Pokemon Let's Go Finally Fulfilled Pokémon's Promise

Pokémon Red Version and Blue Version are not the best video games ever made. Far from it. They are not even the best games in the series they began. And yet, they persist. Red and Blue gave rise to an international phenomenon arguably bigger than any since. They created a franchise that persists to this day that brings people together in a way few other games do. Because of that, Game Freak, the developers of the games, decided they would ring in the Nintendo Switch with remakes of those original games: Pokémon Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee, two games that finally bring the initial promise of Pokémon into focus: Catch. Those. Pokémon.

The Let's Go games are not one to one remakes. Nor are they remakes of Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen, the first remakes of Red and Blue from 2004. The Let's Go games are more than that. They aimed to fix many mistakes and shortcomings of those two sets of games. Many of those fixes were controversial, to say the least. The games sold well over 10 million copies, though, so someone must have liked them.

The biggest and most important change Let's Go made to the original games is wild Pokémon encounters. In typical Pokémon games, there are sections of tall grass strewn about the world in which the player will randomly encounter Pokémon and start a battle. Some areas, like caves, function like tall grass despite there not being any grass there. Let's Go changes that. Yes, Pokémon encounters still primarily happen in tall grass and similar areas, but this time they are not random. The Pokémon have actual models rendered on the screen that players can choose to engage if they so desire. In a rush to get somewhere and see something? Cool, skip battles. Just meandering around and seeing what you can? Cool, have some battles, catch some Pokémon. That is what these games are all about, after all.

And Let’s Go sure does put an emphasis on catching Pokémon. So much so that the random battles are no longer battles. In it’s most controversial, and best, choice, Let’s Go changes the encounter mechanics largely to those of Pokémon Go. Players no longer weaken Pokémon by hitting them prior to throwing a pokeball at it and hoping for the best. Instead, there is a shrinking circle surrounding the wild Pokémon and players time their ball throws, the method of which changes based on the controller in use, to when the circle is as small as possible. The better it’s done, the higher chances of it staying inside your ball. There are also berries that can be fed to the Pokémon for a variety of effects. Some lower the Pokémon’s chance of escape, others make them calm down and stop bouncing around the screen. This invites players catch everyone Pokémon they “battle.”

Add the fact that characters are always challenging and encouraging players to catch as many Pokémon as possible, and you create the most relaxing and entertaining Pokémon game in a decade. Take your time, explore the world, catch 'em all, as they say. Because this is what Nintendo has been advertising for 24 years, a game focused on catching monsters and making friends. Except they actually did it this time. No prior game in the franchise has ever actually done that. Lip service has been paid to it, players have done it, but the games have never encouraged it. This one does.