Michael Crider
Back in the late 90s, Pokémon fever had gripped the world, and the only cure was more Pokemon. Nintendo rushed to make sequels to the ultra-popular games, but worked on spinoffs too. One was Pokémon Snap, an N64 game that had you taking wildlife photos instead of catching monsters. After more than 20 years, Pokémon Snap is returning on the Switch.
New Pokémon Snap was announced with a brief trailer on YouTube this morning, part of a slew of announcements for new and existing Pokemon games. The new version of the game seems to have gameplay almost identical to the original, with the protagonist roaming untamed wilds in his bubble-mobile searching for Pokémon in their natural habitat. You shoot photos of unusual creatures or behavior, getting graded on things like photo composition.
The Pokémon Snap portion of the video starts at around 5:20.
It’s a fun and conflict-free take on Pokémon , with the focus more on the creatures than the battling and training. And fans of the series will be ecstatic to get the chance to check out their favorite monsters in this way—when the first Pokémon Snap game came out, only the original 150 Pokémon were available. Now there are almost 900.
Pokémon Company CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara was mum on more concrete details, and there’s no mention of an expected release date—that probably means 2021 at the earliest.
