The Pokémon Company has made a few announcements during its Twitter retelling of the latest Pokémon Video Games Press Conference.
Pokémon Quest is a new “free-to-start” game that allows players to control a team of up to three pokémon as you explore Tumblecube Island. Players will use new items called Power Cubes to power up the members of their three pokémon team.
The game will be a Diablo-esque title where battles are fought in real time. The player's team will move autonomously with the player controlling when attacks are made. Tweets about the game do not hint at any narrative elements of the game. However, the Pokémon Company’s tweets did say that players will be exploring Tumblecube Island to find many different secrets including treasure, secret items, and new pokémon to add to the player’s roster of available teammates.
Pokémon Quest is available now for the Nintendo Switch and will be coming soon to mobile devices.
Also announced were the long—anticipated Pokémon titles for the Nintendo Switch, now revealed to be Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee!. The games are fully 3D and will take place in the Kanto Region, just like the first generation of Pokemon games. The new Switch titles are based off Pokémon Yellow: Special Pikachu Edition, which was released after the first games in the series, where players were given the opportunity to play as Ash from the Pokémon anime, complete with a Pikachu that followed the player around. Depending on which game the player chooses, they will have either a Pikachu or an Eevee either riding on their shoulder or on their head throughout the new game.
The new games will be incorporating elements of the popular mobile game Pokémon Go into the gameplay as well as adding new features. Players will get to throw pokeballs with their Joy Cons or with the new accessory, the Pokéball Plus. This spherical accessory to the Pokémon game is shaped like a regular pokéball but has a joystick in its center and a button on the top of the ball. Players will throw their pokéballs at wild pokémon on a screen very similar to the screens used in Pokémon Go, complete with a thin, shrinking target circle that grants a bonus to the capture rate if the player can throw the pokéball inside the bounds of the circle. The Let's Go games will not have traditional wild pokémon battles like previous titles and will only include wild pokémon capture.
Another feature of the game is the ability for cooperative play, using the second Joy Con controller. Both players will have an on-screen avatar that can freely move around the screen. When capturing wild pokémon, both players will throw their pokéballls at the wild pokémon. When battling trainers, the two trainers will play a doubles match, teaming up against their opponent.
Running into wild pokémon is different in this game as well. Instead of entering into a battle screen while wandering through certain terrain types, now wild pokémon walk around the map, and players can choose which ones to engage with. Wild pokémon have Combat Points (CP) like in Pokemon Go.
According to Serebii, the original 151 pokémon will return in the Let's Go games along with a few Alolan pokémon.
The new Switch games will connect with the Pokémon Go mobile game, allowing mobile trainers to catch Kanto region pokémon and bring them into the Switch games. Players of the Switch games will also be able to send a gift to their Pokémon Go game as well, but the Pokémon Company has decided to keep that gift a mystery for now. This will be a never before seen pokémon introduced in Pokémon: Let's Go.
Image from Twitter
The Pokéball Plus even has some functionality outside of the main games. Players can put a pokémon into the ball and walk with it, similar to the Pokéwalker, which was a pokéball shaped pedometer released with 2010’s Pokémon HeatGold and Pokémon SoulSilver that allowed a single pokémon to “walk” with the player outside the game to earn experience points. It is unclear how using the Pokéball Plus outside the game will affect gameplay. The device will function as a controller for the Switch games and as a Pokémon Go Plus, a Bluetooth device that allows Pokémon Go players to play without keeping their phones out constantly by vibrating when pokémon are nearby and available to catch.
Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu!, Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee!, and the Pokéball Plus will all be available November 16, 2018.
Just because the series has switched over to a new, more powerful console, the Pokémon Company is not planning on slowing the pace of their releases. A new main series title is already in development for a release in the second half of 2019.
Sources: Twitter, Serebii, YouTube
Image: Twitter
