Although not covering that many topics, the February Pokemon Presents did bring forth an old announcement for Pokemon that has not seen any news light for a while now. Pokemon Sleep is now officially slated to be released later this year, and the title comes forth as a new route for casual gaming with an interesting and innovative concept to have its roots set in.
Pokemon Sleep comes as a casual videogame title that will be focusing on player sleep cycles. This basically means that the game will monitor and observe the user’s time and quality of shuteye, whether it’s at the end of the day or for a small nap during daylight. This is exactly how the game comes forth as a newly made concept that has not been seen before in the video games department.
Here’s some info about the title. The new game comes forth with a brand new Professor named Neroli, with the setup on an Island that is inhabited by many kinds of Pokemon, with the main one for the game being our one and only drowsy chonk, Snorlax. The game mechanic will play like this; when players place their mobile phone beside their pillow, the game will start to monitor and analyse the type and quality of sleep. On basis of this, Snorlax and other Pokemon will also be sleeping within the game. When a person then wakes up, the game will finish the sleep cycle and players will get to see many different kinds of Pokemon in various sleep formations based upon their own kind of slumber.
The game states that the primary kinds of slumber players will have their sleep distributed into are three; Dozing, Snoozing, or Slumbering. Pokemon will appear in various different styles and kinds, including rarer Pokemon in rarer sleep styles if players slept deeply for a good long while. This is the basis of the whole game for Pokemon Sleep.
Looking at this aspect from the videogame perspective, Pokemon once again has worked up a manner to take a completely new thing and have made it into a videogame. This could also have Nintendo’s hand playing a very minor part, where their signature innovative gameplay is vastly known and well-received by fans.
This does not come as the first venture for the franchise towards a new direction, however, as there have been many other technical innovations and unique gameplay mechanics before in the past. One example of this is the PokeWalker, where the small pedometer bundled in for the DS titles Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver contributed a gameplay style that rewarded players that ran and played outside or took walks. The Pokeball Plus is also another concept that took in the basic gameplay mechanic of the Let’s Go titles on the Switch, where the small device acted as a whole controller that players could use to play through the game and catch Pokemon. It also had the gimmick of holding a Pokemon within the Pokeball Plus where people could interact with it by shaking and playing with the Pokeball, as well as measuring steps taken while holding it to reward players too.
This time around, the Pokeball Plus +, yes two pluses, comes as the newest gadget iteration for Pokemon Sleep’s basic gameplay mechanic, where the device will be able to measure and analyse sleep cycles of users that put it beside their pillow before sleeping. This device also contributes more by being usable for Pokemon GO too, having the same usage as the Pokeball plus for the mobile title.
This goes to show that Pokemon does put the effort into testing the boundaries of what video game titles can be and with what they can work with. It is not commonly seen that newer unique games make their way to consumers, but it has been seen that these ventures have sometimes paid highly to the developers, an example being Pokemon GO, where although the real-life location exploration aspect was not used for the first time, it was refined and polished to make the mobile title a unique and innovative experience and highly successful video game for The Pokemon Company.
Pokemon Sleep will be arriving later this year to cement its reception and to decide if the unique venture pays off big once again, or come somewhat below par.
For more on Pokemon, visit the official Pokemon Website, with this link taking you directly to the Pokemon Sleep page. If you like to read more about everything Pokemon, you could check out our website for other Pokemon articles, such as the DLC announcement for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, an article about Pokemon Legends: Arceus, best places to explore in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, and more.
