Pokemon Snap is one of the most nostalgic Pokemon games of all time. What was originally supposed to a comedic side game turned into a cult classic. For years people have been replaying this short game’s emulator, waiting for Nintendo to make a sequel with the hundreds of new Pokemon they’ve added. People have pointed out that holding the WII U game pad up to the screen like it was a camera would fit perfectly, and would help drive the system’s lackluster sales, while justifying the odd controller. But for some reason, Nintendo has shown no signs of developing this seemingly easy money maker. My theory is because they are waiting for the stars to line up for an even better game, using the augmented reality technology on the 3DS.
The 3DS comes packaged with six AR cards. You place these cards somewhere like your table, face the system’s outside camera at the card, and then something happens. Most of them make the 2D card turn into a 3D model of the character on the card, and you can move the camera around and take pictures. This could obviously easily translate into turning Pokemon cards into Pokemon Snap, but personally I don’t think that’d be a very fun game.
But there’s one card that the system comes with that’s a pretty neat little mini-game. It places some targets on the table, and you shoot them by taking pictures of them. This then advances in levels, and at one point you have to take on a dragon that fights back. A very simple game, but one that I had a lot of fun playing. And it was cool to turn my dorm room futon into a shooting range.
Enter Spirit Camera: The Cursed Memoir. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a 3DS side game in the Fatal Frame series. If you’re not familiar with this game series, they’re horror games where you hunt ghosts by taking pictures of them. Kind of an odd play style on the PS2, but made sense on the 3DS, which was a camera. You played the game by taking pictures of the included diary, which was basically a booklet of AR cards, to advance through the story. But when it came time to fight the ghosts, things got more interesting. The game would use the AR technology to make ghosts appear in your home. You then have to swivel 360 degrees to find these ghosts wherever they’re hiding, and take pictures of them.
What does Spirit Camera have to do with Pokemon Snap? Well wouldn’t it be cool if we used the same technology to take pictures of Pokemon? Spirit Camera proves that the technology is there to turn your environment into a video game, without placing these cards everywhere. Imagine how cool it would be, to walk around in your back yard, and take pictures of an Eevee in your tall grass. Imagine how cool it would be to snap a Lapras chilling in your pool. Or to take a picture of a Mankey in your tree house. I don’t care how much of an idiot I’d look like, I would take my 3DS and take pictures everywhere.
Now as cool as this sounds (at least to me) I see this as only a side mode in the game. As cool and unique as it is, it would get boring quickly. It’s just too gimmicky to e sustainable. And a huge part of what made Pokemon Snap so great was the level design. Even though there were only 6 levels (plus the bonus level), each level had a lot of effort put into them. There were plenty of easy to capture Pokemon that distracted you from figuring out how to capture the harder Pokemon, or unlock the next level. You had to play through each level a dozen times just to get every Pokemon, and then dozens more to get GOOD pictures of them (Oak was a bit of a pretentious judge). This repetitive simple game play on artistically created levels is what made the game so addicting.
So the game needs to keep it’s main story mode. My idea for a side mode could help the story mode. For example, some levels could be unlocked by making an Electrode explode next to a pile of rocks, while other are unlocked by buying them. You earn money by taking pictures of Pokemon. The better the picture, the more money you make. But you only earn money by taking pictures of new Pokemon, or a better picture of an old one. The levels you already have unlocked will only come with so many Pokemon in them, so eventually you’ll run out of ways to make money. But my AR mode will feature all the Pokemon not in the game, and you can use it to make money to unlock more story levels. This will force you to use this game mode that surely took a lot of money to develop, while at the same time making you want to use it, and have as much fun with it as possible.
Also, it’d be a great way for me to make my profile picture me with a Growlithe.
Plus is today’s day and age, and with Smash Brothers adopting what seems to be a great DLC strategy, this game could constantly grow. They could periodically add levels as DLC, where the basic theme and Pokemon in the level are voted on by fans.
Would you buy this game? Do you like my new game mode? Do you think it’s too much, and just want a sequel with more levels and Pokemon? Let me know what you think of my ideas, and how you’d add to it.
Dumke's Thoughts 