Oh Pokemon. What a cultural phenomenon. For most people of my generation this was one of the biggest things in the world and as you can probably guess I was one of the many kids swept up by it. In fact, I still am into it. Those saturday mornings watching the very first adventures of Ash, coming home from school and playing the Trading Card Game and of course the Gameboy classics.
For me this series goes all the way back to playing Shifty's and his brothers copy of Red and Blue. (Very tempting to finally buy my own copies now). We used to attempt to complete the game overnight during a sleepover and being woefully bad at it. Of course, we never completed it! Little did we know it can be done in under 2 hours, more of that later.
I bring this up to remind those who once loved the series to show how it has and hasn't changed. That with the game to make it's full debut on Switch at the end of 2019 we might see the whole thing blow up again. Setting it in a fictional UK will bring it even more awareness, especially after seeing how popular Pokemon GO was at one point.
The full RPG game series is so successful for many reasons. One it has something for everyone. Just want to ‘catch ‘em all’? Go for it. Want to battle every single trainer, and be the Pokemon Master? Have at it! There are mysteries to solve and legendaries to discover. Even the exploring is fun.
The story of being a 10 year old going out in the world to explore and find your own way was, and still is, very appealing. Now at my age I find myself wistfully looking back and playing the old games, fully immersing myself in that nostalgia.
People still love the games and each have their own favourite Pokemon. The actual best Pokemon is obviously Bulbasaur. Hence why it's Pokedex number is 1. Jokes! There are many amazing one's and it's fascinating to hear each persons favourite and why it is. The original 150 are generally the most popular, probably due to being the first time with the series as a kid. I think the closest description is that of having a pet. You pick a starter like you pick a dog or a cat and then grow up with it and become best friend's. That's why people feel so strongly about it all.
The games are (for better or worse) pretty much the same so jumping into any title will give you that same feeling as playing whatever your first title was. I urge you to jump back in, it's a hell of a lot of fun to beat the games again. But for those that have played them to death, what else does the series now have to offer?
Catching them all?
The actual premise of the entire series was based upon the insect catching antics of Satoshi Tajiri, as a child nicknamed Dr Bug due to his hobby of insect collecting. Inspired by this to create a game, it formed the premise of the first generation of games, with the tagline ‘Gotta catch ‘em all’. That first 151 was pretty doable if you had a link cable between Game Boys, though Mew being a Japanese only event made it very tough in the wider world. It sounds like a lot but playing through the game for 20 or 30 hours it was actually pretty achievable back then
What about now? 809.
And even two of them are not available in the main line games. That is a lot and only crazy people such as myself own one of each in a living dex. Every new game has brought between 60 and 150 new Pokemon, meaning each generation has its own unique ones that may not appear in future games. All games have their own Regional dex, usually containing around 300. Across the two games these can be completed relatively easily. Up to generation 6 there is a National dex that contains every single Pokemon that is so much harder to do. You need multiple games and the means to transfer them across via Pokemon Bank.
Each game has its own catching mechanics and special ways of hunting. Gen 4 brought in Honey to slather on trees. Headbutting trees is required in Gen 2. Some Pokemon, such as Cherubi, have not been seen since gen 4. Fishing remains a staple and in Generation 6 was a great way to Shiny hunt. Different mechanics are added in new generations keeping things relatively fresh.
Legendaries can be tricky to get. Most originally only appear in one game and then traded across.
Usually Game Freak host events whereby via a code from a games shop or just the event page in the menu the player can download a special or mythical Pokemon. The ridiculously rare Darkrai could only be received this way. It is annoying that if you missed out on an event from three years ago it means you cannot get it. Though you can always use the trade system in game or wait until Game Freak inevitably re release them again in the future. It is annoying but does make sure that they are still ‘rare’ unlike in Pokemon GO. It’s worth keeping an eye out on the Serebii page as its the only way to get some exclusive shinies and make sure you don't miss the time limited events. If all else fails you can ask me to see if I have a spare!
If getting competitive legendaries is your thing, look no further than Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. Without spoiling too much of the story there is a mini game where the player can go through wormholes and sometimes end up fighting one. Even better than this is that some shinies can be caught this way, Mewtwo being my favourite so far! The games were derided a little for come out too soon and for mixing up the story too much but the wormhole mechanic has been invaluable for people trying to get every single one.
