Hi, I have enjoyed playing the Pokemon franchise since I was a kid and now I want to try and introduce my girlfriend to it as she has never played any of the games before. However, I can't decide which would be the best game to introduce to her and so I was looking for some of your opinions! We currently do not own a Nintendo Switch though so, unfortunately, it can't be one of the newer titles. I look forward to hearing your thoughts! Tom
What about Pokemon Go? It’s something you can both randomly play when out and about and your girlfriend might even have some friends who are already playing it. I’ve seen many couples and newcomers to Pokemon out playing Go who have never played a Pokemon game before, it seems to be a great introduction to the franchise. For a modern core game I really like Omega Ruby / Alpha Sapphire, it’s currently Pokemon at its best for me. It has the story without going excessively overboard like Sun / Moon, you have the national Pokedex which gives an incentive to go play other games after and trade them up to Gen 6. You also do get access to a lot of past legendries post game too. I guess the only risk with starting with a 3DS game is past games might feel dated in comparison, presuming she gets in to Pokemon and wants to play some of the other games.
She has tried playing Pokemon Go before but she didn't really like it too much, unlike me on the other hand. As for your suggestion about Omega Ruby that was the game that was top of my list so I may go for that one! It's sad but I feel like new players may not appreciate the old school games as much now that the graphics have moved on so significantly :/ I am ever so slowly warming up to the idea of buying a Nintendo Switch but the price is quite steep considering that I don't think I would play too many of the other titles. The cheapest place that I can find one is on Zavvi as you seem to be able to get a 10% welcome voucher here which would bring it down to around £230 but I think that is still a bit too expensive for me at the moment. Maybe I will change my mind though when the new Sword and Shield comes out, as the idea of us both being able to play together on the Switch at once does sound really cool!
The Lets Go games on the Switch are really good, i've put 75 hours in to it according to my Switch. Its the first Pokemon game you can play co-op, so certainly a good game you could play together if you did get a Switch at some point. You're looking at £270 though for a Switch and a game, so not going to be as cheap as you want just yet. The Switch does have some great indie games too and stuff like Mario Kart 8 and Smash Bros which are really good to play with a group of people, its really the only console that caters to split screen gaming these days.
I will buy Omega Ruby for the time being but I will definitely start saving up for a Switch. I have never really played too many other Nintendo games so maybe there will be some more that I really enjoy. Split screen games are so fun to play, its quite sad really that a lot of consoles no longer cater for split screen.
Nintendo have just announced the Switch Lite: https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Nintendo-Switch/Nintendo-Switch-Lite/Nintendo-Switch-Lite-1595961.html That might be exactly what your looking for, its supposed to be quite a bit cheaper than the current Switch.
That does look really good and much more affordable! Its a shame that you can't link it to a tv but I'm betting that with it's release the prices should fall a little bit on the original console.