I’m surprised people have an issue with it going back to Kanto, I wouldn’t expect them to do anything else for a semi-experimental jump to a new console with a lot of different mechanics. The only other logical thing would be putting it in a totally new region but it’s too much like the main games for that to really make sense to me - even the Colosseum games, while generally the same, had enough differences like no wild Pokémon, only double battles and the purifying system that they felt more like spinoffs. I think they want people to view this like an altered main game, almost like a ROM hack, rather than a true spinoff, and therefore it makes sense to me that they’d base in on an existing game. Also FWIW there’s just as many Kanto games as there are Johto and Sinnoh (unless people are counting the fact that Kanto is also in the Johto games).
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Pokémon Let's Go! - Pikachu and Eevee
- Thread starter Codraroll
- Start date
So I'm about halfway done with the game and I gotta say, for me at least, this is looking to be the best way to experience the gen 1 games. There's a lot of little things here that I love so far, so I'll try to lay everything out as best I can.
Pokemon Box: This is a nice QoL improvement that makes it pretty easy to consistently manage your team of Pokemon. It can get a bit cluttered, but with the lowered Pokemon count + multiple organization options makes it pretty solid for the most part.
Nicknames: Being able to freely change nicknames is a nice QoL feature, but something I got a lot of mileage out of was the variety of different symbols that can be used due to the game being able to use multiple different language keyboards. I had a bit of fun naming my Pokemon in Japanese characters and using the letters from other languages to create text faces haha.
Level Curve: I'm liking the level curve of this game a lot compared to the other versions of gen 1. I haven't done an excessive amount of grinding (I battle all the trainers on a route, catch around 5-10 different pokemon per route and don't use candies apart from the ones coach trainers give you), and my team is about on par with most of the enemy trainers in the game, while being a fair bit lower than the gym leaders, which I think solid level balance. Unlike ORAS, the gym leaders also have stronger Pokemon than the trainers on the next routes you'll be traveling in, which definitely makes them feel like the bosses they should be.
Adjusted Difficulty: I like some of the adjustments to the difficulty. It doesn't make the game harder necessarily, but it definitely better balances the player with the enemy. Thanks to the adjusted movepools and TMs, your Pokemon get access to strong moves much earlier. This also applies to the AI to some extent, meaning that both sides deal more damage to each other than in the other versions of the gen 1 games. I'm glad the devs gave gym leaders unique sets of Pokemon rather than just evolutionary lines (i.e., both Lt. Surge and Misty had their Pikachu and staryu replaced with magnemite and psyduck respectively) since it gives them more variety. Coach trainers are also a pretty nice addition, acting as a sort of miniboss of each route. That being said, I will say that this game sorta falls within ORAS levels of difficulty so far, where the gym leaders aren't too difficult, but the trainers you face on routes can give you a lot of trouble, especially coach trainers. Compared to USUM, this is a bit of a disappointment since that game had quite a few challenging bosses.
Story: I like the changes made to the story. While I would have preferred that the game kept Blue as your rival, Trace himself is a pretty alright character that adds a nice layer of cohesion to the games events. He's more involved with the plot than Blue ever was in the original gen 1 games and has a lot more character than Blue as a result. I like some of the added bits with Jessie and James, and the gym leaders as well. Its small stuff, but it gets me more invested in the world.
Pokemon Box: This is a nice QoL improvement that makes it pretty easy to consistently manage your team of Pokemon. It can get a bit cluttered, but with the lowered Pokemon count + multiple organization options makes it pretty solid for the most part.
Nicknames: Being able to freely change nicknames is a nice QoL feature, but something I got a lot of mileage out of was the variety of different symbols that can be used due to the game being able to use multiple different language keyboards. I had a bit of fun naming my Pokemon in Japanese characters and using the letters from other languages to create text faces haha.
Level Curve: I'm liking the level curve of this game a lot compared to the other versions of gen 1. I haven't done an excessive amount of grinding (I battle all the trainers on a route, catch around 5-10 different pokemon per route and don't use candies apart from the ones coach trainers give you), and my team is about on par with most of the enemy trainers in the game, while being a fair bit lower than the gym leaders, which I think solid level balance. Unlike ORAS, the gym leaders also have stronger Pokemon than the trainers on the next routes you'll be traveling in, which definitely makes them feel like the bosses they should be.
