Upon the release of Pokémon: Blue Version and Pokémon: Red Version (Game Freak, 1996), a new craze swept through playgrounds across the world. An entire generation grew up either playing Pokémon, watching the anime, playing the trading card game, and watching the feature-length movies as clever marketing and a co-ordinated release and multimedia strategy saw it become not just a successful videogame franchise but a massively lucrative and popular multimedia powerhouse. Accordingly, February 27th is now internationally recognised as “National Pokémon Day”, which I expanded to an entire month of Pokémon this February.
Released: 16 November 2018
Developer: Game Freak
The Background:
Pokémon was an instant cultural phenomenon back when the games first dropped, taking playgrounds by storm and dominating almost every aspect of my generation through a slew of merchandise. I remember being so adamant about purchasing Pokémon: Blue Version that I bought it brand new rather than getting a cheaper copy of Pokémon: Red Version and my friends and I routinely played at school or on the Nintendo 64 thanks to Pokémon Stadium (Nintendo EAD/HAL Laboratory, 1999). Although the developers originally intended my favourite games/generation of Pokémon, Pokémon: Gold Version and Pokémon: Silver Version (Game Freak, 1999) to be the final entries in the series, Pokémon videogames continued to be developed, with new features, improved graphics and mechanics, and a whole bunch of new Pokémon being introduced in each generation. Yet, in all that time, we never really got a proper version of Pokémon on home consoles; they were always spin-offs, battling games, or neutered versions of the main role-playing experience, which remained exclusive to Nintendo’s handhelds. Nintendo’s development of their Switch console changed that, however; thanks to the Switch’s unique ability to be both a handheld and a home console, players were finally able to experience a main series Pokémon game in glorious high definition with the release of Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! (ibid, 2018) Though remakes of the first Pokémon games, the Let’s Go games (like pretty much all Pokémon games) proved both successful and popular.
The Plot:
The time has come for you and your childhood rival to receive your very own Pokémon from Professor Oak and challenge the eight Kanto Gym Leaders in a bid to become a Pokémon Master. However, your progress is fraught with danger as the nefarious Team Rocket seek to steal Pokémon for criminal acts, in addition to genetically creating the most powerful Pokémon of all!
Gameplay:
Essentially, Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! is exactly the same Pokémon game we’ve been playing for decades now, though this is only to be expected as it’s another remake of the original games. Like other Pokémon titles of this calibre on the Nintendo Switch, the game is played from a top-down, slightly isometric perspective that evokes the style of the Game Boy and Nintendo 3DS Pokémon titles; while the gameplay retains a simple control system (you control your avatar with the left stick, make selections with A, back out of decisions with B, and bring up the in-game menu with X), you can choose to play with the Joy-Cons attached (my preferred style), separated, or even use the Poké Ball Plus accessory when catching Pokémon. Interestingly, Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! is somewhat light on the handholding; Professor Oak will run you through the basics of Pokémon at the start of the game, as always, and non-playable characters (NPCs) offer hints, tips, and additional information regarding battling, catching, trading, and raising Pokémon, but gameplay isn’t interrupted every few minutes for a tutorial or bout of exposition, which actually makes the game feel a little too barebones at times as it seems content to simply offer a graphical and mechanical overhaul of the original games. Still, the modern conveniences are well welcome; items are divided into “Pockets” in your bag, allowing you to quickly find, use, and arrange healing items, evolution stones, Technical Machines (TMs), and candies to restore, power-up, or evolve your Pokémon. Unfortunately, you can’t assign an item to a quick button like in later Pokémon games but, to be fair, you really don’t have much need for this since items like the fishing rods and bicycle are missing this time around. Your inventory space now seems to be unlimited, which is even better, so you never have to worry about trekking back to a PC to dump items to pick up others.
