22 years, 4 consoles and mountains upon mountains of hype is what separates New Pokémon Snap from it's distant predecessor. So after all these years of waiting and technological progress; what does this long awaited sequel offer? Pretty much exactly the same thing, but in detramental amounts of it.
I think simple and charming games like Pokémon Snap really benefit from being shorter. That way the game ends before you even get the chance to want more out of the gameplay. Bandai Namco however decided to try and min-max the amount of gametime that could be squeezed out of such a simple premise.
The result is a game that manages to be just as fun, vibrant and relaxing as the original N64 classic; while at the same time
marred by grinding segments that led me to put the game down for an extended period of time.
For instance, each pokédex entry have four slots that are dedicated for four different poses each pokémon can do. However you can only register one photo from each time you do a course. Meaning that you have to play a course at least four times inorder to fill all four slots for one pokémon. This is just annoying as it arbitrarily adds to the games total runtime through grinding. This is most apparent with the illumina pokémon that act as this games Mew courses. Now the final course in the original game brought a nice finality to it, but it was also without a doubt the dullest course of them all. You only did it once and that was it. That's why it boggles my mind that Bandai Namco decided to add five more of these courses in the sequel. One was more than enough, six is just borderline sadistic.
In the end, I had fun and the game delivered almost everything I wanted, albeit a bit to much of it at times. Pokémon Snap is a perfect example of 'less is more', that unfortunately it's successor never learned from.
I think simple and charming games like Pokémon Snap really benefit from being shorter. That way the game ends before you even get the chance to want more out of the gameplay. Bandai Namco however decided to try and min-max the amount of gametime that could be squeezed out of such a simple premise.
The result is a game that manages to be just as fun, vibrant and relaxing as the original N64 classic; while at the same time
marred by grinding segments that led me to put the game down for an extended period of time.
For instance, each pokédex entry have four slots that are dedicated for four different poses each pokémon can do. However you can only register one photo from each time you do a course. Meaning that you have to play a course at least four times inorder to fill all four slots for one pokémon. This is just annoying as it arbitrarily adds to the games total runtime through grinding. This is most apparent with the illumina pokémon that act as this games Mew courses. Now the final course in the original game brought a nice finality to it, but it was also without a doubt the dullest course of them all. You only did it once and that was it. That's why it boggles my mind that Bandai Namco decided to add five more of these courses in the sequel. One was more than enough, six is just borderline sadistic.
In the end, I had fun and the game delivered almost everything I wanted, albeit a bit to much of it at times. Pokémon Snap is a perfect example of 'less is more', that unfortunately it's successor never learned from.