Welcome back to Save State, where the Tauros roam and the Bidoof play. The brand new Nintendo Switch 2 console released last week, and of course I had to try out a lot of my favorite games on the new system’s backwards compatibility as part of my Nintendo Switch 2 GiN review, and also just for fun. Some games didn’t even receive improvement patches and still run or look better due to the higher performance overhead allowing the games to run at their maximum resolution and higher frame rates. The crazy thing is, games that received performance patches practically play like entirely new games, like Pokémon Scarlet and Violet.

So, yes, I spent a good portion of the last week replaying a Pokémon game that I felt was so disappointing because it ran so poorly that it was the first time in my life that I ever experienced motion sickness from a video game.

My disappointment with Pokémon Scarlet likely ruffled some feathers, as the manner in which the game performed was so incredibly frustrating on my original Nintendo Switch that I had difficulty just playing the games. Pokémon and characters would pop in inches from the player, textures would sometimes rapidly flicker black and white, and the game would sometimes just run in slow motion to the point where speed runners tried to determine the best possible time to close and restart the game due to its known memory leak issues.

My expectations were low when I booted it up again on the new Switch 2, but thankfully I was immediately taken aback by how smoothly the game performed. Appearing to run at a full 60 fps, panning the camera around your character is finally fluid. Sprinting on your mount, Koraidon, doesn’t drag the frame rate into single digits in Casseroya Lake or specific areas of Blueberry Academy’s Terrarium. Opening the Pokédex or simply checking on your boxed Pokémon doesn’t take several seconds before showing you your creatures either! It’s almost as if we’re finally able to see the developer’s vision for the dual titles three years after their release.

The improvements don’t stop there, either, because the number of wild Pokémon has dramatically increased. You will see at least twice as many Pokémon while jumping and gliding through Paldea, which makes the games considerably more immersive and interesting. The whole intent of Scarlet and Violet’s environments was to make the world seem as if it were teeming with life, and these games absolutely could not deliver on that in their original state. The memory leak problem seems to have been solved with this latest Switch 2 performance patch, or the Switch 2 gives Scarlet and Violet enough overhead that the issue doesn’t rear its ugly head after just a few hours anymore.

There are still the occasional frame rate drops, but they’re usually very fast and vanish just as quickly as you’d notice them. The existing frame rate drops also make the frame rate dip from 60 down to the high 40s or low 50s for around a second, versus dropping from 30 to 10 any time it rains or snows, sometimes requiring you close and restart the game. Running around and catching Pokémon, sorting your boxes, and everything else is just faster, snappier, and more responsive with the Nintendo Switch 2 upgrades.

The resolution for Scarlet and Violet now seems to be around 1080p now, which makes noticing shiny Pokémon in the distance a little bit easier. Pokémon can also show up at a further distance from the player as well, which goes a long way in making the world feel more alive. The overall draw distance of the games is a good deal better, and everything loads incredibly quickly when moving from zone to zone. I don’t feel like it’s hyperbole to say that this is the definitive way to enjoy Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, and had the games performed like this in 2022, these would have easily been 5 out of 5 GiN Gem titles, and top among Pokémon games. Instead, our review scored them at only 2.5 GiN Gems overall, which is very low for a Pokémon title. Now we even find improved textures and shadows on a variety of objects and environments, and while I wouldn’t say that these games look spectacular or anything, they’re very noticeably improved over playing the games on an original Switch.

If you own a copy of Scarlet or Violet already and intend to pick up a Nintendo Switch 2, I would highly recommend revisiting these games if their performance a few years ago put you off. The changes made with the Switch 2 patch are completely transformative, turning my trepidation with the latest entries of this series into a quietly simmering excitement. I had fun adventuring through the Paldea region, catching anything and everything I could find, and battling all of the various trainers I encountered.

My first time through Scarlet and Violet I ignored most of the pro trainers on each route who required you to battle out in the world because random Pokémon running around in the background combined with rain or snow was such a recipe for ridiculous slowdown, and I simply didn’t find it worthwhile. With the Switch 2 upgrades, I was able to encounter trainers, battle, and then move on minutes faster than what I experienced on my older Nintendo Switch. It’s amazing that the game simply running better made me feel more like engaging with optional content more frequently.

There are still some very obvious compromises that the develop team had to make in order to get Scarlet and Violet to even run on the original Nintendo Switch. The bones of that game, with all of its warts and spurs, is still present. Sometimes things get glitchy or buggy, but it’s a lot more forgivable when the game isn’t running at a third of its normal speed, and the remaining bugs left in the adventure typically resolve themselves very quickly.

Back in 2022, I stated that if the performance issues of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet were fixed, then these would potentially be the best entries in the history of Pokémon. It took three years to see these games reach their full potential, but now I can’t praise Scarlet and Violet enough for being so much more enjoyable to play and phenomenal experiences all around in the Pokémon world.

My Switch 2 was one of the bundles with Mario Kart World, but I’ve had even more enjoyment playing Scarlet and Violet now that those are likely closer to what developer Game Freak intended for the games to be at launch. I can suggest a revisit to Paldea for anyone who had problems with their first treasure hunt, and for those who haven’t yet played Scarlet and Violet but picked up a Nintendo Switch 2, this is by far the definitive way to experience Generation 9 Pokémon.

That being said, I think I can now bring this entry of Save State to a close. I’m going to be checking out various Switch titles that I felt performed badly when I originally played or reviewed them over the course of the next couple of weeks, but maybe something else will catch my eye and cause me to go on a half-month-long digression. There’s really no telling when it comes to this Save State column, so I hope to see you again in two weeks. Until then!