Despite Pokémon being the second-biggest media franchise of all time (with total revenue surpassing $71 Billion), the latest game entry in the series launched in an unacceptable state – with even Nintendo publicly apologising for the title’s poor condition. With the dust settled and almost 100 professional reviews now published, Pokémon Scarlet/Violet has officially become the lowest-rated mainline Pokémon game ever.

With a Metacritic score of 72 across 94 critic reviews, Pokémon Scarlet/Violet has now become the lowest rated mainline Pokémon game of all time – with the second-lowest being 2021’s Pokémon Brilliant Diamond / Shining Pearl (remakes of the DS classic).

On the user score side, the situation is even more dire, with Scarlet dropping to a lowly 3.0 out of 10. As mentioned, this reaction seemingly forced Nintendo’s hand, with the publisher publicly apologising for the game’s launch state and promising that the game will be patched up.

As of right now, Scarlet/Violet has received a few updates, though none of which have substantially fixed the game’s many problems. That being said, considering the fact that the game sold over 10 million copies in 3 days, Scarlet/Violet is already a huge commercial success – even in its current state.

Pokémon review scores have historically done little to impact sales figures, but with the series hitting a new franchise low, hopefully Nintendo and Game Freak are truly committed to fixing up Scarlet/Violet. We will have to wait and see.

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KitGuru says: what do you think of Pokémon Scarlet/Violet? What score would you give it? Do you think Game Freak will actually fix the game? Let us know your thoughts down below.

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