Concept art of Pokémon Scarlet and Purple has been revealed showing a much prettier artistic appearance before the “downgrade” that the Switch game suffered.
Pokemon Scarlet and Purple It was the first game in the series to be fully open world. From the start you can go anywhere on the map, choose the order in which to complete the gyms, and explore any caves and crannies.
Nintendo games don’t usually offer that approach, save for The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, but Pokémon lends itself particularly well to that idea.
Unfortunately, although it was one of the most fun Pokémon to play, graphically Pokémon Scarlet and Purple was not up to the task. Even compared to other Switch games, GameFreak’s work stood out for its very low visual quality… although on paper it was very different.
This is how Pokémon Scarlet and Purple looked in the concept art
This concept art was shown at the CEDEC 2023 fair in Japan last week. GameFreak talked about the development of the game, going into great detail about the modeling of the new Pokémon like Koraidon or Quaxly.
All the images of the presentation can be seen in this Japanese medium, Game Watch, but today a higher quality image of this piece of concept art has hit the networks, showing what the game could have looked like.
According to Gamefreakthe objective is that it was a game more realistic than Espara and Escudo, the previous generation of Switch. A more realistic world, with more careful textures, more realistic lighting and a higher density of details (as in vegetation), while maintaining the “anime” designs of the human and Pokémon characters.
Sadly, you only need to compare this concept art with any screenshot from the final game to see that a lot had to be sacrificed to release the game on Switch… and still, with a very poor performance.
GameFreak put out some patches to “fix” it, but it was still not enough. Perhaps with the new DLC for Pokémon Scarlet and Purple this fall things will change, but for the future The Pokémon Company is considering changing its release rate to safeguard quality.
