Pokemon: Let’s Go is already running on PC via the Yuzu Emulator

Nintendo Switch emulation has made some major leaps forward over the past few months, undeterred by Nintendo’s crackdown on ROM distributors. In recent weeks Super Mario Odyssey became fully playable using the Yuzu emulator, and now Pokemon has been shown running on the platform, less than two weeks after the game’s launch. 

While the Yuzu Switch emulator is capable of playing some of the console’s AAA releases, the software remains far from perfect, requiring an insane amount of CPU horsepower on PC while also presenting a mixture of performance issues and graphical/audio glitches. The Switch remains the best place to play Nintendo’s latest games. 

In the case of Pokemon: Let’s Go, the game appears to run well, running normally aside from some obvious graphical an audio glitches. Pokemon’s in-game text doesn’t function correctly using the emulator’s current build and shadows do not appear around buildings and Pokemon, with game speed changing with the title’s framerate, which is locked to 30FPS on Switch. Pokemon Let’s Go will need to be locked to 30FPS to run at normal game speeds. 

Even when using a PC with a 5GHz i7-7700K and a GTX 1080, the Yuzu Emulator is unable to keep the game at over 30FPS at all times, showing clear room for improvement for the emulator when it comes to hardware efficiency. Even so, emulation has always been a CPU heavy task.