New Pokemon Snap was always going to make some changes compared to the original game from 1999. I mean, 22 years have passed - games look drastically different now and there are literally hundreds of new Pokemon. One feature I was particularly curious about, however, was the original Pokemon Snap’s pelting mechanic - surely that wasn’t going to fly in 2021, right?
Right. You can’t just mill rock hard objects at Pokemon anymore to get a better photo. This was obviously going to be the case given that mainline Pokemon games ditched the Safari Zone’s rocks almost two decades ago - most of the more modern games don’t have a Safari Zone full stop. But with limited options for mechanics in a photography game, Snap was always going to have to substitute its projectiles - known as Pester Balls - for something else. Or so you’d think.
I love New Pokemon Snap, which you’ll know if you read my review or walkthrough. Still, I can’t help feeling that the removal of Pester Balls is a bit gratuitous, if not pretty weird. I agreed with removing the pelting mechanic because who on Earth wants to hurt cutesy little Pokemon, but also, you can still just whack them with fluffruit instead. Sure, it’s supposed to be fluffy and not hurt that much, but are you telling me an eight-inch-long, 2.9kg Caterpie is taking a smack to the face the same way as an Onix? Their reactions are pretty similar. Milotic is 162kg and it coils up in pain when it gets tapped by a water-slowed piece of fruit - are you telling me that’s not killing a one-foot-tall, 2kg Pichu? Come on.
Again, I have no real issue with this. Star ratings are all based on different poses you need to elicit by using a certain mechanic - use an Illumina orb on Scorbunny to make it kick blue flames, or feed the overly timid Murkrow a fluffruit for a four star shot. But there’s no real reason to take Pester Balls out if fluffruit just doubles as them, providing the exact same function minus the negative connotation that comes with being labeled as “pelting.”
Because it is pelting. For the Seafloor Roar achievement, you need to clock Lugia with about five million fluffruit until it gets so annoyed that it shouts at you with the ferocity of a super rig comprising a billion inverted jet engines powered by Thor himself. Sure, some of the Pokemon might not seem very bothered when you lob a fluffy apple at their head, but Morelull literally looks like it dies when it gets hit with one. I’m telling you, fluffy or not - you absolutely do not want to get cracked by a rogue piece of airborne fluffruit.
“Pester” isn’t even all that abrasive a word. It would be different if it was, like, “extra sharp arrowheads” or “molten boulders wrapped in barbed wire.” If the anime is anything to go by, Poke Balls are already basically Pester Balls, so an object designed to annoy a Pokemon that’s completely normalized and specifically designed not to hurt it is probably preferable to a piece of fruit that evidently breaks them up like a two-footed challenge.
Sure, Pester Balls aren’t in New Pokemon Snap… except they basically are. They’re just edible, too.