Pokémon Pearl (Nintendo DS)

...the colossal impact that the Pokémon franchise has had on the world commercially. This wasn't just a video game… this was a phenomenon. Movies, trading cards, toys, magazines, animes, CDs, stickers, sweets, breakfast cereals, key rings… even air fresheners for your car… everything you can possibly think of that has any commercial value fell to the Pokémon war machine in the late 90's. And what spawned this global insanity? A single Japanese game ...
...Satoshi Tajiri, the creator of Pokémon games, used to spend his childhood wandering through the woods picking up insects and keeping them in small jars in his bedroom. Every time he found a new one he'd rush home and add it to his collection. He was always curious to find out more about his new specimens, especially at how they would interact with each other. So he put them together and, more often than not, they would fight each other (and then, ... more

They first appeared in Kyoto, Japan in 1995. They conquered the whole country before spreading overseas, reaching these shores in 1998. No-one was prepared for the impact that they would have, nor could they possibly have foresaw that even now, ten years later, they continue to plague the earth linking everyone exposed to them in a widespread, international epidemic. There are some who say we are witnessing the beginning of the end, that somehow their power has been diminishing over the years… that their stranglehold on humanity is gradually getting looser. To these people, these… uneducated people… I offer you two words. Two words that convey the severity of situation, proving that even rational, mentally sane persons such as myself are prone to their compulsive, maniacal ways.

PIKA PIKA?

OK, OK, so I got a little carried away and dramatic with the introductory paragraph. Still, there's no denying the colossal impact that the Pokémon franchise has had on the world commercially. This wasn't just a video game… this was a phenomenon. Movies, trading cards, toys, magazines, animes, CDs, stickers, sweets, breakfast cereals, key rings… even air fresheners for your car… everything you can possibly think of that has any commercial value fell to the Pokémon war machine in the late 90's. And what spawned this global insanity? A single Japanese game designer who used to collect bugs as a kid.

The story supposedly goes something like this. Satoshi Tajiri, the creator of Pokémon games, used to spend his childhood wandering through the woods picking up insects and keeping them in small jars in his bedroom. Every time he found a new one he'd rush home and add it to his collection. He was always curious to find out more about his new specimens, especially at how they would interact with each other. So he put them together and, more often than not, they would fight each other (and then, presumably, the victor would kill and eat his fallen prey, but this detail was never mentioned). When Satoshi grew up, presumably many years after giving up the hobby of capturing wildlife and forcing them to fight each other to the death, he became a games designer at Nintendo. When thinking of an idea for a new, innovative game for the Game Boy, he remembered his childhood and penned the idea for a game where you collect, trade and battle small creatures that you caught yourself. This game would eventually become Pokémon. To date, there have been countless Pokémon games released worldwide (it's very difficult to judge exactly how many games have been released, as you have to consider the original Japanese versions, the Western versions, the special editions, the second, third and fourth generation games, and then all the numerous spin-offs. Does Pokémon Puzzle League count as a Pokémon game? Does the Pikachu N64 count as a Pokémon unit? I have no idea, nor do I have the patience to find out) and has sold a staggering 178million units worldwide, making it the second biggest gaming franchise behind Nintendo's own Mario series. Just to put that into perspective, 178million units means that one Pokémon game has been sold for every single person living in the UK, France and Spain COMBINED. That's a hell of a lot of people…

As the series evolved it spawned new features, spin-offs, and ultimately new Pokémon to catch (Pokémon, as well as being the name of the franchise, is the name of the creatures within the game that you catch… adapted from the Japanese term for the game, Pocket Monsters). Whilst the original game featured 150 different species of Pokémon (151 if you counted #151 Mew who was only obtainable at special download event… like the one at Bristol that I went to… first in the queue!) there are now 493 including many rare species that only a handful of players worldwide will ever obtain. So even though the media coverage may have died down somewhat since the late '90s, and there are fewer #25 Pikachu (that little pointy-eared yellow rat you've no doubt seen about) faces plastered on kids lunchboxes these days, the game itself has continued to expand. So, with the fourth generation of Pokémon games now upon is in the form of Diamond and Pearl for the Nintendo DS, is it still worth all the fuss, or has the series come to a dead stop?

