The games have such a charm and uniqueness about them- but are far from perfect- so without further ado- here are my top 5 things I love about the games:
1. The adventure:- not knowing what's lurking in the grass ahead. That moment when the screen freezes and dissolves with that frantic descending music. The silhouette of your encounter tracking across the screen before the big reveal. That moment when your pokemon that you've been training for ages starts to evolve unexpectedly. The excitement of seeing the sprite of a legendary pokemon standing just ahead of you, and you nervously save the game. As well as all that, pokemon is a journey. You're on a quest to get all the gym badges and win the pokemon league and be the very best (like no-one ever was; yo.) There's a lot to it!
2. The challenge:- There are very noticeable difficulty spikes throughout the games, particularly the latter half of the gyms, plus rivals and bosses. Also, wearing down a legendary who will not stay caught when you have a finite number of balls can be pretty nail biting and pleasantly infuriating.
3. The variety of types, moves and how they match up:- The elemental advantages and resistances are pretty intuitive (though I don't think I'll ever understand why 'normal' types are immune to 'ghost' attacks- playing field levelling maybe?). No pokemon is invincible by any stretch of the imagination and with 'Pokémon special abilities' added in the later generations- strategy just kept getting more and more intense. In addition there are an amazing volume of moves, ranging from "scratch" and "bite" to "future sight" and "tri-attack" which pokemon can learn by levelling and by teaching as they are discovered in gameplay.
4. The varying environment and puzzles:- Some of the "dungeons" are actually quite tricky. There are underground labyrinths, secret bases full of teleport pads, tunnels, booby-trapped gyms, and- in later games- the sea floor. All teeming with new pokemon to battle and catch at the same time.
5. The satisfaction:- Getting that feel when you got your eighth badge is awesome. Getting through the hellish gauntlet of "Victory Road" feels like coming up for much needed air (I sigh involuntarily and audibly upon seeing the exit). Beating the Elite Four and the Champion- who is usually an established rival- you do really feel like nobody can best you. And knowing that Mewtwo is yours after battling with it for 45 minutes (because you stupidly used your masterball on something shit) is pretty amazing... Even if after that there's really nothing left to battle in gen. 1; you may need to actually find some friends! Gasp!
And now, the things I really, really hate. Like- can't stand.
1. HM's:- Hidden Machines are stupid. In generation 3 there are EIGHT of them that you HAVE to use to finish the game. If they put all of the HM related obstacles in one dungeon- four of your pokemon would have to learn one and two would have to learn two. That wouldn't be so bad,if you could discard these taught moves once you didn't need them any more- but no! HM moves can't be deleted unless you visit "The Move Deleter". So to be clear, if you're levelling and you get a new move, you can't just save over an HM- not even with another HM. You'll have to delete one of the other moves you presumably want to keep. There's no pokemon (to my knowledge) that is an HM "mule" and can learn a lot of them- but let me give you a scenario. To advance the game in pokemon Emerald, I had to teach my Tentacruel 'Surf', 'Dive', and 'Waterfall' which leaves one move it can learn and replace by levelling. One! They fixed this slightly in later generations by introducing a system by which you can relearn previous moves after deleting to make space- but even so- HMs are an unnecessary hassle that just annoy me.
2. The same pokemon/trainers cropping up:- I want to take this opportunity to get something out of the way. I hate Zubat, and I LOATHE Golbat. These pokemon are in almost every cave, in every game, of every generation and they drive me absolutely mental. Toward the end of the game the Golbat get pretty strong too. So if you're on your last, slightly weaker final pokemon in a cave, and one of them show up; because of their high speed stat, your Zangoose is cooked (see what I did there? ;) hehe). I also want to meet whoever thought it was a good idea to make it so you "Can't Escape!" from them, and punch them in the throat. But this leads me neatly to my main points here. There's nothing worse than getting to a new unfamiliar area and finding the same pokemon you've been meeting on every route. Sure, some are more common than others, but why not vary it a bit? On top of that- why are all the level 3 ones still bothering me? Can't they level proportionately; or better still; leave me the hell alone? Same with trainers. Why do they have duplicates? In generation one, I'm certain there is a bird trainer which has 6 Pidgey (literally the first wild one you see) all at the same level. Why? I want battles that keep me on my toes and mess with me; and aside from gym battles, I'm not getting that.
3. Cookie cutter stuff:- There are so many pokemon now that they have taken almost every sort of shape you can imagine. Yet, without fail, in every single generation, there have been, among others, constants:-
• The Rattata clone
• The Pidgey clone
• the Pikachu clone.
And I'm actually going to list each generation here for this, so here goes.:-
1. (Er...) Rattata, Pidgey, Pikachu
2. Sentret, Hoothoot, Pichu
3. Zigzagoon, Wingull, Plusle/Minun
4. Bidoof, Starly, Pachirisu
5. Patrat, Pidove, Emolga
6. Bunnelby, Fletchling, Dedenne
Honestly. Look them up if you don't believe me. How about that eh? They always come in threes, the weak rat no-one wants, the "starter bird" and some kind of electric rodent. Without fail. I know Game freak and co are probably starting to run out of ideas, and have certainly produced some really daft pokemon over time (e.g. Klefki, Swirlix, Vanillite, Trubbish, Klink, Nosepass- the list goes on)- but surely you can be a little more innovative.
4. Unlockable "red tape" areas:- You physically can't enter certain areas until criteria are met. They are literally blocked off until you pass a certain point- sometimes without telling you- and you can then suddenly go in. More traditional RPGs have a better way of doing this- in certain areas the enemies are simply too strong, you get your ass handed to you and decide in of yourself not to go back until you have grown a giant set of swinging balls. My dream is for there to be a pokemon open world game; a map that you can just wander about in and make your own mistakes. But we have a long way to go.
5. Can't catch 'em all:- there's 718(?) now. You just can't. Back in gen one and two, the iconic slogan was actually doable; it was a feasible proposition. Now it's a farce. I mentioned earlier about an open world game. I would ideally expand that to online open world game. I'm talking Skyrim sized maps, maybe done in a sort of Borderlands/Windwaker art style. That way, they could gradually add the new regions and create a world where you could catch any ones you wanted. The places are all established. From both the games and the animated series the sheer area of world that could be used is enormous. You could have quests, events, swarms, migrations, Team Rocket attacks- so many possibilities. You could battle mates in real time, enter tournaments and go hunting in the wilds together. And with it online- there wouldn't be a memory and storage problem because it would all be "in the cloud" under your login. It could be so good; the biggest question is why they haven't done something like it already.
But yeah- unless they make a yawning gaping arse of it I'll probably continue to enjoy these games. The ideal one may be a pipedream for now- but I remain hopeful.
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