As ever, wild Pokémon will be encountered all over Kanto, hiding in grass, bopping in the sea, and emerging from the ground when in caves. This time around, the Pokémon all clearly appear onscreen; while they can spawn out of nowhere and swarm all around some locations, you can see where they are and even get an idea of how big or small or rare they are thanks to on-screen colourings and indicators, meaning it’s easier than ever to spot a shiny Pokémon or avoid an encounter altogether since random battles are effectively a thing of the past here. New to this game is the “Combat Point” (CP) mechanic, which allows you to see, at a glance, how good a Pokémon’s stats are, and Pokémon naturally still have “natures” that determine their statistical growth. Once you encounter with a wild Pokémon, you’ll see how different Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! is from its predecessors and contemporaries; the game switches to a first-person perspective and essentially borrows the gameplay mechanics and functionality of Pokémon Go (Niantic, 2016). You can select different Poké Balls, with each one having a different capture rate, one of numerous berries which can calm the Pokémon down, make them easier to catch, or increase your chances of acquiring items and bonuses from a successful capture, get some help, or flee from the battle. You won’t be inflicting damage on the wild Pokémon; instead, you must ready your Poké Ball, wait for the Pokémon to settle down, and toss the Poké Ball between some coloured rings to try and snag it. The level, size, and rarity of the Pokémon generally determine show difficult it is to catch, but even low-level Pokémon can burst out of Poké Balls if your throw is bad or just to be annoying, and you have to be quick and accurate as wild Pokémon can flee from battle. Some certain Pokémon, like the Legendary Birds and the two Snorlax, will need to be battled before you can catch them, which gives you about five minutes to whittle their Hit Points (HP) down before switching to this new capture system. Since I’ve never played Pokémon Go, I wasn’t a fan of this new mechanic, which basically boils down to mindlessly tossing Poké Balls, trying to get a “Excellent!” rating, and swinging the Switch around like an idiot to get a better aim. It’s an extremely different strategy and mindset for long-term players, one that encourages you to catch every single Pokémon you see as this is the primary way of earning experience points (EXP) and levelling-up. Thankfully, Poké Balls, Great Balls, and Ultra Balls are easily obtained from shops and NPCs, but I found this forced mechanic too the “Gotta Catch ‘Em All” tag line a little too literally.
Pokémon Trainers are still a thing, so you’ll still have the chance to take part in some traditional battles. Here, you and your opponent take turns to inflict damage or status effects on each other or use in-battle items to heal or relieve status effects. You can’t run from a Trainer battle, but you can switch your Pokémon between rounds, which you’ll want to do when your opponent uses a different “Type” of Pokémon to yours. As ever, this is like Rock/Paper/Scissors, making Water-Type Pokémon “Super effective” against Fire-Type Pokémon, Fire-Types melt Ice-Types, and Fighting-Type Pokémon shatter Rock-Types. Thanks to onscreen text, the advantages of the modern user interface, and the colourings of certain Pokémon, it’s a pretty simple system to figure out. Trainers have all the same options as you, so they can switch their Pokémon at any time, heal or buff them with items, but can attack without fear of running out of Power Points (PP). Each move is limited by PP; when it runs out, you’ll need to use an Elixir or heal up to restore it or risk resorting to “Struggle”, which inflicts serious recoil damage. While it’s possible to succeed with just one or two powerful Pokémon, it’s best to have a diverse team with decent Type coverage in their moves; thankfully, Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! makes this even easier by including far more moves and TMs, especially for your Eevee, to allow for greater Type coverage with each Pokémon. Similar to Pokémon Yellow Version: Special Pikachu Edition (Game Freak, 1998), you’re forced to start with a specific Pokémon, in this case Eevee. Sadly, you can’t evolve Eevee, but certain NPCS will teach it a number of super useful elemental moves, allowing it greater Type coverage than usual. Eevee is your constant companion and can be petted and fed berries to increase your bond with it; this affords you benefits in battle, such as Eevee holding on with 1HP or shaking off status ailments. This’ll also happen with the other Pokémon in your party, however; any Pokémon can follow you around, like in Pokémon: Yellow and Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver (ibid, 2009), allowing you to interact with them to see how they’re doing, ride certain Pokémon in place of the bicycle, and they’ll even sniff out or dig up items. Pokémon can also now be renamed at any time and marked with symbols, you can easily move them and their moves around as you like and, even better, you no longer need to visit a PC to move Pokémon to and from your party; you simply do this at any time from the menu, and you can also send the many wild, disposable Pokémon you’ve caught over to Professor Oak where they’ll be lost forever in return for some candies.
