As some of you may recall, I've been a Pokemon fan since the very beginning. I very badly sung the anime theme song at my school assembly, I hobbled over the lucky kids who had a GameBoy playing Pokemon Red or Blue, and even got a short try at one, but it was many years later that I got it. I saved up for a year to get Pokemon Gold, then all the others, and then, for no reason, my mother bought me Pokemon Yellow. I finally had a Pikachu of my own, and seeing his happy face on the screen made me more happier than I can describe in one paragraph. I achieved that exact same feeling when I started Let's Go Pikachu.
You play as Chase or Elaine (or as your own chosen name); a fresh faced Pokemon trainer wannabe new to Pallet Town. You and your childhood rival Trace (or whatever name you chose for him) are going to the Pallet Town Lab to receive your own Pokemon, but Professor Oak is nowhere to be found. Finding him in the grass, a wild Pikachu or Eevee comes out of nowhere, and your story starts there.
To anyone who has played the original or remakes of Gen 1 Pokemon, you can immediately notice the story similarities, but there are small differences here and there, which I'll let you discover on your own. If you do pick up LG Pikachu, the game will feel more like Pokemon Yellow than anything. The game is treated as a soft reboot, but there are plenty of callbacks to the original gen.
Gameplay wise is of course, your natural Pokemon RPG with the new added element of catching pokemon outright. Players finding wild pokemon will automatically begin to capture pokemon instead of battling them traditionally. You can use berries to make them calmer or more loving to you, then use whatever pokeball of your choice to try and capture them. Using the Switch, you can track them with motion controls and throw the ball by pressing A. But worry not! Catching Pokemon levels up your pokemon regardless of battling or no. This is where the game is much more forgiving than previous titles; players can level up all their pokemon without the need of any extras by catching pokemon and battling trainers. This makes playing the game a lot more easier by keeping your dream team with you throughout the game. There are also a smaller mini-game where you can play with Pikachu. Put into a first person mode, you you can interact with your Pikachu or Eevee by feeding them berries, patting them, poking their tail, ears or cheeks, or simply by playing small pattern games like patty cake. It adds a real level of detail and love into what you can do, but I do wish you could do it with other pokemon.
The graphics of the game look absolutely stunning; player characters to the pokemon in the world look incredible and suit the art style tremendously. The music is utterly phenomenal and redone with an entire orchestra (which explains the Braxton Burkes situation a few years back) which sounds gorgeous alongside the scenary.
Finally I want to mention the Poke Ball Plus. While it's not a necessity for the game (and it can be a small hinderance admittedly), I cannot express enough how it fulfilled a childhood dream of mine. Using the small analog stick, you can control your character to roam the world, and when capturing a pokemon, you throw the ball. The ball, in turn, vibrates to indicate the Pokemon being caught, it makes noises depending on who is caught or if your main is inside it or not, and it lights up depending on the pokemon's colour, or if the catch was successful or not. The Poke Ball only can operate with A and B, which makes other options (changing your pokemon move order, checking party, etc) much harder. There is also the issue of A being the joystick button: I have wiped out new moves I wanted more than once due to a slight decline on the stick pressing A. In retrospect, the top B button should have been swapped, but hopefully this is fixed in a controller patch, or can be remapped.
The game has cause a lot of controversy with the older crowd due to being so different from previous titles, but personally speaking, I've adored this game and enjoyed my time thus far into it. The compatibility with Pokemon Go is the icing on top to transfer your pokemon over into the game. There are a few frame rate issues when using a Lure (attract pokemon to your area), as the animations of all the wild pokemon on screen can really slow down the frame rate, but I haven't seen any other bugs like this otherwise.
Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee is a chance to introduce newcomers into the world of Pokemon and for older fans to relive their childhoods in a new and more calming way. This game is what we envisioned as children on the playground.
Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu: 9/10
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