The game was rushed, so some aspects of it look rushed, but it doesn’t mean that no work went into it or that the whole thing is garbage. The real problem with the final game in terms of performance is how NOTICABLY POOR it is. I think people can’t HELP but notice how poor it is, because it’s in your face, and it breaks the immersion. It’s not like plenty of games don’t swap between lower and higher poly assets, or like they might not have frame drops for animations in the distance. They just handle those things better. The tricks aren’t bad. The tricks are common. But when people don’t know what the trick is and they notice an npc who is only 15 feet away walking at 5 fps, they think the whole game is chugging. An update like the free one we’re getting might mean that maybe an npc might be updated to walk at 10 fps instead when they’re 30 ft away. I’m making up numbers here but my point is like… is it a noticable difference to write home about? No way! But… isn’t that the point? An update like this can help the game run the way you’d expect it to run, and not worse. If it just plays normally, that’s an upgrade from it struggling.
Maybe instead of watching a background draw for five seconds while you’re playing, it’ll quickly come together in a second. You won’t be watching the game come together in chunks, and the shadows being cast slowly from up close then far away. You’re still gonna see it; it’s not gonna be total magic. But again like, it’s free. It’ll help the game look the way it should look quicker and more effectively, so you can spend more time just enjoying the game and less time seeing how the level needs to be rebuilt every time you touch the camera. Maybe people on the Switch 2 will fall through 75% less walls and floors than before simply by virtue of the game keeping up a little better.
It’s not just, “oh the game will be upscaled to 4k and the loading screens will take less time”. It’s also things which affect actual gameplay and immersion like:
– How well does the world load around you as you play?
– How close do you have to be for a Pokémon to spawn?
– How long do Pokémon spawns take?
– How many Pokémon can spawn around you at once time?
– How often does the game need to pause itself and catch its breath? How long does it need to freeze the game for when too much is going on?
– How far into the distance can you see certain things?
– How much father away can things be now while still having smoother animations or crisper visuals?
– Can you switch between your boxes in the game and actually see the Pokémon in them without needing to constantly stop and wait for multiple seconds on each screen?
Sometimes I’d play these games and they’d run so poorly I’d take videos of it just for proof. But then other times they’d look so nice I’d still need to take a photo or video just to remind myself of the nice things too. The stuff you focus on most and pay attention to most is how you’re gonna view it in the end. I think if the game runs better overall, it’ll make for a more enjoyable experience in the end.
(1/2)
I’d pay an upgrade fee alone to be able to set the Normal Wild Battle theme to play in every province.
If this game runs smoothly, I’ll do a second playthrough. Just to wash off the bad taste the first one left and maybe just maybe buy the DLC
K my ni
These videos still seem to be running at the pre-patch framerates.
Even if it run at 120 FPS and all the game breaking bugs were fixed, at its core it is still a very ugly-looking game that is not very fun to play.
I hope that they consider going the *Dragon Quest HD-2D* route for the next entry in the series.
I’m past the point of caring about the graphics, its shit yeah but whatever.
What i want for the love of god is SMOOTH FPS and high res. PLEASE can this be 1080p minimum or 1440p with 60fps. I’m begging at this point.
Hell i’ll even take 1080p locked 30 at this point. I just want it to feel smooth ffs.
bruh this still gets mogged by the switch version of sonic frontiers
Wow still looks like dog poop