PixlBit

Games of the Decade: Expansion Pass #20/Blog a Day #11

Hello everyone, how are you?

Pokemon was the most important thing to happen in my childhood. This was during the beginning, at the height of its popularity back in the 90's. You couldn't go anywhere without running into Pokemon merchandise or Pokemon in general. To say it was everywhere was an understatement. Since then I have played all the mainline games as well as various spin-off games. When it comes to nostalgia, Pokemon hits the right notes for the most part and today I'm going to talk about one of my more recent favorite remakes, Pokemon Let's Go Eevee.

                                           Music in these games is so nostalgic

I remember there was quite a commotion when this was announced. Some people were saying why are they remaking the first games again? Others were complaining about the motion controls. And I think one of the most common complaints might of been that the game looked too simple. Whatever the reason may be, many didn't like the direction of this game. I understand where everyone was coming from this was the first mainline home console Pokemon game by Game Freak so everyone was worried. I heard that people were cancelling their pre-orders, I wonder if they actually did. I still got it at launch since I decided to give it the benefit of doubt. So here is what I thought of the game.

Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee are basically remakes of Pokemon Yellow, which at the time was an enhanced version of the original games. Like Pokemon Yellow, these games have elements from the anime as well. The plot of the game is largely the same as in Pokemon Yellow. But like in all Pokemon games, basically you are a trainer who is starting on your Pokemon journey. You travel across the land catching, training, and battling Pokemon. You challenge the 8 Gym Leaders, collect their badges and enter the Pokemon League to challenge the Elite 4. The only different thing here is that you don't get to choose your starter, you start of with either Pikachu or Eevee depending on which version you got.

Let's start off with how the game looks. It simply looks beautiful. The artstyle looks really great, it definitely gives this game a certain charm that the past 3D games didn't. The human characters have this sort of chibi style to them. A bit taller for an actual chibi but too short to be the actual size of a human. I feel like the way the human characters look in the game really works well with the actual Pokemon themselves. Because of that, you can see how well the Pokemon scale towards their human companions. Something that has been absent since the GCN/Wii days. Another feature that they brought back was allowing a Pokemon to travel with you outside. This was so cool and there are even Pokemon you can ride in the overworld too. You can now see the actual Pokemon you surf on which is amazing. And yes, they are also in scale too which is amazing.

 

    The character style is reminiscent of the original character artwork/in-game sprites

One of my new favorite features that this game brought to the table was that you can now see wild Pokemon roaming around in the tall grass, caves, the water, pretty much anywhere that you can catch wild Pokemon. This makes the world seem more alive and gives it charm. You can now pick which wild Pokemon to battle and catch. Except that you can't technically battle them. Instead of having to send out a Pokemon to battle a wild Pokemon, you get a chance to toss a Pokeball to catch it instead. I would be fine with this but the games use motion controls for you to toss a Pokeball at a wild Pokemon. You can somehow get around this if you play in handheld mode since all you have to do is move the camera and press a button to toss a Pokeball.

The game only uses one Joy-con to play, you can pick either one. No you can't use a Pro Controller unfortunately, that should have been an option for those who don't want motion controls. Since the game only allows you to use one Joy-con, you can hand the other to a second player and you can play 2-player co-op which is really cool. This makes the game more easier but but it allows you to share the fun with someone else. And I imagine this is handy if you are a parent playing with your child Or if you want a friend or sibling to join in on the fun..

"But Captain N, where can I play this game?" On the Switch is the only way to play it. The games are still at full price, sometimes they go out of stock and the prices go up. At other times the games go below $50 and I feel that should be the price you should get them. They also have an accessory called the Pokeball Plus, which is a controller in the shape of a Pokeball and it works like the Pokewalker, a pedometer from Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver back on the DS. Honestly you could do without it, the only two benefits I see from this is that you can negate the motion controls of the game by using the capture button on it and it comes with a Mew that you could transfer into either game. It's a one time use for Mew so choose wisely. I have one that I got on sale for $20 but I have yet to use it myself. There is a bundle that comes with both the game and the Pokeball Plus controller which is $100, sometimes it goes on sale on Amazon for the price of just the game so I say try that. But again, it's something you could do without.

 

             The Pokemon scale really well with their trainers and each other

Final Thoughts: Pokemon Let's Go (Eevee) wasn't as bad as everyone was making the games out to be. I'm in the minority but I loved the game. The game looks really great, I loved the graphics and the artstyle they used. I feel like the artstyle is a realized version of how the human characters looked back when Pokemon started, both in-game and the official art. I really love that. The Pokemon look great, they look in scale for the most part. The motion controls were pretty much one of the only things that I wish they could of improved. I get that they wanted to simplify the controls but at the same time they made them inaccessible to people, not everyone loves forced motion controls. The other is that you couldn't battle wild Pokemon to grind for experience points. Outside of these two problemsm the game is really great. You could tell these games were well-crafted with all the attention to detail that they did..

I will say this, Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen do a much better job of being remakes of the original Pokemon games. The main thing is that they had much more post-game content since the original games had next to no post-game stuff. The problem is that FireRed and LeafGreen are GBA games and unless you own a GBA there is no way to play them unless you have no problem with emulators. FireRed and LeafGreen is still the best way to (re)experience the original games, that's something I stand by. But if you want a current way to re-experience the first generation of Pokemon then you can do no wrong with any of the 2 Let's Go games since they are more accessible at this moment. 

Pokemon Let's Go got a lot of hate before and after they were released, but was it deserved? No it wasn't. The games are really fun and a perfect way for newer fans to experience Kanto for the first time as well as to cater to the fans who started with the original games. Thing is these games were made for the Pokemon GO crowd in mind since the games have connectivity to the mobile game. I imagine Pokemon GO was the game that introduced many people to Pokemon in general. That's who these games are for. Yes the games have missing features, probably as to not overwhelm newer players, and the games are simple. But a back to basics approach isn't a bad thing in my opinion. You can tell a lot of love went into making these games, heck the song I used for this post brought tears to my eyes. I wouldn't mind if they made a Let's Go Pichu and Togepi, remakes of the Gen 2 games. I hope they do and I hope they are just as good or better than these games.

 

                                                  Childhood dream fulfilled

It's always good to remember the good old days, the nostalgia you feel. All those grest memories you had back in the day. But you can also use that to reflect on how far you've come as well as thinking about what's next. There's always an opportunity to grow and get stronger and in a way, evolve.

That's it for this one. For the next one we'll be helping the Insurgency deal with some injustice going around. Thanks for reading and...

 

*All game images were taken by my Switch, and my copy of the game*