Board 8 > New Pokemon Snap is pretty cool!

(+) Yeah! (+)

*progressive spoilers shall follow, pls don't spoil future pokemon for me*

I don't want to clog up the discord any more than I already have so I've made a topic so I can ramble on here! I've only played the first two courses so far but I'm really enjoying myself. Can't believe it took them 20 years to make a follow-up to Snap (srsly why did they never do one), but I'm glad the end product is satisfying. I love watching pokemon interact with each other and act like real animals in the wild, rather than just being fighty beasts and the rest being left to flavour text like in the other games.

The tracks feel pretty packed and I like the little ongoing stories they tell, the nighttime and level 2 variants are a great idea and I'm enjoying the variety of pokemon choices so far. I'm even enjoying pokemon that I usually don't care about, there's something neat about seeing, say, Arbok sleeping coiled around a tree like a python. This is the most fun I've had with this franchise in a very long time!

Not sure about the Illumina stuff, that might get more interesting later on but at the moment it's not adding very much. And I am already completely overwhelmed by the requests lol but I'm glad they're there to add more content, this game has some harder puzzles than I expected! Also yay Todd.

I've seen the nature park and jungle, and the next areas seem to be a desert and a beach. There's a volcano on the map, and I recall seeing an underwater clip in a trailer, but I wonder what the other environments will be... There'll probably be a cave like the first game. Likely an icy tundra level. A rocky trail would be neat, a savannah would be amazing! Could there be some kind of prehistoric level perhaps? I'm probably reaching too far there. I'd like an urban area but that would be difficult, maybe a factory (but better than the one in the first game) or a derelict town or something. A sky level would be awesome but they'd need landmarks to make it work, maybe flying around some mountain peaks. Outer space is likely too difficult to implement properly. I'm excited to see whatever they do anyway!

Just for fun, here's some pokemon I hope to see in the game (a mix of personal favs and ones I think would be neat to see in the wild). I feel like the devs and I are on the same wavelength because I loved seeing Bidoof, Taillow, Quagsire, Yanmega and Swampert already. And Vivillon was an excellent choice with all its variants (I assume Magikarp will keep up its 100% appearance rate somehow, though idk how it'll manage in the desert lol).

Noctowl- srsly lol at gen 2 pokemon being fresh and new here
Ampharos
Sudowoodo
Skarmory
Pelipper
Flygon
Seviper+Zangoose- I want to see their rivalry act itself out!
Tropius
Spheal- just to see it roll around :)
Wailord- I don't care if it's impossible to take a good shot of, I need to see this beast in its proper scale!
Metagross- idk how it'd work in a natural environment but I want to see it anyway
Drifloon
Garchomp- only if it swims under the sand like a sand shark
Hippowdown
Mamoswine
Crustle
Blitzle- I'm imagining a lightning safari with Luxray hunting down a herd of Blitzle and Zebstrika or something...
Chandelure
Inkay- spraying ink as it swims away pls. Octillery would also be acceptable for this.
Dragalge
Phantump+Trevenant
Rowlet
Cutiefly
Charjabug
Araquanid- skating over the water's surface. Surskit would also work.
Toxapex- I want to see this thing kill.
Frosmoth
Dragapult

Man the possibilities are near endless, I haven't even touched on legendaries. I'm very excited. How did all you lifelong pokefans like this game?

Tag

Definitely let us know when you have Pokemon encounters you really like. I enjoy seeing what others like in the game, especially with how much content it has.

New Pokemon Snap felt like it had a lot of care put into it - more than I've felt from a Pokemon game in quite some time. I especially appreciated that there were 3 full levels that they added to the game post-launch free of charge. They were pretty substantial additions to be completely free. (IIRC, they were supposed to be part of the base game but weren't ready in time. But stuff like that tends to end up as paid DLC.)

As for general reception from the fandom, I'm pretty sure it was largely positive, though there was definitely a contingent of people that really didn't like it.

I loved New Pokemon Snap. Really fantastic game. Game looks gorgeous and there's lots of fun interactions with all of the pokemon.

