{"id":4577,"date":"2014-08-03T08:00:09","date_gmt":"2014-08-03T13:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/?p=4577"},"modified":"2014-07-31T09:05:44","modified_gmt":"2014-07-31T14:05:44","slug":"year-of-n64-bonus-round-q2-pokemon-snap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/?p=4577","title":{"rendered":"Year of N64 Bonus Round Q2 – Pok\u00e9mon Snap"},"content":{"rendered":"

It might surprise you to learn that I wasn’t overly kind to Pok\u00e9mon Snap<\/strong> back in its day. I played the game obsessively to completion, and then dumped all over it for being too short and too easy if anyone asked. Of course, this was my professional Stupid Teenage Gamer opinion, trotted out mostly to save face in a harsh middle school world. Deep down inside, I knew that Pok\u00e9mon Snap was something special. Something magical.<\/p>\n

Pok\u00e9mon Snap is<\/em> a short game. There are six courses, which take around 5-8 minutes to traverse, and one shorter special course to cap it off. I dragged my wife along for the ride this time, and while the five hours it took us to clear the game 100% seemed like a leisurely afternoon gaming session to me, she was chomping at the bit to get moving onto something else at around the three-and-a-half hour mark. She did stick it out to the end for me, and the experience was all the more special to me for it. That’s why I love her!<\/p>\n

So! Pok\u00e9mon Snap. What is it? It’s a photography game, which is an unusual kind of game to make, but that’s kind of what Nintendo is all about. You choose a course (unless you’re just starting out) and then you’re plopped into a weird vehicle which guides you along the stage. Pok\u00e9mon litter the environments, and your job is to take the best darn picture you can of each and every one of ’em.<\/p>\n

What makes this more interesting is the way that you can interact with the pok\u00e9mon. At first, you can’t do anything but take pictures, and you’re at the whims of the game to find opportunities for good shots. As you progress though, you’ll be given a few different items. Apples will draw the attention of pok\u00e9mon, who will gravitate over to any apples thrown in their vicinity. Usually they’ll just eat the apple, but some pok\u00e9mon may do a little happy dance afterward, or perhaps even fight over the foodstuffs. You can even throw apples right at pok\u00e9mon to bonk them and provoke different reactions.<\/p>\n

Pester balls are basically the opposite of apples. You toss one at a pok\u00e9mon and it’ll run away or get angry at you. They probably do other things too, but I can’t be bothered to remember what. The pok\u00e9 flute is exactly what it sounds like, and when you play a tune on it, nearby pok\u00e9mon will start dancing. As a reference to\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon Red and Blue<\/strong>, it also wakes up sleeping pok\u00e9mon. The pok\u00e9 flute plays several different tunes, but I never experimented with them to see if they got different results.<\/p>\n

Stages are all preset, and your movement through them is automatic. If you don’t throw anything at them, pok\u00e9mon will always play out the same actions every time you visit a stage. The final item, the motor, increases the speed of your vehicle so that maybe you can see what pok\u00e9mon are doing before you’re supposed to arrive at their point. It’s not overly useful, but it’s nice if you’re returning to a stage for a single pok\u00e9mon and just want to zip past the rest.<\/p>\n

Only 63 of the 151 original pok\u00e9mon are featured in the game, and not all of them are just sitting around waiting to get their pictures taken. You’ll have to take full advantage of all the tools at your disposal if you want to snap ’em all. Some are easy enough to coax out of hiding, but some of the methods for making certain pok\u00e9mon appear are totally inscrutable without a guide. You’ll probably make Starmie appear eventually if you keep playing the Valley course, but you’ll never guess what it was that triggered it.<\/p>\n

It’s not a particularly beefy game, but what is there is really worth playing. It won’t take you too long to get to the end, but you’ll need to be clever and resourceful if you want to complete the pok\u00e9mon report. Of course, hours upon hours can be added on if you enjoy trying to take the highest scoring pictures of every monster. Pok\u00e9mon Snap is a great game, and the perfect way to spend a lazy weekend afternoon.<\/p>\n

(If you’re interested, I wrote a thing<\/a> about the Virtual Console release of Pok\u00e9mon Snap a few years ago.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It might surprise you to learn that I wasn’t overly kind to Pok\u00e9mon Snap back in its day. I played the game obsessively to completion, and then dumped all over it for being too short and too easy if anyone asked. Of course, this was my professional Stupid Teenage Gamer opinion, trotted out mostly to … Continue reading Year of N64 Bonus Round Q2 – Pok\u00e9mon Snap<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,20,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pokemon","category-retro-gaming","category-video-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4577"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4698,"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4577\/revisions\/4698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}