Pokedex 3D Pro
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3DS
| Pokedex 3D Pro

"How big a Pokemon fan am I?"

This is the question you need to ask yourself before purchasing Pokedex 3D Pro. If the answer is, "I'm something of a fan", then you absolutely do not need to part with money for this piece of software.

In fact, if the answer is anything short of, "I dress up as a Pikachu on weekends," then this probably isn't for you. Here's why: it's £13.49, for less detailed information than you can get for free online, but wrapped up in a very slick package.

I don't Diglett

Pitched as the ultimate Pokedex (you know, for the Pokepros), it's a smashing bit of design. You fire up the app and you're given access to big polygonal representations of Pokemon that animate beautifully, perfectly capturing their personalities from the main series.

Below each 3D image is a name, and below that is all sorts of statistical information. Descriptions, element type, moves available - the kinds of things that you might like to know if you were really, really serious about Pokemon.

If you're the type of person who gets excited by the complex mathematics behind the Pokemon series - if you enter tournaments, and play religiously - then this might be useful, though you probably already use another source for this info. It's called the internet, and it's pretty swell.

Still, this data is nicely cross-referenced within itself. You can tap on a move a Pokemon has and then bring up a list of all the other Pokemon that can use it. It runs fast, and looks pretty - but there are ways of getting all of these details elsewhere, and you won't have to close your running copy of the latest Pokemon to access them.

There are some quizzes thrown in, too, mainly based on naming the correct Pokemon from an image, and other miscellanea. It also tracks how well you do at these trivia questions, and which Pokemon you've looked at in the Pokedex. However, this is all just padding to an otherwise meagre offering.

Snorlax

The only other benefits that this has over the free-to-download Pokedex 3D are that it contains every single Pokemon, that they're all unlocked from the offset, and it has some AR code gubbins included for good measure. Again, not really too exciting.

It's a basic package, then, and one that will set you back - let us not forget - thirteen pounds and forty-nine pence.

The most thrilling thing about Pokedex 3D Pro is not what it offers in terms of gaming content, or even quality of information - it's the 3D models of the Pokemon themselves. It's obvious that Nintendo is winding up for a fully 3D Pokemon game in the near future, and this provides a glimpse into what that might look like. That is to say: stunning.

If you're a super-fan of the series, wearing an Ash Ketchum replica hat and thinking of a bitter comment in response to this review, then you can download Pokedex 3D with confidence. It looks lovely, and it's a nice toy to tinker with and buff up on moves and the like.

For everybody else, it's just far too unnecessary to consider spending £13.49 on.

Pokedex 3D Pro

There's simply not enough here to warrant the ludicrous price tag. Only diehard Pokemon fans need apply
Score
Peter Willington
Peter Willington
Die hard Suda 51 fan and professed Cherry Coke addict, freelancer Peter Willington was initially set for a career in showbiz, training for half a decade to walk the boards. Realising that there's no money in acting, he decided instead to make his fortune in writing about video games. Peter never learns from his mistakes.