With the reveal of Let’s Go Pikachu and Let’s Go Eevee came a load of reaction both positive and negative.
Let’s dig deeper to understand why this new addition is the best choice Game Freak could make.
Last year during E3 Nintendo stole the show with a load of upcoming titles both for the 3DS and the Switch. One title that made a jump to the latter was the Pokémon franchise.
The reveal starts with a POV scene where a teen comes home from playing Pokémon GO! Some foreshadowing towards the transfer capabilities and shared features between the games. The teen jumps into the couch and starts up his Pokémon game. The visual style of the game features chibi-like bodily proportions that are reminescent of kids’ games and cartoons. It also seems a step back from the human proportions we finally got in the (Ultra) Sun and Moon games. Therefore I think I can conclude that the game is aimed towards kids. I could be wrong; Windwaker broke the realistic look by introducing Toon Link at Spaceworld 2001. (Which got loads of negative buzz from fans too!) Windwaker turned out to be a masterpiece within the series with lots of innovation. So this argument I give might not hold together completely until we get a deeper look at the game.
Another thing that caught my attention was the fact that the games are set in the Kanto region just like they were in the original Red, Blue and Yellow games.
(I am aware that Green exists)
It seemingly contains only the first 151 Pokémon (if Mew is available that is) . There are no Pokémon from gen 2 or up. Which leads to my first solid conclusion:
“Breeding is probably not present in the game.”
Why do I think that? Imagine breeding two Pikachu. What would you get from their egg? A Pichu? That wouldn’t work if the game only contains gen 1 Pokémon.
Another thing I noticed was that the reveal only showed us trainer battles. The wild encounters were only showing a catch screen without any Pokémon battle. This looks like it was ported straight from Pokémon GO! There was no healthbar, no active party Pokémon on screen. Unless they deliberately hid the battlescreen indicators for now or unless the screen changes to a GO-esque HUD once you select a Pokéball from your bag, it is safe to assume my second conclusion:
“There are no wild Pokémon battles, You only encounter them and you throw Pokéballs at them.”
This means the whole “art” of weakening the wild Pokémon enough without making them faint is gone! No more status attacks to get a higher catch rate. This simplifies the catching a lot and removes battling from the equation.
Since they simplified the wild Pokémon system let’s talk about overall game difficulty at first sight. One trainer we meet on the infamous Nugget Bridge is Bug Catcher Cale. This trainer used to have a Caterpie and a Weedle level 14 back in generation 1. In gen 3’s Fire Red&Leaf Green they numbed it down to level 10 but at least they added another 2 level 10 monsters (Kakuna and Metapod) to keep it challenging. As you can see in the trailer Cale has one flimsy Venonat level 9. Too easy? Well there don’t seem to be wild battles anymore for XP? So I guess you’ll have to level up by fighting trainers only. Or by giving your mons candies like in Pokémon GO! I think it is very weird and needs some more clarification in the next footage we’ll get. Especially considering that your Pikachu and Bulbasaur (so you can easily get another original starter??) both grace the cape of level 20 at this point. But besides this it is safe to state a third conclusion:
“The game looks easier than the orginal RBGY games from the 90s and seems aimed at a younger or casual audience”
That being said we don’t live in the 90s anymore. A lot of kids (not all!) just don’t have the attention span like most of us did back in the day. Most kids today grow up with “instant gratification”, they grew up with tablets and smartphones where everything reacts at the touch of a button. Most of the players who enjoyed GO! don’t play the core RPG games anyway.
This all makes me think that the game is aimed at kids of today, and those who enjoy a casual experience like Pokémon GO!
Maybe even attracting moms and dads who played the original Kanto games back in the day and just want to casually nostalgia-surf along with their kids. They’re not looking for a core RPG game. No natures, no abilities, no EV or IV’s.
Game Freak Director and producer Junichi Masuda stated during the press event preceding the reveal that Let’s GO P&E will be mainline games. But that there are still core RPG games in the works for 2019. So it is safe to state my fourth conclusion:
“Let’s Go Pikachu & Eevee are mainline games but not core RPG games.”
OK let’s put this together: Easier, not core RPG, aimed at younger audience and missing some key features of the core franchise.
I think we’ve just been introduced to a new series within Pokémon games. A series that stands apart from the core games. It’s like Disney Channel and Disney Junior. They’re aimed towards a different market.
How is this good news for the core audience? Well since the core fanbase has been nagging about the handholding in the games and a lack of challenge and Game Freak wants to broaden their audience; They split their franchise into 2 mainline series!
In one corner the newcomer “Let’s GO” for the casual audience and in the other corner the “core series” with its deep RPG system and with all the held items, abilities, natures, EV’s,IV’s etc. This way Game Freak has a wider appeal without compromising on what they’ve built these past 2 decades. I think it is brilliant! Let’s GO can be the stepping stone for young kids to more easily understand the mechanics of the core games too! It might even pull some Pokémon GO fans over the line and into the core franchise. And since the core games will only come as soon as late 2019 we know Game Freak takes its time to develop a strong new contender to the core RPG series. And while we wait for 2019 we might as well have some casual fun with this new series right?
I believe Let’s GO is a new platform that can be expanded on with new titles in the future so new fans to the franchise can explore and have fun in Jotho ,Hoenn, Shinnoh or Unova.
I’m pretty sure we’ll get more info during E3 maybe a playable demo or maybe a treehouse session. What do you think? Is this their own “Disney Jr.” to the core games?