Also there was way way more content than I expected. Like 2-3 times as many levels as the original game, and they all have night versions or different routes or whatever which are legitimately different experiences. The levels themselves were also really cool with the highlights (Elsewhere Forest, Lental Seafloor) being head-and-shoulders above anything offered by the original game. Also haven't even touched the DLC which reminds me I should give that a try...

I thought it was fun. I wasn't "wow'd" by any means, but it was a worthy follow-up to the original and I didn't feel cheated by having it be a full-priced game or anything.

It is a really great game. The environments are beautiful and there is so much to do. My only complaints with the game are request related, in that some of them seem literally luck based, and also I wish it were possible to like, have a shortlist of requests available to view mid-track that you want to accomplish, rather than having to go find it before the track and keep it in mind the whole time. Kind of makes it hard to accomplish more than one thing at a time after your first few tracks. But still, it's not a major complaint.

The beach is my least fav course yet, I may be missing something here but it doesn't feel like there's very much going on. Nice to see Wingull, Octillery and Stunfisk though, and I didn't expect Alolan Raichu (what are you doing here?!). Also how can I get perfect direction score on Exeggutor when its faces are all looking different ways D: The night time mode of this stage isn't unlocking right now, so maybe it'll all come together later on. I get the feeling those sand lumps are probably Palossands but I'm not sure how to trigger them or get Pika to use the shovel.

Now Reef on the other hand, I loved. WAILORD!!! I was unreasonably happy seeing him splash out of the water and make whale noises lol. Pelipper is also a weird fav of mine, I tend to love the early game birds so this is all going very well for me so far. The flying Mantine are cool (though not easy to photo well), and I was surprised at how... bloodthirsty this level is, despite its chill appearance. Sharpedo attacking everything that moves, Wingull flying away with a Finneon, and a gang of Mareanie gutting Corsola! I know I put Toxapex murdering someone in my list but I didn't expect it to actually happen, jesus lol. Poor Corsola :(

It took me a couple of tries to realise that Sharpedo is actually racing Machamp, not hunting him down. That's sweet. I've unlocked the undersea one but I'm trying to pace myself so that can wait til tomorrow!

I remember the beach being a bit dull first time too. Been a while, so I don't remember exactly, but I think the beach has an alternate route about halfway that's more interesting. Or I'm just thinking of the reef level.

Reef is probably my fave course, especially the evening variant (mild spoilers, an unlock you haven't seen yet).

Beach gets better but it's not amazing. It doesn't help that it's easy to compare it to the Beach level from the OG Snap, which is a classic.

andylt posted...

And I am already completely overwhelmed by the requests lol but I'm glad they're there to add more content, this game has some harder puzzles than I expected!

This is probably my biggest "complaint" with the game, some of the puzzles are extremely obtuse, especially for a game that's ostensibly for all ages. I had to use a guide for probably more than half of the puzzles.

Yeah, Beach is one of my lesser favorites as well, for similar reasons. Now that you've played it and formed your opinion on it, you have better courses to look forward to.

Beach is definitely one of the weaker courses but I liked pretty much all of them in the base game.

I would say I think the beach is the least interesting course in this game, and it's still not bad

There's only one course in this game which I would actively call "bad".

Aside from the Illumina courses I don't think I actively disliked any of them

I pop back into the other courses for a while- hi Sobble, Venusaur and Blastoise! Looks like there'll be more starters than I thought, and I don't believe for a second that the Charmander line won't be in here somewhere. There's still so many things in the older courses that I haven't figured out yet, agh!

Time to go below the surface. If anyone had any lingering concerns that this game may be pandering to fan favourites, the Undersea course would surely put an end to that. Smash hit beloved pokemon Luvdisc, Lumineon, Cradily and Qwilfish star here, and the only gen 1 type around (aside from the token Karp) is Tentacruel of all things! Wailmer starts a beautiful whale song that I later realise is a taunt at Octillery, Cradily 'dances' endearingly, the Clawitzers have an epic anime style fight against each other, Qwilfish puffs up and deflates, it's all fun. I particularly like that they give Tentacruel a cute dance here, really playing against type choosing that over a more typically 'elegant' pokemon.

