New Pokemon Snap Switch Preview: Should You be Excited

Pokemon games have been a popular hit with kids and adults alike. Games such as the main Pokemon series games and Go have seen huge success. However, a forgotten classic is set to be introduced to the world once again in New Pokemon Snap. This Pokemon Snap Switch game is set to come out soon, but how does it stack up to the original and other Pokemon games?

What Is the Latest Pokémon Snap Switch Game?

Pokémon Snap is a first-person simulation game that incorporates a pretty unique rail shooter-style gameplay. The game was created by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo on their Nintendo 64 Console. The game was first released in March 1999 in Japan and was later released in North America in June 1999 and PAL regions in September 2000.

Pokémon Snap was a spin-off game in the wildly successful Pokémon series. However, it got a lot of renown despite only being a spin-off due to being one of the first console-based games for the popular Pokemon franchise.

Due to the uniqueness of the game, its release was heavily promoted by Nintendo. This promotion campaign made the game feature in more than 86,000 hotels as well as a contest sending the winner of a promotional campaign to Australia. After the end of 1999, Pokémon Snap managed to sell 1.5 million copies. In addition to that, it was also a strong rental title back in 1999 after the game release.

That’s not what we’re talking about though, a sequel that Nintendo called New Pokémon Snap was announced back in 2020. The game is for the Nintendo Switch, with its release date being on April 30, 2021. Bandai Namco is the one developing the game, and it’s going to be published by the Pokemon Company and Nintendo. Want to know more about the upcoming Pokemon Snap Switch game? Continue reading below to see if you need to be excited about New Pokemon Snap.

Where to Get It Upon Release?

Check it out on Amazon today!

As of right now, the most definite place to get New Pokémon Snap online is on the Nintendo Gaming Platform. Other than there, though, we have Amazon for those who want to get physical copies.

Pokémon Snap Switch Game Preview

Story

In the Pokémon Snap Switch game, you play as a photographer that travels to the newly discovered Lental Region. The photographer went there to help Professor Mirror (yes, a new professor) and his assistants Phil and Rita.

That’s the game’s story, and it’s quite bare, to say the least. But to be fair, do you need anything more? You’re taking pictures of Pokémon doing their stuff. That’s pretty much the only thing you’ll want to do. Still, you’ll find a lot of cool things to take pictures of. For one, you might see some of the cooler Pokémon in the game, if you’re lucky. An example of this would be the Tyranitar in the game’s trailer. For now, though, we don’t know if the game will actually have a deeper story or if we’re just going to delve straight-up to its photography gameplay. So for now, it’s best to just keep watch for any new developments.

Gameplay

Now that we’ve talked about the story, we need to talk about how the new Pokémon Snap Switch game plays.

On New Pokémon Snap, you play as a photographer that travels all over the world of Pokémon. Professor Mirror hires you to photograph Pokémon across various islands in the Lental Region. You do this while going on a wild ride on a state-of-the-art on-rails hovercraft called the NEO-ONE. As you go around through the game’s myriad of locations, you’ll attempt to photograph the perfect photo of the region’s various Pokémon as they do their thing in the wild.

The developers stated that there are over 200 Pokémon in New Pokémon Snap for players to look for and photograph. Moreover, the game’s trailer suggested that some opportunities might need some creativity from the players. These can range from throwing the Pokémon some food, playing music to lure them out of hiding, or even irritating them.

As per usual on Pokémon Snap, your goal is to finish your Photodex with all the Pokémon pictures you’ve taken and the discoveries you make about said Pokémon. You’ll be doing all of this while getting the best photographs possible. The game also has a rating scale, where Professor Mirror rates the photos you’ve taken on a one-to-four star scale. This ensures that proper framing of the picture, as well as capturing the target Pokémon’s behavior, is necessary to get the perfect shot.

Other Unique Features

As mentioned earlier, you travel the Lental Region on an on-rails hovercraft called the NEO-ONE for every research expedition you go out for.

