Upon the release of Pokémon: Blue Version and Pokémon: Red Version(Game Freak, 1996), a new craze swept through playgrounds. An entire generation grew up with Pokémon, as clever marketing saw it become a massively lucrative and popular multimedia powerhouse. Accordingly, February 27th is recognised as “National Pokémon Day”, which I expanded to an entire month of Pokémon this February.
Released: 13 July 2002 Director: Kunihiko Yuyama Distributor: Toho Budget: Unknown Stars: Veronica Taylor, Megan Hollingshead, Lisa Ortiz, Megumi Hayashibara, and Tara Sands
The Plot: Ash Ketchum (Taylor) and his friends visit the beautiful Alto Mare and befriend its protectors, Latias and Latios (Hayashibara), just as the city is targeted by two formidable thieves, Annie (Hollingshead) and Oakley (Ortiz).
The Review: By the time of Pokémon Heroes, the Pokémon movies had well and truly established a formula and were sticking with it. After a brief introduction to “The World of Pokémon”, we find Ash and his friends – his trusted companion, Pikachu (Ikue Ōtani), and former Gym Leaders Misty (Rachael Lillis) and Brock (Eric Stuart) – visiting the distinctly Venice-inspired Alto Mare. Ash is primarily there to take part in the annual water race, where he’s rocketed through the narrow canals by Totodile (Kayzie Rogers) and competes against Misty (oddly wearing a lifejacket despite her status as a Water Pokémon expert) and other locals while Brock cheers on from the sidelines. It’s all fun and games and gives us a sweeping overview of the city, bolstered by some questionable CGI sequences, until Ash catches the eye of a mysterious, invisible Pokémon later revealed to by the smitten Latias. Though she tries to aid him in the race, Ash ends up being dragged away from the course and the race is ultimately won (by a gnat’s wing) by Misty. While taking a gondola tour of Alto Mare courtesy of former race winner Ross (Michael Sinterniklaas), Ash and the others learn that Latias and Latios are revered as the city’s enigmatic protectors and their image adorns statues and medals across the town, which is kept peaceful thanks to their presence. While Misty and Brock get ice cream, Pikachu is sidetracked by a nearby fountain and encounters a local girl who acts strangely around Ash. Although he shrugs off the encounter, Ash jumps to her defence when he later finds her being accosted by Annie and Oakley and their Espeon (Kayzie Rogers) and Ariados (Unknown). Ash also later races after her through the laneways and into a secluded spot hidden deep within the city. It’s here that Ash and Pikachu meet Bianca (Sands), a girl who looks exactly like the girl he’s been chasing, and her grandfather, Lorenzo (Wayne Grayson), and, crucially, the city’s legendary protectors. After being set upon by the overprotective Latias, cooler heads soon prevail and Ash is stunned to learn that the Eon duo can not only turn invisible but also assume human form. Since Latias and Bianca are best friends, the Pokémon likes to take her form and delights in playing with Ash, with the two soaring through the skies of their secret garden before long.
Ash is stunned when a strange girl turns out to be a Legendary Pokémon in disguise!
Ash learns the history of Alto Mare from Lorenzo, who relates how the city was once terrorized by an Aerodactyl (Unknown) and a Kabutops (Eric Stuart) before a Latios came to town and drowned the two beneath a torrent of water, giving his life to protect the inhabitants. Latias left behind its two babies, Latias and Latios, whom Lorenzo practically raised, and the “Soul Dew”, a glowing orb said to contain Latios’s spirit. The Soul Dew also powers an ancient machine, the Defense Mechanism of Alto Mare (DMA), a powerful amalgamation of ancient and modern technology that can both protect and destroy the city. Lorenzo and Bianca have dedicated themselves to keeping the Soul Dew, the Eon duo, and Alto Mare’s secret from falling into the wrong hands, a secret that Ash promises to guard to keep his newfound friends from harm. Ash also experiences the Eon duo’s other unique ability, “sight sharing”; using his psychic powers, Latios can share what he sees with his sister, who then projects it to those they trust, allowing for a unique and awesome view of the world. With the night drawing in, Ash leaves a sad Latias and her brother to their hidey-hole and heads back to his friends alongside Bianca, who’s stunned to learn that Latias was being pursued by Annie and Oakley. The duo, celebrated agents of the nefarious Team Rocket, are in town specifically to investigate its local legends but even they are stunned to learn of the DMA and the Soul Dew. Unlike the bungling Jessie (Rachael Lillis), James (Eric Stuart), and Meowth (Maddie Blaustein) – who pratfall their way through the feature as background players – Annie and Oakley are capable and formidable antagonists. Equipped with hi-tech gear like drones, zip wires, and even binoculars that let them see through Latias’s disguise, they run rings around the Rocket Trio and even manage to capture Latios. While the two weren’t affiliated with Team Rocket in the original version of the film, the dub positions them as two more far more competent members of the organisation. Their depiction as sisters delighting in mischief and mayhem directly parallels the Eon duo, where Latios takes a more protective and mature stance compared to his more curious and child-like sister.
Annie and Oakley are far more capable and formidable agents of Team Rocket.
