A Pokémon Game that Finally Looks Current-Gen

I have to say… Pokémon: Winds and Waves looks great!

I do not play Pokemon myself, but for years, one of the things that baffled me about the series was how far behind it felt graphically compared to other Nintendo games. Pokémon has always had a strong art style, but technically it often felt like it was operating a full hardware generation behind everything else on the platform.

Take Pokémon Legends: Arceus, for example. Visually, it was hard to ignore how sparse and simple the environments were. The geometry was extremely basic—large flat surfaces, limited environmental detail, and very little complexity compared to other open-world titles.

When you put that next to something like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - a game that launched with the Switch and even ran on the Wii U - it really raised questions. Breath of the Wild had far more complex terrain, physics systems, and environmental detail, yet it managed to run smoothly on the same hardware. Meanwhile, Pokémon games were struggling to hit consistent performance despite looking far simpler.

That’s why it was interesting to see Game Freak showcase beautiful visuals in another project (the PS5 title they recently revealed - Beasts of Reincarnation). It shows that Game Freak is capable of producing nice visuals. It’s puzzling to me that the Pokémon series just seemed stuck in a much more limited technical space. It made you wonder where that level of polish was when it came to their flagship franchise.

But Winds and Waves finally looks like a step forward.

The art style still feels recognizably Pokémon - which is good - but the environments actually look modern now. There’s more density, more detail, and a stronger sense of place in the world. The lighting and terrain look far more natural, and overall it finally feels like the series is catching up to the hardware it’s running on.

In other words: welcome to the current generation, Pokémon!

If this is the baseline for Pokémon games on Switch 2, that’s a really encouraging sign for the future of the series.