Posted by: Kim_Hamilton on 05/18/2007 01:14 PM
Updated by: thepinetree on 08/01/2007 07:17 AM
Expires: 01/01/2012 12:00 AM
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In Media Res...Gaming Column For May 2007... "A Pokémon Retrospective"~By Raven and Coyote
With the launch on April 22nd of the Diamond and Pearl editions, Pokémon is as big now as ever. As I, Coyote, play through my copy of Diamond, I find myself looking backward in time toward my first exposure to the Pokémon craze....
Ironically enough, despite being the writer of a video-game column, my first Pokémon experience was through the animated television series. Not being much of a TV buff, I saw the latter half of an episode on a friend's set. Since I was already an animé fan, the animation style caught my interest enough to make me keep watching. The woman that I was dating at the time had a son, Jon, who was a fan, so I picked up a copy of Pokémon Red for the Game Boy Color. A short time later I found out that Pokémon is pronounced POE-KAY-MON, and is a contraction of "Pocket-Monster".
A charmander was my first Pokémon ever. I named her Liz. With her and a group of other Pokémon that I captured. I suffered one defeat at the hands of Jon. That was the spur needed to make a naturally competitive man determined to improve. It was hard going at first, but with my team I fought my way through the game until I was a league champion. Jon never won another match, although he was still having fun. I was upset when I found out that Pokémon #150, Mew, was never released in the United States, so I'd never be likely to catch the whole set.
After the initial release of Pokémon Red & Blue, a special edition cartridge was released for fans of the television series, allowing the player to start off with a Pikachu as their first Pokémon, just like Ash Ketchum, the main character of the TV program. The game was, of course, Pokémon Yellow. Aside from the difference of starting off with a Pikachu like Ash, there were also other touches of the animé in game, such as the inclusion of Jessie and James, the series's two main antagonists and arguably the most recognizable members of Team Rocket by anyone who's ever seen the series. Aside from that, Raven didn't see much difference between Pokémon Yellow and the first two games.
Time passed, and it looked like the Pokémon craze might be dying off. With only 151 Pokémon, almost all of which were available in the first round of games, it didn't seem as though the game designers had left themselves anywhere to go. Inspiration had struck, however, and Pokémon Gold & Silver were born onto another continent, Johto, with its own multitude of Pokémon species. Wisely, a great many of the old favorites were carried through into the new games. This pair of games also had a third cartridge added on after the face, Pokémon Crystal. I myself had Silver and Crystal, and traded for the Pokémon only available on the Gold cartridge by way of Raven, who owned both Gold and her own copy of Crystal. The games still felt like voyages of discovery, and were accessible to anyone who cared to take an interest. Pokémon, then and now, requires no great skill or coordination. All that is needed to succeed is dedication, teamwork, and patience, plus a little luck; I can think of worse lessons to give to our youth. The animated series followed the lead of the games, both in traveling to Johto and in trying to instill lessons in dedication and teamwork.
More time passed, and another pair of cartridges came out, again followed by a third that came slightly later; Ruby and Sapphire, followed by Emerald. I got Ruby, and bought a copy of Sapphire for Raven. We both played, but neither of us ever quite finished. The games didn't seem to have the same magic anymore. It seemed as though the worse might have happened; we'd outgrown the games. Neither of us bought Emerald.
Yet another pair of games appeared in stores; LeafGreen & FireRed. Thinking back on how much fun I'd had raising Liz, my first charmander, I broke down and gave them another chance. I picked up FireRed, and some of the magic was back. The game was similar enough to the roots of the series to rekindle some interest. I raised a new charmander, a male this time. I named him Eldin. With no one to compete against it wasn't as much fun as it had once been, but it was still fun.
After the little boost from FireRed, my enthusiasm was great enough to buy a copy of Diamond on the day it came out. Learning from my past mistakes, I persuaded Raven that she needed a copy of Pearl. Since I didn't like the looks of the fire Pokémon offered as a starting companion, I chose a little blue bird called a Piplup. Raven, since she couldn't choose a bulbasaur as would have been her normal inclination, chose Turtwig. That brings us up to the present; our Pokémon journeys continue.
There have been other Pokémon games that I haven't mentioned. This is my Pokémon journey, after all. I never spent a significant amount of time with Pokémon Colosseum, Hey you! Pikachu, Pokémon Snap, or Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness.
Raven, on the other hand, has. Well, at least with Hey you! Pikachu and Pokémon Snap. While the lure of Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask was enough to talk Raven into laying her hands on an N64, Pokémon Snap just made her that much more glad that she did. It had an interesting premise, and made the most of the N64's (then) revolutionary 64-bit graphics. Your task, as a Pokémon photographer, was to help Professor Oak capture pictures of all the Pokémon for his research. You were led through pre-mapped tracks in a special rail vehicle, and as you progressed through the game, you would earn more and more tools that would let you take increasingly interesting pictures of the Pokémon in action. Music stimulated some, bait others, and you had to get pretty creative to get some shots. At the end of each level, Professor Oak awarded you points on your pictures, grading them on three categories. Now, this game was obviously designed by someone who had never actually taken a photography class in their life, and this led to more than a few bouts of both Raven and Coyote criticizing Prof. Oak's criticizing, but Raven adjusted fairly quickly to what the game required, and did pretty darn well.
Hey you, Pikachu was another departure from the typical Pokémon games, as well as being the first (and Raven believes only) game released for the N64 that featured a voice-recognition system. As far as she could tell, there was no real overall point to the game. The premise here is that Professor Oak is trying to perfect a device to allow humans to communicate with Pokémon, and you get chosen to test it out. You befriend a wild Pikachu (who becomes increasingly less wild when he starts sleeping in the middle of your bed) and through the device, give him commands and try to get him to do what you want. If you spoke clearly enough, and kept a list of the commands he knew near you, you could get that at least 90 percent of the time. In spite of the difficulties with the voice-recognition itself, the game was still a lot of fun, in a virtual pet kind of way.
So, overall, both Coyote and Raven have had a good run with the Pokémon series, and highly recommend it to anyone who thinks they might enjoy it!
Questions? Comments? Drop us a line at In Media Res
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