I've never played a Pokemon game, but it looks like something I'd be into, although not so much I'd go out and buy a New 3D Lite 2DS XLi (and to think I was confused by PSVita not being PSP2?). The latest instalment has been greatly received by fans and critics, now I've watched some YouTube let's plays ... which obviously means I know better!
Nintendo have wheeled out another remake of a game that was great 20 years ago... only this time they've actually listened to fans and made some improvements, why it took this long I have no idea, other games have nailed some of these elements for years.
I mean how long does a game have to be around before characters have actual voices? I'm no expert on the 3DS (noob) but surely it's powerful enough to at least allow voices for the main story? Talking about the power of the machine, I've seen YouTubers refer to the awesome graphics and detailed environments... but all I can see is rough and blocky and nothing like a game from 2016, I've seen retro 8bit titles look sharper. How does a 20 year old franchise expect to keep with the times and only jump to 3D graphics 2 years ago!?
Apparently fans have been waiting for an ability to ride pokemon to travel round the ingame region, your pokemon that you can ride, they wont be battling alongside you, these ride pokemon are basically pokemon shaped vehicles!
so why has it taken so long? Seems like a no-brainer to me, and if there's one thing I know it's no brainers. Also I lose any hype for this new feature when I find out it's not
Having access to a feature called Exp Share early on also sounds like big deal... so we've had 20 years of this not being standard and no one thought it might be a good idea? Perhaps it wasn't such a common feature way back but then most games allowed you to play with a party of several characters, not one at a time.Which means I'm still baffled by why team battles seem like such a breakthrough... this isn't something new people!
In place of any real innovations it's also good to have a new gimmick. The new Z-moves seem familiar.... they're activated by an odd dance that makes Dragon Ball Z's Fusion Dance look completely sane and sensible. This is then followed by a powerful aura from DBZ surrounding the pokemon and an over the top attack animation that ranges from great orbs of DBZ style energy to mountain destroying DBZ style punches. I'm starting to wonder of "Z-moves" got there name because adding the "DB" would have resulted in copyright issues. Does the (equivalent of a) letter "Z" have some significance in Japan?Still perplexed I watch YouTubers being amazed by tweaks to battle that let you see what status effects your pokemon have... maybe the devs missed RPG design 101... although they are learning, the game can now show you which moves will be effective/super effective after you've fought a particular pokemon once which as there are now 18 types with multiple strengths and weaknesses is a welcome but overdue addition..
After battles there's a chance to interact with your team of tiny monsters, ok fine this is a good idea for a series built on training monsters, a chance to do some actual training, or not quite. I'm not sure how it affects the game at all, from a company that also published NintenDogs I expected more.
It seems Pokemon is slowly being dragged into the modern era but still with some old school quirks (no autosave? On a handheld? Seriously?) and seemingly held back by it's hardware, a game with this many framerate drops would normally be crucified by critics, why has there never been a console release of a main-line Pokemon game? I'm not hating the games, they seem at least decent, at no way worse than any other RPG, and everyone seems to have an absolute blast playing it! I just can't get my head around the popularity,
I've come to the conclusion that Pokemon is the Batman of RPGs.
Why is it so good?
Because it's Pokemon!
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