Pokemon: Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee: Trailer Reaction and Speculation.

See the trailer

There has long been a complaint - or at least I’ve long complained - that Pokémon GO has no connectivity with the rest of the franchise. It’s just a standalone mobile game with little to connect it to the series but character sprites.

However like some evil genie Game Freak team of Pokémon marketers game designers have created a possible answer to this problem: Pokémon: Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee.

So today let’s take a quick look at the trailer for new game. Is this what home platform game Pokémon fans have waited for, or just a mobile game tie in?

The trailer opens with a child playing Pokémon Go, then transitions into simulated effects of a Pikachu leading him into his house and jumping into the TV screen. 

Nothing says "effort" like using simulated effects or game play in your game trailer. Rather than doing unnecessary things like putting effort into the actual game graphics its much simpler to make fake graphics in video.

Then we get a look at the mind blowing graphics of the actual game; assuming that is the last game you played was Pokémon stadium for the Nintendo 64, otherwise you might be a bit underwhelmed. The best I can say is . . . they got the aesthetic right?

The Gamecube has never looked better!

The trailer then reaches what I suspect is the main flaw of the game. A flaw which may be insurmountably bad: instead of random encounters like in the mainline games, Pokémon: Let’s Go uses the same minigame from Pokémon GO! I cannot put into words how this makes me feel, but I can say it’s a mistake which will forever be a black mark on this game, whatever its other virtues. I assume they were thinking that with the inter connectivity with Pokémon Go this mechanic would be friendly and familiar. This is probably true but is like poison to many old-school fans.

I know I'm being unfair in these captions but come on! really?!

Another interesting but questionable feature is the ability to play the game in a sort of co-op mode locally. However the trailer seems to show a few problems with this: the trainer battles, already frustratingly easy without self-imposed challenges, due not seem to get any tougher to compensate for having two Pokémon on the field. 

Will this feature only be local? And is that even practical in this day and age? I certainly don’t have time to hang out with friends in person playing games, and my friends certainly don’t.  If we can’t use such a feature over long distances, it simply will not be used.

Both the Go mechanics and the co-op mode seem to suffer from trying to make Pokémon more accessible. Making games accessible is not bad, but Pokémon has never been a particularly hard game. As long as you grinded your Pokémon to level almost any challenge in the game is simple, and it seems that every game makes it a little simpler, with chances to heal before fights, and long tutorials of things you should not need tutorials for. If anything Pokémon needs options to make it more complex, not the other way around. 

The trailer then introduces the Pokeball Plus. I’ve never liked the various pokewalkers which have come out from generation to generation and this is no exception. It is slightly better that this one also doubles as a controller, but I have little interest in a controller that works well with one game when a joycon will do just fine.

Some people might feel self-conscious carrying this around but I am well past the point of caring.

Another burning question involves the most anticipated feature of Pokémon Let’s Go: the ability to transfer Pokémon from the mobile game. How big is this feature? Will you be able to transfer Pokémon not native to Kanto? And will this game work with Pokémon bank or Pokémon transfer? will that perhaps be a future update? Or will this game just connect with the mobile game and completely apart from mainline Pokémon? These questions have yet to be answered.

About time.

Personally I do not see this game surpassing Leaf Green or Fire Red, or the original Pokémon Yellow if I am being honest, and while it might be fun to play once, I doubt it will have the same staying power as the fan favorite mainline games. And frankly I don’t have the money to buy a game that I won’t play multiple times, not new anyway. Pokémon GO made a lot of money and its integration with the rest of the franchise—if that is what we are looking at—is long overdue, but at the same time I doubt this is the way to do it. The world didn’t need a rehash of the first generation. Pokémon is repetitive enough without a second gen I remake. Why not create a whole new adventure for this experiment? It wouldn’t have to be particularly fancy or creative, though that would help given the wildly different game mechanics this will likely involve. This just smells of laziness. 

I have as much nostalgia for gen 1 as any millennial but you can't base a game on just tha-- oh who am I kidding.

If this game somehow connects with the mainline games then I might consider buying it, but if not I will likely dismiss it has I have no particular love for Pokémon GO, or most mobile games for that matter, and I’ve played through Kanto enough times that doing so in 3D will not thrill me.

 

The Pokeball plus might also be redeemed by this if it proves useful for quickly training Pokémon for the mainline games; a way to EV grind outside playing the game or something such as that. However it’s in no way clear that this is one of the ball’s purposes.

Hoping to uncover these questions I did some searching however with over a week since the trailer came out answers were scarce. The Pokeball will also be compatible with Pokémon GO which is nice; however there is no comment yet on Pokémon bank compatibility. There will be opportunities to battle and trade online, though this will presumably require subscription to Nintendo’s new online service, which is terrible but not beyond expectations. However there will be no Wonder trade, battle spot or GTS which means you will be playing for less than you got for free on the 3DS. 

Showing more intelligence than consumers, these Pokemon are running away as fast as they can.

 

Customer service has never been Nintendo’s . . . strongest suite and it shows again here. If anything people are clamoring for more online interactivity, not less, but Nintendo does not seem to be listening.

There is also the disappointing news that you will not be able to evolve your starter. Why anyone would want to keep an Eevee unevolved is baffling to me, and even Pikachu, despite being iconic is pretty much useless outside the early game. So unless their stats are somehow massively buffed this seems like a poor choice. 

There is one good thing however, multiple saves. This is something the mainline games have sorely lacked, even though with today’s portable technology its perfectly possible. So that is one good feature which will hopefully be in the next mainline game as well.

All that said; do I think this game will make a boat load of money? That goes without saying.

-Gedaemon



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