Pokémonhas ventured into many different avenues outside of their mainline RPGs. You have mystery games like Detective Pikachu, roguelikes such as the Mystery Dungeon series, and even fighting games with Pokken Tournament. More recently, they explored the MOBA genre with Pokémon Unite. Despite all this, there’s one genre of games that the franchise has yet to take a swing at that might just be ironic enough to work:horror.
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Reasonable assumptions can be made for why they haven’t made a horror game - their target demographic is children, after all. However, they’re missing out on appealing to a large pool of gamers, some of which are still very young. Fan-made Pokémon horror games already exist unoffiically, but they’re based on creepypastas or stories that are largely disconnected from Pokémon canon. Which is to say,they’re not very good.
Yet Pokémon lore has so much useful material just begging for Nintendo to go in this direction. For starters, there’s the infamous Lavender Town, home to a Pokémon burial ground. There’s also the human ghosts that have haunted many games, including Pokémon X and Y’sLumiose City Ghost. That’s not even getting into the haunting Pokédex entires of many Pokémon (such as Drifloon abducting children, or the deaths caused by looking under Mimikyu’s cloak). All that being said, the main question is: how would any of this play out in a horror game?
While turn-based horror games, exist, something more in the vein of Amnesia or Slender: The Arrival could work. Many notable games have followed this run-and-hide formula, seeing players gather a number of items or solve basic puzzles, hurrying before the antagonist catches you. It’s already established that Pokémon are incredibly powerful - plus we’ve seen similar gameplay with the recent Dragon Ball: Breakers game, if in a PvP format.
As for who to have as our antagonist, Darkrai is a safe bet, as the Mythical Pitch-Black Pokémon is known for subjecting others to endless nightmares. However, it does this in self-defense, not meaning harm to anyone that falls victim to its powers. So the Darkai itself would have to be put in danger as well, either by the player’s actions or before they happen to accidentally cross its path. This would actually make for a very interesting story premise, with potential for some genuine tragic irony.
Speaking of the goal, it should be established what the professor of this game is studying. While there doesn’tneedto be a professor, most Pokémon spinoffs have them, and it would be easier to justify the player’s actions if they were simply helping out some sort of study. It’s a possibility that they’d study some recently discovered phenomenon that would occur as a result from Darkrai’s powers. Better yet, they could function more as a doctor than a professor, researching and treating various people and Pokémon that have fallen victim to Darkrai.
Darkrai’s nightmares can be cured with a Lunar Feather from Cresselia, but there would have to be a good explanation for why obtaining one isn’t an option. It could be as simple as the professor’s research team not being able to find Cresselia. Perhaps the Pokémon or trainers that inhabit the setting of this horror game are unfit to battle against Cresselia due to inexperience; this would also address the issue with catching Darkrai itself. Either way, since they can’t obtain a Lunar Feather, they would need to find an alternative way to be saved from Darkrai’s power.
The gameplay could involve collecting items that would assist in the professor’s research and treatment of the nightmares. However, you would have to avoid Darkrai while you search for the items within a large research lab. You could go through each area as an individual level, solving puzzles to unlock more access to places that would eventually lead you to key items.
RELATED:Pokemon With Weirdly Spooky BackstoriesThese items could easily be research logs documented by a professor, studying the phenomenon linked to the nightmares. As for the phenomenon itself, it could revolve around the fact that people who become subject to the endless nightmares aren’t doomed to death. Perhaps their mind is tormented somewhere outside their body, but they can only be saved from the nightmares if they can find solace despite the torment or find a way ‘out’ of the nightmare.
There could also be collectibles to gather in other parts of the levels. They would act as a way to expand the lore, perhaps by detailing events that occurred before the game takes place, or give more explanation to the Darkrai’s powers. They’ll hint at the true nature and motives of the professor and their research. It would have to be something sinister if Darkrai is only doing what it does in self-defense.
This could make for a very fun game, with some fine-tuning. Whatever direction Nintendo would want a horror game to go, it’s no doubt that they can come up with something interesting if they use the material at their disposal.
