At long last, the Pokemon RPG series is coming to home consoles (with a twist). On Wednesday morning at a press conference in Japan, The Pokemon Company announced two new games for the Nintendo Switch — Pokemon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Pokemon: Let’s Go, Eevee! The games will be set in the Kanto region, which was the same region featured Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow on the Game Boy back in the ’90s.
Developed by Game Freak (the same team behind the core Pokemon games on portable consoles), Let’s Go Pikachu and Let’s Go Eevee are said to be based on Pokemon Yellow: Special Pikachu Edition, which differed from Red and Blue by sticking the player with Pikachu by default and letting the player interact with Pikachu.
While the two Let’s Go titles appear to mirror the core Pokemon RPGs in many ways, there are more than a few big deviations as well. For example, players will be able to swing the Joy-Con controllers to throw Poke Balls at Pokemon they encounter in the wild. Furthermore, the capture mechanic appears to have been lifted directly from Pokemon Go, with a colored ring expanding and shrinking over the wild Pokemon during an encounter.
Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Let’s Go, Eevee! also feature couch co-op, so you can jump in with another player at any time. And speaking of Pokemon Go, you can transport the creatures you’ve captured in the mobile game to the Switch title. But they do have to be from the Kanto region, as it’s the only region Let’s Go supports.
Finally, the team has developed a new peripheral called the Poke Ball Plus that can be used as a controller with the Switch game, connected to Pokemon Go, or even used on its own so you can walk around with one of your favorite Pokemon. So as you can see, Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Eevee! aren’t quite traditional entries.
Pokemon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Pokemon: Let’s Go, Eevee! will hit the Switch on November 16th, 2018.
