Pokemon fans ‘salty’ over how well Tears of the Kingdom runs

Pokemon fans are slightly upset over The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s performance compared to Scarlet & Violet.

Tears of the Kingdom takes the cake as the most anticipated Nintendo releases of 2023 for most Nintendo fans. Surrounding the hype of the Breath of the Wild sequel, fans eagerly awaited the game’s midnight launch. One Zelda superfan even camped outside the Nintendo NYC store for three days.

While the quality of the new Zelda game has not disappointed players, Pokemon fans wish they could have received a title as beautiful as TOTK. Consequently, those Pokemon users are wondering what went wrong with Scarlet & Violet by comparison.

Pokemon fans wish Scarlet & Violet performed better

The Pokemon Company

Reddit user daniel-mca posed a question on the Pokemon subreddit to those playing Tears of the Kingdom. The OP revealed that they realized the “lack of effort” put into the Generation 9 games compared to the Breath of the Wild sequel.

“Some people claimed it was hardware limitations but it evidently isn’t,” daniel-mca wrote. “I really wish Game Freak would take a few years off and give us a game they can be proud of instead of churning out poorly animated choppy, laggy games constantly.”

Unlike Game Freak’s release schedule with consistent Pokemon titles, there are larger gaps between Zelda mainline Zelda games. Pokemon fans speculate this may have resulted in Scarlet & Violet having rushed development.

Is playing the new Zelda making anyone else real salty over the state of recent Pokemon games?
by u/daniel-mca in pokemon

“Honestly, I don’t care if Pokemon ever looks like those games, but they’re so far behind content and gameplay wise it’s crazy,” Toothless1886 remarked. “Every gen Gamefreak take such small steps towards improving the games that it feels like they do it purposefully to receive praise for the bare minimum.”

Not only Tears of the Kingdom has opened Pokemon fans’ eyes about the series’ quality.

“It’s not just Zelda that makes me really notice the lack of quality in recent Pokemon games,” Redd_ddd said. “Playing the recent Kirby games (Forgotten Land and Return to Dreamland Deluxe) also make me notice it too.”

The next generation of Pokemon games will likely release on a next-generation Nintendo console. Considering the device won’t be six years old, it’s possible the next franchise entry will perform better than Scarlet & Violet.