New Pokémon Snap (Part 2)

In Part 1, I covered a part of the plot and went over many of the game’s features. Well, there’s more to say today!

Fantastic Photo Features

Yes, Corsola! Get to the apple!

This new Snap game takes full advantage of the abilities of the current consoles, and takes cues from all the ways people have gained to edit their own pictures on smartphones. The photo edit feature is accessible from the Photodex in the Lab.

Cel-shaded is great. I would play a cel-shaded Pokémon game.

First is filters; at time of writing, I had found 15 out of 20, from classic black-and-white and sepia to greater changes like cel-shaded, a comic style, a fish-eye lens, or pixelated. Second is stickers, which can be added to the picture: Symbols, facial expressions, effects and speech bubbles. Finally, special frames can be added for extra flair. Filters, stickers and frames are unlocked through gameplay, by earning research titles and by completing pages of the Photodex.

Still not enough? You can use this menu to add your own caption to the picture, upload it online to your New Pokémon Snap page, or download it to your console’s photo album, if you like it enough for that.

Most of these settings make changes so minute that only a
photographer with real experience would be able to tell.
The biggest exception is the brightness, of course.

Another feature added is the Re-Snap, which you can access after your run through a course has been scored by Mirror. You can take any of your pictures (doesn’t need to be one that the Professor scored this round), re-frame it, and change the brightness, blur, focus size, or focal point; you can even put new filters or change the caption! However, since this can only happen after the scoring’s been done, it doesn’t really matter. It’s just a pleasant extra that allows you to do the perfect shot out of a photo that wasn’t perfect to start with. It’s not pointless, but if you’re playing for scores and exploration and not for the creativity aspect, it won’t be what you’ll gravitate to.

Research Titles and LenTalk Requests

Done with Swanna! Moving on to another target!

The biggest quest in this game is to fill the Photodex – which means not just one photo, but one for every possible rank, from one to four. Post-update, this means 234 Pokémon, and therefore at least 936 photos (and countless reruns through each course as a result). The Story Mode will lead you to getting several naturally (you do have to play several courses 2-3 times to progress the story), but many more are tricky to get.

Hey, you hurt that Pelipper! The Pyukumuku was just fine in
its beak, it was hitching a ride! (I am not joking, it was!)

The big draw of a Snap game isn’t just to take pictures of Pokémon, but to use the tools at your disposal to make them interact for the best picture you could take. There’s a strong puzzle aspect that we almost tend to forget about, since the better interactions require specific sequences of actions, often with specific timing, to trigger. You need to be a good shot with the fluffruit and Illumina Orbs, since a lot of high-starred shots require that the Pokémon is either eating or glowing.

Some of these are just regular playing. Others are just
dedication. And then some... go with the online feature, so
they will get harder to complete the older the game gets.

There are two different types of achievements, many of which grant new items of photo edit: Research Titles, and LenTalk Requests. The former is closer to classic achievements, with many of them being unlocked through Story Mode progression, and several more being found naturally just by playing a lot (which is bound to happen due to the game making you re-do routes). As an example, catching 10+ Pokémon of a specific Type on film, snapping up to 10,000 photos, finding all Pokémon, and so on. There’s even a few related to getting Sweet! Medals from other people on the photos you publish online! In total, you’ve got 140 Titles to obtain.

Many of these are pretty easy. Others require experimentation.
And then, a few outright require actual luck due to things that
can change based on RNG when playing the same course.

LenTalk (photo) Requests are much more fun and numerous. After you’ve discovered a Pokémon the first time, you might receive a task from Rita, Mirror, Todd or Phil through the camera’s LenTalk feature. They’ll talk about something they want to see, or that they came close to the perfect shot and failed it, and they are thus asking you to do it for them. There’s exactly one per Pokémon species. Many have clear requirements, since the request is to catch the subject right as they’re doing something specific and/or unusual. Some behaviors need a lot of playing to even find, since you have many tools and you’re left to figure out, through trial and error, what will trigger that behavior.

See? I told you, the Pyukumuku was fine!

As an example, in the Florio Nature Park at night, you have to awaken a Pinsir with a scan, then make a Heracross come down from the tree with more scans; this will cause them to spar further into the course. Then, you can awaken a Sylveon and play the music to make it stop the fight. That’s just one example among the more complex ones.

If it isn't a direct photo of a failed attempt by Rita or Phil
for a 4* photo, then it's a picture of an area where Mirror
or Todd know something can be done for a great shot.

