What We Want to See From a Pokemon Game on the Nintendo Switch

The Pokemon franchise is coming to the Nintendo Switch. The Pokemon Company president Tsunekazu [...]

By Christian Hoffer

pokemon 3d

The Pokemon franchise is coming to the Nintendo Switch. The Pokemon Company president Tsunekazu Ishihara announced that Game Freak was developing a core series Pokemon game for Nintendo's new console.

Although the new Pokemon game won't be out for at least another year, we're already shaking with anticipation about the Pokemon franchise finally making the move to a home console. Not only do we finally get to play a Nintendo game on our TV, (which we haven't been able to do since the Super Game Boy went out of commission in the 1990s,) this could wind up being the most ambitious Pokemon game ever.

While we impatiently wait for more news about the Pokemon Switch game, here's a few things we're hoping to see in the new game.

A New Generation

alola pokemon

If the Pokemon Switch game isn't coming out until late 2018 or 2019, the last thing we want is for it to be part of the current "generation" of Pokemon games. By the time a new Pokemon game comes out for the Switch, fans will have waited over two years since they discovered a new Pokemon species in the wild.

First and foremost, a Pokemon Switch game needs to act as the start of a new generation of games. We don't want to see a sequel game to Pokemon Sun and Moon like the rumored Pokemon Stars, we want new Pokemon, new characters, and new locales to explore.

More Than One Region

kanto and johto

Pokemon fans have clamored for the chance to return to past regions for decades, but they've only had the opportunity to do so via the remakes of older games. Not since Pokemon Gold and Silver has a Pokemon game allowed players to explore multiple regions at once.

We've long assumed that the lack of multiple regions in a game has been due to issues related to the Nintendo 3DS, so now's the perfect time to expand the world of Pokemon. Given the size and depth of games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, there's no reason not to give players more than one region to explore. What if a player could become a Pokemon World Champion instead of just the champion of a region? The possibilities are endless.

All the Pokemon in One Game

pokemon all of them

The Pokemon franchise is built around the concept that you need to trade Pokemon between games in order to truly "catch 'em all." We're not asking for that to change. But we do have an issue with the recent trend that some Pokemon aren't available for an entire generation of games, or that you need to buy two sets of different Pokemon games (like Pokemon X and Y and Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire) for the opportunity to catch them all.

There will likely be a way to transfer Pokemon from Pokemon Sun and Moon to the Pokemon Switch, but this still is a great opportunity to let players actually catch and trade all Pokemon within a set of Pokemon games. There's no reason to limit a Pokemon game to only 300 Pokemon, especially if you have multiple regions (wink wink.)

New Game Mechanics

pokemon walking

Pokemon Sun and Moon represented the farthest the Pokemon franchise have ever strayed from their well worn and successful pattern of making Pokemon games. While doing away with HMs and the gym system was a good change of pace, we feel like a Pokemon Switch game could find ways to innovate the Pokemon franchise even more without abandoning its core foundation.

Sure, we can probably expect some fun things like Pokemon following their trainers around (which almost appeared in Pokemon Sun and Moon,) but we could see even more ambitious tweaks to gameplay. Maybe players will be able to see what Pokemon they're about to come across in the wild, so they can try to avoid it. Or maybe we'll have some element of real time battling/dodging attacks.

Whatever it is, we hope the Pokemon franchise makes some big leaps when it moves to a more powerful console next year.

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