#not counting spinoff starters like eevee

[adobe-outdesign]

What are your top five and bottom five starter lines of all time?

(each starter listed represents my opinion on the entire line; order within each rank does not matter)

unpopular opinions that are going to get me stabbed.jpg

[tunnaa-unnaa]

Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu&Eevee - Announcement trailer 30.5.

Part 2 - Mechanics and UI (part 1)

Note that I am mostly interested in these games as indicators of what the future core series Pokemon game will be. A GO-related spinoff with only Kanto pokemon is of little importance to me.

+ The in-battle UI is clean and far from cluttered. This was one of the main fears for many since Pokemon is moving back to one screen instead of two. + GO catching mechanics could offer a lot of potential. Often catching a legendary is about pressing A a lot of times and hoping you bought enough balls to outrun the RNG roll. It’s passive to say the least, so I wouldn’t mind a more engaging catching style as long as it’s not at the expense of other features. + The walking buddy thing is making me wonder if the screenshots of the trainer riding Onix and Charizard are a version of PokeRide or an actual feature where you get to ride your own pokemon, not just some magical Tauros that appears out of nowhere. + Dressing up your pokemon, making the changes visible in the overworld AND battles? Hell YES. This feature probably won’t carry over to main series games but it’s lovely that they have pulled it off here. + Local co-op. I’d like more of that, since Pokemon has always required two consoles and games to play with friends. Maybe a built-in battling system for two players like in Stadium would bring some new opportunities, especially now that Switch could handle it better than 3DS. + See that little waterdrop icon next to “water” in Poliwag’s dex entry? If that means there’s going to be official icons for all types (not just the z crystals some of which had horrible designs) I’m all in for that. I’m a sucker for icons and logos.

+ - At least this game succeeds at making the UI good, but it will remain to be seen how it works with more complicated mechanics like mega evolution, Z-moves, status screens, team preview, weather and turn counts... All in all it makes me wonder if this game’s UI is just a temporary solution and the main games will have a different one. Worst case scenario is that they sack all those features in order to streamline the games. (it’s almost like they should have thought about the future when implementing those features don’t ya think)

- Pikachu and Eevee are no doubt going to be unevolvable. Well okay, I’m maybe 90% sure about that so there’s a tiny margin for error, but customization and overworld partnership just makes it seem like the two starter mons won’t be able to evolve. I just don’t like it when your starter is stuck in its first form, doomed into underperforming by the third gym. Even if they allow evolving later, it’ll be too late. Anyone whose brain is telling them to optimize their team in the game is going to struggle keeping a cute but dead weight pokemon in there. - No wild pokemon battles. It’s fine for a spinoff but I hope they don’t get too into this idea. Kanto region is going to be very different when training by battling with wild pokemon is removed and I already have my doubts about how well this change is balanced. - In screenshot 3: Nugget Bridge doesn’t have a trainer with a Venonat, and all pokemon there are at least lv10 (FRLG, or lv14 in RBY) Yeah, it’s preliminary footage, but if this is a real battle from the game it would imply that the game has been made easier than before. Simply lowering opponent’s levels isn’t a good way to deal with the lack of wild pokemon battles. As a remake Let’s Go will be compared to other Kanto games, so I hope it won’t end up being the baby version where the only real challenge is trying to hit Zubats with the GO catching mechanics.