Today we were blessed by the news that New Pokemon Snap will be adding three new levels to the game for free, along with a smattering of other changes as part of the August update. With so many stellar Pokemon not in the game – why exactly was Gyarados not in that whirlpool again? – an update was always likely, but getting three new paths at once, fairly soon after launch, and for free, is a welcome surprise. New Pokemon Snap is still on course to be my game of the year, and even professional photographers agreed I was great at it, so naturally I’m very excited. Paradoxically though, the update’s biggest change might be its smallest – it will let you shrink down the NEO-ONE and explore the world from a completely different perspective.
The base game did a lot with the simplistic biomes that have held Pokemon together since it first took the world by storm in the ‘90s. There are beach levels, forest levels, volcano levels, icy levels, cave levels – the best cave Pokemon has had in years – and even underwater levels. This wasn’t just variety for the sake of it, it was all part of New Pokemon Snap’s charm. Pokemon games tend to live or die by how well they capture the Pokemon themselves, and Snap makes them the star of the show. That sounds obvious, but too many Pokemon games throw the focus on the humans and their relatively boring storylines. While Snap brings back the fraud that is Todd Snap, it keeps the creatures in the spotlight.
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This is why level diversity is so important. Though some obvious Pokemon miss the cut – and some other, less popular ones make a surprise appearance – New Pokemon Snap is deliberate with the choices it makes. The topper for the very first level is Florges, a Pokemon most of us had forgotten until we saw it standing in the middle of the flower garden. But it is such a perfect choice for the Florio Nature Park that we never question why Florges is there – it’s there because it lives there. Where else would it be? Sweltering Sands? Give over.
We see a new side to all the Pokemon in the game, whether that’s Frillish snatching a Magikarp or Emolga baking fluffruit with electroshocks. We can affect the world by luring Pokemon with fruit or melodies, but it’s clear we’re passengers in the story – the Pokemon themselves are what’s really important. Too many games forget that – Unite, for example, is a wonderful MOBA but isn’t really a Pokemon game – but it’s at the core of every single design choice in New Pokemon Snap. Octillery used to be a bit of a ‘meh’ Pokemon, notable only as that octopus who evolves from a fish. Watching it scare off Seviper – who, news flash, can swim now – then celebrate with a champagne spray of victorious ink has seen it shoot up massively in my estimation. On the same level, the kickflipping Alolan Raichu gets a similar stock boost.
The shrinking mechanic lets New Pokemon Snap get even closer to the action. In the trailer, we see a Wurmple up close and personal, as we trundle along through the blades of grass, snapping the least popular but far superior caterpillar Pokemon. Emolga – usually a blink and you’ll miss it ‘mon until you learn the fluffruit trick – gets right in our face, surveying the NEO-ONE with a sense of curiosity. While the ‘mons are playful in the base game, there is the sense that your huge chunk of machinery is disruptive, with most Pokemon being slightly wary of your presence if they ever do notice you. Making you much smaller nullifies the idea that you might be a threat, and offers you the opportunity for even more direct observation of these creatures as they are in the wild, rather than as battling entities there to Hyper Beam you to glory.
In the trailer, as well as showing us new levels that can be explored at normal size, it shows us roaming through good old Florio Nature Park in the style of Honey, I Shrunk The Pokemon Photographer. As well as Wurmple and Emolga, we also see Hoothoot singing from its sign, which confirms that both the day route and the night route of the level will be available to three-inch warriors.
However, it's not just the same old run but smaller. The trailer reveals that Snorlax will be on the day route, while Shroomish will be available to snap at nighttime. Neither of these 'mons were in the base version of the game at all, so it's likely that more Pokemon will join them on the shrunken routes, as well as the likes of Psyduck, Gyarados, Swalot, and Feraligatr coming to the other new levels. This means we'll get to do a different run – how different remains to be seen – on Florio Nature Park, and given how well the rest of the game uses its biomes to tell its stories, I fully expect the shrunken down mechanic to play an active role in how we approach Pokemon and how the Pokemon behave.
This is likely not the last piece of New Pokemon Snap content we get, and that means it may not be the final shrunken down level we experience either. Because each level is so different, being reduced in size so significantly changes each one in its own way. For example, Founja Jungle relies on heavy interaction and manipulation to get the right shots – how does this work when you can't just lob fruit at everyone? What about Sweltering Sands, where smaller 'mons are tossed up in the air by a twister? Elsewhere Forest is shrouded in mist, so you couldn't just look up as you can in Florio to see the bigger 'mons – the plumes of fog would be too thick. With so many Pokemon left to add, and so many ways to explore the world, New Pokemon Snap's future looks very bright – and the shrinking mechanic has left itself a lot of room to grow.
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