Are any of the new Pokémon games worth your time?
Last night’s Pokémon press conference revealed two new games in the works for fans—but are they worth your time?
With Detective Pikachu currently in theaters and the recent announcement of Pokémon Sword and Shield, it’s an exciting time to be a Pokémon fan. And during a press conference yesterday, Nintendo revealed that fans have even more to look forward to on the Pokémon front. Not only will the company be releasing Detective Pikachu 2 — the sequel to the game that inspired the film — for Nintendo Switch, but it also has new mobile entertainment in store.
The Switch sequel to Detective Pikachu will continue the story of the 3DS game originally released back in 2016, which follows a plot similar to that of the movie, with a boy named Tim Goodman enlisting the help of a Pikachu in order to find his missing father. The ending of the game diverges a bit from the film, however, offering little explanation regarding Tim’s father’s disappearance.
And while Tsunekazu Ishihara, President and CEO of The Pokémon Company, confirmed that the sequel’s ending will still differ from that of the movie, it’s possible fans will get more insight into Tim’s father’s story. Ishihara didn’t say much more about the Switch game, leaving the details and release date a mystery for the time being.
On the mobile front, however, The Pokémon Company unveiled more immediate developments underway. After the success of Pokémon Go, the company will be teaming up with Niantic once more, this time to bring fans Pokémon Sleep. The new app will be created by developer Select Button and will track users’ sleeping time in order to unlock new characters. Much like with Pokémon Go, the idea seems to be to offer a Pokémon-themed incentive to better your health. But until the app launches sometime next year, whether that incentive will be worthwhile remains a mystery.
Still, do either of these games offer Pokémon fans anything of value? The original Detective Pikachu game saw less popularity than the usual duos of Gameboy and DS games, but the movie might help up the excitement surrounding the sequel. Whether a sequel is needed at all is, of course, debatable — the game is more about Tim and Pikachu than about what happened to his father. But until more details are released, we can’t rule this one out. The game might just surprise fans with an entertaining plot.
Pokémon Sleep, on the other hand, seems less likely to draw fans. Despite the fact that most of us could use an excuse to catch more ZZZs each night, it’s difficult to see the fun in a game that you aren’t even conscious while playing. What’s enticing about Pokémon Go is that it gets fans outside and interacting with one another. This counterpart doesn’t exactly promise a similar experience — in fact, it barely suggests having an experience at all. And why waste data and battery power collecting Pokémon in your sleep when you can just go outside and do the same thing awake?
What do you think of the new Pokémon games in development?