Yoshi87

@HobbitGamer Great to hear. Me too - I spent the summer collecting Pokemon in Pokemon Go and I've just transferred the lot over to Let's Go Pikachu. Really enjoying the grinding in the game - in order to battle the Master Trainers you have to level up quite a few Pokemon.

I think it is brilliant that Pokemon from Go are classified as 'traded' Pokemon so they level up quicker, which makes the grinding really fun. I have honestly not had as much fun and enjoyment from a Pokemon game in a long time.

@JaxonH Thanks for replying to my comment. I would definitely recommend picking one up. It is a very satisfying feeling to catch a Pokémon after the ball has vibrated three times and you hear the sound of the Pokémon crying from inside the ball. It also honestly makes catching easier as the Joycon controller always seems a bit off by comparison.

@JaxonH Great post. I agree that Gamefreak nicely balance catching sessions with battling trainers. The Ace trainers are particularly enjoyable.

What did you make of the Pokeball Plus? When it was first announced I thought it might just be a gimmick, but am pleasantly surprised to find it is my preferred way of catching.

@Silly_G Sorry to hear of your sister's struggles to enjoy games that many of us can access easily. Could she play the game in handheld mode as it doesn't require motion controls - you just need to press A to launch a Pokeball?

The best deal for the Poké Ball Plus seems to be on the 'Very' website as it retails for £39.99 individually or the Let's Go game bundle is £74.99.

Alternatively, if you buy games digitally, the game is available for £39.41 on Amazon Japan if you have a Japanese account - as the game can be played in English, regardless of which region you buy it from.

I honestly think people are focusing too much on the man and not the ball. Yes, Masuda is the lead designer on Let's Go, but I suspect, like most Japanese companies, that it is a collaborative decision making process. Unless Let's Go performs badly, which I highly doubt, then the format is here to stay. Masuda has already hinted that the design reflects the approach they want to take going forward.

People are seriously naive if they think the 2019 game will be a reversion to form. I suspect it will be much more closely aligned with Let's Go than people suspect.

After all, why would Game freak make a new game to appeal to casual fans to encourage them to buy the games, only to revert to the usual game style - which Masuda thinks is too difficult for many players. That makes no sense at all.

Really looking forward to Pokémon Let's Go. Today I have pre-loaded Let's Go Pikachu.

Interesting tip - it's worth pre-loading on the Japanese Eshop. You can play the game in English and the time difference means you will be able to play the game on the evening of the 15th November in the UK.

It's gonna be such a great nostalga ride! As someone who played the original games back in 1998/99, I love Kanto so much and these games have clearly been made with a lot of care and attention to detail.

@Serebii Thanks for replying to me and I think your website is brilliant. I've been a fan of yours for many years, so please do keep up the good work.

Just to clarify, I didn't say that core game sales had been dropping, merely that the core games are appealing to an ever shrinking pool of people as most us that played the original Red & Blue games are now in our 30's and we first became addicted to the games as children. I think anything that appeals to the younger generation of gamers is a good thing.

I obviously put great weight on your opinion as you have actually played the games and must have got a good feel for them.

For me, I enjoyed Sun & Moon and have played the core series from the beginning. However, I never liked wild battles, so I just don't know why people have a problem with them going. Frankly, making the Exp share mandatory took away any challenge from grinding anyway (which was actually genuinely hard in Red & Blue as you had to balance levelling each Pokémon.

I love the competitive scene but I am just tired of how people cheat to get an advantage and think bringing the games back to basics, such as removing held items, helps remove that element.

That said, again I really appreciate you responding to me and all the best with the site. You really do a great job!

I am really looking forward to Pokémon Let’s Go. Hopefully, we won’t have any more doom mongering silly comments from the so called ‘hard core’ fans.

The reality is that these games are going to be great. In some ways, I think they will be more competitive than the other mainline series games as people will have to catch tons of Pokémon and keep grinding to level up their team. I also like the lack of held items as it means that a Pokémon’s stats are entirely reliant on how you raise it and how much effort you put into the game.

