The Pokédex is feeling a lot more like a smartphone these days.
The device began as a straightforward encyclopedia of sorts during the early Red and Blue age of the Pokémon franchise. Each new generation of releases has added new features to the Pokédex. While Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire are upcoming remakes of the Game Boy Advance-generation games, they may be taking the broadest step toward smoothing out a decade’s worth of tedium with the latest Pokédex applications. I recently spent an hour with Alpha Sapphire’s preview version at a Nintendo event, and it felt more like a legitimate Pokemon trainer and hunter than ever before.
Above: Omega Ruby’s and Alpha Sapphire’s three new navigation apps could dramatically cut down on backtracking time.
A newer, more savvy Pokédex
Everything new and exciting about Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire comes down to the PokéNav. A trio of new navigational features, the PokéNav application helps cut a lot of the exhausting backtracking and random encounters that have been part of the series since players chose their first starter Pokémon (back in the series’ 1996 Gameboy debut). Hopeful trainers can access all three of these Pokédex applications via a menu on the 3DS’ bottom screen, giving you a constant feedback loop of what is both immediately around you and available halfway across the region.
BuzzNav, for example, is a faux-news ticker that gives periodic reports of significant Pokémon activity in a specific area. An announcement could scroll across your screen while bike-shopping, for example, that reports on a Zigzagzoon infestation in a forest three towns over. I wasn’t the first to point out the inevitable BuzzFeed jokes this application’s name will invoke, but Nintendo seemed prepared. Expect dozens of “Top 10 Pikachus That Just Can’t Even Handle Today” lists to fill every forum and gaming Twitter feed on launch day.
For players not willing to wait for randomized Pokémon spawns, AreaNav and DexNav can save you hours of frivolous hunting. Once you play through an area, the Pokédex will store data for all of the available Pokémon there. Players can then reference the data for all previously visited regions on the fast travel map, turning the bottom screen into an in-game strategy guide for those last tricky captures.
Above: Trainers must sneak up to and surprise the Pokémon selected for capture through PokéNav.
Once in your desired area, you can select a specific Pokémon breed for battle and hopeful capture. A tail will pop up somewhere in the area where the monsters hide (tall grass in a forest, for example). Sneaking up to the tail will trigger a battle with a high probability of it being Pokémon you selected. If you had already encountered that particular critter before, it will have an equally high probability of having a rare move/ability or carrying an item.
Previous Pokédex advancements are still in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. Super Training and Pokémon-Amie, which debuted in X and Y, are part of the new PlayNav compilation window on the updated Pokedex. Players can also operate the minimap with the stylus, meaning that your trainer can fly halfway across the country with a poke on the bottom screen.
I finally feel like a real animal trainer
The Pokédex is finally starting to feel like something a professional animal trainer could actually find useful. The updated device found in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire’s seems to have negated a lot of the navigational tedium that has stopped millions of players from actually “catching them all.” With ArenaNav, DexNav, and even the soon-to-be-mocked BuzzNav, players will skip over a ton of backtracking and repetitive area hunting.
At this rate, we will have an immunization and licensing minigame in the remakes of X and Y and feel like we are true Pokémon masters.