The fact that I have clocked up over eighty hours of gameplay on my copy of Pearl and still haven't even SEEN half of the 493 Pokémon, let alone CAUGHT them is surely a testament to the sheer depth of this latest generation title. I think it's pretty fair to say that I will never catch 'em all, and anyone who has managed to achieve this feat (without cheating) is deserving of a medal of some kind. Possibly, 'World's biggest lost cause' but a medal nonetheless. I can't even remember starting the game at Twinleaf Town, the game's opening town, and selecting my very first Pokémon of this game (#387 Turtwig) before heading out into this strange new land. My previous experience with Pokémon was with the Game Boy Advance's Leaf Green, a remake of the original Pokémon titles on the Game Boy (incidentally, I kicked ass at Red version back in 1998 and managed to catch 'em all… without cheating!) Same land, same Pokémon, just with a few new features. So with all the advances that had been made since my departure from the series, I was feeling a little bit lost in this new game. Still, the basic premise was the same. You picked a character (male or female), gave them a name, and then chose a name for your rival (who's crop up every now and then in the story) before heading off into the world with your very first Pokémon. Over time your Pokémon would get stronger after battling wild Pokémon (random battle style, on a separate battle screen much like most RPGs), learning new moves in the process. You could also fight other trainers for money or to train. To add to your collection, you would throw a Poké Ball at wild Pokémon to try and catch them, making them your own so that you can battle with them too. You can trade or battle with your friends to expand your collections, or to gain bragging rights. All Pokémon are of a certain type (usually an elemental type) and were therefore stronger against certain types and weaker against other types (fire kills grass, but gets decimated by water for example). Some Pokémon could evolve once they had trained enough into entirely new species, usually stronger than before. On your journey, as well as dealing with the troublesome Team Rocket (or Team Galactic in this fourth generation) you would find gyms at most towns on your travels. Beating the leaders at each gym gave you a badge. Collecting all eight badges would allow you to challenge the Elite Four, and beating them would make you a Pokémon master.

In a nutshell, that's Pokémon. Battle some, catch some, evolve some, get some gym badges and fight the Elite Four. I've powered through that particular bit because, frankly, that's the boring stuff. If that's all there was to the game, I would certainly not have amassed over eighty hours of game time thus far considering I had beaten the Elite Four in WELL under half that, and I was taking it slow. But what do you do after beating the final boss? I'll tell you…

Firstly, Pokémon is a multiplayer game. It expects you to interact with other players, which is why there are two different versions of the game in the first place (some Pokémon can only be caught on Diamond, and some only on Pearl so you have to trade with others to get them). In the past this meant finding someone with the Pokémon you wanted, meeting up with both Game Boys and a cable and trading face-to-face. That's old hat now though, with the GTS and Wi-Fi modes! Basically, if you had a friend in Australia who you wanted to trade with you'd exchange friend codes (like an IP address for your DS) and log into the Nintendo WFC (read, free internet thingy) where you can talk using the in-built microphone, trade, battle and more. But you don't even need to know the person in order to trade with the GTS (Global Trade Station). You'd log in, put one of your Pokémon up for trade, and set the conditions for the Pokémon you want in return. Upload the details, leave it and come back a few hours later to see if the trade has been made. Anyone around the world with a copy of the game and Wi-Fi access can search for different Pokémon, and if they choose to trade you might just be getting yourself a new Pokémon whilst you're asleep!