Adjusted Difficulty: I like some of the adjustments to the difficulty. It doesn't make the game harder necessarily, but it definitely better balances the player with the enemy. Thanks to the adjusted movepools and TMs, your Pokemon get access to strong moves much earlier. This also applies to the AI to some extent, meaning that both sides deal more damage to each other than in the other versions of the gen 1 games. I'm glad the devs gave gym leaders unique sets of Pokemon rather than just evolutionary lines (i.e., both Lt. Surge and Misty had their Pikachu and staryu replaced with magnemite and psyduck respectively) since it gives them more variety. Coach trainers are also a pretty nice addition, acting as a sort of miniboss of each route. That being said, I will say that this game sorta falls within ORAS levels of difficulty so far, where the gym leaders aren't too difficult, but the trainers you face on routes can give you a lot of trouble, especially coach trainers. Compared to USUM, this is a bit of a disappointment since that game had quite a few challenging bosses.
Story: I like the changes made to the story. While I would have preferred that the game kept Blue as your rival, Trace himself is a pretty alright character that adds a nice layer of cohesion to the games events. He's more involved with the plot than Blue ever was in the original gen 1 games and has a lot more character than Blue as a result. I like some of the added bits with Jessie and James, and the gym leaders as well. Its small stuff, but it gets me more invested in the world.
I‘ve found the difficulty to be a little all over the place. The gym leaders haven’t posed any challenge for me yet but I got almost got wrecked by a random trainer outside of Vermillion. I think part of the issue is the limited selection of Pokémon makes it hard for them to amp up the difficulty for Gym leaders who are supposed to use monotype teams without just making them ridiculously overleveled/giving them huge candy boosts. This isn’t as much of an issue in later gens where there’s a variety of secondary typings (and abilities) to help mix up weaknesses, but here there isn’t a way for them to give, say, Lt. Surge a team that would’ve stopped him from getting steamrolled by my Graveler. This actually gives Coaches and other random trainers an advantage since they can have more variety in their teams without breaking their flavor. Combine that with the automatic Exp. Share that it seems you can’t turn off and how easy it is to raise a Pokemon just to beat a gym and then drop it from your team after thanks to chain exp/candies and Gyms feels like a lot less of a challenge than they usually do.
Heres a tip for everyone who's struggling to keep a chain going because the wild pokemon keep fleeing.
Look out for an intimidate animation. Wild Pokemon have three animations: movement, knocking, and intimidate. Movement is when they jump or fly around, knocking is when the catch ring disappears and they knock your ball away, and intimidate is when they growl at you and the catch ring stays visible. Wild Pokemon will flee a few seconds after this animation, and never before. If you see a Chansey yell at you, spam b and run ASAP.
Look out for an intimidate animation. Wild Pokemon have three animations: movement, knocking, and intimidate. Movement is when they jump or fly around, knocking is when the catch ring disappears and they knock your ball away, and intimidate is when they growl at you and the catch ring stays visible. Wild Pokemon will flee a few seconds after this animation, and never before. If you see a Chansey yell at you, spam b and run ASAP.
As a Pokemon hardcore fan, I was like most of people here kinda doubtful about the content of the game. And after several hours of playing I found a great game design, nice sound remix and a pretty cool gameplay. The catching is still boring after a certain amount of time but remains useful to grind.
The difficulty is finally correctly balanced, no more no less. I'm not done with the game yet, though I pretty like it so far and I think/hope that a lot of "early players" feel the same.
The difficulty is finally correctly balanced, no more no less. I'm not done with the game yet, though I pretty like it so far and I think/hope that a lot of "early players" feel the same.
And that's the thing. No matter what, this game was going to be good. It's based on Yellow/the Gen I games which were already good, they just remade it. The issue has always been, more or less, the price point. If this was $40 no one would be complaining. There's also other issues like GF calling this part of the main series and this being the first Switch Pokemon game, but those also can be sweeped to the side for reasons. However, the game could have been better if GF didn't put so many restrictions onto themselves all for the sake of trying to "re-construct" that initial Gen I experience as well as integrate the GO mechanics.