These candies take the place of the vitamins and feathers of the previous games, allowing you to feed them to your Pokémon to boost their stats (Attack, Speed, HP, etc). You’ll find these across the game as well and they’re great for quickly boosting stats, with some candies even being specific to Pokémon and giving a boost across all stats, though Pokémon will require more candies the stronger they get and some are locked behind a level cap. Levelling-up can be a bit of a chore thanks to the massive emphasis on catching Pokémon, meaning it’s best to put your money into stocking up on Poké Balls or talking to NPCs to get some extra ones to help you get more powerful. Thankfully, you can still track your progress from a handy onscreen EXP bar; by default, all Pokémon automatically earn EXP from every encounter as well, meaning levelling-up is easier and faster than ever, and you can still trade and use special stones to evolve Pokémon into more powerful forms. This also facilitates the ongoing plot of completing Professor Oak’s PokéDex, a handy-dandy encyclopaedia that tells you where Pokémon frequent and gives you insight into them. Evolving Pokémon also gives them access to newer, usually better moves, though each can only learn four moves at a time; you can either replace an existing move or not learn the new one. An NPC allows your Pokémon to relearn forgotten moves in return for Heart Scales and you can use the TMs as many times as you like, which is always useful. Even better, Hidden Machines (HMs) are now a thing of the past; instead, Eevee learns “Secret Techniques” from NPCs, generally by completing story-based side quests. These allow you to chop down trees blocking your path, light up dark caves, surf across water, and fly to Kanto’s different towns using Eevee and relegates moves like Surf and Fly to TMs. This is extremely useful as it now means you don’t need to clog up your party with HM slaves or have useless HM moves in your arsenal. As ever, your Pokémon can be afflicted with status effects that slow, damage, or hinder them; poison, burns, sleep, and paralysis are the most common though you’ll also have to watch out for moves that cause you to “flinch” and miss a turn, Pokémon avoiding your attacks, and being put into a confused state. Treat and train your Pokémon well and they’ll shake off these ailments, but you can also use various items and the ever-useful Pokémon Centers to restore your Pokémon to full health. If you go into a battle unprepared without taking advantage of the manual save feature, you may be overwhelmed and end up defeated, which’ll cost you some hard-earned PokéDollars and return you to the last Pokémon Center you visited, but you’ll also find helpful NPCs, beds, and healing zones in some areas that avoid a long trek to heal up. You also need to be mindful of levelling-up too quickly; if your Pokémon is too high a level, and you don’t have the appropriate Badge, they may disobey you by ignoring your commands or loafing around.
If you’ve played the original Pokémon games and their remakes before then you’ll be instantly familiar with Kanto which, despite a new coat of paint and some tweaked quality of life features, is basically exactly the same as before. You’ll be taking ladders through maze-like caves, exploring a luxury ship, fetching stuff for NPCs, and solving some rudimentary puzzles using teleporters, hidden switches, and pushing blocks to lower doors. Quite often, you’ll explore areas to acquire keys to progress, which means clearing out Team Rocket and rescuing NPCs. While the Celadon City Game Corner is still present, you can’t play the slot machines anymore; the Safari Zone is also gone, with the rare Pokémon from these areas now appearing out in the wild and the latter replaced with the Pokémon GO Park, where you can transfer Kanto Pokémon from Pokémon Go. In-game trades allow you to acquire different Pokémon and even different forms from other Pokémon regions, and you can still trade and battle with friends as long as you’re paying for the Switch’s online functionality. There’s a very limited incorporation of the “Mega Evolution” mechanic here, too; certain NPCs award you special stones that allow a small handful of Pokémon to “Mega Evolve” once per battle, making them tougher and more fearsome, and some Trainer battles will also see you facing off against a Mega Evolved Pokémon. Very rarely, you’ll also take part in double battles, either by yourself or alongside your rival, though these really don’t happen as often as they could (and should, considering how often you encounter Jesse and James of Team Rocket). Finally, you have a few rudimentary customisation options for your avatar, including gender and skin colour, and can mix and match various outfits that you’re awarded from NPCs; Eevee can also be dressed up, which is quite cute, but this isn’t as in-depth as in other Pokémon games.