Alongside this is Pokémon Breeding. Not strictly a new feature to these new games (although adapted slightly), breeding allows you to… erm… breed Pokémon so that you have a new baby one! This is useful for trading off some rarer species for other rares, getting certain pre-evolutions of a few Pokémon, and more advanced techniques such as IV training (which basically involves a Pokémon's natural abilities, it's Individual Values, generated when it is born… it's long, complicated and number crunching and a really advanced technique). It's sometimes a good idea to create a baby of a rare Pokémon and putting him up on the GTS to see what kind of other rare species you can acquire…

Some people take power a little too far. As well as IVs there are EVs… Effort Values, which are a hidden stat which add up over time. Some players will meticulously find out the IVs of a single Pokémon (using a complicated formula and it's attribute stats) and then, when they breed a Pokémon with high IVs they will EV train it to maximize it's potential as a fighter (EV Training involves only fighting certain other types of Pokémon whilst levelling, and taking vitamin boosts to help stats… even more long and complicated than IV training). Whilst painstaking, time consuming, and often frustrating, players who have persisted with their efforts (as well as having mastered strategy and built a team of super-Pokémon) can enter tournaments… although it's fair to say that not many players will get quite that involved with the game. For most, the Battle Tower will suffice. Or battling with friends. Or the contests. Or Poffin-making (helpful for Pokémon contests). Or many of the gazillion of other things to do once the Elite Four have tasted defeat.

One of the reasons I am going so much about the experience AFTER supposedly completing the game is that, when I played the original Red, there was no after-game. The only satisfaction I got was from repeatedly killing the Elite Four, training up my team, and fighting my friend from school (as well as catching them all, which I eventually managed… go me!) To suddenly have all these options available, as well as many others I haven't mentioned (I don't want to spoil everything, do I?) it's truly something special.

In a blatant attempt to appear objective in what so far has amounted to a stupidly positive review, I'm going to take a minute to look at the downsides of Diamond and Pearl. Firstly, the main game is nothing we haven't seen before. All of the ideas, from Team Galactic right through to the whole Elite Four and gym badges… they've been around since the start (or at the very least earlier versions) meaning that very little, aside from the Pokémon you'll see, is new. I must admit that I got bored trudging back and forth between towns and cities, especially before I got the move Fly (allowing a flying Pokémon to carry me to any town or city I'd previously visited instantly). Some of the music is really catchy, whilst some is just plain awful. The music in The Lost Tower, for instance. It doesn't really detract from the overall enjoyment of the game itself, but it certainly doesn't add to it. The game intro is… weird too. Again not a major flaw, but it didn't feel like Pokémon to me. It was too.. Dark and sinister (I suppose it ties in with the plot well enough… but I dunno). Speaking of the plot, this is probably the only RPG in the world that can get away with using a plot so bad that I'm pretty sure that even I could do better. The only explanation I can offer is that unlike traditional RPGs (Final Fantasy, Skies of Arcadia etc) which are hugely story driven, Pokémon isn't so much about the story you're following as to the bond between yourself and your Pokémon themselves. Even now my #389 Torterra, the final evolution of my starting Pokémon #387 Turtwig, remains in my team even though I could easily replace him and he's not the strongest grass type I have… but we've been through so much together I don't want to let him rot in my reserves. He's like and old friend, one who's been with me for years (even though it's only been 80 hours). And that factor alone makes up for the lacklustre plot. So… what else negative wise… erm… the game forces you to complete the game before you can import your old Pokémon from previous GBA titles using the Pal Park feature, but I suppose that's fair enough… you'll probably never be able to get a legitimate copy of Mew… (I say legitimate because a lot of players use cheat devices to hack the game, creating all sorts of rare and unobtainable Pokémon on a whim. These make their way onto the GTS and can clog up the system, meaning that your quite legitimate trade might be overlooked because people want to trade level 1 commons for level 100 uber-rares) and I think I'm done here.

It may not be the perfect game we were all hoping for. It may have it's flaws. It may not have guns, swearing and prostitutes in (it's a shame, but some gamers completely dismiss games like Pokémon because of it's lack of mature content. 'It's a kiddies game' they say in-between decapitating civilians and running over policemen in the latest Grand Theft Auto game. My response to this view is long and complicated but in simple terms… why must a game be mature to be good? Surely a game must be FUN to be good, and if it is fun, why pass over it just because you there's no cussing or farting or blood?) and it may never really have an ending… but very few games can hold my attention for so long an not get boring (World of Warcraft is the only other to date… and maybe Zelda: Ocarina Of Time). For that alone, it gets my recommendation. 

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