Um, just don't use the extra Pokemon you need catch to fulfill that requirement. You could even release those Pokemon once you have them registered in your dex (or give them to Oak for Candy).
This is the only Nuzlocke rule where I can see there being a problem. However this too has two simple solutions if you want that "genuine" Nuzlocke experience:
1. The first Pokemon that spawns is the Pokemon you have to catch. Or if multiple spawn, you catch the one closest to you.
2. Go into grass and just run around in circles until a Pokemon runs into you, that's the Pokemon you have to catch.
Of course with there being a mechanic that you catch better Pokemon the more of its species you catch, not to mention heavily encouraging you to catch Pokemon to trade in for Candy, and this game is pretty much is as anti-nuzlocke as you can get. You may want to find another challenge for this one, like how about not evolving your Pokemon or trying a solo run/team theme.
Not sure how I feel about that. Certainly is a handy thing to have... but also feels like it removes all the challenge of maintaining your team through an area. A Pokemon in your party got too weak/lost a lot of PP? Just swap it out for another, you can have two teams worth of Pokemon if you like.
This irks me a bit. So not only are you intended to catch a lot of Pokemon to begin with, which you can then turn into stat boosting candy, they also give better experience then trainer battles?! Shouldn't it be the opposite, that since you're going to be catching so many Pokemon and can trade them into candy that wild battles give little experience while Trainer battles give a big amount?
Infact, it's funny how Masuda said he was sad a lot of players think Pokemon is about hatching eggs (which, BTW, no they don't, but let's just assume they do for the sake of the argument), so he removed breeding. YET, instead of enforcing an idea of catching a core team of Pokemon and raising them to be the best they can be, now players are intended to catch a lot of Pokemon (usually of the same species) in order to gain experience and turn in for candy. Masuda, you only traded in one form of grinding for another...
... So is this good for bad? I mean, I think its pretty good. 1,163,003 x 60 = nearly 70 million US dollars.
That said, how much did it cost to make the game (including advertising & promotion costs)? Also, even if the games made a profit, publishers (which in this case is Nintendo and maybe the Pokemon Company) do expect it to make back a certain amount of profit. If it doesn't the publisher consider the game to be a failure in that regard and maybe not consider it worth the effort to make a sequel for it (which in this case would be Johto games in the Let's Go style).
Okay, I guess it means that's good. Vive la Let's Go Johto!
It's not just the issue they went back to Kanto. It's more that we've been hit by so much Gen I focused stuff players are feeling exhausted by Gen I. In addition we revisted Kanto with the Gen III and IV remakes plus all the mechanics those generations brought with them... many which Let's Go removed. For players looking for a deeper Kanto experience they're better off playing FRLG or also taking in some Johto with HGSS (or play both!).
As for what they could have done differently, they could have made a Kanto game that takes place at the same time as the current games. It's been like 10+ years since we last saw Kanto in the Pokeverse, how much of Kanto had changed during the time Gen VII events took place? A familiar region but a blank slate to do whatever they want with it. But no, they just went back to the Gen I storyline. And while all the references they included was nice, let's just say for some fans they'll be experiencing those references from Youtube while they wait for next year's core series title.
The 1,163,003 number is for USUM, though. I threw it in as a comparison to Let's Go, but I don't think it's quite fair given that it's unlikely all 3DS players who played USUM own a Switch. I have to say, though, that number is not particularly impressive to me. 664,198 * 60 = $39,851,880.
I don't really know how to compare this to previous titles. I guess it depends on how many 3DS owners who played Pokemon also bought the Switch? If you compare it to USUM numbers it's certainly not good. Maybe it's good for the Switch but compared to previous Pokemon titles it's not good? Then again, isn't it expected to have the highest sales of all Switch titles given its overall popularity? Idk.
Considering the very polarizing reception it's surprisingly good.
Oh, oops. Sorry. Should have read more carefully.
USUM was a $40 game so 1,163,003 * 40 = $46,520,120. So though LGPE sold less it's still in the spitting distance of USUM. But as you said, this amount may also be due to this game not really being a system seller so limited to those who already own a Switch.