I also love the fact that the Legendaries have been set up effectively as raid battles – the old system where you had to try to reduce their health to a slither and then catch them was pretty awful, repetitive and frankly, unenjoyable.

Despite what many people think, I believe Pokémon Let’s Go will outsell the traditional core games. The reality is that the usual games are catering to an ever dwindling audience – and Gamefreak is right to seek to appeal to more children, casual players and Go players.

I played the original Red and Blue games 20 years ago and I am seriously hyped for these games. Can't wait to pre-load on my Switch later this month.

I should add that the Core series up to date has been very well done. But, it is time for a change. Seriously - people who complain about the lack of wild battles should get over themselves. It was a means to an end - wild battles were invented for the 8 bit Gameboy which couldn't handle individual sprites very well. We are now 20 years down the line - if not a change now, then when?

At the end of the day, Gamefreak preserved the battling system which is the most important thing. As for wild battles, they were never that fun in the first place and got tedious very quickly.

@Razer I appreciate your contributions as they are always very good. Agree with you entirely that they used free online to get people to adopt Switch, before moving to the paid service. However, I also agree with you that we should speak with our wallets and not accept a bad service.

@Crono1973 I think my view would be that, in technology terms, a year is a very long time. I also think that it just wouldn't make much sense for Nintendo to launch a new system in mid or late 2019 because of the combination of annoying early adopters and late adopters, particularly who might buy a Switch in anticipation of the 2019 Pokemon title and other games.

It might seem trival, the difference between 2019 and 2020, but to me by 2020 we are more likely to see new hardware coming from Sony & Microsoft and technology will also have moved on greatly from 2018 - so it just seems a better target year to me.

@Razer I'm mainly with you on that. If Nintendo issues a new Switch with a limited hardware update, then I'd be OK with that - but if it is a major update it would be very annoying to me as an early adopter of the system. A new system in 2020 would be fine, but 2019 to me is way too early.

Also, I think this is typical Nintendo Japan - they have drawn the wrong conclusions from the wrong argument. The sales of Switch would have been better with a more staggered release schedule and, as you rightly point out, the Online Service needs to be majorly improved.

I wrongly assumed the year long delay was because Nintendo was going to hit the ground running with NES, SNES, N64, Gameboy, Gameboy Advance and Gamecube games - not neccessarily a wide selection, but enough to take a year to put together. Instead, I honestly don't know why they spend a year putting together the same package they had previously planned to launch, especially given the awful marketing - such as not telling people that Nintendo would retain our Cloud saves for six months, just basic marketing errors like that.

As I mentioned, in terms of the release schedule we've ended up with some strange decisions such as Pokemon Let's Go being so close to Smash Brothers, which also makes absolutely no sense.

I love Nintendo so much, that it just annoys me when the company executives in Japan make such bad decisions - so many open goals they seem determined to avoid just for the sake of doing their own thing.

@Yorumi Totally agree with you. I think this is what we are all thinking!

@Razer Completely agree with you. Amazing that Nintendo has once again got the wrong end of the stick. The current hardware is fine and honestly I think a new Switch in 2019 is too early for a hardware revision.

Perhaps if Nintendo actually started giving us what we want such as a Virtual Console and a decent online service and a better and more frequent release schedule of games, then the unit sales would increase as fast as they are hoping.

Well done Nintendo... excellent way to irritate early adopters like myself and as @bratzdoll says this won't help them ship more units of the current model this fall if people believe a newer unit release is just around the corner.

There's no way that Meltan will be released through a Special Research task. Nintendo wants Pokémon Go players to purchase Let's Go Pikachu & Eevee for Switch - so my guess is that Meltan will be a bonus for connecting a Go account to the Go Park in the games.

I wish Nintendo was doing this because they had considered the poor feedback from the Online Service and decided to listen to their fans and give us what we want which is a Virtual Console service.

In reality, I suspect Nintendo realise they can get many people to ‘double dip’ by signing onto the Online Service and also buying the games individually from a Virtual Console so we can actually keep the games.