Each request comes with a photo of the failure from the requester, so you can use it to track down in which area, and in which course, that mission will be completed. It's usually the only route on which that’s possible. As a bonus, the Photo Requests usually hint at one way to get a 4-star photo for that Pokémon – again, it may not be the only one, but it can help if you haven’t figured any out yet. However, some requests are vague as to what the requester wants, which can make those missions difficult to complete.

*tosses apple* Get your palmtree butt out of my way!
I got places to go, and besides I like your Alolan version more!

I mentioned that this game doesn’t give Pester Balls – it wants to share the message that you befriend the Pokémon you meet on this photo journey. Therefore, annoying/hurting them with such projectiles ran contrary to intent. The other thing missing, for another justifiable reason, is Pokémon evolving before your eyes. This could happen in Snap 64; Charmeleon could evolve into Charizard when flung into a pit of lava, as one of many examples. I assume that this feature was not brought back because of the new system: Getting pictures of Pokémon at four different rarities of behavior is already tricky enough, without having Pokémon locked behind an evolution process. One that would require the player to repeat the same actions on a course before they can even start taking pictures and attempt to catch behaviors of the evolved species on film.

Chasing Illumina

Gorgeous forest! Bustling with Poké-life!

It's shining! But not shiny.

Eventually, we find a new area on Belusylva Island that’s a forest shrouded in mist. Thankfully, there are areas of light that’s good enough to take photos of the local fauna! Exploration of that space allows Prof. Mirror to find an energy reading similar to the Illumina Meganium’s. We enter the spot and find an enormous Milotic. Takes pictures when it glows! Mirror posits the theory that the giant Pokémon are from a time, long ago, where a meteorite fell on the Lental region. The giant Pokémon either protected the planet from the meteorite, or it created the Illumina phenomenon when it landed.

That blue lava is so cool! I mean, so hot!

Todd invites the player to do some photography-taking around the lab camp itself, since there are many Pokémon around it. That’s a sweet, nice little route. It would have been a missed opportunity not to have that option!

The hunt continues into Voluca Island, a desert that leads to an Illumina Spot within a volcano. In there, wee find TWO Illumina Volcarona floating around a magma cavern. They are covered in flames, which causes the camera to not recognize them; but we can dissipate the fire by throwing lots of fluffruit at them.

This is what true majesty looks like.

This thing can harmlessly pretend to eat you. It is, after all,
just a few thousand tiny fishes in the shape of a giant fish.

In the same vein, we must take a picture of a lit Crystalbloom on the Lentil seafloor, in Maricopia, to unlock the Orbs for that area. Now, we have a reason to revisit the beach and the reef. The seafloor is a trickier area to play in, because you have to take the floatier underwater physics into account when throwing  stuff. Visiting dark corners of the course reveals more ancient ruins leading to the Illumina Pokémon’s area. At first, doesn’t seem like there’s much. Just a couple dozen Wishiwashi. Well, toss enough Orbs at them and they flee to reappear in their School Form, the true Illumina beast of the area. Just in case you needed a reminder of the actual size of that thing.

After finding this Pokémon and capturing it on film, we learn that we’re moving beyond Captain Vince’s travelogue to hunt down a fifth source of Illumina energy. This expands the map and adds Durice, an island covered in snow. We also receive our final upgrade: A turbo allowing us to speed up the NEO-ONE at will, to get new chances for cool photos. Yay!

If you keep zzoming through the cave before this point, you
might even catch a glimpse of a Delibird! But I will settle
on a screenshot with Abomasnow, Spheal, and Alolan Vulpix.

The frozen mountains of Durice are visited during the day, then at night. We get a quick pic of a purple Crystalbloom for the Orb. More progress on this island allows us to discover underground caves to explore for more Pokémon, and maybe some additional secrets, too. Within the cave, we find a jungle lit by underground crystals, with more ruins further away. Yep, we’re about to find the next Illumina Pokémon as well!

Come out already, you big coward!

And that one… is a Steelix. Those aren’t small to begin with. Getting it to illuminate correctly is tough, because it speeds through cave holes, giving little time for the player. These are the “bosses” of the game for a reason. At the end of this course, Prof. Mirror notices man-made structures in the depths. The NEO-ONE enters that area and finds a 2,000 year old mural depicting five Illumina Pokémon defending the world against a rain of meteorites. The rock is partly broken, hiding the possibility of something existing between them. This could be the creature that gave them their Illumina properties, and the ability to defend the world in the first place!

The Final Island

The place is brimming with energy and ancient-coded
Pokémon, like Sigilyph, Golurk and Beheeyem.

