Review: For the sake of transparency, I'll go ahead and admit that I love Pokemon. I've loved it since I was a kid, and I'll love the series until the day I die. This is the 4th or 5th time the first generation of Pokemon games has been released for new consoles. This is a very straightforward game. You play a kid who is about to go on a Pokemon journey. In most Pokemon games, you can pick between a fire, water, or grass starter Pokemon. In Let's Go Eevee, you get Eevee. In Let's Go Pikachu, you get Pikachu. This is part of what makes Pokemon Yellow my favorite Pokemon game. It forces you to use a difficult Pokemon to start with, and you really have to know how to adapt against trainers. So, now you have your Pokemon. You have to go across this world to catch Pokemon and fight in gym battles. Winning against a gym leader gets you a gym badge. After you collect 8 of these, you can fight the Elite Four and the Champion.
The storyline is very simple, but fun. I never get tired of running around and catching Pokemon. The controls are different from other Pokemon games. The way you catch Pokemon is more interactive like it is in Pokemon Go. This might turn some people off, but I enjoyed it for the most part. I think it could have used a bit of fine tuning, but it was still fun to experience catching Pokemon in a new way. The biggest problem I have is that the game automatically cycles through the different Pokeballs you have in your inventory. This isn't a terribly big deal, but I almost accidentally used my Master Ball on a Pidgey which, if you know anything about Pokemon, is like a mortal sin. I think that for very rare items like Master Balls, you should have to go into your inventory and actually select the item like in the old games. Just so mistakes like mine don't happen.
One thing I was surprised about was how differently I played Let's Go Eevee compared to past games. Usually, when I want to train my Pokemon and level them up, I would find trainers to fight and get experience that way. I didn't go out of my way to catch Pokemon unless I was shiny hunting or filling up my Pokedex. In this game, I did the opposite. I avoided trainers for the most part and I just caught Pokemon constantly. I felt like this was a better way of getting experience, especially if you catch the same Pokemon numerous times in a row, and I just loved this activity. It never got old for me.
The biggest downside to this game is the lack of after game content. Once you beat the Champion, and become the Champion yourself, you get very little afterwards. You can beat the Elite Four and gym leaders again. There are people known as Master Trainers who specialize in a specific Pokemon. Let's use Eevee as an example. You will come across a character who has an Eevee ~level 70. You have to also have an Eevee around that level in order to fight this trainer. If you win, you get the title of Eevee Master Trainer. As much as I love Pokemon, I'm not going to raise a Pidgey or Caterpie to level 70 just to have this title. Hard pass.
Overall, an enjoyable experience with beautiful graphical updates. Can't wait to see how this idea grows into future Pokemon games.
4 howls
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