History with the Franchise:
As I mentioned in my Pokemon Pearl review, I have pretty limited experience with Pokemon as a franchise, but I did play Pokemon Blue when I was like 10, and I watched the TV show a lot. :) Also I recently played Pokemon Pearl, although for only about 2.5 hours.
I picked this game up because I thought Pokemon Pearl was sort of vaguely fun, and the idea of actually playing as a Pokemon in the world of Pokemon was really exciting to me. That being said, I did not have particularly high expectations of this game.
What Happened:
I picked this game up before going to sleep one night last week and played it for about 25min. I set up my character, got into a little bit of the story, and as soon as I hit gameplay I started to fall asleep. Maybe I'll try picking it up again someday?
What I Liked:
You are a Pokemon!! Now I don't have to deal with the guilt of sending my adorable traveling companions to battle for no reason other than my own personal gain... Also, since the world has been established for the last 10 years, the game definitely has a feeling of being in on something that's been going on for a long time - like, if you suddenly were able to talk to your cat.
Determine your aura. Maybe it's because I have the typical girly penchant for taking personality quizzes (or rather, I did when I was 15), but I really liked the fact that you answer a quiz at the start of the game which determines the 'color of your aura' as well as what type of Pokemon you are.
Choose your partner. Like in Pokemon Pearl, you get to name your partner in your adventure. In this game, you also get to choose what sort of Pokemon they are - so of course I have a Bulbasaur named Issam. This makes me laugh.
Intro sequence. Usually I hate long intros and I squirm around and whine while I wait for them to end, but for some reason, this intro was just intriguing enough that I was interested in watching it. I think it was because I felt like I was peering into some sort of secret, Pokemon-only world. The concept definitely captured my imagination.
What I Didn't Like:
Context? Mainly because they did what I felt was a pretty decent job getting me involved in the narrative, I felt pretty lost when all of the sudden I was wandering around a cave system, speaking to no one and fighting everyone that came into contact with me. Why were all of the Pokemon in the cave out to get me?? I thought things might be a little more.. complex than that?
Tedious! At least it wasn't turn based fighting, but it's definitely still the same sort of fighting as all other Pokemon games, which I'm just not into. I never get far enough into the games to get into more complex, strategy based fighting, so I only ever play the parts where you just keep hitting "fight" over and over (although I'm not particularly interested in strategy-based fighting anyway...) So yeah, it was simply a matter of pressing A a bunch of times, and slllllowly progressing forward as hordes of bad guys attacked me. (What were they all doing in there anyway?)
How Do I Feel About Continuing?:
Hmmm... the odds are pretty against me picking this one up again. Although I guess I saw some sort of intriguing images when I was looking for pictures to put on this blog post. I'll be on a plane to GDC tomorrow anyway, so maybe that's a good time to try again.
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