With the release of Tears of the Kingdom, I finally decided that it was time to give the Zelda franchise a go. Thankfully, I was pleasantly surprised with the level of care put into this title and impressed with how suitable it was to both longtime franchise fans and newcomers alike.
After spending many hours enjoying everything Tears of the Kingdom offers, I’ve found plenty of little details and mechanics to admire. This has led me to consider how similar features may work in other Nintendo titles.
The main franchise that comes to mind as a suitable candidate for Zelda comparisons is the Pokemon game franchise, a fan-favorite Nintendo collection that I’ve been fully invested in since I was just a little kid on my limited edition Pikachu Game Boy Color.
There’s no denying that Pokemon has had several ups and downs when it comes to its video game lineup, from disappointments such as the devastating cut of the National Dex and the buggy, unfortunate release standard of the most recent titles and remakes, to the more positive notes such as the adorable new Pokemon designs and intriguing first steps Scarlet and Violet took towards a new direction and approach to the series.
It seems that with the release of both Pokemon Legends: Arceus, and Pokemon Scarlet & Violet, the Pokemon franchise is taking steps into a much more open-world experience with heavier themes of exploration and freedom than previous generations.
Now that I’m somewhat familiar with at least one title in both franchises, I began to notice even more similarities and possible inspirations from Zelda’s BotW and TotK that the Pokemon franchise had begun to incorporate through Scarlet & Violet in particular.
A few of these similarities include Gimmighoul playing a very similar role to the Koroks hidden around Hyrule, the changing weather and time of day systems, a very similar camera and pose function, and wild Pokemon dropping materials that can be used to fuse TMs, similar to Zelda’s Monster Parts, which are used for cooking dishes and making Elixirs.
However, the more I played through Tears of the Kingdom, the more I found myself wishing that Pokemon games had the same level of care and polish involved in their creation and release. Tears of the Kingdom successfully overpowered the very popular prequel title, Breath of the Wild, enhancing entertaining gameplay mechanics and taking things to a new level. On the other hand, Pokemon games tend to still have very divided and mixed reactions due to their repetitive formula and game-breaking visual glitches that have made more common occurrences in recent titles.
Personally, I really loved the Scarlet and Violet games. However, even as a huge Pokefan, I have to admit that it could never compare to Tears of the Kingdom and that there is so much potential to do more with these games.
Scarlet & Violet was a brilliant first stepping stone, but with Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom being Nintendo’s most successful open-world game adventures, there are several things the Pokemon franchise could learn from these titles and incorporate into their own games, or use as inspiration for improvements and new mechanics to give Pokemon games the same high standard that the Zelda franchise currently holds.
First of all, would be the enhancement of open-world areas and exploration throughout the Pokemon Regions. During my time in Tears of the Kingdom, I’ve revisited the same in-game locations over and over and always discovered another little cave to explore or something new to do, keeping each visit just as entertaining as before. It would be great to have something similar occurring in the Pokemon world, with more hidden locations to discover, each holding valuable items to collect or rare Pokemon that can’t be found anywhere else.
In current Pokemon games, once you collect all items on a map or clear a certain town, there isn’t much reason to revisit that area unless you’re catching trade fodder or making a quick stop at the Pokemon Center. Another feature that would complement the idea of enhanced exploration and map size would be to add side quests or quest lines. Zelda has a brilliant quest system that is entertaining enough on its own to allow a player to completely take a break from the main story.
Pokemon has started to incorporate a similar format to their games, with the main story being split into three different paths – Starfall Street, Path of Legends, and Victory Road. This allows the player to approach the world in whatever way they want and complete things in no set required order. However, it would also be great to have further side quests on top of these instead of each NPC being used to mostly battle and grind out levels.
I really enjoyed getting to learn the stories of the Team Star members in particular, so it was a bit of a disappointment to have their characters become restricted to the Starfall Street plotline. Apart from revisiting the Bosses to challenge them again in battle, you don’t really get to interact with them further. I would have loved to train Fire Pokemon with Mela, or play some music-based minigames with Giacamo to gain a little further insight regarding these characters, especially as they’re fellow students of the Academy. Despite having quite a well-written and touching story as a group, the Team Star members don’t get a chance to stand out as individuals.
