First let me say that I'm sorry for the long absence but that should be over as of now.
Secondly let me tell you that there will be two differences to this post. First of all I will not be looking at a specific game, I will instead be taking you through the history of my favorite game SERIES, Pokémon.
Second of all, SOMEONE IS ACTUALLY READING! Maybe two people! Squee!
I have also been told my grammar sucks but GOD help me I'm trying! I hope I done did my grammar good.
But enough of this gay banter, let's start with depression!
In October of 1996, my father passed away.
I wasn't even three yet and I didn't fully understand what was going on, I knew only three things. My mother was sad, my brother was angry, and my father was gone.
But I remember when things started to get better to the DAY. December 22nd 1996.
My grandparents had come up from Florida for Christmas. My Papou (grandfather) took me and my brother to the mall in Waterbury. We saw a movie, I can't remember which one, then as an early Christmas present he bought my brother two game boy games.
They were Pokémon Red Version, and Pokémon Blue Version.
To this day I can go right now and put my hand on those two cartridges. I've never lost them, and by god I lose EVERYTHING.
I've also owned every main series title after that, both versions. Pokémon isn't just a series I think is good. Pokémon is the series I have put more hours into than any other video game. I would estimate I have spent THREE STRAIGHT WEEKS, 504 straight hours of my life playing the first games alone.
Look around my house and you will find Pokémon coloring books, temporary tattoos, office supplies, figurines, trading cards, and a Jigglypuff pillow (I'm taking it to college).
Let's move on from me, let's move on to what this game series is ABOUT.
Well, to start off. My name is DeAndrea, most people call me the Pokémon Professor.
This world is inhabited by creatures called Pokémon. Some people breed them for work or play. Others use them for fights.
As for Myself, I study Pokémon games because I don't have a job.
What are Pokémon? Pokémon are animals with special abilities. They come in 649 different species. Pardon me, AT LEAST 649 different species (Every few years they add more, so the "at least" is kind of important).
Pokémon grow by fighting each other. As a Pokémon trainer you are tasked with the goal of making YOUR Pokémon the strongest in the world. You prove this by battling other trainers Pokémon with your own.
There are 17 "types" of Pokémon. These basically dictate the sort of abilities the Pokémon can learn. Each with advantages and disadvantages over other types (example: Fire beats Grass, Grass beats Water, Water beats Fire)
You have two Main goals in any Pokémon game. One is to complete the Pokédex, a comprehensive encyclopedia of all the different kinds of Pokémon. You do this by catching them.
Granted, this was much easier back when there were only 150 of the suckers. You didn't have to go to any conventions. You didn't have to trade more than one or two between games. You didn't have to (this is true) play while DRIVING.
The second, and far easier, goal is to defeat the Pokémon Champion and the Elite Four.
The Elite Four are the biggest badasses on the planet, the Champion is King Badass of Awesome Mountain.
To earn the right even to TRY this you need to take the POKÉMON GYM CHALLENGE! Scattered around the country there are "Pokémon Gyms," places where Pokémon trainers gather to toughen up. Each gym has a "Leader." This leader is the strongest trainer in the Gym and usually focuses on one type of Pokémon. Defeat this leader and he will give you a special Badge as a mark of proof that you have beaten him. You need to collect eight of these badges to even be allowed to TRY against the Elite Four.
Yes this is a game where you do, in fact, need Stinking Badges (Rimshot).
The first games introduce the world to us. You play as Red, a fresh faced 10 year old from Pallet Town. The Pokédex is given to you by Professor Oak. The worst scientist of all time.
The old bastard sends two ten year old boys, one of them his GRANDSON, out into a world filled with dangerous animals to do his research for him. Some of them breathe FIRE for god's sake!
Well he does give you the choice of a flower, lizard, or small turtle to protect you.
........
A hearty "Up Yours" from all of the fans of this series Oak.
Along the way you collect badges, catch Pokémon, and toughen up. Your progress is Impeded by two main antagonists.
One of them is your boyhood rival, Blue. His kind of obnoxious, but basically a decent guy. He seems to always be one step ahead of you. He always earns the badges first, always has more Pokémon than you, and by the time you get there HE is the Pokémon Champion.
The other is the sinister Giovanni.
Giovanni is the head of a criminal organization known as Team Rocket. They only have one goal in mind, use Pokémon to gain profit by any means necessary. Giovanni is cold, calculating and cruel. He is known, in a KIDS game, mind you, to have killed several people and Pokémon in cold blood.
His actions came to their climax a year before the game begins. The creation of Pokémon #150, Mewtwo.
Mew was thought to be the Pokémon from which all other Pokémon developed. After finding a fossil of Mew, Giovanni decided to revive it (reviving ancient Pokémon from fossils is well established in-universe), but he decided to make a few.... creative adjustments.
Thus we saw the birth of Mewtwo, the worlds most powerful Pokémon. Mewtwo promptly escaped the lab, burning it down in the process, and hid in a cave. You can in fact enter said cave and capture him, a laurel that has eluded me to this day.
Giovanni is one of my favorite video game villains of all time, and Mewtwo is still my favorite Pokémon.