But how about a full living dex? This is having a collection in your PC that contains all of the Pokemon, which is a very time consuming job. It means catching or breeding every single one, including its evolution's. It's great once it's complete, useful if you need to do trades or find a rare ability! Collecting is inherent to people generally so in games like this it is very appealing to try and finish it.
One issue is that when new games were released onto the last Nintendo handheld console it meant that bringing forward your favourites will be a lot harder and probably not available for about 6 months after release. Some such as the very cute Shamin cannot be brought forward at all due to Game Freaks ruling, you have to get one from events only. There are not too many on this front but does make ones like Darkrai extremely rare.
Luckily now that the game is tweaked towards the regional dex (PokeBank has the National one) means that each generation you should be able to complete the dex and get the Shiny charm!
Speaking of which…..
Shiny Hunting
One thing that bewilders most people is why some players go out of their way for ‘Shiny’ Pokemon. These are very rare, special coloured versions of the normal type. That’s it. They are not stronger or have any special moves or abilities. Just a colour difference and little stars that pop out when it's thrown into battle.
The reason people like them? Well they can look amazing, just check out this shiny dex. It’s satisfying for the most part because they are so damn hard to find. Originally the odds of finding a shiny was 1/8192. You could meet over 8000 Pokemon and still not see a shiny one, they are so so rare.. Known as ‘Full Odds’ these are probably the rarest, of which I have caught just one myself! An Ekans in Soul Silver which came out of the blue as I was trying to find a Cute Charm Jigglypuff.
Most people will never see one but with millions of people playing the games in theory thousands should come across one by chance. If you are battling it's a great way to show off your patience and skill when they see your special shinies!
With each new series Game Freak always introduce another way of hunting shinies specific to those titles. Originally with Egg hatching, known as the Masuda Method has carried across all of them. Hatching hundreds of eggs hoping for one shiny version to pop out. Introduced in Gold and Silver with the Day Care Centre, it allowed players to breed Pokemon to make ones with better moves and natures.
Weirdly Game Freak is not a big fan of people farming thousands of eggs for shinies so made sure it was not in the latest Let’s Go games. Each to their own I say. One of the most regular ones has been the Poke Radar. It is a device that shakes some patches of grass in a given area allowing the user to chain the same Pokemon and eventually see a shiny as the odds increase. This is one of the few methods I really don’t like, it’s very difficult and requires an intense amount of concentration. A lot of people have excellent results from it mind. My tastes sway more to consecutive fishing, SOS battles or probably the easiest in Ultra Warp Ride.
The base odds have been increased to 1/4096 in the last free generations which with the aforementioned methods drop even further. One thing you can do it complete the Pokedex in any game from Generation 5 onwards and you can receive the Shiny Charm, which permanently increases the odds of finding a shiny. This applies across everything, from random encounters to all the hunting methods.
There has never been a better time to be a shiny hunter. In fact this is one of my favourite gaming hobbies, being able to do a long monotonous hunt whilst watching something else. The perseverance required to get one is actually impressive, you need so much patience. It’s a badge of honour to even have a single one, regardless of how you got it!
Shiny hunting streamers are huge on sites like Twitch. It may seem weird that such a boring hunt would be so popular but it allows the streamer to build up a large bond with their followers. It allows plenty of time for conversations and questions. It’s almost like they are joining in on the hunt which are stressful and far too long. Win win for both!
Saying all that, most of the ways to catch a shiny gets you progressively stronger Pokemon. Just by luck your shiny will usually be better than the standard versions thanks to their hidden stats. For instance, using DexNav multiple times on the same Pokemon such as Poochyena will eventually get you one with a special move or better stats. After a while you will get some with the best stats and maybe a shiny one will turn up.
If I were to recommend any method at all would be the Friend Safari in X and Y. If you add friends to your 3DS (you are more than welcome to ask me) there is an area at the end of the game whereby two or three Pokemon of a particular type will appear. The odds are about 1 in 800 for a shiny to turn up but all you have to do is literally run around and see what turns up. The key is knowing what the shiny form looks like, some are extremely subtle and can be missed. If you go for it, good luck! You will eventually find one, just stick at it.
