With the internet doing its best imitation of Philip J Fry since the Pokemon Go teaser was released, it’s nice to know that we’re not alone.
Come on, Nintendo.
I don’t need to eat, pay my bills, or otherwise be a functioning adult as badly as I need to see a new Pokemon Snap or Pokemon Stadium. The latest iteration of the Stadium games, released on the Wii (nine years ago!) left behind the titling convention and branded itself as Pokemon Battle Revolution. You know what? If I’m being honest, the very last thing I am looking for from Pokemon is revolution, and I’m sure I am not alone in this.
All I want, deep down, is a modest, incremental improvement from the previous year’s outing. Do that and you might as well just send me an annual bill, Nintendo.
A Wii U Pokemon Stadium would be great. The gamepad would allow you to pick your Pokemon without that one friend everybody had (whose dad worked you-know-where) always going second and picking deliberate counters to our choices. You could pass the gamepad back and forth each turn to hide movesets. Modern infrastructure could potentially even allow for a game that can update with the times, downloading new movesets, items and Pokemon from subsequent games!
Although something like that would only really be possible if it could be funded by predatory microtransactions from another game in the franchise… oh wait.
Then again, with the Wii U seemingly dead and buried, it’s more than likely that if we see anything, it’ll be for Nintendo’s next console. That’s fine. I can live with that – especially if the new console doesn’t have friend codes. Get it out the gate early and it’d be a killer app. A bundle in time for next year’s holiday would absolutely swan dive off shelves. We know this, because we’ve seen it happen before.
One the other hand, the Wii U was made for Pokemon Snap! Again: the gamepad! The Miiverse! There are more than seven hundred Pokemon out there now and while catching ‘em all is a mug’s game (unless you have an equal parts enviable and slightly depressing amount of free time on your hands), catching ‘em all on camera is a much more reasonable goal!
After all, Pokemon Snap only included a little over a third eponymous critters, focusing mainly on the smaller and cuter side of things – the sorts of critters that you just can’t help but throw things at.
Expanded courses and ‘mons would be a great avenue for DLC.
And just think of the amiibo Pokemon Snap could interface with! It would give Nintendo a surer platform on which to grapple the attention of kids and collectors away from Skylanders and Disney Infinity.
I’m not asking for a Pokemon MMO or a full 3D Pokemon console game – loads of unanswered letters to Santa and silent birthday wishes have taught me that neither are even going to happen, no matter how awesome they’d be.
A new Pokemon Snap and Pokemon Stadium, though – it’s something Nintendo can and has successfully done before. So get your act together, sort out the licensing issues you may or may not have, and hop to it!
…pretty please, of course.
