Pokémon Scarlet And Violet Is Getting A Free Performance Upgrade On Switch 2

Well, it certainly could use it...

Calling it now, it'll still run terribly on the new system and I'll be over here laughing for hours.

We finally get a performance patch for Pokemon SV and it only costs 470€

(but very nice though)

Honestly I see this game as kinda like Skyrim.
A genuinely great game but bogged down by glitches and bugs that once fixed is a legitimately good game.

Just makes me hope VGP has yet another restock of Cart 004 for both.

@Joeynator3000 Probably lol

Like.. switch 2 might be able to hide some of the memory issues but framerate chugging is often due to an overaccumulation of task being ran at the same time, which pokemon is suffering a lot from with the wild spawns since it's attempting to run individual spawn in task and scripts for each individual movement while raycasting not just the player, but the environment + the pokemon for aggro checks.

That's just surface level game design and coding and GF is inexperienced with what pokemon would need to solve these issues (a globally shared check system that in-sync updates everything at once instead of individual task and actions updating on the same frames.. hence the framerate chugging or skipping.). 2D often just has tile checks (if player steps on X tile coordinates then do thing) which are performance efficient since literally nothing happens until you do touch that tile, 3D does a lot of scanning and when you're spawning pokemon in a radius around the player you're going to have essentially infinite loops at the edges of that radius even while idling.

And no, increasing switch performance does not make it suddenly handle all those processes, unless its CPU is NASA quality, most modern high-en gaming setups will experience the same performance issues that pokemon as cause of the way threads work. The framerate drop at the lakes isn't necessarily due to the graphics, its the textures infinite looping below the water trying to fight for which to be loaded in every heartbeat since they just layered the bottom of the lake rather than intersecting. The game chugs the framerate because it's trying to process deciding which texture to display, not struggling to load a texture itself.

@Joeynator3000 Agreed. I have the lowest of expectations. I've held firm in not purchasing this — even though I want to play it — to send a message that releasing games in an incomplete or poorly functional state is not OK, but I may reconsider if the Switch 2 enhancement eliminates the problems. My guess is we'll see minor improvements.

And while I'm at it, SHAME ON Nintendo and Game Freak for making the folks who've already purchased the game wait this long.

All of the Pokémon

@Burning_Spear the issues go well beyond bugs and performance. Nothing could fix this game beyond more competence. A lot more.

Well, at least some of these are free.

Not gonna lie, I forgot Game Builder Garage was a thing.

And will still look like *****.

The Z-A game or whatever it was called still managed to look like a Wii game compared to the other much older upgraded Switch 2 titles in the Direct.

Game Freak are just bad at this.

Please give Animal Crossing 4k 60

@Greatluigi Nah, the glitches in Skyrim are so hilarious and good that the main reason to play the game is the jank. Scarlet and Violet are just bad.

Hell yes! Excited for the free performance improvements for Links Awakening and EoW too since those both have framerate issues on og switch

Cool. I will be rebuying a lot of these for switch 2 (going purely digital).

Out of all the games that I thought would get a free upgrade, Pokémon wasn't it

GameFreak should be forced to give all their Switch output a performance upgrade for free.

Much need, let’s be honest.

Thank goodness! Glad they aren't all paid upgrades. So it kinda mirrors the PlayStation 4-5 game upgrades.

I take this to mean that Gen X is still a ways off.

To be fair, they owe those free performance upgrades to anyone who purchased either of those Zelda games.

Hoping the Xenoblade games get some kind of boost too.

Thank goodness!
Both free upgrades and paid upgrades uh? Thanks Nintendo for at least being generous with the smaller games. It's going to be fascinating which and how much games will be benefitted.
And even without paying for the upgrade pack, I'm sure these titles will still run pretty great on the new console. The benchmarks for this will be Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity and Bayonetta 3.

And Korok Forest, of course...

No Xenoblade??

Unfortunately the performance was just one small issue with these games for me. I bounced right off its world design, ghost town cities, and lack of gym leader scaling.

@swoose : I too preferred the smaller towns of past games with houses I could actually enter.

There are few things more boring than a massive open world with nothing to interact with.

