Imho the problem with the 3D-era pokemon games isn’t that they look low-fi, it’s that they look low-fi in a boring way. Like they were built from asset-store content from 15 years ago.
If ever there was a game that could’ve gotten away with some weird theme like voxel-art or heavy use of billboarded sprites, it’s pokemon. Like, imagine a pokemon game with pixelated hand-animated textures like in Megaman Legends. That would work.
Cobblemon is a pokémon mod for minecraft, and definitely has a charm to it and fits weirdly well into the minecraft-pixel-art-with-shaders esthetic IMO. Plus the “gotta catch em all” basic gameplay loop meshes well with Minecraft’s incentive to explore the world.
Of course it’s a free mod so it’s a bit rough around the edges and there doesn’t seem to be much to do beyond collect pokémon and build minecraft houses, but in my online circles it certainly has captured a lot more attention than any pokémon game released in the last forever. I would like to think Nintendo is taking notes, but we all know they Don’t Give A Fuck. They’ll pump out any asset flip and people will buy it because they’re nostalgic and Nintendo has a legally enforced monopoly on the franchise.
It would be cool to have the original game boy map of pokemon where you can play through the game but at any point walk off the path and build a minecrafy house haha
Imho the problem with the 3D-era pokemon games isn’t that they look low-fi, it’s that they look low-fi in a boring way. Like they were built from asset-store content from 15 years ago.
If ever there was a game that could’ve gotten away with some weird theme like voxel-art or heavy use of billboarded sprites, it’s pokemon. Like, imagine a pokemon game with pixelated hand-animated textures like in Megaman Legends. That would work.
Cobblemon is a pokémon mod for minecraft, and definitely has a charm to it and fits weirdly well into the minecraft-pixel-art-with-shaders esthetic IMO. Plus the “gotta catch em all” basic gameplay loop meshes well with Minecraft’s incentive to explore the world.
Of course it’s a free mod so it’s a bit rough around the edges and there doesn’t seem to be much to do beyond collect pokémon and build minecraft houses, but in my online circles it certainly has captured a lot more attention than any pokémon game released in the last forever. I would like to think Nintendo is taking notes, but we all know they Don’t Give A Fuck. They’ll pump out any asset flip and people will buy it because they’re nostalgic and Nintendo has a legally enforced monopoly on the franchise.
There’s also Pixelmon, an older but largely more complete Pokemon mod for Minecraft.
Is there any kind of battle system
Both games have full implented battle systems.
Cobblemon allows you to move while battling, and has faint animations.
Pixelmon is more feature complete, but it’s glitchier.
Definitely play it on a server. The procedural generated gyms are cool, but nothing beats humans.
There is, though I can’t tell you how fun it is because I haven’t played it and never cared for the original games’ battle system.
It would be cool to have the original game boy map of pokemon where you can play through the game but at any point walk off the path and build a minecrafy house haha
Thanks for calling out Megaman Legends. It’s one of my favorite series of all time and it’s so wildly underrated.
I used to wish for a remaster, but now I don’t want one because I know it’ll be made to shit.