Yesterday, The Pokemon Company began its 25th anniversary celebration for the video game series turned multimedia phenomenon with an announcement that it would be doing a musical collaboration with artists like Katy Perry. However, the original infodump was short on any news about the Pokemon video game side of things, but Nintendo isn’t being as quiet out the gate for Pokemon’s anniversary like it was for Super Mario’s last year, and has confirmed New Pokemon Snap is coming to the Switch on April 30. And yes, I guess we’re sticking with that name, huh?
The announcement came alongside a new trailer of the photography simulator in motion, beginning with the main character acquiring the camera they’ll be using to take pictures of Pokemon all around the Lental region, a new setting in the Pokemon world made for New Pokemon Snap. Based on the trailer, it looks like the game is going to be almost identical to the 1999 Nintendo 64 original, with you moving through an area on a rail, taking pictures of Pokemon in their natural habitat as you pass them by. You’ll be able to throw fruit at the monsters to grab their attention and maybe get a better posed shot. Or, if the original was anything to go by, you’ll be able to use these fruits to disrupt them in certain ways that might result in some of the Pokemon evolving, allowing you to get photos of Pokemon you didn’t see your first time through.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mq8Kn6mhUxA
You’ll also be able to customize your character’s skin tone, but it looks like hairstyles might be lacking this time around. Character customization has become a staple in mainline Pokemon games like Sword and Shield, but looks like everyone’s got one hairstyle and outfit at the outset for New Pokemon Snap.
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While New Pokemon Snap is exciting, especially after the original game is over 20 years old at this point, hopefully there are more Pokemon game announcements to come in 2021 to really fill up the 25th anniversary year. Since Sword and Shield were the last mainline games in the series and are only a year old, it’s probably unlikely that we get a full blown new generation of Pokemon to commemorate the year. But it is possible we might see the long-rumored remakes of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, which were the fourth pair of games in the series that launched in 2006. The three preceding pair of games games have all gotten the remake treatment in years past, leading fans to speculate Diamond and Pearl might be next. Pearl was one of my favorite games in the series, so seeing it made up pretty on the Switch is a dream game for me.
Either that, or the Detective Pikachu game that was announced for Switch would be nice, Nintendo. Please and thank you.
