Wednesday Ramble - Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee edition

The important thing to remember is that this is not the Chosen One. so honestly, until we find out what that 2019 game will be like, I can't be too upset.

but LGE/LGP pretty much went out of their way to dodge every single one of my hopes, except for the return of Following Pokemon. that's cool, at least. And graphically, they look okay. it's Sun/Moon's art style, but in HD. Actually, that's not quite accurate - judging from the proportions of the characters, and the return to a grid-style environment, it's more like HD XY or ORAS. hmm.

so while I accept that these are some degree of spinoffs, geared for a crowd who forgot about Pokemon until GO came out two years ago, I still feel like they've a bit of wasted potential. By all indications, there's nothing new happening with the storyline or region. The routes are also basically the same, regressing away from Sun/Moon's more naturalistic style. Oh, and there's no online. And nobody outside the 1st gen (I've heard Alolan forms appear though?). And with a new gimmick pokewalker. But these are superficial, the real change in the mechanics is the capturing.

No longer do you have random encounters, which is fine I guess. But you don't even get battles, either! you just go straight to trying to catch them with motion controls. I'm reminded of that story about a guy trying to get his young nephew into Sun, but the kid couldn't figure out how to capture anything, he just kept swiping at the screen because GO was all he knew. Kinda says something about how the overbearing tutorials utterly fail at counter-acting Kids Being Dumb, as well as the change in audience.

And if it was just motion controls, that's one thing. But the problem with doing away with battles, is that it disrupts the core gameplay loop, doesn't it? how are you supposed to get experience points? Trainer battles are still in, so will they be repeatable? or is there another source of exp and leveling up?

Thinking about it more, this doesn't have to be a bad thing either. Let's be honest, grinding against wilds isn't exactly fun or challenging. And the games have been going the direction of making the "endurance" aspect of the game a non-factor - exp share was reworked so that everybody gets experience all the time no matter what, no need to worry about classic training methods like starting a weak 'mon and swapping it the first turn, or swapping in your weak one to get the last hit on a put-to-sleep opponent. Repels, I have learned with age, are cheap as hell. There's no need to ever get into an encounter unless you want to. And there are sometimes healers mid-route, too! No more scurrying back to the Pokemon center before you over-extend and wind up wiping out.

So really, what's been lost here? It won't be the same experience you had as a kid. Nor should it be. (personally I was hoping it would be a deeper experience, with a broader scope and more mechanics instead of the exact opposite of that BUT) So perhaps there's wisdom in this - cut down on the grind, find some other way to get to the battles and collecting aspect quicker. On the other hand, some people love the grind. Serious Fun is a real thing (Nicole Lazzaro's 4 Keys of Fun, look it up). By removing that, aren't you removing some of the soul of the game?

I don't know. Without further information, we can't even say for sure how the core gameplay loop will work now. All I know is, I expected better, but I'm not going to fly into a rage because Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee isn't for me. I wish it was, because I honestly believe there's a way to do a Return to Kanto and make it everything we've ever wanted in a Pokemon game. This... isn't it.

But thankfully, this isn't all there is. There is Another.