Spoilers Official Let's Go Pikachu/Let's Go Eevee Discussion Thread

[Esserise]

I mean, there has to be some reason that all of the legendary Pokemon are the only Pokemon we actually battle against in game, aside from the fact that they're legendary.

Why does there have to be some other reason? It’s just an adaptation of Raid Battles, and just like in Pokémon GO, it serves to contrast with how wild encounters with regular Pokémon don’t involve battling in order to make Legendary Pokémon feel more special and hard-earned.

 

[Ambrose7]

Mewtwo wasn't part of TR's goal in Yellow, why rewrite the story now?

Considering that they were willing to give Giovanni a mewtwo, I think they are fine with integrating him into the Rocket storyline.

 

[Silktree]

So no new Megas even now. The VGC announcement will determine their fate, as the main reason to add new ones is to satisfy competitive players.

It's pretty much confirmed that there are no held items. The Japanese site says that the player just needs to have both a Key Stone and a Mega Stone (nothing about the Pokemon holding it), and the trailer shows that you get to select between Mega Charizard X and Y while in battle (why do that if Charizard is holding a stone?).

 

[Esserise]

I’m not expecting any new Megas, personally. I think it’s obvious just by looking at the games that they aren’t the kind that would introduce that sort of thing. The trademark list, I would assume, is for various marketing purposes.

Anyway...

> Lt. Surge
> “interesting character”

How does it feel to be lied to?

 

[SerenaToAlola]

Honestly, it's not that bad if we can just turn off the Pokemon go catching function and battle wild Pokemon the usual way.

 

[PartTimePokemonMaster]

I'm so conflicted with this game. Literally every time we've visited Kanto since Gen I, we've had held items.

 

[Silktree]

I’m not expecting any new Megas, personally. I think it’s clear just by looking at the games that they aren’t the kind that would introduce that sort of thing.

Well, they are introducing a new species and Mega Evolution is in the games. It's hard to tell anymore because the logic is so inconsistent.

Where did you get those descriptions? I only see "explore Kanto" in the trailer. The biggest lie is: It can only be accomplished through a strong bond between a Pokémon and its Trainer.

 

[Plubio]

Mewtwo wasn't part of TR's goal in Yellow, why rewrite the story now?

Not saying this "rumors" are true but they're triying to reference the anime series with LG so I wouldn't be surprised Mewtwo, Mr. Fuji and Team Rocket get some correlation and such. Origins (and the first Pokémon movie) toyed with this a bit, as well as Emerald with that Mr. Fuji's sign in Faraway Island.

 

[Silktree]

Origins and Emerald didn't reference Team Rocket at all regarding Mewtwo.

 

[Esserise]

Honestly, it's not that bad if we can just turn off the Pokemon go catching function and battle wild Pokemon the usual way.

This won’t happen.

Well, they are introducing a new species and Mega Evolution is in the games. It's hard to tell anymore.

Yeah, *a* new species, which is just a nonintrusive bonus. On the whole, these are not ambitious games that are going to offer a lot of new content, especially not with next year’s proper game on the horizon. These are the whipped-up-in-two-years, stopgap spin-off (but shush we’re not admitting that) games that port over the same old dusty Kanto maps one-to-one to a graphical tier that’s only a notch above the 3DS.

And while I won’t say that the inclusion of Mega Evolution was obvious, I don’t find it terribly surprising (especially since they were already willing to include the much more gimmicky regional variants). Mega Evolution, like GO, was Masuda’s baby, and the Kantonian ones (especially the ones for the Starters) were largely meant to appeal to people who like and remember Gen 1, so there is some synergy with goal of these games. Let’s not forget that even if we count Latias and Latios as XY Megas, Gen 1 still had the most representation in that field until the Hoenn remakes.

Frankly, expecting 15 new Mega Evolutions to come out of nowhere just feels to me like the wait for the USUM Alola Forms all over again:

Spoiler

Where did you get those descriptions? I don't see them on the English site. The biggest lie is: It can only be accomplished through a strong bond between a Pokémon and its Trainer.

Do you mean the “interesting character” thing? It was in the English trailer, I’m just mocking it.

 

[Silktree]

I am not looking forward to new Megas, anyway. But it is not as if 3-5 new ones would require much effort.

Abilities are all but confirmed to be gone as there is no sign of the sun in the Mega Charizard Y footage, and only heightened stats are mentioned on the Mega page.

 

[KenzeyEevee]

I expected those Mega's, the L.T Surge puzzle seems easier in 3D. But no sign of Giovanni yet...? Lol isnt there TOO much Giovanni?

 

[Esserise]

I am not looking forward to new Megas, anyway. But it is not as if 3-5 new ones would require much effort.