Competitive scene
For one group of people, the end of the game is just the beginning. Finally unlocking all areas and features, allowing you create your own team ready to take on the world! You may think that it would be simple, pick your strongest level Pokemon from the story and just battle it out. Alas it doesn't work that way. There are rules to follow. Some legendary and mythical Pokemon are banned outright for being too powerful. Also if everyone just had the same ones it would be very boring though thankfully each wave of new Pokemon mixes up the scene. The introduction of the Tapu's was a game changer!
So how does it work? Well Pokemon is a turn based battler, with the player either using one or two monsters to fight the AI or other players. Each Pokemon has its own stats, hidden stats, ability, nature and typing. There are now 18 different types that work in a Rock Paper Scissors style of strength of weakness. Best typified by the starters in each game, Fire, Water and Grass. Grass is weak to fire but is strong against Water. What makes the whole series interesting as a lot of Pokemon have dual types, massively affecting its strengths, weaknesses and to a degree what moves it can learn.
Each of the stats must be perfect and each Pokemon in the team must compliment the rest. You can beat the game with an entire team of Catapie's if you really want. At competition level a lot more thought has to go into it to know what attacks and counters you need to use.
How do the stats work? Each one has Attack, Special Attack, Defence, Special Defence, Speed and Hit Points. The higher the stat the better they are. Competitively, if the same Pokemon with perfect stats goes up against another that doesn't have them it will win 99% of the time. You have to make perfect Pokemon, whether through catching or breeding so you maximise their stats and be able to compete.
Every single Pokemon has two or three abilities each, usually with its best one ‘hidden’ and are not available during your standard playthrough. Abilities allow the Pokemon to do something that isn't a move. For instance a very famous one is Intimidate, which when introduced onto the field will lower the attack stat of any opponent Pokemon on the field. Levitate gives you immunity against Ground moves. There are a lot out there and it is wort-h thinking about what is best for your team.
One excellent resource is Smogon which charts every Pokemon and what moves, stats and abilities it should have for each mode. In game there is usually an area to battle lots of AI trainers until you lose, such as the Battle Tree in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. There are two basic modes, singles and doubles. Singles is a team of three taking with only one Pokemon allowed on the field at a time.
Doubles is what is used at the big tournaments. Players can bring six Pokemon and then choose four of them to battle another player. Each person has two on the field and whoever knocks all the others out wins. The format has not changed very much over the years with the Pokemon World Championship being the pinnacle, held once every year in the summer. To be able to qualify for this and to take on the world's best players you have to compete in local, national and continental events to earn points and prove yourself eligible. Each continent has its own major event with the European Championship being held only just last weekend.
The scene has been generally dominated by Japan and the USA though in recent years top players have come from around the world. However the format isn't just about strength it requires players to think on the spot and play two or three moves ahead. It's almost akin to Chess. There are three tiers to separate age groups.
It is extremely daunting to get into the competitive scene as there is not only so much knowledge to learn, it takes a lot of effort to build your team from scratch. Hopefully Game Freak will help ease this in future games, allowing players to create ready made teams to practice battling. More time playing means better players. A whole separate area for this would be a big help and allow the scene to flourish. If you want a real challenge at the of a game try out the Battle Tree in Sun and Moon, it is tough but makes you a much better player.
In Game Challenges
We are now approaching the 8th generation of Pokemon this year and in the last 21 years the games have changed a lot. One area that has changed radically has been the difficulty. Depending on your age and gaming ability some of the earlier generations could be very tough. In recent times they have introduced a lot more hand holding, making the games a lot easier. Apart from Black and White, none of the games have any options for a different difficulty, which is odd in the modern age. Most big games get a New Game + mode down the line, with much tougher enemies and lesser resources. As there isn't one; players have taken it upon themselves to create rules and modes to play to make it more interesting.
