By Carl00456
A new application has recently launched on the 3DS eShop. I was excited about the pre-release new about a pokemon game being released on launch day. I couldn’t believe it was free! This could be an early version of a new pokedex for the next generation 3DS pokemon games. I did, however, find a few minor problems that led me to become disappointed.
Firstly, I would like to comment that the 3D is amazing. I was surprised to find how many features the application had too. It’s just like a portable pokedex. The pokemon themselves are fully animated and you can make them perform a unique move and, when you’ve unlocked the feature, you can pause them in any position you want. The game has the great ability to ‘give’ and ‘get’ pokemon via trading with your friends. You will also get three pokemon each day by putting your 3DS into sleep mode and allowing spot pass to work.
There are a few disappointments I had when playing this game though. I couldn’t wait to try out the augmented reality feature that this game had so I rushed upstairs to get my AR card and I switched to the AR Viewer on the Pokedex 3D. I immediately aimed the 3DS’ camera at the card and guess what? No pokemon. It turned out you needed a special ‘AR marker’ for the pokemon to appear.
I searched the net to find one and finally got to see the pokemon I wanted to, Oshawott. I was not impressed. The pokemon was tiny and when you tried to get closer to make it bigger it just disappeared. Another bad thing is that the pokemon don’t even look at you, they just stare blankly forward and if you reposition the camera they just vanish.
The pokedex part of the application is quite impressive though. I found no trouble scrolling through all the moves and evolutions of pokemon, although I must say that I was sad that there wasn’t any detail of where the pokemon are actually found in the game. The pokedex gives you certain rewards for taking pictures of the pokemon on their AR markers. These are called ‘stickers’. This is relatively easy as all the AR markers are available on the internet but you’ll have to rack up a time wasting total of around 250 stickers to unlock everything.
Another point I want to make is that there are only pokemon from the Pokemon Black and White game. Many people will agree with me when I say they’re not the best looking pokemon in the series of games and you’ll only want to see the pokemon that don’t look like they were created in five seconds. There is a hint that more pokemon will become available soon as there is a small ‘update’ button on the bottom screen.
The Pokedex 3D also has some other cool feature like being able to hear the pokemons’ cry, being able to change backgrounds and boarders and the ability to change the games’ language (to Japanese!). It is enough to keep you entertained while you wait for other pokemon games and I highly recommend it. Now we just have to wait for the update so we can see the pokemon we actually want to.
Tags: Nintendo DS