Mainline Pokemon Games Need to Use New Pokemon Snap's Best Feature
New Pokemon Snap is officially out in the wild now and is captivating Switch owners all across the globe. Set as a follow-up to the 1999 classic, this new game features several levels that evolve the more player explores them and feature plenty of Pokemon to take pictures of. New Pokemon Snap's levels are gorgeous, from dense jungles to beautiful underwater reefs, and it's clear Bandai Namco went all out in designing the world for players to capture in this long-awaited sequel.
As more and more fans are diving into this beautiful world, people are realizing that there are a lot of differences between New Pokemon Snap and the mainline Pokemon titles, and that the mainline titles could learn a thing or two from New Pokemon Snap.
New Pokemon Snap is, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful takes on the world of Pokemon out there. Despite being an on-rails game, the environments that players travel through are beautifully crafted and a marvel to behold. Both long-term fans and newcomers to the series can't help but be captivated by the the scenic routes they take along your their journey. Those with experience with the rest of the Pokemon series have not been able to experience such scenes in any game prior to this one.
Granted, there is a large difference between creating an on-rails section that lasts no more than a couple minutes and a full game comprised of many different routes. However, one cannot help but think back to the graphics controversy surrounding Pokemon Sword and Shield, and how the environments in those two titles were disappointing to many fans. This may have many fans wondering if New Pokemon Snap could create these beautiful scenes, why couldn't Game Freak create something that looks at least half as good?
Expectations for Pokemon Legends: Arceus are certainly high considering its blatant comparisons to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and New Pokemon Snap is pushing those expectations even higher. Breath of the Wild had sprawling, beautiful landscapes that enraptured fans as they explored the post-Calamity Hyrule. While Bandai Namco developed New Pokemon Snap, Game Freak needs to continue the trend Bandai created with its beautiful world and apply that to Pokemon Legends: Arceus.
Fans want Legends to be the revolutionary game that changes the Pokemon franchise, much in the same way that Breath of the Wild did for The Legend of Zelda. It'll be hard to shake off the past without really doing a graphical overhaul. So far, all fans have seen from Legends is early footage, and while it looks very stylish, it needs to take the world one step further and make it truly breathtaking.
The biggest and most compelling part of New Pokemon Snap is seeing the wild Pokemon in their natural habitat, whether that be wandering around, sleeping, eating, or even interacting with other Pokemon. While this seems like a small and insignificant detail at first, these animations and interactions help the world feel alive. Comparing these to the Sword and Shield animations of Pokemon just aimlessly wandering in the grass, and it's nearly night and day.
In the first explorable area in New Pokemon Snap, there's a chance players will stumble upon a couple Tailow bullying a Wurmple, or if players level up their Exploration Rank high enough, they can find a showdown between Pinsir and Heracross. Players who love reading the Pokedex entries know that there are tons of interactions between different Pokemon species, and New Pokemon Snap fully capitalizes on that. This is the absolute biggest feature that future Pokemon titles should build upon.
Not only is it really cool to see Pokemon interacting with each other out in the world, but it makes the world feel much more interesting and truly immersive. The Pokedex tells of stories of different Pokemon species clashing, or Pokemon exhibiting specific behaviors, but it's always been a "telling" of the behavior and never a "showing" of it. It's time for future Pokemon games to show how cool these Pokemon really are, instead of simply telling us in a subsection of the game that some players don't even read.
This gameplay concept can be executed in a number of ways, and it's been slowly built up over the years in the mainline games, but never to the extent that New Pokemon Snap highlights. In Sword and Shield, fans saw the largest step forward at the time with the Wild Area and all the Pokemon wandering there. Pokemon on routes would wander up, or even chase them, which was a big step forward from previous titles. Now, it's time to take it one step farther. It's great to have Pokemon interact with the player in the limited degree that they did in Sword and Shield, but it needs to be more than just the player. They should interact with other Pokemon throughout the world. A great example would be a Pokemon like Sharpedo.
In Sword and Shield's Isle of Armor DLC, Sharpedo would vigilantly chase the player whenever they navigated the ocean. In New Pokemon Snap, they pestered and chased all manner of Pokemon around. They even had a swimming race against a Machamp that was a joy to watch. Game Freak has taken the first steps in making this a reality in mainline Pokemon games, but it needs more, and New Pokemon Snap is the new baseline for which these types of interactions will be compared to.
New Pokemon Snap thrives when it shows the player all the different Pokemon in the world in their natural habitats, a thing that Game Freak has truly failed to capture in all mainline Pokemon games up to this point. Considering the raving reviews for New Pokemon Snap, clearly Bandai Namco did something right in their follow-up to the beloved 1999 game. Many players delight in finding new interactions between Pokemon and new behaviors that had previously gone unnoticed, and those small details deserve to be introduced into the mainline series going forward - and Pokemon Legends: Arceus is the perfect place to start.
New Pokemon Snap is available now exclusively for Nintendo Switch.
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