RETRO REBOOT | Pokemon Snap (Nintendo 64)

If there's one Nintendo 64 game I spent a ton of time invested in, it was Pokemon Snap. I may not have dabbled in the card game much (I used to get whooped in high school), but at the time in the late 90's, the Pokemon TV show was a huge part of my anime viewing. It wasn't as good as Digimon, when it comes to lore and character development, but it had a fun, light-hearted appeal that made binge-watching easy. The anime served as essentially a vehicle to pitch the Game Boy games, resulting in a huge hit for the handheld console, as well as truly bringing anime into the mainstream.

Developed by HAL Laboratory, Pokemon Snap was released in the U.S. in July of 1999. I was already waist deep in Pokemon Blue (didn't get Red until later, but never gathered a full collection), and the Snap concept piqued my interest. I recall fans at the time being upset that it wasn't a legitimate 3D venturing game where you traverse an open world and hunt Pokemon, but I believe it quickly endeared itself to a lot of people. When I used to go on family trips and stayed at hotels, many a times, there would be a N64 connection built into the televisions with a handful of games on them, and Pokemon Snap was often one of them.

It's a first-person rail shooter where Professor Oak tasks Todd Snap to take the best pictures of Pokemon in the wild. It was originally supposed to be released for the N64DD, a floppy disc expansion drive that was supposed to enhance the capabilities of the console. Those plans were scrapped following the constant delays of the peripheral.

The central character Todd appeared in the anime several times, debuting in episode 53, Pokemon Paparazzi, where he wanted to take a photo of Ash's Pikachu in his most natural state. Team Rocket was led to believe he "captured" Pokemon, due to miscommunication from Meowth. His appearance predates the TV show, and appears in the anime to promote the game, as Pokemon Snap was in development in 1997.

Nintendo 64 had a good deal of first-person/rail shooter games (Knife Edge: Nosegunner, Turok, GoldenEye, just to name a few), but the twist of blending puzzle mechanics gives Pokemon Snap a high sense of replay value. There's also a few alternate paths in some levels, where a couple other Pokemon are hidden. By using Pester Balls and apples to get various reactions, you can achieve higher quality photos, thus leading to a better score. Later on, Oak gives you the Poke-Flute, which can trigger different reactions, like irritating certain Pokemon, or causing them to dance. Higher scores also depend on how big the Pokemon is, how much in frame they are, and the poses they're in, which Professor Oak can be a real stickler about.

More often than not, I'll have to go back and get another shot of a Koffing because its face is turned slightly off center. Replaying the courses is very key, since it will take multiple runs to get all the Pokemon. It can be a touch aggravating, but the controls are quite responsive and the button mapping is one of the best on the Nintendo 64 controller for a first person title, in my humble opinion. Many of the actions begin to feel second nature quickly after picking up the nuances. It gets quite rewarding when you figure out how to knock a Weepinbell into water, triggering an evolution into a Victreebel, or finding any one of the legendary birds.

While there's a little bit of clipping and slowdown, Pokemon Snap has pretty decent visuals. The 3D Pokemon models look pretty good making the leap from the handheld sprites. I also like how relaxing the scenery is, and the environments are simplistic, but the developers thought of creative ways to hide the 63 Pokemon throughout the maps. Menus are clean, and information is easily conveyed.

There may not be much in the way of music, but the OST puts me in mind of a game like Pilotwings. Many of the Pokemon emit their signature chitters and chirps, which generally was the critters saying their names. The overall presentation of Pokemon Snap can be described as soothing, and I'll take it as the occasional sabbatical from the guns a-blazing nature video games were becoming around this time.

While Pokemon Snap shows its age and can be a little bit clunky, especially in the wake of a 2021 sequel (New Pokemon Snap is an amazing follow-up), the original Nintendo 64 title retains a special place in my heart. It reflects a time where the franchise had just begun taking over the globe as one of Nintendo's new IPs. The N64 was also a console that took a little bit to warm up to me, this was a piece of software that aided in ingratiating itself to me.

It serves as a great reminder of just how much of a nutcase I was about Pokemon during this period in my life. Pokemon Snap may be quite small in scale, but it still has a little charm. For a spin-off game, it boasted a lot of creativity. And it has been a while since I really delved into the modern aspects of Pokemon, remembering the fun I had with it more than 20 years ago does make me want to reinvest time into what the series has become.