A relaxing and nostalgic game released shortly before Pokémon Stadium was the first 3D Pokémon experience outside of battles. The only major flaw is that it doesn't feature all 151 Pokémon for interaction.

Another game I've played a couple times but replayed so I could talk about it on Backloggd. There's a bunch of stuff I wouldn't mind revisiting like this, but I'll try not to run through a bunch of 'em all at once. Variety is the spice of life, and all that. Anyway, I'd sorta been meaning to revisit the original, especially after playing through New Pokémon Snap a couple years back.

As I've mentioned before, I was there for Pokémania since the day the anime started its regular broadcast, but I had limited access to the video games themselves. Pokémon Snap is actually one of the few games I played when it was new, thanks to those wonderful Blockbuster kiosks. I think most people reading this will be familiar with them, but just in case: video rental chain Blockbuster Video had a special promotional deal with Nintendo, where they created modified demo versions of Pokémon Snap (and later Pokémon Stadium) to play in arcade-like cabinets. It's been so long that I don't remember entirely how the kiosks were different, apart from the fact that for a couple bucks, you could print out stickers of the photos you took (something I was never able to do). I also seem to remember that you could only play the Beach course, but I don't know if that's a false memory, or if that was just the game at my particular store, or what's up with that. I don't think these demo versions had that much functionality limited?

While not the first Pokémon spin-off produced - heck, it's reusing the models and animations created for the Japanese Pokémon Stadium - Pokémon Snap is the first spin-off released stateside (excluding Smash Bros.). You can't really credit Snap for Pokémania - the one-two-three punch of the anime, the games, and the Trading Card Game are more responsible. But Snap very much embodied Pokémania for me. Conventional wisdom suggests that a photo safari sort of game is not the most enticing hook for general audiences (which is probably why the original "Jack and the Beanstalk" concept never took off). But a Pokémon photo safari? The chance to see these fantasy creatures everyone's talking about just doing their own thing in a world? Now there's your hook!

Pokémon Snap is a short, simple game, actually very much in line with the arcade mentality the demo kiosks would suggest. This isn't to say there isn't any depth; to the contrary, each course is filled with plenty of secret interactions that the player has to puzzle out. I like that a decent amount of Pokémon are tied to puzzles that rely upon the player's curiosity or familiarity with series lore, as is the case with Magneton, Slowbro, Ditto, and Gyarados. I also always forget that the player can't see Haunter, but the camera renders it in full - such a cool way of integrating a ghost into this adventure. But by and large, the game's content to let the player play with a portion of the original 151 Pokémon for a little bit over the course of seven short stages before calling it a day. There's not a ton to do besides go for high scores, but for the scope the game sets out for itself, it's a great little time.

With Blockbuster long gone, most of those old kiosks have ended up in private collections. But at some point in my teenage years, deep into the Wii era, the hospital in my hometown got their hands on one, too. For years, whenever my family had to bring my sister or brother or myself in for a check-up, I'd see it in the pediatric waiting room, there for anyone to play. I've always hoped that whatever the kids waiting there were dealing with, maybe a fun little adventure with Pokémon Snap would help ease things a little bit.

This game was it.

Years and years of bad Pokemon releases and we were missing the point all along. This game is just. Fun. And it kinda has no right to be. But it is. And it had the perfect formula for sequels too. Go to stages to get abilities that open up more of the stage which leads to more things, rinse and repeat.

It always felt so magical playing this game when you'd figure out some secret yourself or find the way to get a really high score for a pokemon because more than anything it's a game of puzzles and secrets.

Honestly I haven't played enough of New Pokemon Snap to know if it recaptures that magic but if it doesn't, that's a real shame, because this game really is one of a kind and I wish it wasn't. This could be mainline Pokemon and I'd be happy.