Perhaps I am being too cyclical and I certainly hope I am proved wrong – but I think Nintendo is just looking for a quick buck as always.

Incidentally, some people will say that Nintendo had previously said there would be no Virtual Console service for Switch. Technically, they said they had “no plans” for such a service, so that position might have changed.

I don’t know why everyone keeps criticising these games.

Random Pokémon battles were a means to an end. The original games came out 20 years ago and I played them back in 1998/1999. The 8 bit Gameboy couldn’t handle individual sprites very well, so they programmed in random battles. This doesn’t mean that the system should continue into the future.

As a long term Pokémon fan from the very beginning, I can say that random battles have never been fun. OK, maybe for the first hour or two, but then they get VERY tedious in the extreme, particularly when you keep bumping into stupid Zubats or other frequent spawns.

I also hate how people defend the so-called competitive scene, which is full of cheaters and people who have modded their Pokémon as is obvious on Sun & Moon where people have stupidly strong Pokémon.

The irony is that Let’s Go could be the best and most competitive game ever as removing items means that the playing field is levelled so to speak. The games will go back to what they always were about which is strategy – turn and type based battles.

I could be wrong, but I think all the people saying they won’t purchase these games are all talk. Come November with all the hype around the games, they will end up purchasing them anyway. And despite what many people think, these games WILL sell well.

I just don’t understand why people keep defending the usual so-called core series, which has become really stale and boring.

I also think it’s awesome that Let’s Go only has the original 150 Pokémon, which again, I think actually makes the games more competitive not less, as people are going to have to be more choosy with which Pokémon they use in battles.

Incidentally, just to add to my previous comment, there is a way Nintendo could solve this. Let people download the games, but link a part of the file to the cloud. That way, if you don't renew your subscription, the game will be deleted off your Switch - but as long as do renew the subscription you should be allowed to download the games.

Personally, what annoys me the most is that can't download any of the games. I completely get why, because as @Jeronan says, people will subscribe for one month, download the games, and then not renew their subscription. However, this a big problem for me.

I like to actually own my games - what happens eventually when the Switch is succeeded by another console? Presumably, we just lose all these games...what a waste.

Hands up to Sega and Capcom for stepping in and effectively delivering a good Virtual Console service, by releasing their old titles in retail form - which what most Switch owners actually want.

I think the debate around the cost of the online service is quite interesting. Personally, I would argue that £20 a year is an excessive cost for what we are getting, which can be summed up as:

Cloud saves – No wait, only for certain games and none for those you have to put lots of hours into such as Splatoon 2 and Pokemon. People defend this by saying that you’ve can’t have cloud saves for those games because cheaters will exploit them. That’s a bit saying some people will commit crimes, so there is no point in having a police force – a rather silly logic if you ask me.

Online games – It really isn’t worth £20 to get a few NES games, which, let’s remember are over 40 years old. I’m most disappointed with this. If it was, say, purely Gamecube games or N64 or SNES games, I could get fired up – but, in proportion to the cost, a lot of really old NES games are absolutely not worth it.

Online performance – I’ve heard a lot of people saying that the online service better work well for Super Smash Brothers Ultimate. I can guarantee it won’t. What Nintendo should do is learn from their competitors and implement a good online service. Instead they have wasted everyone’s time by trying to reinvent the wheel – which won’t bode well going forward and suspect the server hosting will be poor.

The problem is that Nintendo is a stubbornly individualistic company – which either works brilliantly or very poorly. With the design of the Switch this approach worked really well, but with the online service the complete reverse is true.

@Razer I agree it's not great. And, what a surprise, we have just learnt that if you don't renew your subscription you lose ALL of your cloud saves immediately, unlike Nintendo's competitors that store them for several months afterwards to try and entice you back. This deal is getting worse by the minute.

@Razer Again, I completely agree with you. Just to clarify, I'm not saying I don't want online functionality, but why can't they port the games first and add it later, given that they are constantly (and quite rightly) always updating their first party games.

