Is Pixelmon the Most Complete Pokemon Game?
Pixelmon is an unofficial Pokemon mod made for Minecraft. It’s actually a mod I’ve discussed here before, and one of our most popular articles goes into depth about how depressing it is to play in single player. But for all the negatives that I throw at Pixelmon, it has an insane amount of features. And it also contains nearly every single Pokemon in the entire Pokemon series.
And the most recent update started introducing Gen 8 Pokemon!
Yep, we’re starting to get Generation 8 Pokemon. Not all of them, just some of them. The Galarian variants of other Pokemon aren’t available yet, but we got a lot of them. Including the terrifying Mr. Rime and the adorable Applin. The Galarian versions of the Legendary Birds are also available, with a small chance from spawning from Shrines. But the rest of Generation 8 will be coming soon, and we’ve actually had Meltan and Melmetal for quite a while.
Of course, it’s not like a normal Pokemon game.
Pixelmon is a Minecraft mod, and the Minecraft part really stands out. Most of the Pokemon aspect is integrated quite well into Minecraft, and you have the completely free roam aspects of Minecraft built into the Pokemon experience. But there’s no real quest or story line for you to follow. Everything is open-ended, and you’re free to do whatever you want. For some people though, the battling, the stories and the lore are what make Pokemon special to them, and you will NOT find that in Pixelmon.
And, well, then there’s the models. Originally, there were Minecraft-style Pokemon. But the amount of effort needed to make every single Pokemon in that style is too much. And, honestly, the ones that existed were pretty damn ugly. But if I’m honest, I can’t really complain about consistency in art styles. After all, Minecraft and Pixelmon are VERY different games.
Not everything is there but that’s okay.
Like I said at the start, we have most things in Pixelmon. Not everything. We have Ultra Space but no Distortion World. You can clone a Mew to get a Mewtwo, but Ultra Necrozma was only a very recent addition. And, of course, we don’t have any of the story or NPCs around. However there are some unexpected things. Like gyms, apparently.
You also still have a lot of NPCs to battle. Okay, sure, most of them are randomly generated, but they’re there. However they can have very random Pokemon.
Really, the biggest issue is the grind at the start.
It’s very hard to actually get started, especially if you don’t spawn in a village, or get the starter chest. You start with zero Pokeballs and a level 1 starter. But all around you are Pokemon of all sorts of levels. It’s insanely easy to have all your Pokemon faint because a Pokemon walks up to you and decides to attack. Then again, it’s almost impossible to have separate areas in Minecraft, since it’s an open world. The Pokemon games are all clearly split into areas where Pokemon are certain levels. You can’t really do that in Minecraft.
Aside from the rough start however, I’d say that Pixelmon is probably one of the more feature-complete options when it comes to Pokemon in general.
At the very least, Pixelmon does eventually allow you to fulfill the dream of “gotta catch ’em all!” Eventually. With a lot of effort. But unlike real Pokemon games, the task is 100% doable!