If anything though, it's a good sign of what an actual core series title may do. GF by now have to know remakes don't sell as much, no matter how high of hopes they had for it. However the real money is for the new generation which won't only sell more but will also increase Switch sales too (for those who hadn't gotten it from the start or will be getting it for Smash Ultimate).
I don't mind Let's Go selling well, my only concern is how its gonna influence Gen 8. I know they said that it would be a traditional RPG, but let's not forget how they promised that USM were going to have " ultra change " and not to expect "traditional 3rd version" change... But we know how true that was right? So I don't trust GF, not yet that is. I don't mind Pokemon in the overworld, but I do at least expect the return to full movesets and abillities for Gen 8. Do we know if the younger or older staff is directing the Switch games? I have a bad feeling if the older staff does direct it, though that might just be Masuda thing, so an older staff may not nesscarily be a bad thing. As for the younger staff, I'll let USM slide because 1. It was based off SM 2. They were probably pressured to finish up the Switch game if they were working on it, so I'll go in a fresh slate for young players.
That's a useless concern.
They've already said enough times, in several official interviews, that the actual gen 8 games are a separate project and keep the traditional approach.
If anything I still hope they do keep a couple mechanics (namely wild Pokemon in the overworld and "pokepassage" HMs, potentially also Box on the fly) seeing the recetion of Let's Go, but that's about it.
Gen 8 **WILL** be a standard Pokemon game, most likely fully 3d following onto SM/USUM. We also know that several of Let's Go choices (keeping the squaredy map, chibization of characters, excess of trainers on routers, etc) was to keep it faithful to Yellow anyway, and not exactly something they were looking to keep.
Just because they say it’ll be traditional doesn’t mean they’ll keep that promise in the future. Remember when they said XY would have a lot of overworld models but it never made the cut? We’ve seen GF show they can make these huge cuts whenever, so I see no reason to think that Gen 8 could be influenced by Let’s Go, even if it was traditionally planned not to.
I wonder what mons would be uses in the lets go versions of johto etc
Let’s Go Marril and Let’s Go Togepi most likely.
However, I’ll be honest. I’m glad this was a success because this was actually one of my favorite Pokemon games in a while. The play experience was waaaaaay more enjoyable than I expected and most of the changes were QoL edits in a big way. But I’m not sure this works as a separate franchise unless it just completely takes over the remake spot in the schedule. Which it totally could. While most people wanted Gen 4 remakes next, technically LeafGreen and FireRed were next in line – and lo, here comes Gen 1 remakes again. Could be.
I think the expectations were so low that people are enjoying it. They truly relied on the Pokemon brand more than anything to sell these games IMO. Not sure they'd be able to pull it off again for other regions, though, given that 2019 gives us a new game that will most likely also have the $60 price tag. There's no way they can justify a simplified version (or glorified Pokemon Go) having the same price as those games.
I believe I've been making this point for last 2 months :P
If you don't have whatever weird expectation from Let's Go, it's veeery enjoyable. Has lot of adorable elements, graphics are honestly gorgeous even with the squaredy map design, there's a lot of cameos / references to other games, they even finally give a real context to Blue being Gym leader of Viridian, and since there's no "pressure" of needing perfect mons (aside from my own perfectionist syndrome lol) you can actually really go by with whatever you catch and like since almost every mon is usable as long as you babysit them a bit.
I will never disagree that it aint worth 60 bucks of price tag, that's a fact.
I would have a hard time justifying a continuation of a Let's Go series without significant improvements in longevity, though. As standalone, Let's Go P/E is perfectly fine. But in order to justify buying a "let's go marill/togepi", it'd need to actually give more content than just re-walking Jotho in HD, as that novelty factor of "pokemon on Switch" will be long gone due to gen 8 having released meanwhile.
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Well, the fans are howling, but apparently Let's Go has sold pretty well already. It could be that Game Freak decides to the influx of new customers is big enough to risk the faithfulness of the customers they've had for a while. This could lead to PLG's more controversial design decisions becoming standard in future games, such as a focus on catching Pokémon en masse rather than battling them.
The games are alright. Inferior to other games in the series, yes, that would be foolish to deny, but you can still have fun with it.