Probably the most popular are the speed run's, in particular the glitchless ones. Rushing through the game as quick as you can. Speedrun is one of the more popular sites for tracking the runs, each with a video that can be watched. It’s a highly competitive scene with people finding new shortcuts and techniques to break records. It may sound easy to do but to even approach the top end times you need to have an intimate knowledge of the game and try it over hundreds of attempts. Red, Blue and Yellow are the most popular titles, each taking just over 100 minutes to complete. This is obviously easier than some games that can take up to four hours to complete, must be galling to screw it up 180 minutes in…
The scene is highly competitive with records dropping all the time, the top speed runners will attempt runs across multiple games. It is amazing to watch, seeing a game be destroyed in 10% of the time it takes you to do. You can also learn excellent in-game techniques and exploits to aid your own playthroughs. I mentioned that Shifty and I attempted this as eleven year olds and didn't even get close. Being pre internet we had no way of knowing that the entire game can be beaten by one starter and a single Pidgey! Our downfall was trying to build up a team by grinding which takes forever.
Through clever use of TMs (Pokemon Moves), careful leveling up and a knowledge of every opponent's move speed runners can sweep past everything without dying. Very impressive stuff, if merely for the level of knowledge they have about the games. Maybe one day I will give it a go!
Now my favourite thing among all of the things I talk about here is the Nuzlocke run. Created by Nick Franco, he decided to give himself two rules to make the game harder and then turned the resulting play through into an excellent online comic. The two rules are:
Any pokemon that feints is now dead and cannot be revived
In each new area only the first Pokemon encountered can be caught
This means if all six of your Pokemon feint, you fail the challenge, all the more harder if you get bad ones or if you fail to catch one in each new place. It’s gained quite a cult following and its one I will be attempting on Heart Gold in a few weeks for my next big story adventure!
It makes the play through a lot longer, you need to be a lot more cautious and generally level up your team more. It also offers much higher stakes as mistakes are permanent. From my previous attempts I have been caught out by moves I didn’t even know a Pokemon could have.
Death is painful. Part of the reason is one of the other unwritten rules is that each new team member should be nicknamed so you have more attachment. Amazingly this actually works. Plus the random chance of the first one in each areas means you have to use whatever you get, particularly ones you may have never used before.
As these rules cannot be put into the actual games you have to police yourself but it makes for a whole new experience. It’s definitely worth it on a game you have played to death and want a new take on it. Well worth a try.
As you can see there is far more to the series than just Red and Blue. Interest seems to be growing and with this years newest games finally coming to the Nintendo Switch we might just see another Pokemon craze kicking off. The formula still works and it’s not too late to get back into it after many years away. Sure there may be hundreds of new monsters to learn about but you can pick up the knowledge just by playing, each game now has a much smaller limit on the regional dex making it much more manageable. The beauty is that playing Yellow or Ultra Sun is the same. You need to catch new ones to build a team to defeat everyone else out there. Simple.
For those that are well versed there are of course other games, the retro among us can check out Pokemon Snap or Pokemon Stadium. Mystery Dungeon and Pokemon Quest are more modern variations in the series. The best though is Detective Pikachu, a very funny adventure game with a radically different take on a Pokemon game. Although its only on the 3DS currently I fully expect a port to be announced to come to the Switch.
Speaking of the 3DS, this is the best console to get into the series. Until Sword & Shield are released at the end of the year this brilliant little hand held console has every single generation available on it. Even Blue, Red, Yellow, Gold, Silver and Crystal in their original forms are there to pick up for the pretty reasonable £8. Most of the other games are about £25 plus second hand, I would recommend picking up Ultra Sun or Ultra Moon if you want some of the newer games to get back into. Great titles that have most of the new mechanics plus a whole bunch of legendaries if you are trying to build a competitive team.
As for Sword & Shield I expect the games to be as good as any other title though not as groundbreaking as most fans would hope. Game Freak don’t usually stray from the formula so expect to see all the usual tropes as per every game. It is a chance to mix up the meta fighting scene so hopefully they can introduce some crazy abilities and weird items. I am not expecting more than about 85 new Pokemon, lots of old ones will return.
If nothing else it will just fun to go out and build a team with all the brand new Pokemon that we will know nothing about! So what have you been doing in the Pokemon Meta?
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