So Pokemon X (and Y) have integrated farming into their gameplay. Not the sort of farming you usually find in an RPG - fighting monsters to fatten your wallet or collect items - but actual farming. We're talking Harvest Moon-style here.
Adding this feature makes sense. Berries have become prrretty important to the Pokemon games. Being able to grow your own definitely puts more agency into the players' hands. Is that a good thing, though?
Giving players more agency also gives them more responsibility. When you had to find berries in Pokemon games all you had to do was remember where the bush was and return to it every now and then. But growing them yourself means you need to mulch the soil, water your plants, pluck out weeds and shake out bugs.
How far can such a feature go before something like farming berries becomes more chore than play?
But you get to play with genetics (to a very small degree). It can make for a fun science experiment. I think it will be a little while before it becomes a chore.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it will take a while to feel like a chore. But I'm afraid that they'll take things like the berry-growing minigame too far in the next Pokemon and then have to reign it in when people complain.
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