A couple of weeks ago Nintendo announced a bunch of exciting new stuff around the Pokémon franchise, including two brand new games, one of which – Pokémon Quest – came out immediately for the Nintendo Switch.
While Pokémon Quest probably isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, the larger of the two titles certainly garnered some attention, doing a kind of split release thing similar to Pokémon Red and Blue where the games are the same, but feature slight variations. Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Let’s Go, Eevee! have a similar deal, only with different companion Pokémon obviously based on the title you choose.
https://youtu.be/q9xb-DCHXUM
Given I’ve been hanging out for whatever the company keeps hinting at in terms of the next big Pokémon RPG, I kinda dismissed these titles as nothing more than filler for fans to kill time with. But during my Nintendo booth tour at E3 last week, I got to give the new game a whirl and was pleasantly surprised by how fun it actually was.
With #PokemonQuest and #PokemonLetsGo, there are so many new ways to explore the world of Pokémon! Trainers can look forward to even more with an all-new core series Pokémon RPG title in development for the second half of 2019! pic.twitter.com/d5uiIpenMI
— Pokémon (@Pokemon) May 30, 2018
The trick here isn’t to think of this as a brand new game, but more of a nostalgic trip back to the classic Pokémon games you loved from your childhood. In other words, this almost feels like a kind of Crash Bandicoot: N. Sane Trilogy remaster, which makes sense considering the world of Let’s Go, Eevee & Pikachu is based on Pokémon Yellow‘s Kanto region.
In terms of gameplay, there’s no real surprises to be had. You run around a world inhabited by countless critters and a bunch of trainers all eager to battle you with their own Pokémon. One cool thing to note, though, is that you can now see exactly where Pokémon are hanging out in grassy areas, rather than blindly running through fields only to be accosted by an irritating number of shitty Weedles or similar trash monsters. Nobody has time for that shit.
When battling, it works just how you remembered it – you and your opponent take it in turns to dish out furious blows from your chosen Pokéman until one of you carks it. Pretty straight forward stuff.
But where the game really shines – and I was absolutely not expecting this – is with the additional Pokéball Plus controller. Sure, everyone is pretty stoked with being able to carry it around with a Pokémon trapped inside, but it actually works really well as a controller, too. Apart from being comfortable to hold, the ball features a joystick which you can also push as a button, and a second button kinda hidden on the red side.
It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s all you need. A select button, a back button, a way to move around, and motion controls to catch Pokémans.
Similar to Pokémon GO, encountering monsters in the wild will present you with an opportunity to catch them. A circle will close in on the Pokémon in a colour representative of how difficult they are to catch, but instead of swiping up to chuck a Pokéball at them, you simply motion with the controller, which feels fun and intuitive.
To be clear, Let’s Go, Pikachu and Let’s Go, Eevee are great ways to revisit the older titles in the Pokémon franchise, but like many fans, I’m still holding out for that brand new RPG Nintendo says is coming next year. But hey, turns out actually it is a pretty sweet way to kill the time until then. It comes out on the Switch on November 16.