Pokémon Let’s Go is Necessary for Pokémon’s Long Term Success

Hey NSA!

Today I’m posting my first ever Pokémon-themed blog. This post is sponsored by the Ace Trainers, so be sure to check more of their content out.

The fan base was completely split with the announcement that Pokémon Let’s Go! Pikachu and Pokémon Let’s Go! Eevee were coming out this year and that Generation 8 would be releasing next year. Many long-time Pokémon players struggled to see the significance of having a game like Pokémon Let’s Go! on the Switch.

The Pokémon GO Effect

There is no doubt that, when Pokémon GO launched, it shook the world to its core. Hardcore fans did not approve very much of the game, because it stood in the way of many traditions that the Pokémon games followed. However, many people who may have heard of Pokémon but never played it had the opportunity to experience the Pokédex for the first time. Suddenly, you had all of these people who had never played Pokémon before and had now found out about how diverse and amazing the whole series was.

Pokémon GO eventually had more than 800 million s which means that hundreds of millions of casual players now know the basics of a Pokémon game. All that is left to do is draw them in to a mainline game by publishing a game that acts as a bridge from Pokémon GO to the main series.

The Big Bridge

The Pokémon Let’s Go! games are this bridge from Pokémon GO to the mainline games. While Pokémon GO was very simple and easy to play, Pokémon Let’s Go! makes it more complicated. This is more of a preparation for the main series which is much more complicated and harder for a new player to pick up than Pokémon Let’s Go!.

Many of the key features from Pokémon GO are in Pokémon Let’s Go!. For example, you can fight wild Pokémon you see on the map, you throw Pokéballs to catch Pokémon and you experience the first 151 Pokémon and Meltan. This means that players of Pokémon GO will not have much difficulty picking up Pokémon Let’s Go! and learning how to play it.

How Important Is This Bridge?

New gamers, when they turn 8 or 9, do not usually pick up games like Super Mario or Pokémon. Instead, they play games like Call of Duty and Fortnite. However, at a later age, they tend to try out other games and even get Nintendo systems and games. Unfortunately, each generation, Pokémon gets more and more complicated, at least from the viewpoint of a casual player. It will be difficult for new players to understand the advanced mechanics of later generations of Pokémon games. That’s why a watered down, simplified version of a Pokémon game needs to be released, with some advanced mechanics present in other mainline Pokémon games.

If Pokémon loses its ability to reach many new players, the player count will decrease over time. The Pokémon series needs a new, simplistic game to draw in casual players to the series. Otherwise, they would have to simplify their games to draw in new players, but core fans do not want this and they may start to lose touch with the series.

Why before Gen 8?

A common criticism of Let’s Go is that it is supposedly delaying the Gen 8 Pokemon game. However, for a while, it’s been obvious that they probably wouldn’t be able to release Gen 8 in 2018. Therefore, they need something that is easy to develop in order to appease fans this year, and since they also need a new “bridging” game, they could use this opportunity to release it in 2018. While Gen 8 may have been delayed because of Let’s Go, there is no way that Let’s Go pushed back the release of Gen 8 from the end of 2018 until the end of 2019.

The only real reason it had to come before Gen 8 was so that they had a game ready for release in 2018 and they thought it would be a good opportunity to release the bridging game at this time.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading my first ever Ace Trainers post! I have another one coming on November 21st. See you next time!