Pokemon, for me, is at its best when it focuses on its conservation science and ecology theme, allowing their cast to feel like a part of their living world in ways more meaningful than random encounters materialising out of tall grass. With every mainline entry, it feels like they make the world map first and drizzle Pokemon on top like a complete afterthought, their inclusion almost never feels cognisant to the way the human inhabitants build their cities or live their lives - we're STILL fixated on collusiums. New Poke Snap takes advantage of this to charming extent and is the prettiest of the 3D games imo in part because of it. It's so nice to just passively glide by and be reminded that Pokemon can just vibe in a forest, any step away from constant tedious battles and cold hard stats is a step closer to primo.

Kind of weak as an actual photography game, though, but I've yet to find a game that has any idea how to gamify effective employments of elements of composition like the rule of thirds or whatever. You want one (1) pokemon in dead-centre of the frame, looking like an idiot, for max pointz.

Since this game is all about Looking, my most tedious complaint would probably that the human characters look fucking weird man. Bizarrely high quality clothing textures and soft plastic lighting on their faces making them look like uncanny Sylvanian Families dolls??? Cel shading is a dirty word these days I think, this weird toy rendering is all anyone does. Look, I just think Herdy Gerdy was on to something and we've been regressing ever since.

Anyway, this is fun! A little grindy, but this is a comfy game I'll be returning to for months to come.