Forget The Trees, Everything In Pokémon Scarlet And Violet Looks Jank [Update: More Glitches]

The reviews are in for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, with many critics noting that the Nintendo Switch clearly struggles to run the game properly. But it’s one thing to read about performance issues in the abstract. It’s much funnier to see how badly the character models clip through each other in the game while the framerate lurches.

The scenery randomly starts disappearing when you throw the Pokéball

Pokéballs are powerful enough to digitize Pokémon inside their fist-sized capacities, but I didn’t know that they were also capable of distorting the space around them. Well, they did in this instance at least, and also caused the framerate to spasm as if in pain.

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Pokémon Scarlet & Pokémon Violet

Generation 9
Embark on a new Pokémon adventure in an open-world setting with starters Sprigatito, Fuecoco, and Quaxly.

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People clip through each other

There’s PDA, and then there’s literally being inside of each other while walking down the street. Jesus, these two need to get a room. Or better rendering. One of the two.

The sandwich doesn’t even go inside of her mouth

I’m not an expert, but I’m fairly certain that a sandwich is supposed to go inside and not beside your mouth when you eat one. I don’t ask for much out of a sandwich-eating animation. Yet Pokémon Scarlet and Violet managed to let me down anyway.

A trainer’s arms go through the…eye sockets?

Twitch streamer “Patterrz” sums it up best:

This is the correct way to ride a Koraidon. If you are not doing it in this way then you are not playing Pokémon Scarlet version and Violet version correctly. If your arms and your fists are not coming through your eyeballs, then you are riding a Koraidon in the incorrect manner. And you should probably fix that. [breaks down laughing]

​​The camera occasionally loses the player

There’s so much to unpack in these videos, like NPCs randomly appearing out of nowhere. Since that was something that also happened with wild Pokémon in Pokemon Legends: Arceus, I’m not too shocked about it. Same with the terrible framerate. What does surprise me is the second video, where the camera is struggling to keep up with the player while they’re riding a Koraidon. And it doesn’t even go that fast.

Schrödinger’s Pokémon

So these Pachirisu sure are blinking in and out of existence. Oh, and your Koraidon motorbike gets stuck in the middle of some crates.

Pokémon are stuck in a wall

It’s a good thing that shiny Pokémon have animated sparkles, because some of them are stuck in walls. (You’ll have to use your imagination a bit, but that’s a Deino.)

Characters’ bodies stutter as they walk

So I included this video for the stuttering. But what really blew me away was how ugly this waterfall background is. This is a background that you’d expect from the PlayStation 2, not a modern machine like the Nintendo Switch.

Pokéballs make the camera clip into the ground

In this instance, the pokéball somehow causes the camera to fly right through the ground before it finally hits the wild Pokémon. Of course, as we’ve seen in prior Pokéball footage, the framerate is busy dying a terrible death as well.

If you’re looking to start your own collection of worst glitches in a mainline Pokémon game, you can grab Pokémon Scarlet or Violet starting tomorrow.

Update 11/18/2022 at 11:55 A.M. E.T.: Pokémon Scarlet or Violet is now out for the general public, and players have found even more funny glitches. Here are some new ones for your enjoyment.

All trainers T-pose during a cutscene

To be fair, you had to fiddle with the contrast on the original video to see it properly. But according to the player, this was 10 minutes into the game. Only 10 minutes! This isn’t some random cutscene in the middle of the game, but one of the earliest impressions players would have gotten of Scarlet and Violet. It’s not a good look for a game that already had a lot to prove.

The player rides on an invisible legendary motorbike

You probably were probably pretty psyched to ride the legendary Koraidon and Miraidon like the rest of us. These motorbike Pokémon are the fastest way to travel across Paldea. There’s just one problem: they sometimes turn invisible. So it looks like you’re just zooming around in an awkward seated position.

Background characters or ghosts? You decide

This NPC seems to run into an invisible wall for a bit, and then disappears completely. Spoopy. This actually would have been a pretty cool thing to see in a haunted house, just not in broad daylight.

Schoolchildren’s legs distort the space time fabric of the universe

Children in the Pokémon series are so powerful. Not only do they embark on dangerous adventures and take down adult villains by the age of 11, they can also cause significant frame stuttering.

The lighting changes in the middle of a cutscene

I assume that the lighting was changed so that you could better see the Quaxly in the next video cut. Unfortunately, it happened too soon.

Pokémon stand hovered during battle, then fall out of the screen

I smiled when I saw that your Pokémon could stand in the air while they battled a flying opponent. Flamigo is a bird, so I suppose it’s plausible that it could float? I burst into laughter when the Flamigo suddenly fell straight down the cliff.

For those who haven’t worked in game development—colliders are what level designers use to make sure that game objects make contact with one another. It seems that the floor collider for battles randomly decided to turn off for no reason.

Pokémon can duplicate when they evolve

So when you evolve a Pokémon, you could get another copy of it. The player notes that the duplication is purely visual, but it’s still funny to think about evolution becoming a “buy-one-get-one-free” deal like a fried chicken shop.