{"id":125421,"date":"2022-06-04T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-04T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/#article-132197"},"modified":"2022-06-04T17:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-06-04T17:00:00","slug":"feature-how-the-quintessential-essence-of-pokemon-games-inspires-gen-after-gen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2022\/06\/04\/feature-how-the-quintessential-essence-of-pokemon-games-inspires-gen-after-gen\/","title":{"rendered":"Feature: How The Quintessential Essence Of Pok\u00e9mon Games Inspires Gen After Gen"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>\n
\"Pokemon
Image: Nintendo Life \/ Gemma Smith<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 1998 my Canadian elementary school banned everything to do with Pok\u00e9mon. The games, the trading cards, and discussions about the anime \u2013 all of it was off-limits as Pocket Monster fever swept through North America like a swarm of Rattata, distracting us from our in-class reading of Anne of Green Gables<\/strong>. That did not stop me and my classmates from passing notes about whether or not there really was a Mew beneath the truck parked near the S.S. Anne<\/a> when Mrs. Hubbard turned her back. Nor did it stop us from pitying those poor souls whose parents would not buy them a Game Boy, let alone a copy of Pok\u00e9mon Red or Blue<\/a><\/strong>. To us, that was a step removed from child abuse.<\/p>\n

Many people can relate similar anecdotes about playing the quintessentially classic Red and Blue. By \u2018quintessential\u2019 I mean Pok\u00e9mon games stand out as some of the most memorable and influential gaming experiences ever made. Yet the special thing about Pok\u00e9mon is this phenomenon which isn\u2019t exclusive to those of us in Canada or born around 1990. Up until this year\u2019s Pok\u00e9mon Legends: Arceus<\/a><\/strong>, every mainline Pok\u00e9mon game is a classic for another generation of kids the world over. Somehow, Pok\u00e9mon developer Game Freak continues to capture cultural touchstone after cultural touchstone as if it were as easy as catching a Caterpie.<\/p>\n

\n

“I didn\u2019t know what shiny Pok\u00e9mon were at the time. I asked my friend why the Pok\u00e9mon sparkled and he said it meant it was holding a Master Ball<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cMy first Pok\u00e9mon game was FireRed<\/a><\/strong>,\u201d Wolfe Glick told me in an email interview. 2004\u2019s FireRed began Glick\u2019s journey to becoming the VGC World Champion in 2016 and one of the most recognizable competitive trainers. Pok\u00e9mon International\u2019s VGC \u2013 which stands for the obliquely named Video Game Championships \u2013 gathers dozens of skilled players from around the world every year to compete in double battles for prizes and glory.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was probably around eight years old when I got it,\u201d Glick elaborated. \u201cI have many fond memories playing with my brother and neighbours on the Game Boy Advance. I remember it was hard to see the screen when it was really bright, and I ran into a shiny Dodrio in the Safari Zone. I didn\u2019t know what shiny Pok\u00e9mon were at the time. I asked my friend why the Pok\u00e9mon sparkled and he said it meant it was holding a Master Ball. I caught the Dodrio and was upset when it had no held item, and then forgot about it for six or seven years when I suddenly remembered and went back to find my first ever shiny.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"WolfeGlick\"<\/figure>\n

Glick\u2019s experience could have been any one of our own Pok\u00e9mon stories \u2013 who hasn\u2019t taken bogus Pok\u00e9Advice from a friend before? Anyone who has played a Pok\u00e9mon game can relate as easily as they can remember their first starter. For Glick and I, it was Charmander, yet a gap of over five years removed our choices from one another.<\/p>\n

However, few people have had Pok\u00e9mon change the course of their life the way developer Game Freak\u2019s monster-collector has for Glick. When searching for strangers online to battle over wifi at 12 years old, Glick discovered an in-person tournament about 40 minutes from where he lived. The tournament was in a format he\u2019d never played before \u2013 VGC\u2019s double battles \u2013 but Glick still managed to learn the format, win the event, and secure a ticket to the US Nationals \u2013 which he also won, granting him access to the World Championships where he placed 6th. The following year he placed 2nd at Worlds and knew he had to keep competing.<\/p>\n

Few people have managed to turn competitive Pok\u00e9mon into a career, but Glick has done just that. He now produces both informative and humorous Pok\u00e9mon-related videos for his YouTube channel<\/a> with over 500k subscribers, along with a valiant effort to help ease new players into the scene with VGCGuide<\/a> \u2013 all while still competing. In fact, he\u2019s on his way to the 2022 World Championships in London this August.<\/p>\n

