‘Pokémon Legends: Arceus’ is trending as fans air advice to Nintendo

The long-awaited next generation of mainline Pokémon games has arrived in the form of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, but the titles are having a pretty rough launch.

There’s assets disappearing from people’s screens, camera issues, and some serious lag whenever a Pokéball gets thrown. It’s a little bit messy. Early adopters of the game, and fans watching from the sidelines have been quick to point the finger at the game’s developer, GameFreak, but perhaps more importantly at Nintendo itself.

Some of the vitriol towards the game’s developer stems from the fact that it’s been a busy year in terms of Pokémon games, with Pokémon Legends: Arceus coming out back in January, which was also developed by GameFreak. 

There’s an argument being made that the developer (or publisher) should have allotted more time to getting Pokémon Scarlet and Violet just right, with many advocating that the game should have been delayed so that the game could get a little more tender love, care, and polish before hitting store shelves.

In an industry where development crunch and subsequent forced overtime continues to be an issue, it’s a reasonably fair point. While delays aren’t always the optimal solution, and have often pointed towards a title being in development hell, there have been plenty of other cases when a delay has delivered a much more polished title. 

Let’s argue, for a moment, that GameFreak had ample time to get the game out, and crunched on its development minimally. In this case, it may be time to start pointing the finger at the hardware the game runs on. That’s an entirely different conversation happening in the Nintendo community at the moment.