You wouldn't expect it to be, but Pokemon Snap is one of the best games ever released for the Nintendo 64. It's addictive in a way that few games manage, and it's encouraging to think that it may finally get the attention it deserves thanks to the Virtual Console.
I wasn't expecting much when I first saw Pokemon Snap, though. I rented it for my little brother. He was really into Pokemon at the time, and he went nuts when he saw one of those big Pokemon Snap sticker printout kiosks at Blockbuster right after the game was released. I thought it'd be as simple as renting Pokemon Snap, printing out a few pictures of Psyduck, then forgetting the game ever existed.
But no. Ohhhh no. Before I knew it, I owned a copy of the cartridge myself, and almost ten years later, I'm still playing it. I've never played more than an hour of any of the Game Boy or DS Pokemon games, but I've sunk more hours into Pokemon Snap than any grown man should ever admit to.
Unlike most other games in the Pokemon series, you don't catch any Pokemon in Pokemon Snap. Instead, you play the role of a photographer, and the object is to take pictures of the creatures in their natural habitats. If Professor Oak likes what he sees, you get to go on to the next level.
Sounds boring, right? It's a simple premise that plays out more like a documentary than anything else at first, but soon, you get access to Pokemon food and Pokeballs full of knockout gas. It's at this point where your character changes from a passive observer to a nature-defiling jerk. Before, you may have been satisfied with a well-framed shot of a smiling Pikachu, but once you discover that Professor Oak enjoys action shots and pictures of injured Pokemon, you'll show no remorse in bonking the same Pikachu on the head with an apple and knocking it out cold for the sake of bonus points.
This is really what makes Pokemon Snap so great. It's simple enough to breeze through the game by taking crappy pictures of every Pokemon, but the addictive part comes in tracking each creature and finding out what makes it tick. Different areas place the Pokemon in different situations, too, and you'll need to figure out whether Professor Oak enjoys your pictures of Jigglypuff singing more than he likes seeing Jigglypuff being chased by monsters. Add in the challenge of making sure your pictures are sized and centered properly, and you have a game with years of replayability.
The new Virtual Console-exclusive feature that allows you to post your pictures to the Wii message board and send them to friends adds even more value to the package, and makes the experience all the more worthwhile. Pokemon Snap is my favorite Pokemon game by far, and if you can appreciate its occasionally slow but ultimately rewarding gameplay, you'll probably enjoy it too.
Here's a video, so you can see what I'm talking about. The pictures above are my personal shots, by the way. Psyduck's kind of a bastard when it comes to getting a good angle on him.