Graphics and Sound:
Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! naturally benefits from the greater graphical processing power of the Nintendo Switch, utilising a slick, colourful 3D anime approach that really brings Ken Sugimori’s artwork to life in the best way possible. Freed from the grid-system of the original titles but not overwhelming the player in open-world gameplay, Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! transforms the formally limited, pixelated environments of Kanto into far bigger, much more detailed locations. Unfortunately, there’s no day/night system and no weather or seasonal elements, but towns and routes are bright and full of NPCs to chat to, buildings to enter, and Pokémon to encounter. The characters are all instantly familiar but with a new coat of paint; your NPC and rival aren’t strictly the Red and Blue of old, looking and acting slightly different (the rival is way more friendlier and actually helps you at a few points) and Blue actually shows up to offer advice and take Giovanni’s place as the Viridian City Gym Leader. The game also takes inspiration from the anime and Pokémon: Yellow by including and expanding upon the role of Jesse and James, with their Meowth often preceding their appearances and the duo have a far greater impact on the plot by taking the place of other Team Rocket grunts and executives.
Although the game’s Pokémon are limited to the first 151 from the original games, outside of a few different forms from later games in the franchise, they’re all full of life and can get very energetic when you encounter them in the wild, bouncing, floating, and dodging about the place and even swiping at you (though this just causes your Poké Ball to miss). Pokémon also appear more or less to scale, meaning Onix bursts from the ground and dominates the screen, Voltorbs are tiny globes, and some (like Arcanine) can be rode around to speed up your movement. Each has remixed cries from the original game apart from Pikachu, which gleefully shouts its name, and Eevee, which has a series of squeaky chirps. As if making towns bigger and livelier wasn’t enough, the Gyms have also had an impressive overhaul; spectators are often present, in addition to more detailed interiors, and you’ll even be treated to special cutscenes when encountering Legendary Pokémon and such. The script seems mostly the same as before, with a few alterations here and there that kind of place it as both a follow-up and a retelling of the first two games, and all the redone tunes are as charming and memorable as ever.
Enemies and Bosses:
During your Pokémon journey, you’ll battle with other budding Pokémon Trainers; their Pokémon start at low levels, generally with only one or two in their party, but you’ll face progressively tougher opposition as you progress. While you can usually predict what an enemy Trainer will do as they tend to use moves that have a Type advantage over your current Pokémon, they can sometimes surprise you and it pays to go on a mad catching spree between battles to level-up, focus on increasing certain stats, and bringing your team as close to the level cap as possible, utilising moves that are super effective and taking advantage of the shared EXP to easily dominate the opposition. As ever, your most persistent foes throughout Kanto are the nefarious Team Rocket; this gang of Poké-nappers have taken over buildings and even entire towns in a bid to steal Pokémon or technology like the Silph Scope and Master Ball for their own evil ends. Generally, Team Rocket grunts aren’t much different from other Pokémon Trainers and stick to common Pokémon like Zubat and Ratatta, but you’ll also battle Jesse and James a few times thanks to their added importance on the plot. Like in the anime counterparts, they’ll use Koffing/Weezing and Ekans/Arbok but don’t send out Meowth this time around. You’ll also encounter your rival at various points; he’ll either be one step ahead of you, join you for certain side quests, offer advice and award items, and will challenge you to test your skills. A new Trainer class in this game are the Coach Trainers; these guys must be manually challenged and will award TMs and other goodies after you best them, but generally offer a tougher or more advanced challenge compared to regular Pokémon Trainers.
