Let's Go Write a Pastebin

A "Hater's" Guide to Let's Go Pikachu

== It's Gen 1 All Over Again ==

Nothing is more played out in Pokemon than Kanto. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of every game having to be plastered with references to gen 1. In X/Y, remember snorlax blocking the way? Remember power plants? Remember the starters? Remember these gen 1 pokemon? They get meeeegas! In Sun/Moon, remember gen 1 pokemon? They're alolan now! But only gen 1 pokemon. Remember gen 1? Remember Red? Remember Blue? They're back now!

So what can be more gen 1 than a gen 1 remake? Nothing. Let's Go brings us back to the original 151. Again. And brings us back to Kanto. Again. And brings us back to Pikachu. Again.

Let's Go is a boring remake. It doesn't even have new postgame stuff like FRLG did with the Sevii Islands. So, ok, in terms of amount of content it's already inferior to a GBA remake of gen 1. We're off to a good start here, bois.

== Motion Controls ==

Almost no one likes motion controls. At best, they don't get in the way. At worst, you have rolling in DKCR.
Let's Go falls somewhere between these two extremes, but the motion controls feel so unnecessary.  You could argue they're required because of how they butchered catching pokemon (which I'll talk about later), but they could have come up with a way to do the same minigame with a controller.

And because it requires motion controllers, you can't use certain controller types with the game. Like at all. What the heck? Yeah, lets make a game you can't use the pro controller with, that sounds like a good idea.

Oh, I forgot though, that's not a valid argument because if you own a pro controller you're clearly not the "target audience" so it's automatically immune to such complaints. Nice.

== Gotta GO Catch Em All ==

Let's Go was obviously meant to capitalize on the popularity (well, the popularity 2 years ago....) of Pokemon GO. The dull, soulless mobile app that turns collecting Pokemon into an Exciting Chore. Naturally, who wouldn't want its mechanics in their console Pokemon game?

Catching in Pokemon GO is an exercise in tedium. This is because it is a free product and the way to monetize is to get you to buy things to make catching and managing pokemon less tedious. So naturally, replacing EVERY NON TRAINER BATTLE with a Pokemon GO minigame seems like a horrible decision.

Pokemon games have always gotten easier as generations march on, but this decision removes literally any tension over being in a new route. The grass is no longer threatening in any way, no random encounter can give you a status or tax your PP or even damage you at all. There is no longer any difficulty at all in random encounters. The worst that can happen is the Pokemon runs away.

And to make sure it ripples through the entire game's design in the worst possible way, catching Pokemon gives you tons of experience. And later on you need to have caught 50 species to challenge a gen. So the game itself pushes you towards the no-consequences-at-all way of playing.

== No Random Encounters ==

This is fine in this particular game. But that's only because they ALREADY removed any tension of wild pokemon by removing battles altogther. If this was in a mainline game, it would be remove any tension there, too.

Random encounters seems to be the bugbear of many a gamer, but I think that's a pretty bad take. Random encounters serve several purposes:
1. A sense of tension whenever you step into tall grass. You know you might run into a battle at any point.
2. An element of uncertainty. You don't know what Pokemon you're running into until you're in the battle. This is important because otherwise you could just skip any Pokemon your party leader can't easily beat.
3. Resource management. Sure, you can skip encounters with repels, but you have to buy them. Sure, you could fight every encounter, but you might run out of PP or faint. You might get so weakened you lose to the next trainer! Letting you walk past pokemon in the overworld removes any decisionmaking here.

Are there ways to make it work? I'm sure there are. But the way Let's GO works is not that.

== EXP Share ==

Another aspect of Pokemon games getting easier for people over time has been the way EXP Share works. Used to split your experience. Then it just started giving everyone bonus EXP. Let's GO makes it way worse. You CANNOT turn it off.

Even if you want to do a more challenging run, you are NO LONGER able to. What the heck?

Having it on by default makes sense if you want the game to be easier, but not having it be toggleable is really, really bad. I mean, why not? Are they afraid some kid is going to go into the menu, turn it off, and then he might *gasp* lose a trainer battle?

== Gym Requirements ==

This was meant to be a feature to stop casuals from getting their butts kicked, but its so hamfisted and the game is already so easy I'm pretty sure this will just annoy EVERYONE, hardcore and casual fan alike. This is such a mind-bogglingly bad way to achieve a goal that doesn't really matter.

== Not Just Easier, But Dumbed Down ==

There's a big difference between making things easier and dumbing things down. Gen 6 and 7 made the games easier by making it easier to get levels, making trainers have less Pokemon, and making trainer levels lower.

Let's GO is different in that it doesn't *just* make things easier, it dumbs the game down. It makes things easier by giving your starter really strong new moves that add a ton of coverage, and enemy trainers have fewer moves to choose from. Like, the champion's pokemon don't even have a full 4 move slots, they only have 3 moves!

But, the devs condescendingly also think their players are not capable of anything other than mashing the attack button.

Held items? Too complicated for casuals.
Abilities? Too complicated for casuals.
Breeding? Too complicated for casuals.
MOST OF THE MOVES IN THE GAME? I guess they're too complicated for casuals.

