As the news of a brand new Pokemon Snap game begins to sink in, let’s take some time to remember what was so great about the original game.
Even though the main objective of Pokemon Snap is to take photos of every Pokemon to complete Professor Oak’s report, there were a ton of hidden secrets to find.
Some of these secrets were clever ways of evolving Pokemon. Other secrets were in the form of special poses and scenarios in which you could photograph Pokemon.
Back in 1999 when the game released, it wasn’t as easy as it is today to search online how to photograph certain Pokemon. I remember excitedly sharing with my friends at school new secrets I found in the game.
As we look ahead and begin to think about what New Pokemon Snap might be like, let’s remember some of the most iconic secrets from the original game.
Evolving Charmeleon into Charizard
Charizard was always the favorite child of the three starters, so it’s no wonder it was included in the game while Venusaur and Blastoise were nowhere to be found.
If you played through Pokemon Snap casually, though, you might not have known Charizard was in the game at all. It doesn’t appear on its own; you had to know exactly what to do to evolve a Charmeleon to make it appear.
At the very end of the Volcano stage, there was a Charmeleon circling a pool of lava. If you threw a Pester Ball or apple at it with just the right timing, it would get knocked into the lava and evolve into Charizard.
The game does not give you any tutorial at all on how to discover Pokemon in this way, let alone evolving them, so this was an incredibly surprising secret at the time. Photographing the Charizard breathing fire scored a high amount of points in the report.
