Damn. It sucks because a part of me really does want to get the Pokeball controller and everything and enjoy it, but part of me doesn't want to reward Gamefreak and Nintendo for abandoning such a core aspect of the feature because of the bump Pokemon Go provided for a few months 2 years ago.
And I'm somebody that plays Pokemon Go every single day. I will admit, they've been more on top of their shit since they began quests (glad I got a Mew!) and yet still maintains the regular bullshit in the game as more features revolve around teaming up with others when the game's audience is not that peak amount of players in it's infancy that Niantic believes it still has.
I play it every day -despite all the dumb aspects of it- but don't reward Niantic for their awful attempt of "pay-to-play" and horrible EX raid systems, and the raids in general. But after the first few months in which I had put a few dollars of my own money for currency in the game, I stopped because I didn't want to keep feeding into a company that continued to half ass it. Nearly 3 years after the trailer for it that aired with Trainer Vs Trainer battling as a major mechanic -in addition to a pokemon tracker that measured in EXACT METERS-, none of those features were brought to the game. They ditched the tracker for the most part all together after 2 months when they realized it was crashing the games too much. And that wasn't even as accurate as the one in the trailer.
So I'm extremely wary about these games being THIS close to "GO". This just adds to my major complaint of the main games over the last few years, that they're dumbing them down further and further to appease a broader audience. From Gen 6 and onward, the games have held your hand every step of the way. Remember when there was actual REQUIREMENTS to get the EXP share? One that was much less useful than the one given now at the beginning of games. Kalos gives you a starter AND a Kanto starter(can't forget to appease those Gen 1 fans). Oh want a cool Mega Evolution because this game wasn't easy enough to roll through? Take my Lucario. Please.
Still not as bad as ORAS though. 5 badges in and you're giving me a mega Legendary in this remake that you couldn't get until the end of the original game. And weaker than this one. Are people actually complaining about the difficulty of these games? Same goes for most of Gen 7, in addition to the further Gen 1 wank. And i don't know if they've done the research and believe that these attempts to pull a more casual/nostalgic audience in is worth whatever percentage of the existing customers that sit this one out. But stripping away the wild pokemon battles to simply maintain the familiarity of "Go"'s capture style is really, really stupid.
As I said, despite all the dumb aspects of it, I still play Pokemon Go because it's on my phone I'm constantly using for school and work, I walk a lot so it gives me progress in the game for doing something I'm already doing, and because I had been close to finishing the Kanto Pokedex before I stopped playing 6 months after it began. As of yesterday, I'm only missing Mr Mime, Kangheskan, Mewtwo(beat it in a raid, used every ball and it wouldn't stay in) and Arcticuno which will be out on friday.
So in retrospect, kind of sucks I spent the time to finish the dex when this game -that trades with Go- will let you catch them without having to travel.
To hammer home the point that Gamefreak is dumbing down these games and trying to just appease to the broadest base, they're only including the first 151(plus a new one).
This literally ONLY appeals to people that recognize the original Pokemon and are willing to take a chance on this Switch Game because it looks new, but familiar. This isn't designed towards new younger fans, as they just released USUM. They have an anime airing with Alolan Pokemon. Pokemon Go has released the majority of Hoenn Pokemon at this point, with Alolan forms coming currently. And they've maintained a healthy balance (more or less) of rotating Pokemon of the 3 generations you can find in the wild. It just feels like the "Lets GO" games are so half assed by using the most common and overexposed Pokemon the franchise as their big leap into this console.
It does also raise the question of the balancing for a game like Pokemon Go. The trailer seems to imply it's a straightforward transfer between your Pokemon Go account and the Switch game. If this is the case, and it's not a trade, theoretically somebody can just be staying home catching thousands of pidgeys to transfer over and evolve in mass to level up. And if it's trade based(meaning it will only be Gen 1 for Gen 1) it kind of defeats the purpose of the special limited events Go is known for doing to require Pokemon not normally available in an area.
Unless some other news changes my opinion on these games, these might be the first Pokemon games i've ever sat out on. I'm still getting a Switch for the One Piece World Seeker game, but I'm sure at some point I'll get the Pokemon Lets Go's. But I just feel like this is Gamefreak's official endorsement of Niantic's policy of half assing it to the extreme.