As much as I'm enjoying myself, it does feel a bit of a waste that it's just the reef environment again but we're underwater now. The title calls it 'Lental Seafloor' but we're just in the shallows, there's not really much here that couldn't have been on the surface... That was seriously gonna be my big complaint, but then I start Level 3, take a sidetrack, and wow.

I did not see such an elaborate side trail coming- Inkay is here spraying ink! I initially think Chinchou is preying on them, but a repeat run has me see Inkay use Hypnosis on the Chinchou. That's so cool! Lanturn is here, everything is dark, Starmie and Clamperl lie on the sandy sea floor almost entirely covered, a bunch of fish swim frantically away from what turns out to be another Wailord while a couple of Frillish watch from the sidelines, this is everything I wanted!

I could go on and on about this, it's so good. We've said already how neat it is seeing pokemon move in their natural environments, and that goes double for the underwater pokemon that in the main games are only ever seen stood on land, or weirdly floating in the air like the fish do in battle. I don't usually care about Clamperl but seeing it swim away from a Lumineon like an actual clam is amazing. And Golisopods are here on the bottom level training amongst the ancient ruins! They could have easily made this an entire separate course with the amount of new stuff that's in this side path, but I'm glad they didn't. This way it's a really fun surprise that keeps giving. And judging by a couple of cryptic comments from the professor/Todd and the requests, there's more here that I haven't seen yet.

Next up we have another Illumina course, which will wait til tomorrow. Hm, a pokemon on the sea floor that we haven't seen yet... my mind instantly goes to Relicanth, which is an unappreciated pokemon in the same way Meganium is, is pretty large and totally fits the 'ancient' vibe. Either of Clamperl's evos would fit too, but I'll have to wait and see!

Oh I'm glad you found the side path on Lental Seafloor so I didn't have to be like, hey you're missing something, since that is such a big part of that course

The trigger to unlock the undersea alt path is probably the most easily missable thing in the game. I'm glad that you didn't get stuck on it. I really wanted to see your reactions to it because it's probably the most stunning part of the game to see for the first time. And they definitely put it at the beginning of the course as an excuse to make a "new level" without having to actually make yet another water level. It's nearly as long as a full course.

The seafloor is probably my overall favorite course in the game, although there are a few competitors, including among courses you haven't played yet. I'm just a really huge sucker for marine life Pokemon which makes it the most beautiful course in the game for me. Finneon and Lumineon are genuinely two of my favorite Pokemon, and considering they're not very useful and deeply underloved in the main games, NPS is the perfect place for them to shine - I feel like there are a lot of underloved Pokemon in the series that got a lot of love in this game, which is perfect. Lanturn is another favorite of mine too, so that was also a treat. Definitely one of the coolest and most detailed courses in the game. It was really nice to get TWO great water courses after the beach was a bit of a letdown (again, not a terrible course, but probably my least favorite in the game, relatively light on memorable moments or scenery compared to others).

I had a topic here about a month or two ago asking for advice on which of this and Kirby something to give my sister for Christmas. They almost all said this, and my sister said that she absolutely loves it.

Seafloor was a top tier course even before the far superior alternate route tbqh. Just a great level all around. Really close between that and one other for my favorite in the game.

KCF0107 posted...

I had a topic here about a month or two ago asking for advice on which of this and Kirby something to give my sister for Christmas. They almost all said this, and my sister said that she absolutely loves it.

Oh I'd actually been wondering about that, I'm really excited to hear that!

Yeah, and she doesn't even have familiarity with the Pokemon really. Her only prior experience with Pokemon was the N64 Stadium games and the cartoon with Ash Ketchum.

I love Lental Seafloor, but playing through it multiple times is pretty tedious due to the Wailord segment. That's my only real complaint about it, top tier course otherwise.

I'm glad everyone else likes Lental Seafloor as much as I do! I spend probably far too long there today as there's so much to do. I can now make Clawitzer shoot water on command, unfortunately for the Qwilfish. I get the boulder broken in Lv2 and I've maxed out the photography level, but there's still so much I haven't figured out here.