@Razer I agree with your assessment. Although it sounds terrible to say this, I really hope people vote with their wallets and don't sign up to the Online Service. I am afraid the only thing that will make Nintendo think again is if the take up of the service is less than they are projecting.

For me, the cost element is an 'in principle' issue. Of course, I could afford £20 but it irritates me that Nintendo is taking a free to use service and, with little to no effort, assuming they can make easy money. I wish they would a least put a little effort in.

If they had launched a premium service for £60 which included NES, SNES, N64, Gamecube, WiiU and Gameboy Advance games (at the very least) then I think many of us would be much happier, even if the initial selection was quite small.

Also, why bother adding all the Online functionality? Honestly, if they literally just ported games like Luigi's Mansion to Switch and didn't even bother making any functional or graphical changes, I'd be happy with that. I mean, the online functionality is great and everything, but I'd rather just have the games now.

@Roarsome I agree with you that, if you take the package in isolation, it represents fairly good value for money. I think the issue that many of us have is that it is such a step backwards in the context of what Nintendo has previously provided.

The Wii U, for all the criticism it received, did at least have a comprehensive Virtual Console service. I understand that Nintendo is not offering the same service here, but to go from nearly accessing every previous Nintendo system to just NES games it a bit of a let down.

I also think that Nintendo is overly focused on price and is trying to reinvent the wheel so to speak by doing their own thing. I don't understand why they can't just be a little humble and learn from their competitors.

I also think they should have different price tiers. If some people just want online support and NES games for £20 a year, I'm fine with that, but at least give some of us the option to pay £40 or £60 for a more comprehensive service with SNES, N64 and Gamecube games.

The Direct was useful as, before this, I was very much on the fence about whether to pay for the online subscription service. The Direct helped convince me that this is a complete waste of time, so I won’t be subscribing. I hope others do the same as we need to vote with our wallets and let Nintendo know that this is not good enough.

I don’t want 40-year-old NES games – we have had those before. I want GameCube games – I don’t care if it is a multi-layered service with a premium cost, but I do want a proper legacy game service like they offer on Xbox One and PS4.

@Saego Thanks for referencing my point about Japanese culture. It's a shame that many comments here really do show how shallow and individualised our Western culture has become and how much perspective some people seem to have lost.

In many ways, I think it shows how much respect there is in Japanese culture when these types of terrible events happen.

@BLD I don't think anyone is seeking to suggest that you were insensitive in anyway, however some of the comments by other posters, such as @Likethepear really were beyond the pale.

@BLD With respect, I would say that this is very much influenced by the cultural aspects of Japanese society. You have to understand that, while the West is very individualised, Japan is still a strongly collectivist society.

It's not about whether the Direct is finished or not, but a powerful symbolic gesture to show solidarity and respect to those suffering at this time, which is absolutely the right thing to do. I don't know why some people are losing their minds over this - the Direct has only been delayed, not cancelled.

This is the right decision as our thoughts should be with the people of Japan at this very difficult time.

I can't believe some people are genuinely questioning this decision. Nintendo probably has lots of employees who either come from or have family in Hokkaido, which is why it is absolutely right to cancel the Direct at this time.

@Pod Great analysis and very interesting. My only caveat to what I have previously said is that if Nintendo pulls a rabbit out of the hat i.e. an autumn / early 2019 release for Super Mario Bros or another big title, then they will probably hit the 20 million target.

@Pod I am not saying that Nintendo couldn't reach 20 million units and certainly Super Smash Brothers Ultimate will absolutely sell well and I also believe Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee will do extremely well as the Pokemon Go base is actually still very active (despite what people say). I'm just saying that Nintendo is really banking on the bulk of units being sold based on these two games alone and they will absolutely reach the 20 million figure - I am just sceptical they can do it within the current fiscal year.

@PanurgeJr I think the issue is that Nintendo have set themselves up to fail. It will be extremely embarrassing if the company is unable to hits its own sales target. It also depends upon the scale of the miss. If they sell anything less than around 10 million units, then I think that would count as a bit of a disaster and undoubtedly, in such a scenario, the share price will drop further.

