Hello all. I hope that everyone is doing their best to stay safe during the current COVID-19 pandemic. I thought I'd spend part of this evening writing about something I did during the course of the last three days.
It all began that morning a couple of days ago when I decided to purchase and download the digital version of Pokemon: Let's Go, Pikachu onto my Nintendo Switch Lite. Once I had it, I took a break from Pokemon Sword and began the task of playing through the game from start to end. Now that I've pretty much beaten the game, I kind of feel like, well...it feels like I'm coming down from a bad acid trip (not that I have an actual experience with what that's like).
Actually, I probably shouldn't be that negative. I guess it probably feels that way because I became a little too obsessed with achieving my goal within Let's Go, Pikachu. The game did have its fun moments, but it was not the best game that the Pokemon Company has ever come out with. Anyway, I'm going to use this post to share a little of what my experience playing Let's Go, Pikachu was like. Before I get into that though, I'm guessing that there might be at least a couple of you out there wondering why I'd bother playing a game from the previous generation now that we're in the age of Sword & Shield. Well there are two good reasons why those of you playing Sword and Shield might want to try one of the Let's Go games.
If you have a save file from Let's Go, Pikachu or Let's Go, Eevee, you'll be able to get either a special Gigantamax Pikachu or Gigantamax Eevee depending on what version of the game you have. That was my initial reason for wanting to give Let's Go, Pikachu a try. A couple of times playing Sword, I got in on some Internet Max Raids as a supporting player and the player hosting the raid used a G-Max Pikachu. I eventually decided that I really wanted a Pikachu like that of my own.
Using the free version of Pokemon HOME, you can transfer certain Pokemon from the Let's Go games into Sword or Shield: Pokemon that you wouldn't normally be able to get in said games. In my case, I used this trick to transfer over the original Kantonian version of Rapidash, as well as the Alolan forms of Diglett and Raichu (available as in-game trades). Of course the best part of this setup is that you're (or will be) able to transfer over the Legendary Pokemon from Let's Go into Sword or Shield. As soon as I was done business in Let's Go, Pikachu I transferred the Mewtwo I managed to catch into Sword. Later this year, once they finally release the Crown Tundra expansion for Sword and Shield, I'll be able to transfer over the Kanto Bird Trio members I caught in Let's Go into Sword. Of course the Bird Trio is going to be available in the Crown Tundra expansion from the beginning, but they're apparently going to have Galarian forms, so this is a way to get their original Kantonian forms into the game as well.
That should pretty much explain why I decided to do this crazy thing, so let's get into my actual game experience. Traveling through Kanto like that again was kind of a fun trip down memory lane, yet at the same time it was somehow like looking at major piece of my high school years reflected in a funhouse mirror. Everything about the game had a sort of cartoonish quality to is that I can't quite describe. I can't help but wonder if that's because these games were aimed at a younger target audience than the normal games. It also felt like everything in the game was just a tad too bright, which might be why I ended up getting some pretty nasty migraines from playing it a couple of times (though that might be because I had been playing the game too long).
Let's Go, Pikachu is actually more like Pokemon Yellow 2.0 then like a basic remake of the original Red and Blue games. This means it includes characters from the anime such as Officer Jenny, Nurse Joy, and of course the incompetent Team Rocket duo of Jessie and James. What makes this game different from the original Yellow version is that the game's main Pikachu is very much the indispensable 'mon rather than just a gimmick.
The Pikachu that the player starts out the game with ends of learning five Secret Techniques that takes place of the old HM moves of Cut, Fly, Surf, Strength and Flash. The nice thing about these Secret Techniques is that they aren't actual Pokemon attacks and thus don't take up any move slots, which was the worst aspect of the old HMs. Of course some of these Secret Techniques were a little on the goofy side. The technique serving as the replacement for Cut had Pikachu slashing down inconvenient shrubs with his tail, and it made total sense that an electric rodent could learn a technique to light up a pitch-black tunnel (a Pikachu was usually the Pokemon I'd teach Flash to in the Gen. 1 games). Then we get to the Secret Techniques that replace Fly and Surf. The Technique that's the equivalent of Fly involves Pikachu operating this rig that has a bunch of balloons attached, and the Surf Technique has you and your Pikachu riding a long surfboard across the water. As for the Secret Technique that takes the place of Strength, Pikachu glows with this orange aura and slams into stone blocks with his rear, which is actually kind of funny to watch.
These Secret Techniques aren't the only things that make the Pikachu in Let's Go, Pikachu so indispensable though. For instance during the part of the game's story where the player raids Team Rocket's hideout in Celadon City, the player must send Pikachu into the vents to retrieve the important key the operates the elevator. The Pikachu in this game also learns some pretty powerful special attacks that are unique only to Let's Go, Pikachu. Two of these attacks are obvious tributes to the Flying and Surfing forms of Pikachu from the original Yellow Version (and I guess those Secret Techniques are tributes to those forms as well). The third special move that Pikachu learns is a powerful Electric-Type attack that always strikes first, always lands a critical hit, and shows what might happen if one were to shoot Pikachu from a railgun. In fact this attack proved instrumental in defeating and catching the game's Mewtwo. The only unfortunate thing about this powerful attack is its name, Zippy Zap.
