I recently did something sort of unusual: I went to a preview event for a game that\u2019s been out for almost three years.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve played around 400 hours of Pok\u00e9mon Scarlet, according to my Nintendo Switch, since it was released in late 2022. It\u2019s safe to say I know the game pretty well. And yet, when I was invited to preview Pok\u00e9mon Scarlet and Violet on the Nintendo Switch 2 ahead of the new console\u2019s launch<\/a>, I gladly took the opportunity to see three-year-old games I already own. I wanted to find out just how much they\u2019d improved.<\/p>\n I have a high jank tolerance with games \u2014 it builds character \u2014 but I\u2019m well aware of Scarlet and Violet\u2019s shortcomings on the original Switch<\/a>. There\u2019s lag. The frame rate is\u2026 inconsistent. There are online connectivity issues. For a lot of people, performance problems overshadowed what was otherwise a great new generation of Pok\u00e9mon games. With the release of the Nintendo Switch 2<\/a>, and the accompanying free performance update for Scarlet and Violet, that might finally change.<\/p>\n Starting up the demo of Pok\u00e9mon Scarlet on the Switch 2 at The Pok\u00e9mon Company International\u2019s office in Bellevue, Washington, I knew immediately where I wanted to go first: Casseroya Lake, sometimes called \u201cLag Lake,\u201d where the games\u2019 graphical issues are most apparent. On the original Switch, the game really chugs when you\u2019re on the lake; the frame rate takes a dive, and it struggles to render more than a handful of pok\u00e9mon in your immediate vicinity. Exploring the liveliest open areas and encountering the pok\u00e9mon that populate them is one of Scarlet and Violet\u2019s biggest strengths, but on the Switch, Casseroya Lake is dull and empty at best and impossible to navigate at worst.<\/p>\n Playing on the Switch 2, however, Casseroya Lake ran beautifully. There were far more pok\u00e9mon in view (and I was immediately accosted by a torpedo-like Veluza, same as it ever was), and the lag and stuttering I\u2019d come to expect were nonexistent. I battled that Veluza with no problems. I stumbled upon a Slowpoke outbreak and sent out my Clodsire to auto-battle them \u2014 no lag. I found a wild Tera Pok\u00e9mon and watched the Tera animation play out, looking sharper than I\u2019d ever seen it. (I was playing in docked mode at a station set up by TPCi, so maybe that last one could be credited to the TV. But still.)<\/p>\n It was the same case everywhere I went during my 30-minute demo: a stable and smooth frame rate, significantly faster load times, and far more pok\u00e9mon populating the world. The Switch 2 update is not a complete overhaul of the graphics themselves \u2014 the grass textures looked just as unremarkable as always to my eye, for example \u2014 but it does seem to eliminate the performance issues that have dragged Scarlet and Violet down for nearly three years. It\u2019s a noticeable improvement in the world, in battle, in Tera raids, and even in menus.<\/p>\n Is it praiseworthy for a game to simply run well? Maybe not. I don\u2019t pretend to know how games are made on a technical level, or really any level, but I know they\u2019re not easy to make. And I had enough fun with Pok\u00e9mon Scarlet to play for 400 hours without the performance issues bothering me much. But it did feel bittersweet, briefly, to think how much more these games could have shone if they\u2019d run well in the first place. <\/p>\n Then, in the last five minutes of my demo, as I waded in a different body of water to confirm that it too ran smoothly, I saw it: among the pods of Buizel dotting the shore, a shiny. <\/p>\n A good portion of my 400 hours in Scarlet were spent shiny hunting, because even though the alternate-color versions of pok\u00e9mon are not quite as hard to find as they were in previous games, I get excited every time I see one, without fail. It\u2019s the perfect encapsulation of the kind of joy Scarlet and Violet have to offer: exploring a lively area and finding something special. I caught the shiny Buizel despite knowing that it wasn\u2019t my save file and not mine to keep.<\/p>\n The Switch 2 update is arguably arriving a bit late for my Scarlet save file, depending on how many hours you think are reasonable to spend playing this game. But I also own Violet, and I have played about two hours of that version total. Looking at the shiny Buizel I didn\u2019t get to keep, I realized I was really excited to have a reason to play Violet finally \u2014 to rediscover what I liked most about these games, in a state that does them justice.<\/p>\n