We play against them as ‘bad guys’, but I would have also loved to get a chance to see the other side of these characters that they share with one another, at least through optional side quests that take place after completing Starfall Street, to help flesh out their personalities and goals even further. The same goes for Gym Leaders — I thoroughly enjoyed the Gym Leader minigame challenges, but I would have loved to take a deeper dive into Iono’s life as a streamer, or Grusha’s snowboarding skills through additional mini story-based quests.
There’s potential for a fun variety of quests when it comes to Pokemon too, including trading, fetch quests, locating items, taking photos of wild Pokemon, and completing other challenges and minigames for various rewards or EXP. Zelda offers several unique Travelling Merchants and friendly NPCs you can come across in the wild, so it would be very interesting to see Pokemon take a similar approach. I definitely know that I’d make the most of being able to stock up on various Pokeballs and Potions while out and about in the wilderness, or journeying between towns.
Side quests and NPC questlines would give you plenty to do even after completing the main story and would really help to create an adventurous feeling to your Pokemon journey. After all, just think of all the little side missions and adventures Ash and his friends have embarked on during their Pokemon travels. I’d love to have just as much fun as these beloved characters with my own Trainer, between collecting Gym Badges and stopping the various evil Team Organizations from achieving their goals.
Pokemon Scarlet & Violet also started to introduce some loose foraging elements, with various materials being dropped by enemy Pokemon during capture or defeat. Zelda has a brilliant, thorough foraging system that allows Link to collect weapon parts, plants, food, and monster parts from the wild during his journey, so it would be great to see Pokemon games continue to develop this foraging mechanic into something similar.
Imagine how fun it could be to craft custom-made Pokeballs from materials you’ve collected along the way, or using your monster parts and foraged herbs to craft Potions, or help cook an even bigger variety of effect-inducing meals for your Pokemon, much like the Sandwich recipes Scarlet & Violet offered. This brings a possible alternative to the classic repetition of scraping together coins to buy these items from a PokeMart, especially during the early stages of game.
I love that there is opportunity to acquire items through more than one method (foraging or purchasing) in Tears of the Kingdom, so following this formula in a Pokemon title would really allow a player to customize their playstyle or even challenge themselves with a no Pokemart rule for their playthrough. This would be perfect for Nuzlocke challenges, too, upping the difficulty even more than the usual standard.
With an addition of more heavy exploration and foraging, it would be great to see a camping mechanic built from Pokemon’s current camping / picnic modes in recent Generations. This function could benefit greatly from a more interactive approach, letting you actually physically forage wood to build a campsite and light a fire, pitch a tent with a fun little minigame, and rest and restore HP to your Pokemon.
This camping mechanic could also be used to fast forward through and change the time of day, similar to Zelda’s rest mechanic with the use of campfires or inns. Allowing an instant change of time would make hunting for certain Pokemon, such as nocturnal breeds, much less time-consuming, and allow you to avoid weather that gets in the way of other Pokemon appearing, which could be extremely useful if you’re planing to hunt for a specific Nature, IV or Shiny variant of a Pokemon species.
Another important mechanic that has the potential to evolve and develop into something truly special is the ‘follow me’ feature for Pokemon within your party. Rather than having this function be restricted to a certain mode, such as Scarlet & Violet’s ‘Let’s go’ mode, I’d love to be able to toggle an option to have your Pokemon follow you around during your adventure at all times, enjoying the view and interacting with other trainers and Pokemon like Ash’s Pikachu often does in the animated show.
Back when the games were still in 2D Pixel format, this function was included in Pokemon Heart Gold and Soul Silver, which earned these titles a place as two of the most popular and beloved Pokemon games of all time. Because of this, it would be really positive and rewarding to see this mechanic come full circle and be reworked for these more modern 3D-styled games, especially because it has yet to be done without any major disadvantages or pain points.
There’s also really no limit with the possibilities of this function, as the devs could even choose to incorporate various behaviours for each Pokemon to make them even more lively, such as having my Sprigatito run up a tree or sharpen its claws in classic cat-like behaviour, or watching my Quaxly dive into a nearby pond, or jump around happily and splash in puddles if it starts to rain.
