Over time, Pokémon games have developed themselves a bit of a conundrum. These are family games, bright and inviting and unquestionably filled with joy. Yet a lot of their audience - and I can say this because it includes me - is pushing on a bit. It means that every game kicks off with two opposing impulses, at once trying to welcome a new generation and ease them in gently to the 20-year-old whirlpool of systems and rituals, while also giving those 20-year-long fans something worthwhile, something challenging, and something new.
Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! are very obviously designed to solve at least one half of the problem. I suspect Game Freak's ideal outcome is you, the old Pokémon veteran, playing Let's Go in co-op on the sofa alongside your freshly hatched little one, spotting the difference between past and present Kanto like you're driving through an old hometown and telling the kids that, when you were their age, this was all fields. Looking at Let's Go from that perspective - the perspective of the seven-year-old in the back seat, glued to their Nintendo Switch just like you were to that sticky, streetlit Game Boy Colour - it's hard not to fall in love.
There have been plenty of changes - some more successful than others - but none are bigger or more divisive than the complete retooling of wild Pokémon encounters, one of the three essential ingredients of a main series game, alongside the waning puzzles of the overworld and, of course, the battles.
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