You could try to argue that they removed these things for a more pure gen 1 experience or something. But you would be wrong. They added alolan forms and megas, so that's obviously not an important factor for the game.

== Mythical Meltan ==

I hated Pokemon Ranger. I hated that it was the only way to get Manaphy for a long time. Having to play a spin-off game to complete your Pokedex is sleazy and terrible. Literally the only fun part about it was streaming how ridiculous that game was.

Let's Go is basically Pokemon Ranger in that regard. Hey kids, want a Meltan? Well make sure to buy this game. And also play the mobile game. Because if you don't do *both*, you can't get it.

I'm sure Meltan will be given away eventually in gen 8 (possibly LATE gen 8), but these cross-promotions never feel good.

== Its Just a Spin-Off!1!1! ==

I've heard people act like Let's GO is in the same category of game as Snap, Mystery Dungeon, or Ranger. This is disingenuous. It's a stripped down version of a main game. It features the same general battle system, overworld mechanics, basically everything but capturing.

It's a new kind of "spin-off". To imply that it couldn't possibly influence the main-line titles because of some technicality is a real stretch. It's a "spin-off" because GameFreak is hedging their bets. It feels like a "spin-off" the same way that the Switch isn't "replacing" the 3ds, because the Switch was a gamble.

If its wildly successful, GameFreak is smart enough to make Gen 8 incorporate a lot of the decisions made in Let's Go. They'd be stupid not to, really. And this is why I feel the need to explain my problems with Let's Go. It seems entirely plausible that Let's Go might be a turning point for the franchise. I hope it doesn't happen, it might not happen, but I really like the Pokemon franchise, and I would like to continue enjoying it. Let's Go is the first Pokemon game with main-line mechanics that I have felt literally no desire to buy. I really hope gen 8 doesn't continue that trend.

And if that sounds too doom and gloom, let's talk about another Nintendo franchise I've cared about.

Fire Emblem is a pretty neat series. It had a bunch of really good games from SNES onward, until it hit...a snag. They made a horrible remake of FE1 on the DS that sold terribly in the states. Japan then got an FE3 remake that was pretty good, but the damage was done.

The franchise went into hibernation until they had an idea to revive it. They made a very casual friendly game called Awakening, it was okay. They added some anime waifu simulator elements and this weird child unit element and the ability to grind forever like in FE8 and hey, it sold really well!

Ok, so do we make another classic hardcore Fire Emblem game to follow up on that success? Well...kind of. But the franchise is kind of changed due to the success of Awakening. So much so that they split the new game in 2.

Instead of making a pure mainline game, they made 2 halves of a game, one of which was a literal Awakening clone. And the other was a classic Fire Emblem with HEAVY Awakening elements. Maybe the next Fire Emblem will be a return to form, maybe. But it seems much more likely to me that it will hue pretty close to the Awakening mechanics. They work, they're popular, why would we go back?

Maybe gen 8 will be fine. Maybe it won't. I wasn't the biggest fan of some of the streamlining in gen 7, and Let's Go really stepped up by making a ton of decisions I don't agree with.

I would rather the series continue in a direction that I like rather than a series I don't like. That's a pretty natural reaction to have to things. You can call it entitled, because it is, but I don't think it's unfairly so. Everyone wants media to be things they like and not things they don't like. Everyone has tastes, and they want things to fit in the tastes they have.

== On Criticism ==

I've heard in no uncertain terms that I'm not the "target audience" of Let's Go, so I shouldn't complain. I think its worth pointing out how lazy of a mindset that is. It makes anything, absolutely anything, above all criticism. Nothing can be good or bad, it's just "for you" or "not for you".

It reminds me of a really, really old penny arcade that addressed this same problem:
https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/24/the-adventures-of-twisp-and-catsby

Saying something is "not for you" = "no criticizing" is intellectually lazy.
People tried to do to the same thing with the Diablo Mobile reveal: "oh its for casuals! Stop being entitled, Diablo fans!"
This misses the point that it's an outsourced mobile game not made by Blizzard. By a company with horrible f2p practices. And it looks lazily made with bland gameplay. But it's "NOT FOR YOU" so clearly these things should not be mentioned.

Let's Go is the same way. It's "NOT FOR ME", but many of the decisions made seem bad regardless of how "FOR ME" it is or isn't.
It removes options that might make it closer to "FOR ME" without making it any less casual friendly.
It removes core elements the series has built up since gen 3 and replaces them with literally nothing.
It has no postgame besides 150 species masters who seem lazy and boring.

These are all complaints that make no difference whether it's audience is me or someone else.

The same principle applies in reverse too. There's lots of things I personally don't like (they're not "FOR ME") that I can recognize are actually high quality games. Most FPS games, like the Doom series and Quake games fall in this category, as do Grand Strategy games.

It turns out, if you're able to think critically (did you know gaming: the word "critical" comes from the same origin as the word "criticism", whoooa) about things, you can heap criticism OR praise on something even if you're not the specific focus group the game was designed for.