To further improve the involvement between you as a player and the Pokemon in the world around you, future Pokemon games could also consider adding more interactions between Pokemon, such as using wild Pokemon in the areas around you to help with temporary transport (such as taming and riding a wild Rapidash, Gogoat, Stantler, Arcanine, or Dragonite), similar to Link’s ability to tame wild Horses, Deer, and Bears to use for transportation.
We see humans using Pokemon for transport quite regularly in the animated show, and I’ve been forever dreaming of being able to do so in a Pokemon game ever since I first saw my brother leaping through forests on the back of a deer as Link during his Breath of the Wild playthrough. Sometimes I find myself avoiding wild Pokemon at all costs due to not wanting to engage in annoying, low-levelled battles, so this would finally bring an alternate method of interaction between wild species and the player.
Pokemon-based transport has been incorporated to varying degrees in games such as Pokemon Let’s Go: Pikachu & Let’s Go: Eevee, and Pokemon Sun & Moon. However, Scarlet & Violet’s Miraidon and Koraidon was the starting point of really using Pokemon for transport across a somewhat open world area, allowing you to have total freedom of where you go, from across water, up large mountains, and through scorching deserts.
Because of this, it would be great to see a ride mechanic pushed further and made available for various wild Pokemon you encounter, with each Pokemon having advantages in certain climates or terrain.
It would also be highly entertaining to use wild Pokemon to help solve various puzzles in the overworld, with inspiration taken from the Pokemon Ranger games, where you could have large Pokemon clear blocked paths or Water-type Pokemon put out fires in the wild. This could work hand in hand with the previously mentioned idea of more secret locations and hidden areas to explore, which would allow the player to use Pokemon allies for more than just battles, egg hatching, and working their way through the Pokemon League.
Lastly, I thoroughly enjoyed the various climates found in Tears of the Kingdom and the different armors that would offer resistances to these climates. Something that has always bothered me in certain Pokemon titles, Scarlet & Violet in particular, is the lack of character customization through outfit selection, as well as the fact that clothes only offer a cosmetic appeal, rather than any other benefits or purposes.
It just doesn’t make sense that a young teenage trainer could traverse a snowstorm on a mountain in nothing more than a summer school uniform, so the addition of similar Cold Resistance, Heat Resistance, or clothing requirements for certain climates can help to add another layer of realism to the exploration of each Region. At the very least, it could have been a requirement for the player character to switch to the Winter or Autumn uniform variant, which looks much more suitable for a cold climate due to the long sleeves and pants, or puffer vest jacket.
This may seem like a lot of minor functions or potential additions to a Pokemon game, but when they’re all put together, it would tie everything together very nicely. The addition of these mechanics would go a very long way in terms of overall player experience, and provide much more content to play through post-game, which will really make all the difference. As a longtime Pokemon player, I generally manage to clear everything each game has to offer in just a couple of weeks, and then never touch that title again, until DLC drops or the next title is announced.
In comparison, I’ve already played Zelda for over a month and have completed the main story. However, I am yet to grow the slightest bit tired of this game with all it has to offer. Now that I’m done with the main story, I’m having fun revisiting areas, exploring the map and discovering new caves and hidden locations, fighting against enemies and Boss Battles again, collecting and dying various armor to change up Link’s look, and visiting any leftover Shrines to solve the puzzles inside.
If Pokemon could replicate this kind of extended content, entertaining game mechanics, and post-game options other than just completing the Pokedex, it could really help to breathe a new standard of life into these games, extend the amount of time the average player spends with a title, and point the franchise in a direction that many players from across the globe have been dreaming of.
Trust me, Pokemon Company and Game Freak; we wouldn’t mind waiting for the six-year gap that Zelda players endured if that’s what you need. We just want the Pokemon game franchise to reach its full potential and be held in high regard as one of the greatest of its time once again. There are huge opportunities to learn from Scarlet & Violet’s successful points and weaknesses to really kick things up to the next level with a future title, so please, Pokemon, be the best like no one ever was.
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