On the subject of catching Pokemon in this game, the way it's done is probably one of my least favorite parts of it. Instead of battling wild Pokemon in this game, the player simply throws Poke Balls at the critter in question and hope that it stays in. The player also has to try and get the ball into the middle of this shrinking circle that repeatedly appears over the Pokemon. I'm not sure if the success of getting the ball into the middle of this circle affect the odds of the Pokemon staying in the ball, but it does seem to affect the EXP points that the Pokemon on the player's team gets after the capture's complete. Of course catching the Legendary Pokemon in Let's Go is a little different.
With the Legendary Pokemon and Snorlax, you have to defeat them in battle before you can try catching them like the normal wild Pokemon in that game. While these battles are for the most part like the normal wild Pokemon battles that have been around for years and are thankfully back in Sword and Shield, they also have a time limit of five minutes. If the Legendary Pokemon in question (or Snorlax) isn't defeated within that time limit, it runs away. I was able to defeat the members of the Kanto Bird Trio well before the time limit expired, but Mewtwo was a different story. I basically had to reset two or three times and rely on my Pikachu's Zippy Zap attack, which was the only Pokemon move at my disposal that could do significant damage to him. Unfortunately Mewtwo's Psychic attack took out my little guy with one hit, so I was forced to use another Pokemon as a shield to buy time while I used a Revive, sent out Pikachu again to do more damage, and prayed that Mewtwo wouldn't use Recover.
Once Mewtwo was defeated, catching him actually proved a little easier. The Master Ball was still the way to go. It was just a matter of throwing it at the exact right moment. In the Let's Go games, Mewtwo will every now and then put up a barrier that blocks Poke Balls, so I had to wait for the exact moment when that barrier went down. I knew that the ball would work when the game played this cool animation of Mewtwo trying to bat the ball away, only for it to fly back and suck him in.
There were other negatives to Let's Go, Pikachu besides the rather annoying capture system for wild Pokemon and the time limit on Legendary Pokemon battles. Leveling up Pokemon proved to be incredibly difficult because most of the trainer battles had a pretty low EXP yields, and most of the wild Pokemon catches were no better. Pokemon from Gen. 2 and beyond were totally unavailable. Also, the Pokemon could not use hold items and they had no abilities. Basically it's like they took Pokemon Yellow and improved upon it while ignoring everything they did in the Gen. 2 and beyond games.
All that said though, Let's Go, Pikachu did do some things right. For one thing the game's soundtrack was pretty well done, especially the themes for Lavender Town and its Pokemon Tower. On that note, the way they revamped the Pokemon Tower event with the Marowak ghost was pretty cool. There were some other neat little touches added to the game as well, such as the basement of the mansion on Cinnabar Island containing the tank that Mewtwo had originally been born in. Of course it would've been better if the front of the tank had been shattered, but oh well. Another cool little cosmetic touch was that Giovanni's room at the Viridian City Gym was essentially a throne room.
One other positive about Let's Go, Pikachu is that it's possible to use the unfortunately discontinued Mega Evolution gimmick originally introduced in Gen. 6. The only big difference is that the player simply needs to have the Mega Stone used to trigger the evolution in their bag rather than have the Pokemon in question hold it.
There's one other part of Let's Go Pikachu I should mention, an event that was triggered after I finally captured Mewtwo. Right as I was leaving Cerulean Cave, my rival in the game ran up to me and told me that some girl had gone into the cave to try and catch Mewtwo. So I had to go all the way back into the cave to the spot where Mewtwo was, and there I found the girl in question. This girl was the character known as Green from the old Pokemon Adventures manga series, and the first thing she did was throw a Poke Ball at me because she mistook me for Mewtwo. I then had to battle Green, and when I defeated her she threw five more Poke Balls in my face before leaving.
That would be the part where a drug-induced nightmare hallucination like this game has been a bit would end. Of course I didn't end my play of the game at that point. Before finally transferring my newly acquired Mewtwo into Sword, I decided to take him into an Elite Four rematch so I could try out one of his Mega Evolutions.
I think that pretty much wraps it up. I'd like to thank any of you who read this long rambling post of mine from beginning to end. I guess I mainly wrote this for me as a way to help process this little odyssey of mine. As for what sort of rating I'd give Let's Go, Pikachu, I'd probably have to say 3.5 out of 5. It's not the best Pokemon game ever made, but it has its fun aspects, and right now it's the best way to get certain Pokemon not available in Sword and Shield.
