We just got a brand new Pokémon Sun and Moon trailer this morning filled with a ton of goodies. There’s some weird looking Pokémon, a dark Raticate and whatever the hell a Hyper Beast is . We also got a look at a brand new feature coming to the Pokefinder that almost made me fall out of my chair while watching the trailer. In the next Pokémon game, we will be able to take pictures of wild Pokémon.
Taking pictures of your own Pokémon is nothing new; all the way back in Pokémon Yellow you could print out your Pokémon’s sprite if you had a Gameboy printer and a parent with enough money to keep refilling its paper roll. In Ruby and Sapphire , you could even dress up your Pokémon for contests and then take a snap of your Pikachu in a tutu. X and Y had a ton of options for the trainer with a photogenic Pocket Monster, allowing players to save countless pictures of their Pokémon rendered in glorious three dimensions.
Pokémon Sun and Moon is different because you take pictures like the most unique Pokémon game ever made, Pokémon Snap for the Nintendo 64 . Snap was a Pokémon game that put you in a yellow tram car on an island full of Pokémon and instead of beating them in battle and catching them, you just had to take their picture. When I first saw Snap , it changed my whole view on the Pokémon universe. As a seven year old, I just saw Pikachus as cannon fodder, instead of creatures with personality.
Nintendo still hasn’t released a sequel to Pokémon Snap, disappointing players with the lack of a “different” Pokémon game for over 17 years. Sun and Moon have a chance to be the spiritual successor to Pokémon Snap , but it isn’t going to be easy. If the mode is half-assed, it could end up as a boring mini game that has almost no play value besides nostalgia. Pokémon games have been filled with little mini games to shake up the monotony that is Pokémon fighting, starting with the Berry Blender in Ruby and Sapphire.
There will be rewards for good pictures in the Pokefinder. According to the Pokémon Sun and Moon website : “the pictures you take will be evaluated, and as you take better pictures, more features—like the ability to zoom in—become available.” That should help it from feeling less like a gimmick and more like an important part of the game.
Still, if any game can do it, it’s Sun and Moon . The initial trailer showed that your Pokefinder will allow players to take pictures of Pokémon in action shots, like a Dragonite flying through the air. The original Pokémon Snap was all about seeing Pokémon do things you’ve never seen them do before, like a Magikarp jump out of a river or a Pikachu ride on the back of an Articuno. Sun and Moon doesn't need to have a Type:Null interacting with an Eevee, but it can’t just have Pokémon standing still, twiddling their paws.
