After over 20 years of waiting, Pokémon fans finally have a new iteration of the beloved cult-classic Pokémon Snap which continues to allow players explore a vastly expanded Pokémon world — but through a whole new lens.
New Pokémon Snap retains that same idea and feel of the 1999 original. It’s an on-rails experience that tasks players to assist Professor Mirror’s research team of photographers by snapping photos of Pokémon residing on the islands of the Lental Region. There’s some returning mechanics including throwing fruit and playing music in order to get Pokémon to strike unique poses or unique interactions. There’s familiar settings, like beaches and volcanos, for players to explore and find region-centric Pokémon. There’s even a big treat for fans with the return of original protagonist Todd to help you along your journey. However, New Pokémon Snap isn’t just a carbon copy as it heavily improves on the original formula and brings it into the modern age of Pokémon.
First and foremost, New Pokémon Snap is the best-looking Pokémon game to date and possibly even one of the best-looking games on Switch. The environments look incredible, and the unique elements of the Lental Region’s ecosystems really shine through. New areas like the bottom of the ocean floor and snowy landscapes bring players into the environments of Pokémon types that weren’t prevalent in the original. The quality of Pokémon photos is greatly improved with the modern graphic engine. The game actually contains real cutscenes that surprisingly look great and are animated well. Best of all, New Pokémon Snap comes equipped with some great photo editing material and social capabilities that players will easily enjoy.
With people being so into photo editing and filters through Instagram and Snapchat, it makes total sense that New Pokémon Snap would offer similar options for players to play around with their Pokémon photos. There’re plenty of fun filters, frames, stickers, and other editing options that players can utilize to create funny and artistic photos and then share them for the community to see. Players can check out each other’s photos and award medals to their favorites. It’s a great, modern addition that not only adds a great sense of connectivity between players and good laugh with how goofy you can make Pokémon look, but it’s also a great motivation tool to win the heart of the community with your Pokémon photos.
New Pokémon Snap also comes with more of a story and a progression system that’s incredibly rewarding with how it expands what players will see on each course. The story of players helping Professor Mirror fill their research tool known as the Photodex and understand a new phenomenon known as Illumina that’s causing Pokémon to have a special glow feels right at home for a Pokémon story. It’s nothing super special but going to a new region for a new professor is much more admirable and original than just going to “Pokémon Island” to hang out with Professor Oak again. It also creates the base for the game’s strong progression system that can seem tediously repetitive at first, but rewards players well with how it remixes the courses and the Pokémon that you’re seeing.
After you complete each course, Professor Mirror ranks your selected photos based on a couple different attributes including how much of the Pokémon is in the photo, if there’re other Pokémon in the photo, and if you capture them in a unique pose. Based on all these qualities, the photo is awarded a star value and score that players can take note of to put the best photos possible into their Photodex. It’s a simple and effective scoring system that’s easy to follow and understand and becomes a strong motivator to find unique interactions and poses from different Pokémon. It all builds to a leveling system for each course that, at first, can be a little repetitive and seemingly slow with how you have to replay levels to progress through the story. However, the game greatly rewards players for their time by adding night and Illumina versions of the level that contain different Pokémon and even remixing the levels to add new content.
As you level up each course, it not only unlocks new courses and islands to explore but adds in new Pokémon and opportunities to see unique interactions. Certain sections of courses can seem hollow at first, but then be slowly filled with Pokémon as you level up each course. For instance, when I first went by a beach area it had small sand dunes with no Pokémon. Then when I leveled the course up and returned, there were Raichu’s (Alola version) sand surfing with their tails and jumping off the dunes. The remixes and additions to levels are such a great element of the progression that keeps things refreshing and adds so much re-playability to the game.
It’s actually impressive how New Pokémon Snap makes replaying levels so rewarding with how surprisingly deep they are. Players can use a scan function to get greater insights on the area and possibly even find hidden paths to see new Pokémon. There’s a really great “request” section where players are tasked with fulfilling the requests of Professor Mirror and other characters that opens up new interactions and keeps your eyes peeled for something special. What really makes New Pokémon Snap’s re-playability so great is that it’s all centered around what makes the Snap series so special.
The whole idea of snapping pics of different Pokémon as they come into frame and getting them to pose or catching an interaction between Pokémon is the Snap games’ bread and butter. It’s all about seeing Pokémon in their natural environments, being amazed by the sheer size and scale of them and understanding how they co-exist outside of battle. New Pokémon Snap exceeds these expectations and standards incredibly well with the uniquely fun interactions between Pokémon. There are these great, organic moments where you might see a Pyukumuku hanging out inside the mouth of a Pelipepper, a Machamp flexing for the camera, or a Wailmer might be getting in the face of an Octillery. Keen-eyed photo bugs with a quick trigger might even catch Pokémon duking it out and if you couldn’t tell from the Pokémon previously named, New Pokémon Snap features Pokémon from multiple generations.
New Pokémon Snap does so much more than add a “new” to the cult classic. It brings the simplistically relaxing idea of taking pictures while on a wild Pokémon safari into the modern age through improved gameplay mechanics and graphic quality while enhancing the experience to create a deeply rewarding and addicting gameplay loop. It’s an absolute must-have for any Pokémon fans and it’s more fun than ever to try and snap them all.
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