No matter how old I get I still love these games. Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee are the latest games of the Pokémon series. Everybody knows about Pokémon, it’s like the Coca Cola of the gaming industry, but healthier.
You will walk 10Km to hatch that egg!
The screenshots and video recording are all done through the Switch’s feature, thus we are working with low bitrate video capped at 30 second, low quality JPEG screenshots. PNG lives matter!
Mainline game or spinoff?
This game is like the 12th time we had the opportunity to visit Kanto but it doesn’t get all that old. The game is solid and definitely is a mainline game. It plays the story like Yellow with come additions.
Capture
The capture mechanic is the same as Pokemon GO at the exception of the way you throw the Poké Ball. You feel like you have less control than on the mobile game and it doesn’t always feel rewarding because you don’t battle Pokémons to catch them.
The wild Pokémons roam the world, no more random encounters unless they spawn on you. You get what you see.
In handheld mode you just press a button, but it seems you can aim the view with the gyroscopic features of the Switch. In detached mode and Poké Ball Plus you swing to send a Poké Ball.
Of course if there’s no battle mechanic that means that you can make wild Pokémons sleep and make catching them easier and that’s really a shame.
This is the core mechanic from the series.
It’s simple
Starting with generation 2 we were able to make our Pokémons hold items, this is missing. Since forever we had PC boxes to store Pokémons, this has been replaced by the bag.
This game seems to start on something new with Combat Points showing a value that represents all the stats of a Pokemon.
Poké Ball Plus
The Poké Ball Plus contains mew. It’s a 50€ piece of DLC and game controller. As a DLC is easy to use, just get the mystery gift inside it and you are done. As a game controller it’s not the best at all… It tends to rotate in the hand and some menus can’t be access since there are only two buttons.
While it’s possible to shake it to trigger a “third button” you can’t get more details on your moves during combat with it.
Against wild Pokémons you can swing it to throw a Poké Ball, just like with the detached joycon.
It also has more features, you can place a Pokémon on it and use the pedometer to gain more experience and some reward for walking around. When it’s linked to Pokémon GO you can have it vibrate when it spots Pokémons… Depending on your location it won’t stop vibrating.
What’s missing?
So much is missing… First of all there are much less tactile interactions. You can pat Pikachu with the touchscreen and that seems to be it. You can’t navigate the menus or send Poké Balls with the touchscreen.
The abilities from the 3rd generation are missing too. This is good to avoid some of the weird quirks you’d face when battling certain Pokémons (like heatproof).
The Global Trading System (GTS) doesn’t exist, that’s a shame because it helped completing the Pokédex. No Wonder Trade (WT) but it’s not a big deal for that.
Trading and all other online features are locked behind a subscription.
Conclusion
The game is pretty well made, going back to Kanto feels good and the additions in the story are not bad. I regret not being able to battle wild Pokémons to make them easier to catch though.
The framerate of the game feels smooth enough, this was hard to achieve with Sun & Moon and is really nice to look at.
I hope that the next entries to the series will bring back fighting wild Pokémon.