It certainly wouldn't, but again, neither would have a couple of new Alola Forms for USUM, which is all that most of us were really asking for. However, that just doesn't seem to be the kind of thing they're wanting these games to do. They seem to want to focus on classic imagery, but they probably also think that bringing along some existing assets from other generations doesn't necessarily hurt if they can serve a purpose. Alola Forms gave GO something to promote as a tie-in while also injecting a bit more type diversity into the Dex, and including Mega Evolutions lets them shake up the battling scene in a way that's pretty simple and straightforward (press button=more power), and you just know that the 10-year-olds will love being able to transform Charizard into a sick black dragon. Whereas it kinda makes sense to hold off on the Johto/Sinnoh evolutions for now, if they end up deciding to make Let's Go to Johto (meanwhile, Kalos and Alola won't be up for any potential LG treatment for a long time). From that perspective, why would they want to preemptively drain a quarter of the new Pokémon species that those games would add right now when Kanto already has a fairly healthy and iconic 151 species to work with?

And thinking about it, perhaps an additional motive is that they want to test how Mega Evolutions might end up functioning in GO? Or even future console games, if the battle changes stick.

 

[Aulos]

So they'll take Megas from Generation VI and Alolan variations from Gen VII, but we still can't even have post-Gen I evolutions of Gen I Pokemon. Not making a whole lot of sense to me.

 

[Silktree]

The post right above yours explains it.

 

[BigBadButterfree]

I'm inclined to agree with @Aulos here. I understand the nostalgia camp and "keeping things true," but if they're not going to keep everything true, then what's the point? They could've easily incorporated new Pokemon into the Dex or even postgame national Dex to show younger fans that hey, you like these 151 Pokemon? Well good news, we've got like 700 more. I just fail to see why Kanto has to be stuck in this exclusive realm where nothing else exists. Literally all they had to do was include evolutions of Kanto mons and I would've been content. Sigh...

 

[Sakuraa]

I figured we'd get a trailer today since we got some CoroCoro stuff yesterday, but I honestly wish it could have been a bit more than just "Megas are back" and "Lt. Surge is back". I am happy to see that Surge has 3 Pokemon this time around since, iirc, he only had Raichu in Yellow.

 

[Esserise]

I'm inclined to agree with @Aulos here. I understand the nostalgia camp and "keeping things true," but if they're not going to keep everything true, then what's the point? They could've easily incorporated new Pokemon into the Dex or even postgame national Dex to show younger fans that hey, you like these 151 Pokemon? Well good news, we've got like 700 more. I just fail to see why Kanto has to be stuck in this exclusive realm where nothing else exists. Literally all they had to do was include evolutions of Kanto mons and I would've been content. Sigh...

If these games are successful (which in all likelihood they will be), then they will probably want to make more games like them in the future. Masuda has already said that’s a possibility. They lose virtually nothing by playing it more conservatively here. The original 151 Pokémon already have a proven appeal - they don’t need the help of 152+ in order to win the crowd. The gameplay is also reasonably balanced with just the originals, even more so with the handful of checks now placed on Dragon- and Psychic-types via Gen 1’s Fairy retcons and Alola Forms. So if these games fail, then they don’t really have to worry about how to handle future Let’s Go games because there probably won’t be any, and this will all have just been a forgettable side-venture. But if they turn out to be a hit, then Let’s Go to Johto can boast more new Pokémon being added than it would if they had jumped the gun by putting the babies and cross-gen evolutions into LGPE. After all, that’s how GO itself handled it, and that worked out fine. I don’t think it’s about “keeping things true” (or else we wouldn’t have a new rival) so much as it is, they’re holding things back for now so they can see how the games are received, which could be more beneficial for them in the long run.

But as I said, even if LGPE make huge sales numbers and convince Game Freak/TPC that more games in the Let’s Go style would be worth producing, the Kalos and Alola ones would be a very long time off in the future anyway, so there’s less harm in taking advantage of the Kanto-related additions that those games offer than there is in siphoning off what the very next potential Let’s Go games would inherently include anyway.

 

[Extroth]

Everyone just kind of assumed this was Kanto nastolga+go tie in. And that made perfect sense at the time...but with mega evolutions it just doesn't anymore. Mega evolutions have nothing to do with go and don't really have any gen 1 nastolga since megas are a gen 6 thing. While I think it is possible that there will be no new megas one can never tell with Game Freak sometimes. I see no reason to assume anything about megas at this point other then they are in the games. I'm still holding out hope that the Eeveelutions will get megas, or at least something new to call their own.

While we're on the topic of megas, are we all just going to forget how cruel mega evolutions are to the Pokémon that undergo them?

 

[Silktree]

While we're on the topic of megas, are we all just going to forget how cruel mega evolutions are to the Pokémon that undergo them?

I can already imagine the new Pokedex entries (if there are any) glossing over that.