Charizard Fire Punches its way through Lucario and Cinderace to slam dunk a bunch of weird orbs in a grossly oversized basketball hoop. What? Do those words even make sense? Thanks to Pokemon Unite, they do.
Pokemon Unite is not an ordinary Pokemon game. There are battles, yes, but they are frenetic in an entirely different way to the regimented turn-based structure of the mainline series. You’ll recognize the creatures, techniques, items, and abilities, but the context they’re placed in is so different to previous games that it feels as if the whole premise of Pokemon has been reinvented. In the same way that Pokemon Let’s Go was the best Pokemon game in the last ten years – and Pokemon Go might be the best game of the century – Pokemon Unite’s importance for the series’ future can’t be overstated.
Related: Pokemon Unite Review – A New Kind Of Pokemon League
In general, Pokemon tends to be at its most experimental when it breaches the boundaries of the core series. Mystery Dungeon tells the best stories, Go introduces the best new mechanics – while simultaneously acting as an archive for older ones – and bygone bangers like Colosseum and Stadium are responsible for some of the main games’ major staples today. Unite isn’t directly comparable to any of these games, but neither are any of them directly comparable to each other. Outside of numbered gens, each and every Pokemon game is its own distinctly weird thing.
This is what makes Unite so special. I don’t think it’s the best Pokemon game around – in my review, I gave it a respectable four out of five stars – but distinguished series rely on so much more than just “Is the game good?” Ambition is so often checked in triple-A development that experimentation becomes a pitfall to avoid as opposed to a ceiling to smash through. With Pokemon, most of the objectively good improvements are initially iterated on in spin-offs, where ideas can be explored without risking any compromise to the rigid ideals of the mainline games. I mean, the best things about Sword & Shield were lifted directly from Pokemon Go, while the Gigantamax gimmick was just a poor version of Megas. While the design clearly and obviously takes cues from numbered predecessors, all of the new ideas – the decent ones, at least – were attributable to elsewhere.
For what it’s worth, I already wrote about how Pokemon Unite would be important to the series’ future prior to launch. There’s a huge amount of crossover between the points discussed in that piece and my thoughts on Unite after playing it all weekend, although I feel even more strongly about it now. On top of experimenting with the series’ formula, it’s got that same quality as New Pokemon Snap that makes you appreciate the ‘mons you usually wouldn’t care about. I never gave a Ralts’ arse about Zeraora before – now I’m a Zeraora main. I know, I hate me too.
I’m not sure what lessons Game Freak will learn from Tencent’s take on Pokemon. Given that Unite is a MOBA, it would be pretty easy to say “none, obviously.” I don’t believe that for a second, though. Niantic works on Go, Mystery Dungeon comes from Spike Chunsoft, and New Pokemon Snap is Bamco. All of those games have had – or will have – a major impact on the shape and tone of Gen 9. It’s reasonable to assume Unite will have the same.
I’m not saying Gen 9 will have jungles or basketball hoops or heaps of microtransaction currencies. I’m saying it will have distinct environments, gameplay loops, and logic systems that will probably iterate on the most successful experimental ideas implemented in recent spin-offs. Even if that’s just making slight adjustments to the in-game economy as per Unite’s setup or elevating Legendaries to a position of actual importance like Zapdos in the final two minutes of a match, every alteration counts.
Pokemon Unite won’t go down as the best Pokemon game of all time. While tons of people are tuning in and there are already more Pokemon planned for the game, it’s pretty difficult to predict how much longevity something as strange as this will have. Regardless of any of that, Unite’s singularity makes it special, to the point where I can hand-on-heart say it’s the best thing to happen to Pokemon in years. If you disagree with that, wait and see how Gen 9 shapes up – I guarantee you I’m right. Still can’t believe they put Mr. Mime in though – lad’s a proper creeper.
Next: Pokemon Unite Complete Guide And Walkthrough