I force myself to move onto the Illumina level, which turns out to be Wishiwashi. Ah well, I can't win them all! I was betting that the Illumina were all gonna be ancient pokemon to fit with all the ruins, but gameplaywise Wishiwashi makes a fair amount of sense I guess. The Level 2 version of this track is much cooler as it winds up with me being swallowed whole by the fish! Still it's a pretty empty level overall.

Our reward for facing down the next Illumina pokemon is a new level- the lab! This reminds me of all those fun bonus levels you used to get in the ps1 era of games as a reward for 100%ing everything, but here it's randomly handed to us in the middle of the game. Hey, I'm not complaining! The professor has some secret noises coming from his bedroom (hm...), there's a pokemon hiding under the wood, Sudowoodo is doing its thing (nothing is making it move atm), Bunnelby is playing whack-a-rabbit, and Cutiefly is here! I get a really nice shot of Cutiefly for a request, this is a great little bonus level. I reiterate that this feels like it should be a postgame reward, but I'm happy to see it either way.

*dlc spoilers i think in the next paragraph*

Next up I head back to the Nature Park, and discover the Secret Side Path. Yes, Professor Mirror has created technology that can shrink humans to a tiny size, and we are using it to take closeup shots of Wurmple and a Bidoof's backside. This is fun, Dodrio is a menace as always and there's a nice cameo from Snorlax and Shroomish, though in general I get the feeling they arranged this level so people can have an easier time getting shots of Emolga and Vespiquen lol. I still haven't triggered Vespiquen in the main level >_> It's a nice extra, I wish it had some more new pokemon but then I guess this isn't a full level and the real prize is this track making it into the game at all.

I unlock regular Nature Park Lv3 too, and get the cutest shot of a Bidoof smiling behind me on the dam. There's a pokemon in the dam (surely Bibarel), but it's not coming out :(. Love the detail of one of Dodrio's heads waking the others up, and when it watches the Bouffalant fight it doesn't bother waking them. This game has so much stuff!

Tomorrow I will definitely finally play the Desert, I promise. Probably.

Wishiwashi is cool but I felt like the level was way too empty and long, which is kinda disappointing. For what it's worth, it was probably my least favorite Illumina level, so there's that. The rest are a little better, I think. But it's the one part of the game I don't rave about much.

I do kinda wish the Secret Side Path had new Pokemon in it, but it's still a really fun little time - I like the little storyline with Dodrio and the others that plays out. I do feel like it makes it almost too easy to get shots of Emolga and a couple other Pokemon but whatever, it's fine.

I love the lab course, though! I was really hoping for it after you take that one picture of Pikachu at the lab at the start of the game, I was like 'wait, hey, that place was really nice, I want to go take more photos there!' and fortunately I got my wish. Even though it's a fairly small place it's still pretty detailed and has a lot of Pokemon to get, and I regard it as being pretty close to a full course.

This game really does have a ton of stuff! It's nice to see that you're taking your time and not just blowing through everything as quickly as possible; there's still quite a lot of game left.

I like Wishiwashi as an Illumina because it pretty much accomplishes what Pokemon S/M was wanted to do with its Totem Wishiwashi but failed due to lack of detail. But true also, the level itself is kind of bad for playing. Not enough visual landmarks to tell where you are, and very few side Pokemon.

andylt posted...

I get the feeling they arranged this level so people can have an easier time getting shots of Emolga and Vespiquen lol

Vespiquen 3* is notoriously difficult to get in the regular Nature Park but is just handed to you in Secret Side Path. So yeah this was almost definitely something they did intentionally lol

I only really liked one of the Illumina courses (Not this one...think it's one andy hasn't gotten to yet). Not my favorite part of the game by any means, though I guess I like them more than the Rainbow Cloud level of the original.

Oh yeah, Illumina levels are way better than the rainbow from the original. I don't dislike them or anything, they're just a bit long for how empty they are and a clear downgrade from the regular levels. And you can only present one of your shots so they do kinda drag on repeat runs!

-hotdogturtle-- posted...