Professor Mirror will grade all your photos of wild Pokemon. These grades will range from one to four stars. As for how they’re graded, they take into account things like the photograph’s shot composition, whether the Pokémon in question is facing the camera, how close said Pokémon is to the camera, the photo’s brightness, the framework, and other factors.

If you want to get better photos, you can use fluffruit, a fruit you can throw to lure various Pokémon out. Other than those fruits, they can also throw something called an Illumina orb. For those that don’t get it, this causes Pokémon caught by it to glow. You can also discover hidden Pokémon in the area around them by using their camera to scan for Pokémon in hiding.

After you finish an expedition, you will return home and have a few options available to them. Like a real photographer, they can retouch their photos, change a photo’s parameters like their zoom, the camera blur, and lastly, brightness. For real enthusiasts, also can save said photos to a personal photo album that they can access at any time.

When inside the album, you can customize photos by adding effects. These include additional photographic filters, photo frames, and even stickers. Last but not the least, the game’s Players can also upload photos on their photo album online to share with other players of the game. These players can let your photos feature by reacting to them.

Night Time Photography and Possibility Of Ghost Pokémon

One thing that was suspiciously missing in the old Pokémon Snap game was night-time photography. This is because the game is strictly ensuring you only take photos in the daytime. Well, that’s no longer the case on New Pokémon Snap as you can now take pictures at night.

Other than this, the game also has confirmation of having Ghost-Type Pokémon in New Pokemon Snap. Back in the original game, there was a Ghost Pokémon area that was supposed to be added in. Sadly, due to the lack of Ghost Types in the first generation, the area was scrapped altogether. Luckily, due to the additional Pokémon added into the Ghost category, there’s a big chance that we’ll see Ghost Pokémon in the game.

For now, the Ghost Pokémon confirmed to be in the Pokémon Snap Switch game are Drifblim, Frillish, Trevenant, and Sandygast. Hopefully, more will come via updates or DLCs.

Graphics

Graphics-wise, the game is a significant improvement to the original game as well as current Pokémon games. There’s a lot of improvement in this regard, and the Pokémon look incredibly good, too. It helps that they gave said Pokémon new animations as well as additional actions. I mean, you can’t go wrong with a surfing Raichu, right?

The game pretty much looks like a photographer’s wet dream. The landscape looks great, and there seems to be a ton of variety in the terrain that’s going to factor into the shots that you’ll make. Other than that, we don’t know much about the other parts of the game yet, or how the graphics would affect the photos you’ll take. Are the developers making it so that the area around you can affect your shot? Maybe having a white background on your shot will affect the focus, et cetera, et cetera. We don’t know these answers yet, and we hope we will find them out soon. For now, though, think of Surfing Raichu on a surfboard. That, at least, is a good enough reason to be excited about.

Replayability

We do have a way to figure out what to expect of this game’s replayability, and that’s through the original Pokémon Snap. The Nintendo 64 prequel was an incredible success, with a lot of cool things hidden throughout the game that you won’t expect. Chief of these surprises was the game’s Legendary Pokémon. There were also Pokémon that do specific stuff such as Surfing Raichu.

Other than this, we don’t have any idea what else the game will have in terms of its gameplay. Thus, we don’t know yet how replayable this Pokémon Snap sequel will be. Let’s hope that we get some cool secrets like on the old Pokémon Snap, some of which are incredibly cool to discover. The Rainbow Cloud stage and Mew appearing gave Pokemon fans plenty of hype at the time.

For now, as we’ve mentioned, we’ll have to wait and see when the Pokemon Snap Switch game comes out.

Should You Be Excited for the Pokemon Snap Switch Game?

In conclusion, it’s a good thing that New Pokemon Snap is going to come out soon as Pokemon fans need something new to play before a new main title or another remake. The game’s gameplay looks incredibly good, and the myriad of awesome Pokémon to take pictures of is a surefire draw. It might also help in drawing in more fans to the series, which is always a good thing in our book.