A new report from aPokemon Scarlet and Violetplayer has added to the still-growing list of glitches suffered by Game Freak’s latest RPGs, revealing a weird issue with crystals in Area Zero. This is the same location that will be at the center ofThe Hidden Treasure of Area ZeroPokemon Scarlet and VioletDLC, though players can already access it after completing all three storylines in either one of the new games.
The latest mainlinePokemonRPGs have been widely praised for their exploration-driven gameplay and swiftly seized the title of Nintendo’s most successful launch ever. However, those feats were achieved despite a plethora ofPokemon Scarlet and Violettechnical issues that Game Freak is still struggling to address.
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One player has recently taken online to illustrate yet another such problem, noting that character reflections in Area Zero crystals don’t seem to contain eyewear. A further inspection of their screenshot that recently went viral on Reddit reveals the crystals also don’t reflect stylized highlights in the protagonist’s eyes.
Reflective surfaces have long presented unique challenges for developers, as evident by the fact that even much more graphically impressive games such asRed Dead Redemption 2exhibit weird mirror problemsreminiscent of the newly reportedPokemon Scarlet and Violetissue. However, as noted by one fan reflecting on this problem, the bug is most likely rooted in the fact that the game renders transparent objects like Area Zero crystals after those that sample the screen, such as character eyewear, whose position is dependent on the protagonist’s location. Merging a separate memory buffer for transparent objects into the main frame one might resolve this issue in theory, but is not a realistic option for a game that already struggles with performance, as per the same source.
Even if the problem had an easier solution, it’s unlikely that fixing this kind of weird yet benign bugs is presently high on Game Freak’s priority list. Not least because its latest RPGs continue to suffer from performance problems that are arguably much more detrimental to the overall player experience than most minor graphical glitches. This state of affairs even promptedNintendo to apologize forPokemon Scarlet and Violetissuesback in December, stating that the developers are hard at work improving both games.
That notwithstanding, Game Freak’s first big attempt at doing so had mixed results, with its late February update 1.2.0makingPokemon Scarlet and Violet’snot-so-lively world even emptierin exchange for some minor performance gains. Some fans also continue to complain about the pace of these changes; not accounting for the day-one 1.0.1 patch,Pokemon Scarlet and Violetreceived only two updates as of mid-March, over four months into their release. While none of that suggests Game Freak won’t eventually start addressing weird glitches like the buggy Area Zero reflections, it does indicate that most such fixes won’t be part of the studio’s critical agenda for a while yet.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violetare available now for Nintendo Switch.
