Once you’ve completed New Pokemon Snap and found all 214 Pokemon hidden throughout the Lental region, you may be sat asking yourself what there is to do next. Luckily once you’ve completed the main story, Professor Mirror will start giving you a Course Score each time you venture out to take photos. These Course Scores immediately go up online, entering you onto an online leaderboard that shows you how well you’ve snapped on each course compared to everyone else in the world.
For those who are looking to be the best there ever was (at snapping), these course scores are a great way to get better at the game. Course Scores are calculated by the total amount of Picture Points x the number of unique Pokemon species you’ve taken a photo of. Because of this, simply going on a course and taking a photo of every Pokemon you find won’t see get you bagging a top score. We’ve come up with 10 helpful hints to boost your Course Scores, which will see you climbing up those online rankings and maybe even have you attaining one of those coveted top 10 positions.
10 Fully Complete Courses Before You Start
Before you start going for a new hi-score, first make sure you’ve unlocked all alternate routes available on the course, and then that you’ve maximized the course’s Research Level.
Research Levels can change what Pokemon appear, including many of the game’s hidden Mythical and Legendary species. Also remember that Pokemon also warm up to you at higher levels, and having pictures of close-up Pokemon facing you are worth a lot more points than those far away.
9 Plan Ahead
When you choose the course you’d like to go for, it’s important that you’re heading in with a game plan.
Using the Maps feature in your Photodex back at the Research Lab gives you a detailed map of Pokemon locations, and is a fantastic resource for knowing how many species you can snap photos of across one route. Just make sure you’re going for quality as well as quantity, as you need plenty of good photos to times by the number of unique species to be hitting those hi-score boards.
8 Points for Variety
Your Course Score is calculated by the number of Picture Points x Pokemon species, so it’s important you’re snapping a photo of as many different Pokemon as you can.
This isn’t something you’ll achieve right away, taking you a few course runs to know what alternate routes to take and where certain hi-scoring species are located. The important thing to remember is to snap at least one photo of each species as you go, and aim for routes where Pokemon appear closer to you for some bonus size points in Professor Mirror’s Evaluation.
7 One Is All You Need
Needing to snap as many different Pokemon as possible may feel like an awful lot of work, but remember you only need one photo of each species for it to count.
When planning your route, make sure you know the number of species you want to snap during your course run. For large point scores, you want to make sure you know exactly how much film you’re using on snapping these different species, making sure to use the rest of the film on those all-important close-up Picture Point boosting photos.
6 Star Ratings Aren’t Important
At first, it may feel like you need to be filling your camera with as many technically different 3 and 4-Star photos as you can, but this isn’t the case,
Rather than putting all your effort into getting as many different Pokemon as possible to do those all-important 3 and 4-Star shots, instead, make sure that when taking individual species photos you’re prioritizing its size and direction. A Pokemon fully in the frame can net you up to 2000 points, and this is far more important to achieve for each species than spending all your effort on several 4-Star pose shots that may be further away.
5 Take Every Shot
Your Course Score is calculated by the number of Picture Points x Pokemon species, meaning you need to be using every bit of memory your Camera has during the course.
When planning your route, the best thing to do is calculate how many different Pokemon you want to snap a photo of and then subtract it from the 72 photos you’re allowed to take. You want to make sure to use the rest of your memory on those specific close-up Pokemon worth the bigger Photo Point values.
4 Professor Mirror’s Evaluation Doesn’t Matter
After taking all of your photos, don’t spend any time hanging around selecting photos for Professor Mirror’s Evaluation, as your choices here will never influence the Course Score.
The best thing to do is to click the ‘auto’ button at the bottom of the page (or the + or - button). Instead of spending your time selecting images, this will pre-select the best photo from each species for you, speeding up the process and perhaps seeing you gain a nice surprise boost for your Photodex Score.
3 Get Those Close-Up Poses!
Although Star Ratings aren’t the be-all and end-all for your Course Score, if there is an easy 4-Star Rated photo on your course that doesn’t require much work, you’d be silly not to use it.
4-Star Photos are the key to getting the full 2000 points for Pose during Professor Mirror’s Evaluation, giving you a large boost when you consider a sleeping Pokemon only nets you around 500. So if you can locate an easy close-up 4-Star pose, such as Meganium’s Illumina State, this is where you should be flicking on Burst Mode to take the majority of your photos.
2 Save Burst Mode For The Best
After completing the game’s story mode you’ll unlock your camera’s Burst Mode; hands-down the most important tool in your arsenal for Course Scores.
Burst Mode can be accessed via the pause menu in settings at any point during the course and is important when taking those all-important close-up 4-Star shots, allowing you to take up to 6 photos in quick succession. Just remember to turn it off before going back to taking the single photo of each species, lest you end up with 6 photos of a Vivillion.
1 Objects Of Interest Don’t Count
Even after going through courses for the 100th time, you’ve probably noticed the Objects of Interest such as Crystblooms and Ruins always come up during scans, allowing you to snap a photo of them to take back for Professor Mirror’s evaluation.
Objects of Interest such as these don’t influence your course score, so it’s important to never bother snapping a photo of them. Be particularly mindful when trying to take a picture of a Pokemon close-by one too, as in some cases the camera may focus on the object instead of your subject, costing you a species and a photograph.
NEXT: 10 Things Everyone Completely Missed In New Pokemon Snap
