We know for sure that a flagship Pokémon game is coming to Nintendo Switch sometime in the future – Game Freak confirmed this back at 2017’s E3 show. But while there are still no solid details surrounding Pokémon Switch at the moment, the idea of new entry of everyone’s favorite monster collection title appearing on a proper home console will be a dream come true. So in anticipation of an announcement, here are some things we want in Pokémon Switch (and some we don’t want).
Pokémon Doing Pokémon Things
Pokémon are fascinating, wonderful, endearing creatures, and there’s no question that they play a huge role in their own unique world. The problem is that in most Pokémon games we only ever see them performing a limited range of activities. Pokémon appear almost exclusively in battles, a likely limitation of the handheld hardware.
With the much more powerful Switch (in relation to the 3DS), this should change. We may start seeing Pokémon roaming around similar to the monsters in the Xenoblade Chronicles series, where you can watch all the wonderful beasts going about their daily business in the game world. They might not do much beyond walking around and occasionally drinking water from nearby puddles, but it’s still so much better than having them randomly appear out of nearby grass. If Xenoblade Chronicles 2 could do it on the Switch, so can a Pokémon game.
3rd Pokémon Perspective
The hardware limitations of the 3DS were not exclusive to visuals. Its controls were not great either. With just a D-pad and one fairly cumbersome analogue stick, it wasn’t really the greatest system for controlling a character in 3rd person games.
Hence the reason why Pokémon games mostly used the top-down view. Now with the Switch, a console with a real controller, Game Freak could easily incorporate 3rd person view in to Pokémon Switch, which would allow us to explore a new region more freely than ever before.
A Vast, Totally Explorable Open World
Talking about exploration, we can all agree it’s time for an open world Pokémon game. Though not exactly linear, Pokémon games were always quite restrictive. This was yet again due to the potato power of the DS line of handhelds. Now with the Switch, we could finally start to see those barriers disappear. It worked for Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild so surely it could work for next Pokémon game.
Quests, Quests, And More Quests!
Most people seem to forget that Pokémon games are in fact JRPGs. It’s easy to miss, simply because it lacks a lot of what makes JRPGs so fun. Mainly a quest system. Though there are some side missions, a quest system in Pokémon is so limited as to be almost non-existent.
Quests may not be necessary for one to enjoy Pokémon games, but they would be a welcome addition that would enhance the overall experience. Giving us more things to do (even if just fetch quests) would be a great way to maintain our interest in the game for longer, and even allow us to learn about the game world in a way differing from just simple expository scenes.
What We Don’t Want To See – Deviation From Turn-Based Battles
Turn-based battles were what made Pokémon so accessible and at the same time so great for competitive play. Being easy to understand yet hard to master, the Pokémon battle system made the franchise appeal to both casual players and hardcore gamers, and it’s doubtful that action-based system would be able to do the same.
If Pokken: Tournament has proven anything, an action-based Pokémon game would be difficult to pull off, as a lot of what makes Pokémon battles so interesting is their element of strategy, and timing of attacks to get the best results. Let’s hope Game Freak won’t follow the recent trend of JRPGs (looking at you, Final Fantasy) and will maintain the traditional turn-based system.
What We Don’t Want To See – Pokémon Trading Card Integration
Recently Nintendo filed patent for NFC cards. For context, NFC is the technology that is used with Amiibo figures. Putting these two pieces of information together, it looks like Nintendo could be thinking about interfacing their Trading Card Game with the Switch. Though this may not be the case, there is a possibility that next Pokémon game might incorporate trading cards as means of gaining additional Pokémon in-game.
At the first glance this may seem harmless, but it could give players with more cash to buy tonnes of Pokémon cards an unfair advantage, as they’ll just keep buying cards until they find the Pokémon they want, then just transfer them into the game with the NFC connectivity. This is just speculation though, so there is no need to worry … just yet.
What are some of the things you would like to see in a future Pokémon Switch game? Let us know in the comments below.