Gotta catch ‘em all!
This week our friend Evan talks about the beginning of Pokemon. Evan touches on discovering Pokemon for the first time as a kiddo, enjoying the games as an adult, the copy paste formula, and how Legends: Arceus breaks free of that formula. Enjoy :-)
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I still remember the first time I played Pokémon. As a child I spent most of my free time watching my older brother play Super Nintendo. Games like Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, and Earthbound were his Everest. He revered these games; he spoke of them as if they were the absolute coolest video games ever, and beating each one was not just a personal but an almost religious accomplishment. He was right, but that’s beside the point. My early childhood was spent being indoctrinated into the simple beauty of turn-based JRPGs and when I saw the very first iterations of the Pokémon franchise, I knew I had found my monolith of adoration. Everything about it felt personally crafted for me. The amazing Charizard artwork (I obviously chose Red Version), the very notion of befriending these strange creatures, the idea of battling them and raising them. Turn-based combat!? It had everything. The feelings of wonderment and exploration I felt while playing these games had not been matched until very recently. More on that later.
I was 8 or so when the first Pokémon came out and it swept through my school. It was winter and we had the option to stay in or go out in the snow during recess. Fifteen or so of us stayed in every day. We had our Gameboys, we had our link cables, and we were ready to become Pokémon masters. We learned secrets from one another. One of us had the players guide, so she knew where to find Dratini. Someone else heard if you move the truck by the S.S. Anne you can find Mew, the mythical 151st Pokémon. It created a sense of community that was extremely crucial to my social growth as a kid. As fads usually do, Pokémon’s popularity started to wane at school. I was happily raving about Gold and Silver and most of my old fellow trainers laughed it off as a kiddie game. Peer pressure can come at you hard and fast. I eventually gave up Pokémon, hung up my link cables, and got into music and movies and all sorts of other things that were not seen as “kiddie”, as they said.
Fast forward to 2015 and I’m working as a security guard at an art museum. As one might expect, it’s not exactly the most exciting work. Lots of walking around in silence; telling older guests not to get too close to the paintings, telling people that yes, our Picasso painting is real (because people don’t think museums have actual art, I guess.) This job provided lots of time in complete silence left with only my thoughts. You eventually run out of things to think when you’re standing around in silence for 35 hours a week. Ultimately my thoughts led me to wonder what my ideal Pokémon Gold six partner team would be. I immediately became overjoyed at the thought of playing Pokémon again. I left work that day and sped to a game shop and picked up a DS and a copy of Pokémon HeartGold. It felt good to be back! It felt right. Nostalgia is a helluva drug and sometimes you need that reminder of simpler times. Pokémon does that for me, I’ve come to realize.
I’ve kept up with the franchise now since Sun and Moon, as each iteration has shamelessly copied and pasted most of its mechanics and stories from one gen to the next. Something that has become more apparent as time passes is that these games were perfecting the Pokémon experience. Some were bumpier rides than others, but each one experimented in ways that have led us to what I believe is the greatest Pokémon game yet to exist: Pokémon Legends: Arceus.
The wonderment and joy of discovery I felt in my childhood has made a comeback. Legends is an incredible breath of fresh air in a franchise that desperately needed it. Game Freak seems to have taken every successful experimentation from the last 5 or so generations of Pokémon games and have crafted them into arguably the most enjoyable Pokémon experience I’ve ever had. Is it perfect? No. Far from it. But it’s successes far outweigh its failures. The plot is handled clumsily, and the graphics are not stellar. I do however feel that Game Freak went with an art style that plays into their graphical shortcomings and it pulls it off rather successfully. It’s not flashy but it’s pretty enough to keep me invested which is, let’s be honest, all it needed to be. Pokémon games have never been about graphics. It’s a game solely based around gameplay and that is what Legends: Arceus gets right.
Legends is the first Pokemon game that truly lets you explore. This game feels huge. Whether you’re running, on Wyrdeer back, or flying through the skies, this game is gigantic. It delivers on a true sense of exploration that has only been hinted at since generation one. These Pokémon feel far more real than they ever have before. Some of them make you laugh at how lovable and cute they are. Others will make you curse over how aggressive and flat-out dangerous they are. The player’s well-being is at stake in this game. Pokémon can attack you. Yes, you. When all your companions have fainted, you don’t white out and end up back at a Pokémon Center; you are still staring down the barrel of a dangerous and very angry Pokémon and they can, essentially, murder you. It’s awesome. There is a real sense of personal stakes in this game that feels so wholly unique in this franchise.
The mainline Pokémon game series has had its ups and downs. A large chunk of the fanbase is continually upset at what the company puts out while others refuse to see any flaws of almost any kind in them. The truth, like most things, lies somewhere in the middle. More than anything, Pokémon Legends: Arceus should be seen as the Pokémon Company taking things seriously. This is a huge change of pace for a franchise that has essentially stayed exactly the same for 25 years.
The big question on everyone’s mind is “what’s next?” Is gen 9 going to be a return to the usual main game style, while Legends becomes a spin-off series? Will gen 9 see the basic structure of the mainline games being combined with the new gameplay of Legends? I don’t think we’ll have to wait very long to find out, as the Pokémon Day presentation looms ahead of us. There are rumors swirling of Legends DLC and of a generation 9 announcement. I feel we’ll have an idea of where the franchise is heading very soon. I’m not concerned though. I’m glued to my Switch playing Legends. It was hard enough to get me to stop playing to write this.
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