I like Wishiwashi as an Illumina because it pretty much accomplishes what Pokemon S/M was wanted to do with its Totem Wishiwashi but failed due to lack of detail. But true also, the level itself is kind of bad for playing. Not enough visual landmarks to tell where you are, and very few side Pokemon.

Yeah this is a good point, they do handle Wishiwashi well. A shame the level (by design) has little else going on. But it is impressive seeing them swarm together and form the big fish in the darkness.

Kenri posted...

Vespiquen 3* is notoriously difficult to get in the regular Nature Park but is just handed to you in Secret Side Path. So yeah this was almost definitely something they did intentionally lol

Paratroopa1 posted...

I do feel like it makes it almost too easy to get shots of Emolga and a couple other Pokemon but whatever, it's fine.

Lol I'm not complaining, some of these pokemon are tough to get good shots of! It is funny though, the main level has these requests merely hinting at Vespiquen's existence but then the side level has her prancing around in plain sight the whole time. Glad to know my suspicions were right on that one.

The lab level definitely has a ton of stuff I haven't figured out yet, there's more there than I expected considering you're just walking in a circle.

I feel like the first two illumina levels had more extra pokemon in them compared to the rest. The 2nd one in particular was my favorite illumina level.

I extracted every single photo at max score that I could from first island and water island before moving on.

That's about the time I couldn't play the game as much anymore. Was working on desert and 2nd dlc level when I uninstalled the game to make room for Fire Emblem.

Love this game to bits tho

I 1 through 4-star diamonded every Pokemon in the game. It was a really fun experience, save for one or two instances.

Ranking the courses, I'm not sure where andy is in the game exactly, so I'll spoiler anything beyond Lentil Sea Floor (minus the illumina spots, since it's no spoiler that those exist, and I have a limited number of spoiler tags available).

Volcano > Undersea > Snowfields (Night) > Sands (Night) > Park (Night) > Snowfields (Day) > Park (Day) > Sands (Day) > Forest > Cave > Side Path (Day) > Badlands (Day) > Beach (Night) > Reef (Evening) > Side Path (Night) > River (Day) > River (Night) > Badlands (Night) > Beach (Day) > Jungle (Day) > Jungle (Night) > Reef (Day) > Aurus Illumina Spot > Ruins > Belusylva Illumina Spot > Florio Illumina Spot > Maricopia Illumina Spot > Durice Illumina Spot > Voluca Illumina Spot

Whew, two great tracks today! First up is the Sands, which has the advantage of being home to several of my favourite pokemon. I love deserts in this series, they don't seem to get the credit they deserve sometimes. Here we have roaming Hippowdon, Heliolisk that look much better in this game than in any other I've seen them in, rolling Sandshrew, Cacnea (a pet fav of mine, though I don't see Cacturne around unfortunately), and plenty more. The little guys are getting tossed around by sandstorms and the bigger pokemon all over this course, poor things! An oasis in the middle helps give this area a distinct structure so it doesn't feel like we're aimlessly roaming over sand dunes. Actually you can probably split this course into four areas which flow into each other nicely.

There are two big guns here who are fond of Sandstorm: Tyranitar, who is appropriately beastly in using Rock Smash and outscaring the Lycanroc, and Flygon! Fly has always been one of my all time favs, and I'm really glad it gets centre stage here. I love the noises it makes, how it flies all around the course after you trigger it, its interactions with the lil Trapinch, everything. Yay Flygon!

The night version of this course adds a cool atmospheric twist in the form of Minior. I would never have thought of this, but it works really nicely. Though I have no idea how to get a good photo of them, they're too small! It's worth it for the vibes regardless, having shooting stars falling down and then ascending back to the sky at the end is great. Also there's a herd of Onixes that makes me very glad this tiny vehicle is invincible. And I'm pretty unfamiliar with Silicobra but it looks cool, I haven't figured out all of its tricks yet.

