【Her PS Partner】

In a surprise reveal,Her PS Partner Pokémon: Let's Go Pikachu! and Let's Go Eevee!were introduced to the world Tuesday night among other Pokémon news, and although details are sparse, this looks like the perfect tribute to the original games.

The Pokémon:Let's Gogames send players back to Kanto, the region featured in the first Pokémon games, to explore, catch Pokémon, and battle against other trainers, all with a little companion to keep you company along the way. It appears to be a complete remaster of the original games from the '90s, plus some changes, and it seems exactly like the kind of thing that classic Pokémon fans needs.

When I was a kid, I was enamored with Pokémon. I collected Pokémon cards, I watched the PokémonTV show, my favorite shirt was a gray Pokémon T-shirt with a picture of Pikachu on it, my brother and I made our parents take us to see Pokémon The Movie 2000in the theater, and of course I played every Pokémon game I could get my hands on.

One of my first introductions to video games was the original Pokémon Red Version, which came out for the Game Boy in North America in 1998. I loved it and played it all the time, then picked up 1999's Pokémon Yellow Versionnot soon after, which was basically the same game but you got to have a Pikachu follow you around from the start.

At the time, it was the best thing in the world to me and millions of others. But unfortunately it has not aged well. When you've seen what modern Pokémon games look like, where the Pokémon are actually recognizable and have color, it's hard to go back to the originals and their extremely limited visuals.

Believe me, I've tried.

That's where Pokémon: Let's Go Pikachu! and Let's Go Eevee!come in. In the short bursts of footage shown in the teaser trailer, the game looks appealing enough to bring me back to Kanto and successfully rekindle some of that childhood magic.

The new features like the interactive Pokéball throwing a-la Pokémon Goand optional cooperative mode are just enough to spice things up. The fact that it's a bit more casual than the normal series games also seems strangely appealing, sort of like a nice easy way to dip back into the past.

Also you get to dress up your Pikachu and Eevee.

Sometimes you want those fancy new visuals and sounds but you don't want to have to learn 100 new Pokémon while exploring a whole new region.

For new players, it's an easy transition into the series, especially if you've played Pokémon Go, and for veterans it's likely a nice holdover until the next entry in the series arrives on Switch in 2019. Assuming everything goes according to plan.

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