Frantic Anxiety and the Art of Photographing Pokemon
Written for LGND
Intro
We spoke a few weeks ago about the wonderful mutation that the entertainment industry has gone through and that it has afforded us -- the gamers and consumers -- a chance to dip our toes into familiar waters.
It is one thing to take thematic queues from the past, nods or odes to a by-gone era, and spend a moment reminiscing about days behind us. Across the road, is a completely different game, the play of drudging up a “classic” and handing it over to a new generation. Or, at the very least, allowing that previous generation who was around for the first time down the street, a chance to relive a perceived magical experience.
Whether the nostalgia paints a previous product in an unflattering light by today’s standards is a completely different therapy session. Chances are, as is seems, that the thing, that holy grail, you remember from your youth was only that because of a time and a place. Ignorantly, we pry and prod creators to return to those pastures, only to realize the grass had spoiled with invention and advancement.
After more than two decades of asking for it, Nintendo and Pokemon fans can rejoice, because a New Pokemon Snap is here, and … it might have held up.
—
Nostalgia and the original Pokemon Snap
Much like it did in the late 1990’s, the pitch for Pokemon Snap in 2021 might be the most difficult and seemingly synthetic idea for a video game of all time. Just the tag lines have the magical and mystical ability to put some people to sleep. It becomes very difficult to conclude an elevator pitch if everyone in the moving box is snoring.
Here is the gist of it. Pokemon Snap is an on-rails first-person camera game where you frantically have to try and capture still images of Pokemon in their … sort of … natural habitat. All for the sake of … cataloging?
Well, Nintendo, what happened to the PokeDex work we have been doing over the last 20 Pokemon mainline games? Well, that’s apparently gone. Lost to time.
Do we get to collect the Pokemon and train them, evolve them, care for them? Um … no.
Can we at least have the tools to make sure we get really cool and interesting photographs? Or slow down the tram to catch the important moments? Absolutely NOT. In fact, your favorite photos will almost definitely look exactly the same as everyone elses’ that have taken the Pokemon Snap tour.
So the question remains … why on Earth is Pokemon Snap so much fun! Even now. Twenty-two years after the launch of the original, New Pokemon Snap for the Nintendo Switch is essentially the most satisfying and panic-inducing frantic first-person-camera-shooter known to humankind.
It is exhilarating.
New Pokemon Snap
Incredibly devoid of personality in the idea of the thing, the New Pokemon Snap matches almost indistinguishably from the original -- aside from the updated graphics and new additions to the Pokemon family -- and this is a magical thing.
Is it a trick of the light, or am I having an incredibly fun and palpably exciting time taking the slow-coaster around the track over and over again, trying to spot something different happening in this world than the last time I came ‘round. Regardless of whether or not they are pulling one over on me, everything in this game worlds.
Never have I felt more anxiety, hands riddled with panic, at the thought of missing the perfect moments in these pocket-monster lives, strewn about the track I ride along like a living amusement park ride, without the uncanny valley animatronics.
Somehow, the hooks get dug in pretty quick, and despite the lengthy and prolapsed tutorial section that consists of walking players through the use of the least complicated gaming mechanics this side of 52-card pick-up, it still managed to pique my interest and gather my attention.
Almost in spite of the stretched-out mechanical introduction, the rollout of certain biomes, alongside shifting actions by Pokemon alongside those paths, it is not difficult to lose hours replaying the same track. Most of all, this incessant need to retake the same photographs with slight differences is born from meticulous prosecution, judgment, and ratings from the professor himself. That diamond rating is a high that few other games can dose out.
Each Pokemon out in “the wild” -- which feels an awful lot like they have been herded into a pen to play nice and have fun while the tourist snap photos, never to be free, forever entrapped in a facade of comfort -- has four photo album slots. One to four stars. Each of the star ratings have four tiers; bronze to diamond. All of that said, this stirs a manic desire to acquire diamond status on all four stars, no matter the call of household responsibilities in need of your attention.
New Pokemon Snap is therapy, it is disastrous in its attempt to provide solace or comfort, rather is a flavourful stomping of your most anxious strands of DNA. Never have I screamed as wildly in fear that a Badoof doing a cute thing behind me will go unseen by the academic pocket-monster world. A squeal, accompanied by impassioned double-stick swinging of the camera, only to conclude in missing the moment, and handing over yet another photograph of a beaver-like creature walking away from me. Oh how many Badoof badonkadonk photos must Professor Mirror have in his possession with my signature on it.
I am so sorry.
—
There must have been a grander purpose behind the creation and origin of the Laboratory of Ecology and Natural Sciences (or LENS). Badoof Booty Gallery notwithstanding.
With help from Nintendo and The Pokemon Company, Bandai Namco has truly given gamers a reason to bask in nostalgia, because the New Pokemon Snap is hours upon a mountain of fun to be had.
What’s Next
Nintendo has been playing a weird game of late, bringing Pokemon Snap out of the tomb is just one strung along a line of interesting choices. Cobweb clearing.
Amongst the many, This Summer will see a remaster of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword finally sit-up from the grave that is the WiiU console. If Nintendo continues to seek guidance from the past then we are in for some pretty fantastic trips down memory lane. Luckily, Nintendo seems to care more than the average shill about pulling moss off of their rocks, so these experiences should at least live up to the expectations of fans that were around the first time through these games.
New Pokemon Snap feels like the right move, but the timing is suspicious. If this title had come out during an “on” year, alongside a mainline Pokemon title, then I would chalk it up to a flooding of the wonders that little cute monsters and soft-RPG elements can provide the gamer. However, being that Sword and Shield came to us in 2019, and Pokemon Legends: Arceus is unlikely to come around until the light touches the final moments of 2022, New Pokemon Snap feels like the tray of appetizers your aunt brings out for everyone, to hold the group over until the real meal comes.
Rather than playing the part of an auxiliary piece of media, a taste for the fandom already stuffed full of gaming goodness, this game has to hold the weight of the franchise as it stands. Setting it up to disappoint some major fans of the series. Be warned.
Outro
If you are in the cohort of Nintendo 64 die-hards, Pokemon fans, or collect-a-thon aficionados, than the New Pokemon Snap is probably going to be a fantastic game for you. At the full price of a premium game, however, the depth and lacking of intricacies may make you feel like there was twice the needed cost of entry.
As mentioned earlier, New Pokemon Snap is set up in a way that really wants to hold up the table balancing the franchise attention right now. There isn’t a lot of hope that the latest game in the mainline series will arrive this side of Nintendo launching the Switch Pro. Which makes New Pokemon Snap a tasty bite to satiate fans for the time being.
So, grab your camera, hop on the trolly, and get ready to feel the most intense pressure to perform that you have ever been artificially inseminated with.