The second course today is the Volcano, which isn't quite as fire heavy as I expected. First off it opens with Altaria, another 3rd gen fav of mine (love its song here!), and Luxray. The prehistoric theme helps give the course character- I'm not a big fan of any of these three dino pokes but together they work nicely, and I'm growing quite fond of Archeops from how it's displayed here. I like that we slowly descend into the volcano, though I may prefer the external bits overall with the hot spring and jagged mountain edges etc. Inside we have all the usual fiery suspects, but we get cut off at the end because of a collapsed door. Hm, was this intended to be longer, will we get more content here, or is it just some added flavour? We'll see!

In Level 2 we enter a cool looking blue magma room, and unlock this region's Illumina area. Hm, a fire type deep under the mountain... Heatran? They've avoided legendaries so far though... Darmanitan maybe? They could use its zen mode gimmick or something.

This course also gives us a few more starters- I really did not expect Typhlosion, partially because we already had Meganium and partially because they've had trouble animating its fire in 3D in the past lol. It looks good though! We also have Charmander and Zard, and Monferno. Chimchar's line is one of my least fav in all of pokemon, but I'll admit there is something charming about Monferno monkeying around with all these huge badass pokemon fighting for territory. We've now had quite a few starters from the first 4 and 8th generations, but nothing from 5-7. Weird.

Also now is a good time to note, is it just me or does this game have a real lack of middle-stage pokemon? We have Monferno and Graveler here but overall it seems to be sticking to first and third stages.

Next up we have the fire Illumina and a foggy forest area high in the mountains, that one sounds very promising! Great tracks today though.

Didn't get to play much today, but I did do the next Illumina spot. Aw yeah Volcarona! Volc briefly crossed my mind when I was thinking what it could be, but I dismissed it as something too unintimidating for them to pick. That'll teach me to underestimate these devs! I've never played BW/BW2 but Volcarona is probs my fav pokemon from that gen, and she looks great here. We even have two of them doing all sorts of beautiful acrobatics!

I'm not usually bothered by the professor limitations but Illumina tracks are so long with only a single (or a handful of) pokemon in them, it is annoying that you can only present one photo at the end of the trip. IMO they should've altered that rule for these courses so you can at least present one of each star category for the main pokemon. This course is actually pretty decent (cool music too) but Illumina levels will always have that black mark against them, knowing that dozens of the photos we're taking are gonna be 100% useless. Still this was a fun time, and we've now unlocked a new route through the lab.

I do agree that they should have let you show multiple photos of the Illumina Pokemon for sure, because it does make most of the trip feel completely pointless, and the Volcarona level is pretty long. Do agree though that Volcarona was an AWESOME choice.

Well, Elsewhere Forest is a bizarre stage! Not at all what I expected. The foggy framework area is fine but the main draw of this level is its weird seasonal gimmick. I haven't figured out the key to this one yet, I don't know what triggers which season you get and there's a bunch of puzzles that I have no idea how to solve. But the pokemon are good and each seasonal area is nice and varied. Sawsbuck is a natural choice of course, and there's some interesting picks like Kecleon, Bewear and Serperior. Applin is a great surprise (I'm not very familiar with gen 8) though much like Minior it's too small for me to get good shots. I'm glad Trevenant is here, but I have to say it's not very intimidating in this game. Trev is the 'generic' wandering pokemon of this stage, so it doesn't really get a highlight. Not yet anyway, but I haven't got all the stars yet.

I was about to leave this stage but on my last run I saw the Winter theme for the first time, which introduces Gardevoir and Alolan Ninetales. There's clearly a lot of stuff going on here I've yet to discover! I suppose this counts as the Psychic course of the game.

Off to the Illumina stage, and it's Milotic! Gonna be honest, Milo isn't a fav of mine by any means, but this stage is a nice change of pace. Milotic is the first Illumina since Meganium who is friendly and non-aggressive, which is why I feel pretty bad throwing fruit at it all the time >_> The music is good and there's a bigger variety of extra pokemon here than usual. I do have trouble getting good shots because of her body shape and the water aspect, but thankfully the game gives Illumina pics ridiculous point boosts so it's easy to get the diamond ranks. A good course, this is probs the Illumina stage that feels the most replayable.

