Pokemon appeared on the scene in the 90s and became a global phenomenon. There was a T.V series, a trading card game, a bunch of toys and teddies and about four hundred thousand movies (Who gives a film the subtitle "The First Movie"?!) I'm sure every 90s kid must remember the Pokemon card ban at schools, the illegal trading in the playground and the ultimate confiscation of your shiny Gyrados. Bad times... Anyways... Moving on. You could get just about anything with a Pokemon theme, but it all began with a game- well, two games actually: Pokemon Red and Pokemon Green on the original Gameboy.
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| Told you you could get a Pokemon version of just about anything... |
Released in 1996 in Japan, the games were very successful and a third version, Pokemon Blue was released. In Japan, these three versions sold a total of 10.23million copies. Since the release of these three games, they have been sold across the world as well as the following versions: Yellow, Gold, Silver, Crystal, Sapphire, Ruby, Emerald, Fire Red, Leaf Green, Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, HeartGold, SoulSilver, with Black and White due for release this March. There have also been a series of spin off games, but I will stick to the main series for the purposes of this post. Put simply... There are a tonne of Pokemon games and their popularity doesn't seem to be shrinking!
There were originally 151 Pokemon and I often hear people say how they wish no more had been created because it just got silly or too complicated. There are 649 Pokemon now which means that for an avid player such as me there are almost limitless possibilities in terms of squad combinations and replayability. This is the big selling point- the fact that you can restart these games so many times and experience them in a different way depending on the Pokemon you choose and the way you raise them. BUT... every version so far has had the same storyline and driving plot: a simple country boy happens to obtain a Pokemon via someone's generosity and decided he/she wants to fight and win the 8 Gym badges required and challenge the Pokemon League. Along the way you always somehow become an inspiration to others and general legend. So if I've paid £25-35 every few years to play basically a newer-looking version of the same story, why I am ok with it? Am I even ok with it? I'm not really sure.
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| Pokemon SoulSilver |
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| Pokemon Silver |
There has to be a reason that there have been two sets of remakes in this series. People obviously want to play these games again and again. This would be a brilliant business boost for any company, but the fact that Nintendo sells these games means it's just another day at the office- slap some better graphics on it and send it out the door, they'll lap it up!
Too cynical?... Ok..
While the basic story stays the same, certain elements are changed with each new offering. New features have included: a visible Exp. bar, improved sprites and animations, new stats, new moves, new types, new pokemon, new evolutions, new items, new environments, double and triple battles and obviously better graphics. It's a difficult thing to actually name what feels wrong about this series and its returning story, but if the basic premise of the game did change, would it even be the same game? As one of the GameFreak team said in an interview with Nintendo Magazine, you wouldn't remove dribbling and allow travelling in basketball in order to make it more fun, because that would suck.
There are plenty of opportunities to experience the Pokemon world from a different angle with a different gameplay mechanic and story; Pokemon Stadium, Pokemon Pinball, Mystery Dungeon, Pokemon Snap!, Pokemon Ranger. So with so many choices and such an in depth development of each of these branches, what could anyone have to possibly complain about? You know what you are buying if you purchase one of these games, so obviously people aren't rushing out to buy Black and White hoping for a totally new game that they don't recognise. By the look of things this time, however, that might be just what they get. This change seems to me to be the biggest so far, with 156 new Pokemon and no inclusion of the familiar ones until the Elite Four is beaten.
In the end it seems that the Pokemon games have evolved much like creatures in the natural world have- very subtle but crucial changes that creep towards the perfect construct. There always seems to be a way to improve them, but you never know it without hindsight and you never feel like it was missing in the first place, until it was there.
DannyDarko
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| The different sprites of the player. They look different, but they all share a love of hats- except number three. He's rocking an 80s headband thing... |
There are plenty of opportunities to experience the Pokemon world from a different angle with a different gameplay mechanic and story; Pokemon Stadium, Pokemon Pinball, Mystery Dungeon, Pokemon Snap!, Pokemon Ranger. So with so many choices and such an in depth development of each of these branches, what could anyone have to possibly complain about? You know what you are buying if you purchase one of these games, so obviously people aren't rushing out to buy Black and White hoping for a totally new game that they don't recognise. By the look of things this time, however, that might be just what they get. This change seems to me to be the biggest so far, with 156 new Pokemon and no inclusion of the familiar ones until the Elite Four is beaten.
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| Easy now... |
DannyDarko
Been waiting for a long time for this dan! and good job too! I love the games mainly because the simplicity of gameplay, you can take as much time as you like to complete the game (no timer moments where you have to rush anywhere before the clock runs out, or moments where you just cant put the game down without dying) and you don't always have to be paying full attention to it which means you can be getting on with other stuff whilst your playing on it.
ReplyDeleteThe way that the games have been developed over time kind of goes with the rate of gameplay, they don't need to make it much more exiting because you kind of make it more exiting in your own head, but its the little things that make you all giddy.
Im gutted the new game doesn't have a pokewalker though. tut.
As I said earlier Mr Waite good article. It is weird how we are basically just buying the same game over and over again yet we still love it. And whenever we go back to the older versions we love them just as much as we did back then! It's no surprise PokeMon is the best-selling RPG in the world really. Let us hope that Digimon World proves to be just as good as you remember ;)
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