Wow, they're probably updating it from "completely broken" to "barely playable", now that's nice!

@ElkinFencer10 which frankly would be really good. These games need a LOT more time in the oven

Count me in for Big Brain Academy: Brain vs. Brain if that means mouse controls.

Mario Odyssey with anti aliasing and improved lighting would be very welcome. New Donk City will look amazing without all the windows flickering.

The official wording sounds like the most modest of enhancements compared to the Switch 2 Editions, but any free enhancement is welcome regardless! Especially for Scarlet/Violet. Would love to see GF take the initiative to update the rest of their Pokemon games, but I imagine they have their hands full with LZA and Gen 10 at the moment.

Pairing this with the "game sharing" updates makes me worry about they not including performance or resolution bumps like the paid upgrades. But I hope I am wrong and Nintendo and most third party surprises us.

They should've fixed that a long time ago, but better late than never I suppose. The OG Switch could've done it cos Switch took on games harder to run than S/V, but Gamefreak got a little too hasty releasing those games. I'd rather wait and get a high quality product than have it now and it run like those games did.

YESSSSSSSSSSSS

@SplatRay001 xenoblade was shown along with multiple titles that would get upgraded in the direct.

I'm generally baffled that comments about this game make it sound unplayable.
I had a okay experience with it, frame drops and a few weird NPC stuff, but other than that it was fine.

Great to here. Would have been fantastic if Nintendo had worked with third party developers on a free update to improve performance of the 100 most demanding Switch games for Switch 2.

That would have been a nice surprise at launch.

I wonder if some of these more demanding Switch 1 games would still benefit from the Switch 2 hardware regarding framerate dips, that we see in some titles, without any involvement from developers? Would they not automatically run a bit smoother than on Switch 1?

I hope more games get this. Forgotten Land DLC and Mario Party DLC make sense to be paid but the others should've been free. Hoping more games get this treatment!

@gabrigoes On the one hand, I know you're right. On the other hand, I'm a PokeManiac and impatient as heck lmao

That's good news.

Game Builder Garage?! Why not!😂

@Joeynator3000 You must think you're so funny.

@Nintoz On the original Switch, games in Game Builder Garage could be made using a USB mouse, so I'm guessing the Switch 2 Upgrade is to allow Joy-Con mouse controls.

Wohoho! Free! Don't get carried away, Nintendo!

@swoose I haven't played Pokemon in a while. Do gym battles normally scale? Is that good or bad?

@HammerGalladeBro Ooh of course!! That and Captain Toad make so much more sense now

Oh hey now Echoes of Wisdom might not run like crap. That's nice

@Justifier
im hoping that at most with some of the bigger expansions the price is closer to something like buying DLC of equivalent content.

@Jack_Goetz
Xenoblade 2 in particular im hoping can get a boost especially with handheld mode.

Stepping out into the vast fields of Gormott definitely had a lot of the wonder sucked out when it was hard to make out stuff in the distance.

@SillyG
yeah i enjoy entering buildings in rpgs.

one of the things i would have loved to have seen improved in the series was more on the smaller scale, things like making interiors more distinct. sun and moon did feel like an okay balance in that regard in that while it had fewer houses than the older games it felt like nearly every building (outside of the pokemon centers) was unique.

I like what I'm seeing, but. . .no Star Allies? Is the game that hated, even by Nintendo?

why is this free but Zelda you have to pay for?

Waiting for update news on

Xenoblade games
Yoshi Crafted World
Animal Crossing New Horizons
Fire Emblem
Splatoon family

🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞

@KBuckley27 Zelda got also some nice app for doing all kind of things.

For me, I'm interested in voice acting for Zelda's diary in BOTW, among other voice acting lines from the app.

Also, zonai devices sharing for TOTK.

@Jack_Goetz
@Mgalens

The Xenoblade Chronicles games had this dynamic resolution going on, so it could drop really low when there was to much going on for the Switch hardware to handle.

While it would be nice with some true enhanced versions of these games, I wonder if they would not automatically perform a lot better on the Switch 2 hardware?

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 - dynamic 504p - 720p in docked, and 378p - 540p in handheld.

Maybe these game will never have to drop the resolution on Switch 2? And perhaps all Switch 1 games will run in docked mode all the time?