Our reward is a Turbo boost, which will hopefully come in really handy in all the past areas. We unlock a snowy island which Mirror claims is the final location, but looking at what we still have left to do I'm thinking we have a few more levels to go yet. I still haven't unlocked the other variants of Beach and Reef, and I know from the medals page that there's plenty of types I haven't maxed out yet, and all the Eeveelutions to come. (I imagine Glaceon will be in the snow stage and Vaporeon will be in Beach or Reef, but that still leaves Jolt and Umbreon that I haven't seen yet) Much to do!

I've played 50 hours+ of this game and didn't know Elsewhere Forest had a season gimmick (I've only played it once).

Oops!

You should go back to it! It's a cool level and the seasons add a lot to it.

Speaking of, I didn't do any new levels today but I did spend time in the forest. I found an extra path, saw some of Espurr's tricks, reunited Deerling and Sawsbuck, and got the secret ending area. It's really beautiful to look at! Unfortunately I still don't know how to trigger each season, but the alternate path after moving the Trevenant seems to give me Winter more often than not. Though I don't know what I can do with the Ninetales there... More secrets to discover, of course.

Following on from the winter preview, tomorrow I'll try the snow stage.

OK they're directly pandering to me with the Snowfields, the pokemon choices are brilliant. Furret! Mamoswine! Glalie! Spheal! Piplup! Snom! Furret and Spheal are particularly well-animated, just as I'd imagined them. Swinub and Snorunt are competing for most adorable creature here, with Snorunt falling over and hiding all the time and Swinub running up that hill and cheering when it makes its way to the top. They even have Skarmory, one of my all-timers, flying around. Despite not being an ice-type it feels like it belongs here 100%. Weirdly this is apparently the first steel-type I've seen in this game, and given that we got a medal for that I'm guessing there's not many more! Also shout-out to Alolan Sandslash for being camera-shy.

I briefly go through the nighttime mode to unlock the Illumina Orbs but I haven't been thorough with that one. The atmosphere is great though with the pack of hunting Mightyena, and woooo Frosmoth wooo! Again, it moves as elegantly as I'd hoped. I've always been fond of ice types, but particularly those that don't follow the 'big defensive wall' archetype, so I really love the pokemon selections here. I just hope that there's alternate paths I have yet to discover, because that's all this course needs to be an absolute fav of mine.

We've unlocked some Caves and Night Beach (bizarre to unlock that one now...), but they'll have to wait until I do the snowy nights tomorrow.

Snowfields Night is my favorite course in the game.

I liked the game, but I found that after doing the routes a few times it got really boring. I haven't played it for months.

Love Snowfields. Knew you'd like that course a lot based on your wishlist.

Snowfields was not one of my favorites but that says more about how much I liked the rest of the game than it does about Snowfields.

I guess my upcoming opinions must be pretty obvious by this point lol. Snowfields is like on the verge of top tier for me, it just needs one more thing. Which leads me into today...

I still haven't found an alternate path in the Snowfields! I think every course so far has had a side track so there must be one, but I feel like I've tried everything- constant scans, fruit, orbs, music... Can someone confirm if there is indeed one so I know whether it's worth continuing to look for it? Thanks.

Aside from that the Snowfields continue to be fun. Nighttime has a different vibe but it's not as intimidating as the Mightyena first make it seem. It's good seeing how each pokemon hides from the hunters differently, and it is also fun to toss Weavile out of a tree and leave the poor thing buried in the snow with its legs in the air. Braviary replaces Skarmory (not quite as cool but still neat), Delibird is Delibird, and they've brought back Jynx for some reason to play with Vanilluxe lol. But today's award for 'pokemon who this game has made me like a lot more' goes to Abomasnow. I never really rated it before, I had no idea it had such a gentle reflective personality. From gazing at the stars, to putting on a show for the Furrets, to being as mesmerised watching Frosmoth as I am, it's really cool seeing its higher intelligence in action. Nice work.

