Take your Pokemon journey to the Kanto region with your energetic partner, Pikachu, to become a top Pokemon Trainer as you battle other trainers. Use a throwing motion to catch Pokemon in the wild with either one Joy-Con controller or Poké Ball Plus accessory, which will light up, vibrate, and make sounds to bring your adventure to life. Share your adventure with family or friends in 2-player action on one system using a second Joy-Con or Poké Ball Plus.

You can even connect to the Pokemon GO app using a compatible smartphone to bring over Pokemon originally discovered in the Kanto region! Explore the diverse and vibrant region of Kanto! True-to-size wild Pokemon roam around in the game, so catch them like a real Pokemon Trainer by using motion, timing, and a well-placed Poké Ball. Go on a stroll with your favorite Pokemon in your Poké Ball Plus! Connect your game directly to Pokemon GO* to receive Kanto region Pokemon.

Pokemon is by far one of the most recognizable franchises around the world. It is right up there with the Apple logo, Mario, Disney, Marvel, … I have personally visited several pokemon centers, dedicated stores, in Osaka, Tokyo, Okinawa, Hong Kong and so on. I own way too many Pokemon items that I want to admit owning. It is that big and I am a big fan of the franchise, I even have a favorite Pokemon; Psyduck. I love that yellow goof.

As you all know, there was a lot of flack online about whether or not this game would be too childish, as your rival is not really your “enemy” anymore, unlike the old games. The game has been made a little easier but mostly, it’s been made more accessible. When I started playing, I noticed the lack of taking down the health of the encountered Pokemon in order to catch them all.

It made things a lot easier for the basic capturing of the Pokemon in the game, but do not underestimate things. There are some important things to know. Similar to Pokemon Go, the hit game on mobile, you need to catch the Pokemon by throwing the Pokéball into the ring. The further down the game, the more difficult these captures actually become. My first encounter with a Zubat was actually quite unexpectedly hard as the Zubat kept moving and avoiding my thrown Pokéballs.

It suddenly became a real challenge to really use my Switch to its full potential. I always prefer handheld mode and the way the game literally abuses this mode, is simply glorious. You need to use the motion sensors and literally align with the Pokemon prior to throwing your balls. It sounds easy, but the second a Pokemon becomes a hyperactively moving target, enjoy the show and prepare to cuss quite a bit.

While the game is its first coming to the Nintendo Switch, it keeps feeling very familiar for all the OG Pokemon players as is it based upon one of the original games, can you guess which one while playing?

What is most remarkable about Pokemon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! is how fluent it plays while being so beautiful. I adore visual styles like these and while they may not appeal to everyone, I think the style implemented is so very fitting. Everything about it just screams: This is Pokemon.

Now I have not spoken yet about the actual storyline, which is quite normal. I have always done my very best to avoid spoilers and always let everyone fully enjoy the story. Even though most Pokemon fans out there will clearly have played Yellow before. It follows the gist of the Yellow game and aside from some subtle differences in how it plays out and like how they took out the “toughness”, it is still a great game and might be my personal favorite on Switch this year.

So what is bad about Pokemon: Let’s go?

To be honest, I had to think hard about this. Sure, they took out the clean rivalry of the original story and made everything lovey-dovey, but I can not blame them for this. Graphics are fun to look at and aside from the stunned faces of beaten Team Rocket members, things look completely fine and they also play fine.

Prior to playing the game, I was worried about not being able to play the game in handheld mode, this is my favorite mode after all. But thankfully, this is all completely possible. It allows me to play the game anywhere and everywhere. I must be honest and I originally did think this would be a game breaker. Very lucky to be able to confirm this is not the case!