Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu (Switch)
Jan. 31st, 2020 05:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroYour Pokemon journey begins here!
A remake of Pokemon Yellow (which was, itself, an enhanced remake of Pokemon Red and Blue). Your starter is always Pikachu, and the cartoon members of Team Rocket (absent from the plot in Red or FireRed) appear in cutscenes and periodic battles. Besides that, the sequence is pretty much the same, which meant ARR (having beaten FireRed) already knew where to go.
This game is easier than the typical Pokemon game, especially starting out. Encountering wild pokemon doesn’t lead to battles; you play a catching minigame of throwing pokeballs, and every pokemon in your party gets experience if you succeed. Similarly, there’s less grinding because every pokemon in your party gets experience after any battle, even if they didn’t participate.
The TM moves you’d use on the map (like Cut, Flash or Fly) are replaced with “secret techniques” your pikachu learns, which means you can’t get trapped by not having them available and you don’t have to dedicate move slots to them.
I was actually kind of surprised that the Elite Four / Rival battle at the end are as hard as they are, with no option to exit and heal and needing to beat them all in one go. And grinding is actually kinda hard in this once you reach that point, because fighting them and failing partway through seems to be the only source of money once you’ve beaten every other trainer. (Some items respawn, though.) If you have enough pokeballs, you can train by catching “chains” of the same pokemon, which multiply the XP rewards; and you can transfer in Pokemon Go catches or use the Pokeball Plus to gain experience by “strolling”. In the end, what worked for us was actually using all of the candies we’d been amassing over the game, which shored up ARR’s preferred team enough to beat his rival.
The post-game only has one real quest, to beat and catch Mewtwo in Cerulean Cave. There are also “Master Trainers” that each specialize in a single pokemon who you need to challenge with that same pokemon; and you can re-fight the gym leaders for money. But barring the opportunity to trade-evolve his collection, I think ARR has been winding down.
Oh, and the pikachu in this? Look at the tail—she’s a girl.
Overall: This is probably the best “introductory” pokemon game ever, and I found it more fun (and less tedious) that any of the others I’ve tried. And it was very well-timed for ARR going through his pokemon phase.
A remake of Pokemon Yellow (which was, itself, an enhanced remake of Pokemon Red and Blue). Your starter is always Pikachu, and the cartoon members of Team Rocket (absent from the plot in Red or FireRed) appear in cutscenes and periodic battles. Besides that, the sequence is pretty much the same, which meant ARR (having beaten FireRed) already knew where to go.
This game is easier than the typical Pokemon game, especially starting out. Encountering wild pokemon doesn’t lead to battles; you play a catching minigame of throwing pokeballs, and every pokemon in your party gets experience if you succeed. Similarly, there’s less grinding because every pokemon in your party gets experience after any battle, even if they didn’t participate.
The TM moves you’d use on the map (like Cut, Flash or Fly) are replaced with “secret techniques” your pikachu learns, which means you can’t get trapped by not having them available and you don’t have to dedicate move slots to them.
I was actually kind of surprised that the Elite Four / Rival battle at the end are as hard as they are, with no option to exit and heal and needing to beat them all in one go. And grinding is actually kinda hard in this once you reach that point, because fighting them and failing partway through seems to be the only source of money once you’ve beaten every other trainer. (Some items respawn, though.) If you have enough pokeballs, you can train by catching “chains” of the same pokemon, which multiply the XP rewards; and you can transfer in Pokemon Go catches or use the Pokeball Plus to gain experience by “strolling”. In the end, what worked for us was actually using all of the candies we’d been amassing over the game, which shored up ARR’s preferred team enough to beat his rival.
The post-game only has one real quest, to beat and catch Mewtwo in Cerulean Cave. There are also “Master Trainers” that each specialize in a single pokemon who you need to challenge with that same pokemon; and you can re-fight the gym leaders for money. But barring the opportunity to trade-evolve his collection, I think ARR has been winding down.
Oh, and the pikachu in this? Look at the tail—she’s a girl.
Overall: This is probably the best “introductory” pokemon game ever, and I found it more fun (and less tedious) that any of the others I’ve tried. And it was very well-timed for ARR going through his pokemon phase.