Your Pokémon journey requires you to travel far and wide across Kanto defeating the eight Gym Leaders to earn their Badges; these increase the strength and level cap of your Pokémon and allow entry into the Pokémon League and each Gym Leader specialises in a certain Type of Pokémon (though, handily, opposing Types can usually be found nearby if you need one). Before battling the Gym Leader, you’ll need to get past their proteges and, often, a puzzle of some kind, such as pressing hidden switches, navigating an invisible or hedge maze, or teleporting from room to room. This time around, many Gyms cannot be fought until you have a certain Type or level of Pokémon, encouraging catching and grinding, though the Gym Leaders remain as simple as ever to any experienced player. After defeating the Gym Leaders, you can battle them again once a day for some extra cash, which is always appreciated as Trainer rematches are disappointingly sporadic in this franchise. Once you’ve defeated them all, you challenge the Elite Four and the Pokémon League Champion without any breaks or free health restoration between bouts. Again, these have been bolstered by the Switch’s graphical power and some of the moves and line-ups of the Elite Four have been mixed up; I mostly noticed this with Lance, who now doesn’t have those two Dragonairs. While the Pokémon League offers a daunting challenge, it’s pretty simple to stock up on Hyper Potions and Revives to help if things get tough and you can battle them as many times as you like afterwards to help level-up. Although you won’t battle wild Pokémon 99% of the time, you still encounter the likes of Snorlax, the Legendary Birds, and Mewtwo; these are timed battles and can be a bit jarring as you suddenly have to shift to the traditional style of play, subduing the opponent with status ailments and whittling their HP to zero so you can start the laborious process of catching them, essentially turning these bouts into mini bosses, of sorts.
As he’s a lot friendlier than Blue, your rival is far more easy-going and any sense of urgency about wiping that smug smirk off his face is gone this time around. To counter your Eevee, your rival uses Pikachu (which, annoyingly, he eventually evolves into a Raichu, which isn’t fair as you can’t evolve your Eevee) and will not only amass a well-balanced and diverse team of Pokémon by the time he beats you to the Pokémon League but can also Mega Evolve his Pidgeot during the final battle. While he often presents a slightly more formidable challenge, especially once he’s got his aforementioned Pidgeot and Raichu teamed with Vileplume, Rapidash, Slowbro, and Marowak, defeating him isn’t any harder than beating any other Trainer or Gym Leader; simply strengthen your team, swap them as necessary, and hammer away and you’ll soon be crowned the Pokémon League Champion. Your rival might not be a complete douchebag this time around, but Blue is still a smarmy git and he shows up a few times throughout the story to help fend off Team Rocket and test your mettle as a Pokémon Trainer. After you defeat Giovanni and conquer the Pokémon League, Blue installs himself as the Viridian City Gym Leader, offering one of the game’s three hardest battles, the other two being Green and Red, with Green awaiting your challenge inside the Cerulean Cave after you’ve caught Mewtwo. Once you best the Pokémon League, 153 “Master Trainers” appear all around Kanto; these guys specialise in one Pokémon and, annoyingly, you can only battle them with that same Pokémon and they’re at such a high level that you basically need to grind-train every possible Pokémon just to stand a chance against them. If you manage to defeat six of them, Red can be fought outside of the Pokémon League, with all three of the original Trainers having a diverse team of high-level Pokémon and fully capable of Mega Evolving one of their Pokémon.
Power-Ups and Bonuses:
It seems like even more items, both obvious and hidden, are strewn all over Kanto; they’re either onscreen or sniffed out by your Pokémon, gifted by NPCs, or bought from PokéMarts. Healing items like the various Potions, restorative items like the Revives, and status-healing items can take care of your ailments either in battle (at the cost of a turn) or outside of battle and you can temporarily buff your Pokémon’s status with items like X-Speed. You can also buy the game’s various Poké Balls from PokéMarts (being awarded a Premier Ball with bulk purchases) but these are also freely given by NPCs, after battles, and found all over so you’re never short of catching devices. You can find nuggets and stardust to sell for big cash, special stones to evolve Pokémon, and even items that fend off wild Pokémon or draw out more powerful and rarer variants. Berries make a return to the franchise, though in a slightly different capacity; you can feed them to Eevee to improve your bond but they’re best used against wild Pokémon to make them easier to catch, though you can’t have Pokémon hold items for in-battle buffs (potentially because battling is such a secondary feature in this game). Other items are slightly changed, too; the Poké Flute can’t be used in battle, for example, moves like Teleport and Dig can’t seem to be used outside of battle, and you’ll give the guards tea (given to you by Brock) rather than water, just to mix things up.