Giovanni was so CALM. So NONCHALANT about all the terrible things he did. He didn't dress up his actions with pointless rhetoric, he was straight up EVIL. He had no grand agenda. He was GREEDY, and DAMN he made it look good!
On the other hand, what's with Nintendo and the Italians? Between Giovanni and Mario, they seem to think that all Italian Americans are either delightful immigrant serviceman or horribly evil gangsters! As just an Italian American who's a snarky writer with only TANGENTIAL mob ties, I take offense to that!
Anyhow, at the end of the game Giovanni escapes into the night, disbanding Team Rocket in the process.
You beat the Elite Four, beat blue, congratulations stalwart hero of the land.
I'm going to skip over the Gold/Silver/Crystal generation for the time being. I'm going to be talking about them in more detail next post.
The Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald generations are my least favorite so far. Mostly it's business as usual. Collect badges, catch the now 386 different Pokémon, become the best like no one ever was, blady blady blah. Where it falls down is in the villain department.
Your Rival is now your Love interest. A new addition in the Gold/Silver generation had been the chance to play as a female protagonist, your rival took the opposite gender you picked. That's all fine and good, but the character is sort of flat. Blue had PERSONALITY, even if he was obnoxious.
But the Teams....
OH GOD, THE TEAMS.
Remember when I talked about Giovanni, and how it was cool that he didn't mask his evil with pointless rhetoric? Well in generation three that went RIGHT out the window, and instead we got Team Aqua, and Team Magma.
Okay, let's see if I can explain this. After Team Rocket got its ass kicked AGAIN at the end of Gold/Silver, two former members Maxie and Archie, went off and formed their own criminal organizations. Maxie was a fan of Fire type Pokémon so he set out to create more land so they could thrive. Creating Team Magma. Similarly, ARCHIE, a water type fan, wanted to create more sea, and thus formed Team Aqua.
They are now locked in a vicious gang war.
Honestly, they pose no serious threat, their outfits are goofy at the best of times, and cold, calculating Giovanni is replaced by two, balding, uncharismatic, pudgy guys.
Their ultimate goal is to get their hands on a legendary Pokémon. Magma wants Groudon, said to have created the land, and Aqua wants Kyogre, rumored to have created the sea.
After you stop their boundless stupidity from ending the planet. It's back to business, Elite Four, Champion, Victory.
I hardly DISLIKE Ruby/Sapphire, I love them! There was a serious graphical update, some neat new gameplay ideas, and they introduced some of my favorite Pokémon! But the story side of things took a SERIOUS dive.
Then there was Diamond/Pearl where things got silly.
"Gotta Catch'em All!" became a pipe dream when the number of Pokémon increased to 493. Like I said earlier a friend of my brother's did it, but to do so he had to play whilst DRIVING. Furthermore some Pokémon you could only receive through special events and conventions. It's become a mess.
You got the ability to polish your Gym Badges, which I do obsessively. The gym leaders are often hilarious, but that's par for the course.
Your Rival this time around is Barry. His joke is that he is hasty. Constantly plowing into you, running everywhere he goes, talking a mile a minute etc..
Then there is Team Galactic. With similar, but GRANDER, goals than Aqua and Magma.
Team galactic wants to create new SPACE.
..........
Well we can't fault them for lack of ambition can we?
They plan to do this by summoning the Devil. Yes, the Devil. The Devil is a Pokémon, his name's Giratina. So's God. God is a Pokémon too, his name's Arceus. This isn't hinted at or implied, they say it. Often. Giratina's the Devil. Arceus is God. These are games where you can CAPTURE AND TRAIN GOD.
Do you understand why I love this series yet?
This game's story falls into "So Bad It's Good" territory for me. Galactic is so BEAUTIFULLY over the top. They all have blue hair, they dress up in Star Fleet uniforms, it's hilarious.
The story becomes GOOD again with Black/White and Team Plasma.
They actually tried to shake up the formula this time around with decent results. You still have the same BASIC goals, Badges, Pokédex, etc., but the characters play a much larger role in the plot, particularly the Gym Leaders.
Team Plasma has an agenda, but actually a rather provocative one for the series.
Team Plasma wants all Trainers to release their Pokémon. They claim that we are using the Pokémon against their will, making them fight for our own amusement.
I actually really like this schtick. It had been a joke for a long time, and PETA had protested, Arceus help us, that the whole thing was morally icky, sending animals to fight each other for a contest. Why was it morally okay in the game when similar actions in the real world would get you arrested.
Black/White addressed that issue and explained the difference. You are not sending your Pokémon to fight, you and your Pokémon fight TOGETHER. Losing tires YOU out, victory makes YOU stronger. BOTH of you have skin in the game.
The final twist of the game is that the second in command is using the head of Team Plasma, a young, idealistic kid, and the Agenda for his own profit.
I really love this generation of the series. It was smart and well thought out. It made you think, and I like it when a game does that.
Ah, but this was only my SECOND favorite Pokémon generation.
Come back next time, when we look at my favorite Pokémon games, and what turned me from Geek to Gamer.
NEXT TIME: POKÉMON SOULSILVER VERSION.
No comments:
Post a Comment