Pokémon Let's Go Eevee Review

Pokémon! Gotta catch them all!

That slogan is forever burned into my head. I grew up with Pokémon. I remember playing the original Pokémon Red, Pokémon Blue, and Pokémon Yellow. What I’m trying to say is simple: I LOVE Pokémon.

Pokémon Let’s Go Eevee is a game developed by Game Freak and published by The Pokémon Company and Nintendo and launched with Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu. Essentially, they are a rehash of the classic Pokémon Yellow which is a rehash of Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue. So Pokémon Let’s Go Eevee and Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu is a rehash of a rehash. As an avid fan of the original Pokémon games, I really looked forward to playing Pokémon Let’s Go Eevee. I was excited to take on the challenges. I quickly named my character something very appropriate (*cough cough* LIES *cough cough*) and began my adventure. So, did it meet my expectations?

Well, yes and no.

First off, Pokémon Let’s Go Eevee definitely gave off the feeling that I was playing Pokémon Yellow again. I noticed right away that Pallet Town looked absolutely amazing! Everything was so detailed, colored and in 3D. My character was able to run very fast so it made traveling around very efficient. The NPCs looked like they were carefully designed and were quite detailed. In fact, when they were speaking to me, their mouths would move as the words appeared on the screen. I also only had to use one hand to play for starters meaning I could eat with my free hand and still be playing Pokémon Let’s Go Eevee.

The Pokémon in the game were all very detailed as well. I truly enjoyed seeing them out in the wild and in battles. The battle animations were simple, just like how they were in Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue. It definitely brought out the nostalgia in me.

However, there were changes that I was not pleased about. I believe in an effort to attract new audiences, especially from the crowd that have only played the mobile game, Pokémon GO, catching Pokémon now consisted of running into the figures of Pokémon running around and throwing Pokéballs depending on your motions. It got to the point where I would not even look at the screen and would probably read something or eat Pop-Tarts as I caught Pokémon. I did not have to battle Pokémon to a lower health in order to catch them. This made me sad since I would only be able to battle Pokémon trainers instead of wild Pokémon. Of course, there are plenty of trainers and a new “foe” known as Pokémon coaches to be found all over the world. These Pokémon coaches would have Pokémon that had special moves that could be learned through the use of TMs. When I successfully defeated them, the Pokémon coaches would reward me with the TM of the move that I had just battled against.

Because I had to run around catching Pokémon in order to level up, I found that I was able to carry more than six Pokémon on me. Of course, only six Pokémon at a time will be used in battle and gain experience while the others go into a Pokémon box. Once that box gets cluttered with redundant Pokémon, I can “delete” them by sending them to Professor Oak. Professor Oak will thank me and give me candy. My only complaint is that this made me pay extra attention to which Pokémon I was sending because I once sent the wrong Pokémon to Professor Oak. My strategy to combat making that mistake was giving nicknames to all Pokémon I wanted to keep.

The candy system was another way to boost the stats and make my Pokémon even stronger. Say for example if I found that my Charmander’s max HP was too low, I just had to keep feeding the appropriate candy to boost his max HP. I did not use the system at first but in the end, I did start to strategize what candy to give to what Pokémon in order to optimize my party.

I also found out very quickly that leveling my Pokémon is ridiculously easy. All I had to do was successfully capture a Pokémon and my entire party of six would gain experience. I also noticed that my entire party also shared the same amount of experience when I won a Pokémon battle as well. For example, if I caught a Weedle and it gained me 34 experience points, all six Pokémon in my party would gain 34 experience points. In a way, I did enjoy this more than the old system as it made leveling up my Pokémon much faster. On the other hand, it also took away some of the satisfaction of personally leveling my Pokémon through grit and battles.

The other change I also noticed is that my rival was not an obnoxious brat like in Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue. Instead, my rival would offer advice and even give me items to help me on my journey. As a new player, I can see this being a more kid friendly game. But for nostalgia sake, this really sucked. I wanted to take pride in defeating that smug, cocky, punchable face. Unfortunately for me, my rival was way too polite, friendly, and dare I say it, cute.

Finally, Eevee would travel alongside me or in some cases, on top of me. I could interact with it by petting it and giving it treats. Occasionally, Eevee would want to get my attention to do something cute or perhaps even imitate someone. I did find the voice of Eevee to be extremely annoying though. I know Game Freak was going for adorable but it sounded way too fake for me and not at all what I would imagine Eevee to sound like. I also could not evolve Eevee because it is stubborn and refuses to evolve. Instead, there are trainers that can teach Eevee special moves so there was some differences between my Eevee and the ones I could catch in the wild.

Overall, I did have a blast playing Pokémon Let’s Go Eevee. I did like visiting all the cities of the original Pokémon games again and seeing all the original Pokémon. However, I really did not like how they changed how you capture Pokémon and I did not like the setup of the Pokémon boxes. For those who want to play this game for nostalgia reasons, I would recommend waiting until a sale comes out before purchasing. For newcomers to Pokémon, this is a really good introduction into the world of Kanto.