Pok\u00e9mon\u2019s influence isn\u2019t limited to journalists like myself and professional players like Glick. Guillermo Andrades, Game Director of the upcoming creature-battler Temtem<\/a><\/strong>, also shared with me his earliest Pok\u00e9mon memories. Unlike Glick and I, he chose Squirtle.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started Pok\u00e9mon at the very beginning with Pok\u00e9mon Blue. I was obsessed with the game to the point of consuming everything Pok\u00e9mon,\u201d Andrades told me. \u201cI started playing the Pok\u00e9mon TCG due to it and my most fond Pok\u00e9mon-related memories are about spending the weekend playing tournaments in my local store and meeting every other kid there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TemTem\"
Temtem adopts a more challenging approach than most recent Pok\u00e9mon titles (Image: Crema)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For Andrades and his team at Spanish developer Crema, recent Pok\u00e9mon games inspired them to challenge Pok\u00e9mon\u2019s conventions rather than mimic them. When asked about Pok\u00e9mon\u2019s influence on Temtem, Andrades says that Temtem came about because he and his team had lost interest in Pok\u00e9mon as it pushed to reach a broader and broader audience. Crema wanted to see how the formula Game Freak perfected would adapt to a more difficult and competitive approach. Thus Temtem was born.<\/p>\n

\n

Temtem came about because Andrades and his team had lost interest in Pok\u00e9mon as it pushed to reach a broader and broader audience<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Andrades emphasises Temtem\u2019s social elements as something they\u2019ve looked to innovate upon. Seeing other players in the overworld \u2013 Temtem, after all, is coined as a massively multiplayer creature collecting adventure \u2013 trading or battling with them directly, and having an auction house, are all ways Crema looks to improve the monster-battling formula. And when it comes to the battles themselves, the removal of random factors \u2013 such as a 10% chance to freeze \u2013 creates a more balanced and fair experience that rewards careful play rather than luck.<\/p>\n

But Pok\u00e9mon players in Canada, America, and Spain can\u2019t hold a Litwick<\/a> to how Pok\u00e9mon moulded the cultural zeitgeist of Japan from 1996 onward. As popular as it is in the West, every single child in Japan knows what a Pok\u00e9mon is and the majority have likely played a Pok\u00e9mon game. There are Pok\u00e9mon cafes<\/a>. Donut shops sell Pok\u00e9mon-themed donuts<\/a>. McDonald\u2019s puts out Pikachu-flavoured McFlurries<\/a>. Many major cities have a Pok\u00e9mon Centre selling everything from stuffed toys to Pok\u00e9mon cards. I say this as someone who has lived in Japan for the last eight years \u2013 Pok\u00e9mon is as common here as a Zubat is in Mt. Moon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t take my word alone for it. I contacted the 2017 VGC World Champion Ryota Otsubo to hear his thoughts on Pok\u00e9mon\u2019s influence (and did my best to accurately translate his Japanese).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first time I played was the Pikachu version (Pok\u00e9mon Yellow<\/a>). It was my first time playing a game, and I remember being overjoyed when I defeated a strong gym leader. I really liked the Pok\u00e9mon called Lapras. The channel I have on YouTube is called the Naminori Channel<\/a> (Surf Channel), which is named after Lapras.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much like Glick, Otsubo also found success by finishing second place at a local tournament. He thought if he mastered more battles, he might be able to reach the top someday. 10 years later Otsubo did just that, becoming the 2017 VGC World Champion.<\/p>\n

\"RyotaOtsubo\"<\/figure>\n

\u201cI think [Pok\u00e9mon is so influential] because of its attractive characters and battle system. It is made not only for children but also adults, so people all over Japan and the world can enjoy playing Pok\u00e9mon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, I\u2019ve spent much of my time in Japan teaching, and despite having little in common with my students, we could always discuss Pok\u00e9mon no matter what their age group. When Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl<\/a><\/strong> were announced, many of my high school-aged students couldn\u2019t wait to relive their very first Pok\u00e9mon adventure. A recent trend has many of them slotting rare Pok\u00e9mon trading cards into their clear smartphone cases, which surprised me, given that doing so in my<\/em> high school would\u2019ve been like using Follow Me<\/a> against every bully in the student body. When Pok\u00e9mon Legends: Arceus released in January, I had junior high students telling me every week thereafter which shiny Pok\u00e9mon they found over the weekend, and assignments they turned in often have my favourite Pok\u00e9mon drawn on them in a desperate attempt for extra credit.<\/p>\n

Red and Blue may have started it all, but the franchise as a whole continues to make Pok\u00e9mon a perpetual classic. Plenty of criticism can be leveraged at Game Freak for how little Pok\u00e9mon\u2019s formula has evolved over the years, and how \u2014 visually, at least \u2014 Pok\u00e9mon has yet to reach modern expectations. Signs indicate that the next mainline entries will shake things up more than ever before, but there is absolutely no doubt that for many young gamers, 2022\u2019s Pok\u00e9mon Scarlet and Violet<\/a><\/strong> will have the same profound impact Red and Blue had on Andrades and I, FireRed had on Glick, and Yellow had on Otsubo. On past evidence, it’s almost certain to become quintessentially classic for yet another generation of trainers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image: Nintendo Life \/ Gemma Smith In 1998 my Canadian elementary school banned everything to do with Pok\u00e9mon. The games, the trading cards, and discussions about the anime \u2013 all of it was off-limits as Pocket Monster fever swept through North America like a swarm of Rattata, distracting us from our in-class reading of Anne […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125421\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}