Sent From My Phone: Pokemon As a Fidget Spinner

So the last three major Pokémon releases (Sword/Shield, Legends: Arceus, Scarlet/Violet) have moved to this kind of open-world hybrid design. Instead of the game boy era’s Routes that lead directly from 1 location to the next in story order, towns are scattered around in one big open area, with wild Pokémon spawning on the overworld. This concept has evolved over the last few games of course. In Sword/Shield, we technically had both classic Routes AND a giant circular area where the Pokémon spawned. In Legends: Arceus and Scarlet/Violet, Pokémon are out, everywhere.

This is, in my opinion, a huge aesthetic improvement. There’s always been something cute about the concept of Danger in the Tall Grass, and the randomness inherent in the old way enabled certain extracurricular styles of play, like the nuzlocke run. Seeing herds of Pokémon running around in the wild evokes the spirit of Pokémon, and the spirit of wilderness so much better. It’s one of my favorite modern Pokémon changes.

This has also, however, led to a certain kind of Mobile Game-ification of the Pokémon series. Sword/Shield added Max Raid dens to the overworld, new locations on the map you had to stop at to participate in. The actual raids were fun, but touching a den gives you League Points, and you need LP to buy certain items. So a session of Pokémon could quickly devolve into cycling around the map and touching every den. On top of that, if you cleared all the Max Raids on your map, it refreshed the map with new Max Raids. That’s more LP baby!!

This idea has persisted into Scarlet/Violet, which is fine, I guess. The Indigo Disk DLC has truly carried the series into mobile game territory by effectively adding Dailies. I call them dailies, but really they’re worse; Blueberry Quests (or BBQs, as the game cutely calls them), are small missions that constantly replace themselves. Little things, like “Take a Photo of a Pokémon,” or “Travel 500 Steps.” Stuff that’s designed to encourage you to interact with the Terarium, the location you spend most of the DLC at. Once the numbers start going up, though, my brain just phases out. Four hours and 1200 BP (that’s Blueberry Points, of course) later, I’ve got no clue what happened. Only a Switch hard drive filled with random photos of Pokémon to remind me, like looking through my phone after a particularly busy night out.

It's like if Professor Oak said "You Were Close!" after looking at every drunk photo. Pictures from Pokemon Scarlet.

Since I’ve started writing this, I’ve both Gotten Way Worse About It, and also kind of burnt myself out from doing it. It’s been a very zen way to spent time kind of sad in my apartment listening to a podcast, or in a call with friends. I gravitate to gaming experiences like that these days, to be honest. I also think it’s kind of a shame that this is the direction Pokemon has been heading lately!