Additional Features:
Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! keeps things incredibly simple with its available Pokémon; no Pokémon outside of the original 151 (and a couple of different forms and a new Pokémon) appear in the game and some are missing since you can’t get the likes of Sandshrew/Sandslash, Grimer/Muk, and Scyther in this game, requiring you to trade with a friend who owns Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! Trading is also key to evolving certain Pokémon, like Machoke and Haunter, and you’ll need another player to acquire both fossil Pokémon. Once you’ve beaten the game, there’s a little bit of post-game content to come back to; obviously, there’s the PokéDex to complete and the Master Trainers to find and challenge, though this latter is more tedious than exciting. In what will probably be a disappointment to many, there’s no Battle Frontier or anything like that, and there are no other areas to visit beyond the likes of the Cerulean Cave and Power Plant, which is disappointing to me as we don’t even get the Sevii Islands here. Mewtwo awaits in the Cereluen Cave, as mentioned, and the Legendary Birds are in the usual locations, offering inconsistently difficult encounters (I caught Articuno on my second Ultra Ball, Moltres took a few more, Zapdos was quite erratic, and I simply tossed the never-miss Master Ball at Mewtwo). Pokémon legends Red, Blue, and Green are also out there for you to battle but getting to Red isn’t the most enjoyable task available and the rewards are negligible. Similarly, beating the Master Trainers and competing the PokéDex primarily just gives you kudos and bragging rights, though you will be able to ride certain Pokémon to fly across Kanto after beating the Pokémon League, which offers a slightly different dimension to your travels. Otherwise, you can try and hunt down shiny Pokémon, look for the biggest and smallest Pokémon around, and make use of the co-op mode to journey alongside a friend and the Mystery Gift and Pokémon Go functionality to transfer other Pokémon into the game.
The Summary:
Although my love for the franchise has ebbed somewhat over the years, basically to the point where I don’t really buy new Pokémon games on the regular since they’re largely the same and don’t really offer much new material, I am a fan of the series and I was somewhat interested in journeying through Kanto one more time in Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! Graphically, the game is very impressive; with the series seemingly moving more towards open-world, open-ended gameplay and introducing more extraneous mechanics to the franchise, it’s nice to get back to basics, but Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! is maybe a little too basic for its own good. Opting more for a fancy new coat of paint rather than really expanding upon the original games’ content in any meaningful way, Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! is a fun enough nostalgia trip but lacking in many ways; not including much in the way of substantial post-game content was a disappointment, to say nothing of the laborious Master Trainers and the decision to not include Pokémon or mechanics from other regions and games (like a day/night cycle, weather effects, hold items, and such). What really soured the experience for me was the incorporation of Pokémon Go mechanics; I admit that I’m biased about this as I don’t really play or like Pokémon Go, but there wasn’t much fun to be had in tossing Poké Balls at Pokémon without much skill or thought. You simply wait for the circles to line up, and for a good opening, and just toss Poké Balls and/or berries until you catch it, making for an extremely simplistic and monotonous level-up system. I loved that Jesse and James had a bigger role, and that Blue showed up on the side and being able to battle him, Red, and even Green (though I was a little disappointed that Professor Oak wasn’t the Pokémon League Champion at the end). Riding Pokémon was quite fun, as was letting Pokémon travel beside you and giving Eevee a real personality, but the lack of customisation options and challenge was unfortunate. Overall, if Pokémon was “Baby’s First RPG”, Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! is “Baby’s First Pokémon” and, while I enjoyed it well enough, it was a bit of a barebones package that played things a little too safe, and a little too quirky, for my liking.
My Rating:
Pretty Good
Did you enjoy Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee!? How do you think it compares to the original games and their remakes, and which Pokémon game is your favourite? Did you enjoy having Eevee as your partner and what did you think to the special moves it could learn? What did you think to the new catching mechanics and did they make or break the game for you? Did you ever defeat all of the Master Trainers and Red? Who made it into your final team and did you ever complete the PokéDex? Which Pokémon is your favourite? How are you planning to celebrate National Pokémon Day this year? Whatever your thoughts on Pokémon, feel free to leave them below or on my social media.
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