It's not a mystery that Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's launch was followed by a strange mix of positive and negative reviews, with the latter being focused on the several performance issues that most players have run into a few times. Gen 9 was also hit hard by leaks, to the point that the entirety of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's Pokedex had leaked a week before the games were even out, which made it quite difficult to stay away from spoilers of all kinds. This applied to fans and content creators alike, and it's interesting to explore the case of Duwiol, who has recently started making Pokemon videos full-time on YouTube, with also a quite successful venue on TikTok.
Duwiol's Pokemon Scarlet and Violet playthrough was seen by many as a sort of oasis where spoilers weren't the main topic, as the content creator managed to go into Gen 9 games completely blind, including the talks about performance issues. As Duwiol told Game ZXC in an interview, he was in the middle of a Pokemon marathon from Gen 1 to Gen 8, he happened to play Scarlet and Violet after Gen 4 and before Gen 5, which allowed him to have a more insightful opinion of the highs and lows of Gen 9. This also led to a discussion regarding the state of the franchise and if Pokemon Black and White need remakes.
Why Duwiol Thinks Gen 5 Doesn't Need Remakes After Scarlet and Violet
One of the best things for Duwiol about Gen 9 outside of the graphical improvements and the open-world setting is that shiny Pokemon are visible in the overworld of Scarlet and Violet. This is a feature that had already seen some success with Pokemon Let's Go games, but weirdly enough it wasn't part of Gen 8 titles. Yet, Duwiol finds it a great addition to Pokemon Scarlet and Violet because of how rewarding it can be to spot a shiny critter from far away - even though some can be quite difficult to see.
In fact, several new Pokemon make Scarlet and Violet's shiny hunting problematic, including those with different forms and colors or those with slight changes to their color palette, such as Tadbulb and Tandemaus. This is one of the issues Duwiol highlights, but he also thinks that Gen 9 found a good balance between overworld shinies and their perceived rarity and value, as Pokemon Legends: Arceus arguably made them too easy to find.
I like that Primeape got an evolution, and I have this thought in my head that it got so angry and it died and then became a Ghost type. I've loved the Mankey line since Gen 1 and I've hated how underrated they are. They don't get into many of the games. I was really happy to see that Mankey was in the games and that it has a third stage now.
Duwiol was also happy to see that Mankey and Primape got an evolution in the form of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's Annihilape, and he was also relieved to see how accessible items like Ability Patches and the various candy became in Gen 9. However, since Duwiol ended up playing Pokemon Black and White immediately after he finished Gen 9, he realized how smooth Gen 5 games were compared to the performance issues-ridden Scarlet and Violet. Since he found Gen 5 games to be so good in their current form, he doesn't believe they need a full-fledged set of remakes, but rather they should be made available on the Switch.
In terms of a remake, no, the game doesn't need to be changed in any way. The story is fantastic, but I would like to see it with modern graphics. I think a big issue with remakes of Pokemon games is that they were made to work with that type of graphics, so when you turn 2D into 3D suddenly a lot of the puzzles don't work.
Pokemon Black and White remakes do seem inevitable given the way The Pokemon Company approached past titles, especially after Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl were outsourced for development. Still, the recent addition of past Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games to Switch Online set the precedent for past Pokemon games to also return like this, instead, which is something Duwiol also hopes will happen.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are available now for Nintendo Switch.