The collected Illumina energy points to a final, tiny area: Aurus Island. Maybe that sixth creature may be found there! On our first exploration, we see ruins above ground, and a large tower underground surrounded by five colored fountains and statues representing the five previous islands. Once we’ve taken a picture of a lit Crystalbloom in the area (and obtain our final, golden Orbs), we can go back and light every Crystalbloom near fountains. This will light the five different flowers near the end of the path, creating a pillar of light that the NEO-ONE follows.

Just another boss testing your throwing aim, for a change.

C'm'on, turn around already... You want a fluffruit?

This takes us to the last Illumina Spot. We first see a tree… which lights up and morphs into Xerneas. How graceful! It immediately morphs into an energy ball, and we follow it around the ruins. Just shoot the ball with Orbs and it will return to its normal form temporarily and show off the phenomenon. Time to take plenty of pictures!

And… That’s the final “boss”! Upon the kid’s return to the lab with the new photos, everyone celebrates over solving the mystery and making such great scientific discoveries. Everyone guesses that our character was so successful because Pokémon could tell that this kid really loved them. (Never mind all the things we did for pics, like making Pokémon fight each other or tossing apples at their heads…)

That’s it for the story! After this, we get postgame extras. First, Todd upgrades the player’s camera with a Burst feature allowing them to take many pictures in a second, making it easier to land the perfect shot at a critical moment. The second is the addition of a scoring challenge: When you go through a course, you can try to aim for the highest score possible in one go. And if your Switch is connected to the Internet, you can compare your score to those of other players! (It’s been 5 years, though; you might not make it to the Top 100.) The last incentive you’ve got to revisit every course is that Legendary Pokémon are appearing in most of them now. It’s a good reason to come back and be on the lookout! Gotta fill that Photodex!

Final words

I would claim 234 isn't a big Pokédex, but that would be for
a mainline series game. For Snap? It's above and beyond
what I would have expected.

I love damn near every part of this. I’ve made it no secret that I love photography-focused games, and the two Pokémon Snap games are some of the most famous entries in this sub-genre. New Snap does away with some of the features its predecessor had, though those removals (Pester Balls and in-course evolutions) make sense with the direction the game wanted to take. The big draw in these games, for me, has always been to see Pokémon interacting with each other in ways that we seldom see in the mainline series. And 214 Pokémon (234 after the update) is an impressive number, with creatures from across the franchise’s then 8 Generations being featured.

Eevee doesn't understand the concept of hide and seek.

With 21 stages, 9 of which have day and night variants, there’s a lot to explore. Plenty of side-paths and secret areas to look for, too, with even more discoveries to be made. You have a ton of tools to use on this quest, and I love the puzzle aspect in trying to figure out which sequence of actions leads to the best or most interesting shots. There’s a depth to this one thanks to the requirement of catching behaviors on film fitting four different ranks of rarity. The quest is made much longer with all the research titles you can earn, and the photo requests you can complete.

The addition of online connectivity pushes a player of this game to go the extra mile and compare scores with other players, which is the most logical evolution on such a console. I will admit that’s not my pull, but it is fun to keep up with your overall score and how it measures against everyone else’s.

And it’s a game with a very peaceful and chill ambiance, which… sometimes, you just need one of those. No big stakes, no threats, just something with happy vibes to enjoy.

I guess these two were having a pleasant conversation.

My issues with the game are minor. While I appreciate the Re-Snap feature, I do think it isn’t as interesting as it could have been, since it can only be done to photos immediately after you’ve had your latest course scored. Can't even access it from your collection of saved photos in the Lab menu!

The game does pride itself on having a ton of side-paths, but some of them need specific requirements to be taken, and some of those hide unique Pokémon that cannot be found anywhere else, often forcing restarts.

Onix isn't so bad, since you'll encounter them every time you
go in the desert. Some Pokémon in the hidden paths of some
stages, on the other hand... like Lugia's secret underwater
cave... very different story.

This is compounded by the need to take at least four pictures of every Pokémon species, yet being only able to send one per course for scoring, which is an intense case of the game artificially increasing its length. It makes the repetition feel like a chore after a while, not helped by the Story Mode itself forcing you to play each course at least twice, if not more, to unlock the next. At the same time, I do acknowledge that the other possibility, scoring one photo per rank per Pokémon after a course, could have made the game go by way too quickly in comparison. Maybe there was a sweet spot to be found somewhere in the middle, who knows.

Long story short, I really like this one, and I wish for more. I hope Gen 10 brings another new Snap with Pokémon from the latest two Gens. Not that I care a ton about the new critters of Gen 9; I just like the Snap games that much.

This coming Friday… if all goes well, I am clearing another big one. My second-to-last Nintendo 3DS game. Tune in then!