Pokemon fans have become increasingly more critical of modern Pokemon releases on the Nintendo Switch, and the recent release of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet has only added more fuel to the fire.

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet was looking to be the most ambitious game from Game Freak, and according to some fans, far too ambitious for what the Switch is capable of. Day one buyers of the game took to Twitter to share their experiences with the game and the numerous amount of glitches that they encountered that interfered with their experience.

Pokemon Scarlet & Violet is visually the ugliest 1st Party Nintendo Switch Game to date filled with terrible performance issues, bugs and glitches.

It’s a wildly disappointing display from the world’s largest franchise.

— Wood Hawker (@BeatemupsWood) November 18, 2022

we talk about it in our scarlet/violet review (link threaded below) but just for a visual demonstration, this is what folks are talking about re: graphical issues. the whole game is like this#PokemonScarletViolet #NintendoSwitch pic.twitter.com/4vtp9bacM4

— Alyse Stanley (@pithyalyse) November 17, 2022

The major consensus as to the cause of these issues points to Game Freak, the primary game developer for Pokemon, and their apparent failure to properly optimize Scarlet and Violet for the Switch. Pre-release major news outlets like Eurogamer, The Guardian, Polygon, and more echoed similar statements in their own reviews. While they all acknowledged the ambition and achievements that the game has made for the series, its poor performance made it unbearable to play. In one of the more negative reviews, GamesRadar recounted their experience with the glitches in unrestrained detail.

“…Crashes forced me to restart, lag and slowdown was frequent, pop-in was a constant bugbear, the loading times were testing, textures looked unimpressive up close, sprites don’t appear until you’re practically standing on them, and the game cuts frames of animation on anything too that’s too tough for the hardware – like a single, slowly-turning windmill or several people sitting calmly in a classroom…”

“…I can’t feel excited about exploring when the world looks this unappealing, when Pokemon keep spawning beneath my feet and when prolonged play results in a piercing headache.”

Kotaku noted that graphical issues within modern Pokemon games have been a common occurrence, with Pokemon Sword and Shield having problems of its own, but nowhere near as problematic as the series’ recent entry. While it would be easy to put the blame on the limits of the Switch’s capabilities, as Kotaku points out, that couldn’t be further from the truth. The Nintendo Switch may not have the graphical power of its competitors, proper use of the system can still produce some of the most breath-taking visuals for players to explore.

The problem is not Nintendo Switch, the problem is GameFreak.

This is indefensible. pic.twitter.com/dZfsklfqr1

— . (@MrSinnoh) November 18, 2022

It’s hard to say what the consensus will be when the inevitable patches come down in Scarlet and Violet’s bugs, but it’s unlikely that Pokemon fans and the video game community at large will overlook the game’s initial problems.