That could result in stable 720p resolution in handheld on Switch 2. We will see.how it turns out.

@dres
one game im curious to see how it handles dynamic stuff like fps and resolution is dragon quest builders 2 considering it aims for 60fps but starts to chug when you build large structures, will be interesting to see if it holds that 60fps better on switch 2 through virtue of hardware.

Odyssey is a curious case. On a modded Switch unit you can make it 720p native instead of vanilla interlaced and it looks SO MUCH BETTER. Fun part is you don’t even need to overclock and it holds 60fps almost like the vanilla version. I suppose now it’s 1080p60…and a HDR update would elevate it even further.

Do we know how much an upgrade pack costs?

@ElkinFencer10 hahah I get you. They should outsource more spin-offs to other companies, like when we had Pinball, Mystery Dungeon, Rangers and some others. At least it'd scratch that Pokémon itch

@Ryu_Niiyama Welcome to the all-digital party!

@SplatRay001 I clicked on this article hoping to see xenoblade x too

@StewdaMegaManNerd woo looking forward to way less boxes to keep up with!

Thank goodness we won’t have to pay for every upgrade.

So no specifics, just “it will run better” ?

Waaaaaaayyyyyyy to late Gamefreak.

I am laughing way to hard than I need to.

@graviton I liked 'Yoshi's Crafted World' but I am hoping for a new Yoshi game more or 'Yoshi's Woolly World' which is my favourite Nintendo Wii U game that didn't get released on Switch.

@Justifier The upgrades that cost money also include additional content like full DLC expansions. For BotW and TotK they're 10€ to upgrade and 20€ for Kirby and Mario Party.

That's great to hear. We are waiting to see how much everything is going to cost here in Australia but we will definitely be getting a Nintendo Switch 2 this year so we can get 'Hyrule Warriors: Age Of Imprisonment', 'Donkey Kong Bananza', 'Mario Kart World' and 'Kirby and the Forgotten Land – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Star-Crossed World' and can't remember the last time I was this excited about new games. 😀

it will double the FPS to 10

This is nice but you need to have a Switch 2, so I guess that makes up for the upgrade as you spent that much on Switch 2.

Watch the SV one break things further and all the others be great improvements.

@batmanbud2 I think maybe they want to focus on forgotten land first. Star allies might get an update later on down the road.

@Burning_Spear It was playable, anyone with a clear head knew that it was going to have problems on the old hardware but took the good with the bad. You are fine for waiting for a slick version just that was never going to happen on the old hardware. Their coders aren't that great.

@DollyrotsFan1 Same here, I really wish Nintendo would have ported Yoshi’s Woolley World to the Switch… it’s one of the last Wii U games left on the system (aside from on the 3DS)

If the update can make it run at a locked 30 FPS, I’m going to be very, very happy. The game itself is SO FUN (if ugly; the world textures are awful), but I had to stop playing because the framerate was so bad that I got motion sickness and headaches if I played for longer than 30 minutes at a time.

Me myself personally, I’m excited for this. I don’t really care about graphics n’ stuff too much as long as the stories good, but it sucks that the graphics stopped people from playing what is genuinely one of the best Pokémon stories since BW/B2W2. Here’s hoping things look better than before.

Also, let’s be for real, pessimism about this FREE upgrade not being good is only more likely to make it bad. So let’s try some positivity about this y’all, ‘kay?

Ngl, I was hoping Kirby: Star Allies would get a performance boost. That game should not only run at 60fps in the main menu...

@Gryffin Normally the gym leaders (and wild pokemon and trainers) get higher level as you go along, since most Pokemon games have been linear. Scarlet/Violet let you challenge the areas in any order, which lets you take on harder bosses first… but all that really does is leave lower level gym battles for later, which makes them a joke.

In lore and for gameplay, it would make way more sense for gym leaders to have tougher teams based on how many badges you’ve earned.

@KayFiOS I know 😭😭😭

I know even fans dislike it, but it would at least be nice.

@SBandy1 Looks like a Wii game? I think not.

Anyone know if Scarlet & Violet NS2 Patch comes Day 1/in first 10 days or it will come much later?!