Part of me thinks that this would be a good thing as Nintendo needs a bit of a kick in the pants. They clearly took their success from 2017 for granted and missing their fiscal targets might just mean that they have to take the fan base more seriously by giving us more frequent releases, more new games, more Wii U ports and more classic games.

This is not to say that Super Smash Ultimate and Let’s Go won’t sell well but as the fiscal year falls from March to March for Nintendo, I can’t imagine they can make up the sales numbers in time for the end of the fiscal year. The problem is that this will look really bad for Nintendo and suddenly lots of people will start criticising the company.

I just wish they had picked a more sensible target instead of 20 million units.

@Royalblues As a fan since Pokémon Blue I totally understand your concerns and many other Pokémon fans share them.

That said, I think you should be happy this game is coming out in 2018 as the alternative would have been a rushed Gen 8 core RPG which will be better for having been delayed a year.

It is genuinely amazing that Pokemon Let's Go has already sold out of its pre-order allocation on Amazon.com! I also notice that the game has quickly become a best seller on the UK site.

It just occurs to me that the game that seems to have most inspired these two titles is Pokemon Colosseum - which had no random battles and trainer battles only. That was a really awesome title - so I think these should be very good games.

@Monado_X I think the frame rate shouldn't be an issue given how much more powerful the Switch hardware is. Also, this game has been built from the ground up for the Switch - so hopefully it should be made to optimise the hardware.

I believe we now know what all the rumours were about when people talked about the 'battle' system being changed. What they actually meant is that the 'capture' system is being changed to be more like Pokemon Go, so that you can capture Pokemon that appear in real time as opposed to walking in the grass.

I can live with this change as long as the main battle system stays the same.

@Monado_X Each to their own, but I personally think the ‘leaked’ screenshot is genuine. Firstly, all the information we have on the supposed games seems to be being collaborated by several different sources. Secondly, people forget that the new Switch game started off life as Pokemon Stars (an enhanced Sun & Moon port for Switch) and has since evolved further.

Gamefreak tend to be very cautious when approaching new platforms in terms of graphical capability. In the past, we have had to wait several games before the graphics have seriously been ramped up. As such, the Switch games were never going to be some massive open world project with top high definition graphics – anyone suggesting this had quite unrealistic expectations.

I also don’t get why people have such a problem with the ‘leaked’ image. 3DS style graphics actually look really good, its just that 3DS, unlike the Switch, didn’t have enough processing power. Those sort of graphics on the Switch will look really nice as evidenced by the Citra emulator.

@Cyberdyne84 I agree with you that this would be very interesting. Certainly sounds very like Nintendo - trying to integrate the Pokemon Go fanbase with the Core RPG fanbase, just smart business sense. Also, Pokemon doesn't really want to go down the Sonic route and start splitting off the fan base, as that never works out well for a franchise.

However, I think it is clear that we are going to get a November 2018 release. Firstly, Pokemon will massively help to push the Switch by getting lots of people who currently own 3DS to adopt the new system. If they can also get a reasonable number of Pokemon Go players to buy a Switch, then Nintendo will be quids in. They absolutely need Pokemon to meet the target of selling an additional 20 million Switches for this financial year.

I also think they want to use Pokemon to push the new online service as people will be forced to subscribe to trade online and to use Pokemon bank. Again, smart move from Nintendo - get everyone to buy a £270 Switch, a £50 copy of Pokemon and a £20 online subscription, not even counting what people might spend if Pokemon Go ends up more integrated with the new Switch game.

@Jasspur That's a really interesting point. I notice that Nintendo say that "it will also be possible to play these (classic) games offline". I really hope this means we can download them properly on the Switch and not just have them hosted through a server emulator like you suggest.

Arcade Archives and Sega are really on the ball with bringing classic games to the Switch, so I hope Nintendo gets this right.

@Jasspur Totally agree with you. I will sign up to the online service only if we can download the games to an SD card. What's the point of having all these cool classic games if you can only play them when you have Wi-Fi connection? Kind of defeats the point of a portable console...