And besides, one has to wonder how much of the game's sales are through people that were only playing GO - the actual target demographic - recently.
I do give part of the high sale credit to the fact that Let's Go is the first Pokemon game on Switch, so lot of fans of the saga bought it even just for the sake of seeing "Pokemon in HD".
Which is what I meant when I said this
You only get the "first game on the platform" hype once. People (including me) are willing to go by lesser game quality for that hype and seeing the potential of the new console, but not twice.
Gen 8 release specifically has a big burden to carry in this moment, as we were still promised that "It'll be a traditional experience, meanwhile have this so you can see how good it looks". If gen 8 doesn't deliver quality, the Diablo Immortal effect is always around the corner.
(Actually, there's a lot to say on the "D Immortal effect" in the last days, but I'll save that for another time)
Well let's remember that we don't get a remake every gen, we get a remake for every console:
GBA: FRLG (Gen III)
DS: HGSS (Gen IV)
3DS: ORAS (Gen VI; we skipped Gen V since that was on the DS)
So honestly I don't see a problem of them just having both a normal remake and a Let's Go remake if they follow this formula. Switch's Let's Go was modeled after Gen I but it's core remake will be based on DPPl. Then the successor to the Switch will have Let's Go Johto and BW remake (which should be interesting to do, like they could actually wait until the next console to then do B2W2 since those games are sequels).
The Fate OF Gen 8: Ugh, you know what, at this point I'm just going to stop worrying about how Let's Go may influence Gen VII, if it does at all. Because honestly I've done all I could to show my thoughts: I complemented for what the game tried to do but because stripped too much out I didn't buy it. And, you know what, thinking about it maybe Pokemon could use some trimming here and there. Get rid of, combine, or better certain Moves, Items, and Abilities so we don't need as many of them. But Let's Go isn't how you do it, infact a lot of changes done with Let's Go was because they needed to compensate for taking something out rather then because they felt some mechanic/feature needed fat trimming.
Anyway, because I think Let's Go had been fully dissected at this point I'm just going to go through the pages Serebii has on the game and give some thoughts on some things. Because I don't want to make this post HUGE, I'll only do a few at a time through several posts. Nothing too deep I think, just surface thoughts I want to mention:
New Items:
There's two pages here. First if the Starter Page where it shows items the Starter Pikachu and Eevee can find once in a while. Now some of these are well known like the Heart Scale, Stardust, Pretty Wing, and Tiny Mushroom. But then we come to the other ELEVEN items they can find. They all sound like interesting items and given a colorful description... but from what I can tell they're all money fodder. You just sell them and they don't even sell that much. And some of them look like they're either quest items (Leaf Letter, Lone Earring, Small Bouquet, Stretchy Spring) and others sound like they'd be items you need to gather to make something like the Shoal Salts & Shells (Beach Glass, Chalky Stone, Polished Mud Ball). Like, am I missing something? Is there something else you can do with these items other then selling them? If not, why include so many? I can get one, two, maybe three or four, but ELEVEN? Okay, nine if you want to count the Gold and Silver Leaf as old items, but not only were they only in Gen II as reward for certain Time Machine trades essentially but in HGSS they were replaced by the Shiny Leaf which you could do a small mini-quest with.
Then we have the actual page with all the New Items and there's two here I want to touch on:
- Interesting they included the Autograph, confirming it's from Lt. Surge. For those who don't know or forgot, in Gen VII your character has an autograph from a Kanto Gym Leader. You don't know which one it is, but you can sort of make out the words "good luck" written in English on it, and since Kanto is based on Japan, it's likely its from Lt. Surge being the only American Gym Leader in Kanto. And sure enough, Let's Go confirms this (though they made the writing on the autograph weird as its just random lines)!
- Kanto finally gets a full cure item of its own: Pewter Crunchies! And for those wondering, in Japan they're called Nibi Arare. Now "Nibi" is from "Nibi City" which is Pewter City's Japanese name (Nibi comes from "nibi-iro" which means "dull gray"), but it's the "Arare" where things get interesting. Arare is a pellet-sized Japanese cracker made from glutinous rice and flavored with soy sauce. They were probably called "crunchies" in English because they're also popular in Hawaii where they're called "mochi crunch".