Pokemania: Pokemon Snap

      People love to take pictures. Normally really nice ones to capture that right moment to remember or that of nature. Now take that and have the subjects of the photos be Pokemon in the wild. That is what Pokemon Snap is all about. Taking pictures of Pokemon at the right time. 

     When people think Pokemon they think of battles, training, and capturing. The last thing people would think before this game was taking pictures. But Pokemon Snap did just that and was pretty good at it. Released on July 26th 1999 in North America, Pokemon Snap had you taking pictures of up to Sixty Three of the original 151 Pokemon. There were seven levels to the original game that followed a linear path. The gameplay was a simple point and shoot on the rail game. After you finished a course, you show pictures to Professor Oak and he rates them. You can go back to improve your score by getting certain actions and poses. 

     The key to getting these is by using items like an apple, the Poke Flute, or the Pester ball. In some cases you can use these items to unlock areas and evolve some Pokemon. You can hit a Charmileon into a pit of Lava and out comes a Charizard, or hit a Magikarp into a waterfall and out came a Gyarados. While the Pokemon were limited, the game had a lot of replay value. 

     Though people remember the advertising of the game more so than the game itself as it was heavy handed in doing so. The most memorable part of it was Nintendo's partnership with Blockbuster. This partnership resulted in kiosks that were not only demos for the game, but you can print off  the photos you took and you can bring in your own copy and print off pictures that way as well. 

     Outside of a re-release on the Wii though there were no plans to expand on Pokemon Snap for twenty two years, that was until the announcement of New Pokemon Snap. While the idea stayed the same, it was expanded greatly as more stages, routes in those stages, items, and of course, Pokemon came into it. 

     On April 30th 2021 New Pokemon Snap released to rave reviews. The core gameplay remains the same, take pictures of Pokemon. However most of everything else got an overhaul as photography advancements in the twenty two years between both games. Most notably is that photos can now be edited and shared online. Both games are great in their own right, however this new game has much more replayability than its predecessor. So if you want to check out a different kind of Pokemon game, pick up your Nintendo Switch, get comfy in your chair and Snap away.