Totally sensible for Nintendo to continue to support the 3DS considering that it still makes up over 50% of Nintendo's revenue base. In any case, it's obvious that around 90% of Nintendo's development projects are already Switch based.

My guess is that the 3DS continues until around 2020 and then slowly drops off.

Switch will only truly dominate the market when franchises such as Smash and Pokemon make the transition to the Switch - at that point lots of people who currently have the 3DS will buy a Switch just to get those games.

That said, Nintendo should at least ensure that they port (where possible) any new 3DS releases to Switch. The whole Luigi's Mansion release for 3DS was totally stupid considering that they managed to port Toad's Treasure Tracker to both consoles - so why not the same with Luigi's Mansion?

@Yasume You might want to consider buying a digital copy if you have an account with access to the Japanese eshop.

The Japanese version has English language included. I just bought a digital download code from Amazon Japan which currently has a 9% discount. The game is currently priced at ￥5,863 which works out at around £38.00.

The other great thing about the Japanese version is that it is being released on 2nd May as opposed to the 4th in the UK.

Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection is a serious rip off on the European eshop for £44.99. The US version is priced $39.99 which I managed to purchase for the equivalent of £33.41. Thank goodness the Switch is region free!

@Grumblevolcano I agree with you that seems highly likely. I was hoping we might get something next week ahead of the investors report on Thursday, but some people have rightly pointed out that an announcement right now might detract somewhat from Nintendo Labo, which the company is heavily promoting.

My guess would be that sometime is May is likely, as in past years Pokemon announcements have often taken place in that month.

@countzero I think you are correct. We know from the Pokemon Company that, after the release of Sun & Moon, a junior team of younger staffers worked on Ultra Sun & Moon. Also, the development kits for Switch went out in late 2016. So technically, Pokemon Switch could have been in development for over two years by now.

There have also been reports that debugging is taking place as Game Freak are hiring coders to go through the game - so it must clearly be close to the final phase of development.

@Grumblevolcano The rumour is that it could be either, however their clearly has to be an announcement soon if a 2018 release is on the cards even if it is just to confirm the release with no other details or footage like the Smash announcement.

The main logic for this is that Nintendo’s quarterly financial reports are out next Thursday and clearly if Pokemon Switch moves from being listed as “2018 or later” to “2018” this would help increase investor confidence in the company and possibly push up the share price. However, if this the case Nintendo would be unlikely to formally announce the game in this way, hence the likelihood of a Direct.

Alternatively, Nintendo might save the announcement for E3 but that seems relatively late in the news cycle if a November release is actually going to happen.

@SmaggTheSmug That is a really interesting observation. In my mind, Kanto being chosen would serve two purposes. Firstly, the region isn’t very big and would be easy to put together a Pokemon based Kanto game in the timescale we are talking. Secondly, my assumption is that Pokemon Switch will heavily promote DLC – as Nintendo knows that route would be quite profitable.

If it is Kanto, I expect to see the Johto region unlockable as paid DLC, which could open the game up to a potentially massive expansion.

There seem to be lots of rumours about their potentially being a Pokemon Direct announced next Tuesday, with the Direct coming on Wednesday. All to be taken with a pinch of salt at this stage, although it would make sense ahead of Nintendo’s finance report coming out next Thursday.

By the usual timeframe, we should get an announcement soon as games are normally announced around six months in advance – which would be needed if Pokemon is coming out (as is likely) in November.

My guess is that Nintendo wants to bring out Smash Bros alongside the Online service in September and then follow this up with Pokemon in November. This would serve two purposes – firstly to promote the online service and secondly by getting lots of younger gamers and Pokemon fans who currently own 3DS to make the leap to Switch.

I personally think the recent ‘leaked’ Lapras / Eevee picture could well be of the new game. It makes sense. If Gamefreak are ditching the battle system, it makes sense to set the new game in Kanto so that these radical changes are counterbalanced with a familiar region.