I also briefly peek in to Beach Night to see what is different, and oh boy the first thing I see is a Zangoose! Oh it is on!! Sure enough, Seviper is hiding in the bushes. I've just done a run through on level 1 so far so I haven't seen them fight, but I am properly excited for this inevitable showdown. These devs have plucked my dream pokemon scenarios and put them right there on the screen! Drifblim is also floating around, and I look forward to playing around with it and seeing how it interacts with the environment in this game. Inkay and Clamperl have surfaced from the depths and behave completely differently up here, and now Sandygast is present (so I spent all that time throwing stuff at the dunes in Beach Day for nothing!). This is already more exciting than the daytime track was for me.

Also a shout-out to the Vivillon, I haven't mentioned them much but I really love how they've been used. At this point I feel like they're probably putting all or nearly all of their variants into the game- most tracks seem to have one commonish version flying around and another rare one hiding away as a reward. It's a smart way of doing things, and I will not rest until I have seen all of them.

Thanks! The search will continue tonight...

I haven't done much the past couple of days, still no luck finding the alternate Snowfields route >_> But I did solve most of the requests on that stage, including a multi-step one involving Weaviles, Swinub and Mamoswine. Boy, these puzzles are getting more and more elaborate! I decide to just leave Snowfields for a while and hope that when I come back with fresh eyes I'll see the alt route straight away. On the Night Beach, Zangoose and Seviper are yet to fight, but Sandygast v Crabrawler is one of my fav confrontations in the game so far so I'm happy with those two!

As for the new course, I'm not sold on the cave yet. Most of the species seem to be staying in their own groups just sorta wandering around or hiding, there's nothing to immediately hook me. But I've only seen level 1 and I don't like interfering much on my first run through, so I shouldn't make a judgment call this early. There's certainly enough interesting species here- Joltik, Crobat, Croagunk, Gengar to name a few, so fingers crossed things get hectic. Gengar is the obvious troublemaker, but my fav here has to be the very timid Sableye going about their business.

Level 2 of the cave is indeed much better than the first. My apologies for doubting you, cave! The plants at the bottom are a nice surprise, as are Drifloon and Mawile. Instead of spending more time here I jump right into the next Illumina level- my guess was Gigalith, but it's Steelix. Steelix isn't an awful choice but we have already had Onix and a snake-like Illumina pokemon, so it's a bit disappointing personally. The course itself is alright but not the best Illumina track, level 2 seems more promising with all the different patterns Steelix can have depending on which holes you get it out of, and Crobat and Noibat.

I uncharacteristically feel like charging ahead, so after looking at the mural and unlocking Aurus island, I head into the Ruins. I wasn't expecting a full level here but this is great, they picked really good pokemon choices here for a mysterious ancient ruin vibe. Sigilyph, Eldegoss, Natu, and Beheeyem are all good options here even though I have no attachment to them individually. Houndoom is a weird choice, I don't remember any lore about it being some kinda guardian and I didn't expect it ingame after we've already had Mightyena, but whatever. The highlight is Golurk, I love Golurk.

We unlock the elevator and I can't stop myself from moving ahead to the final illumina pokemon. I didn't know what this would be, I was kinda hoping it wouldn't be a legendary/mythical as they've avoided them so far but I considered Arceus, Celebi and Shaymin. I also thought of Aurorus given the name of the island. But Xerneas is at least not an obvious choice so I'll give them credit for that, though I can't say I care for it as a pokemon. It doesn't really do anything interesting, but hey it's less annoying than the Mew level from the original. And... that's that! A couple of cheesy cutscenes later and we're rolling credits! It felt like a bit of an abrupt ending but the plot isn't why anybody is here so who cares.

Obviously I have a ton more stuff to do in the existing courses and I've just unlocked Evening Reef and two other new tracks (though Todd implies one may be a returning one from OG Snap :O), but hey we 'beat' the game, woo! I have a feeling I'll be busy with this for a while though, still so much stuff I haven't seen and done...

One of the biggest tragedies of this game is casual players stopping after reaching the credits and not exploring even though the majority of the whole game's content is in the max research levels which they never reached.

-hotdogturtle-- posted...

One of the biggest tragedies of this game is casual players stopping after reaching the credits and not exploring even though the majority of the whole game's content is in the max research levels which they never reached.

This is very good to hear knowing there's so much left to discover!