So, those new games that just got announced. I hate to sound so harsh on games we don't know a ton about yet. There's of course still plenty of time for announcements to change my mind, but Brilliant Diamond and Shimmering Pearl really feel lame to me. Not necessarily that I think they'll be awful. If they're faithful DP remakes that add QoL improvements like replacing HMs or making HP bars scroll faster, they'll be acceptable enough. But I find myself in the Link's Awakening kind of conundrum.
These remakes, at least so far, are electing to be so faithful that I can't help but wonder what was wrong with just porting Diamond and Pearl to Switch or something. As is, it feels like the tired Nintendo move of finding an excuse to sell an older game for a full $60. As much as I say price is ultimately up to the individual on what they'd be willing to pay, $60 is a bit much for a faithful remake of a DS game, is it not?
I dunno. I'm glad it's not being developed by Gamefreak themselves, I certainly hope more of the less important main-series titles like this get outsourced to different devs to give Gamefreak some room to breath. And there's still plenty that they COULD do to sweeten the deal. But as-is, I'm not impressed, and I'm probably not gonna play them unless I can find them cheap, or they turn out to not be $60 after all.
As for arguably the bigger whammey..... phew. I'm excited... but also concerned.
I've finally gotten around to playing Breath of the Wild for the first time, and am loving it. And while I HAVE been saying and thinking about how Pokemon could translate into a similar style of game, I've still by no means thought Pokemon's only avenue was to go more open-world. I don't get this notion that linear games are inherently inferior to non-linear ones. I certainly don't think SwSh handles being a linear RPG the best, but I feel like a lot of people forget RPGs can still be super linear ventures. Final Fantasy X has a pre-determined sequence of events with little to no deviation. Paper Mario TTYD is SUPER linear. Yet these are oft regarded as some of the best of the genre. People love to say Pokemon would be better BotW-ified, but rarely do they actually list a compelling reason for Pokemon to go completely open-world. They just say “Zelda did it, and it turned out great!”
There's certainly a lot of potential in an open-world Pokemon, and that potential excites me to be sure. But there's also more than plenty of room to botch it. Just turning Pokemon into a BotW-like open world and calling it a day just doesn't work.
It excites me cause there certainly is an air of “This is how my child brain always imagined Pokemon” to it. And with a lowered scope of a likely limited Pokedex and a simplified task of “Catch Them All”, I can definitely see how this is a bit like Let's Go, where they're making a bigger risk of a game and seeing what sticks and can keep around for the Gen 9 game. The game also looks notably better than SwSh visually, framerate issues aside. And I like battles happening in the overworld itself with no “Battle scene” in sight. If they pull this off right, this could very well be my favorite Pokemon game to date.
...But I'm concerned in whether or not they have enough to content to fill an open-world Pokemon game. BotW can have long periods where nothing but travel is happening, sure, but there's several kinds of incidental things that can occur on your travels in the game. NPCs getting attacked by monsters, Korok seeds, monster camps, any shrines you may find. I don't mind downtime in long-form games like BotW; something that really took an axe to my enjoyment of the latest Spider-Man game was the constant barrage of stuff just happening at once that I got overwhelmed easily. But in trying to think of what Pokemon could do as an open-world game, I can't think of much. There's Pokemon to catch, there's probably some trainers here and there, even if they stated this is a time before Pokemon trainers were a thing. I'm sure they'll have a heavier focus on side quests, and perhaps NPCs that give you hints on where rare Pokemon or treasure may be hiding. But other than that, I don't have anything. Secret bases??? Maybe?????
Whenever I see Pokemon imagery superimposed onto BotW screenshots, none of that ever sells me in and of itself. Cause at that point, the pitch just sounds like regular Pokemon, but everything takes longer to do for no real gain. What do these suggestions for an open-world Pokemon do for Pokemon that Pokemon isn't already doing? People are hollering for a BotW-like Pokemon with no compelling reason why Pokemon has to go open world. Even I'M not entirely sure what I want out of an open world Pokemon, as much as I want a really good one. My best suggestion would be that encountering a Legendary aught to have the same general energy as encountering one of the Dragons or the Lord of the Mountain in BotW, where it's a rare incidental event.
But... there's still plenty of time for more news to come out, sure. Maybe we know extremely little about the actual content of the game and we'll learn more later. Or at least I hope. I do also hope Legends Arceus being a 2022 game means Gen 9 will wait until 2023 at the minimum... but again, I'd easily wait longer if it meant a better game in the end.
Comments
Post a Comment