Alto Mare provides one of the more visually interesting locations for the Pokémon features thus far. Made up of stone buildings, bridges, and canals, the city certainly stands out, though it does little to make itself unique from its real-world inspiration beyond the Pokémon aesthetic. The city mixes traditional architecture with near-magical modern technology, one with a decidedly steampunk styling and represented by the DMA, a machine apparently capable of controlling water and enforcing a lockdown by sprouting impassable barriers and gates around the city. There’s a lot of history in Alto Mare, which was terrorised by prehistoric Pokémon and maintains its serenity thanks to Latias and Latios, a peace thrown into chaos when Annie and Oakley steal the Soul Dew, capture Latios, and activate the DMA. Oakley eagerly takes the controls of the ancient machine and immediately becomes obsessed by the near-limitless power it offers, believing she could conquer the entire world with its ridiculously vague abilities. The DMA allows Oakley to bring Aerodactyl and Kabutops back to life and order them to seek out Latias, cage the inhabitants behind magical barriers, and conjure tidal waves and even hurricanes. With her brother imprisoned and the city under siege, Latias races to Ash for help and he reveals his new friend to Misty and Brock, who end up trapped behind Oakley’s barriers, leaving the city’s fate in Ash’s hands. Ash is particularly aggrieved by Aerodactyl and forced to once again race through the city’s canals courtesy of Latias and a water chariot. Quite how Ash survives such an ordeal is beyond me, but Latias is a great help with her supersonic speed and psychic powers. While she’s younger and far weaker than her brother, Latias is capable of powerful feats when stressed or her friends are in danger, though using these abilities exhausts her. Her abilities are also volatile and potentially dangerous; when she shields Ash from harm, Latias accidentally deals critical damage to the DMA and causes it to go haywire. While Oakley’s brought to her senses, the entire city is threatened by the machine’s wild nature, forcing Latias and Latios to follow in their father’s footsteps and defend the town and its inhabitants.
The Nitty-Gritty: The stakes are decidedly low in Pokémon Heroes, somewhat akin to the stakes in Pokémon 3. Annie, Oakley, and the DMA threaten Alto Mare first and foremost and, though Oakley boasts that the machine could allow her to control the entire world, there’s little evidence to suggest this is true. Like all good Team Rocket agents, Annie and Oakley’s main aim is pleasing their master, Giovanni (Ed Paul), and profiting from the city’s secrets. Unlike the bungling Rocket Trio, Annie and Oakley largely succeed in their goals; while Annie simply covets the beautiful Soul Dew, the two capture Latios and torment him with their electrified ring cage. Oakley then takes the pilot’s seat in the DMA and threatens to flood the town, even almost drowning Ash and Pikachu at one point before Latias intervenes. Pokémon Heroes is one of the few feature-length Pokémon productions to present Legendary Pokémon who cannot communicate, either verbally or through their psychic powers. Latias and Latios are powerful Psychic-Type Pokémon and Latias can assume human form, but neither communicate through words and instead use squeals, squeaks, and body language. It works really well and is a nice change of pace from the usually loquacious Legendary Pokémon and the dynamic between the two is unique, with Latios being the overprotective older brother and Latias being a shy, smitten child trying to make new friends. This does, however, lead to a strange relationship between her and Ash where she visibly blushes in his presence and seems to have a crush on him. Largely, this is presented as her need to make friends and play rather than hiding away, but it seemingly goes a step further in the finale when Latias appears to take Bianca’s form once more and gingerly peck Ash on the cheek (much to Brock’s dismay).
When the DMA goes out of control, Latios sacrifices himself to save the city and his new friends.
With Aerodactyl and Kabutops running wild and the city on lockdown, Ash desperately races to the museum alongside Latias to end the threat to the city. There, he and Latias push themselves to injury trying to free Latios, only for Latias to finally break her brother’s cage, at great strain to herself, and damage to DMA in the process. While Oakley was seemingly ready to lay waste to the entire city anyway, the DMA rages out of control without even her tentative influence, threatening to swamp the city with a destructive tidal wave after the Soul Dew is shattered. The waters recede and rear up in a massive tsunami and the Eon duo are left with no choice but to face it head-on, just as their father did years prior. As before, the threat is dispelled and the city is saved, but at great cost. Already injured from Annie and Oakley’s torture, the strain of dispersing the tsunami costs Latios his life and he bids an emotional farewell to his sister before turning into a beam of light. As the waters rush in and the city’s inhabitants are freed, Ash and the others take a gondola out to sea to look for the Eon duo and find only an exhausted and heartbroken Latias. However, they all receive one final gift as Latios’s disembodied spirit shares his sight with them one last time, allowing them to view the world from afar; his soul also crystallises into a new Soul Dew. A sombre and thankful Lorenzo and Biana place the new Soul Dew back in the secret garden and Ash and his friends say their final goodbyes as they leave to continue their journey across Johto. As they leave, they’re surprised by a strangely quiet Biana, who gifts Ash with a sketch of him and Pikachu and a kiss on the cheek, with it left ambiguous whether it was Bianca or Latias that flagged them down. The three then spot Latias proudly flying through the sky alongside the spirit of her brother and father, while the finale further reveals that Lorenzo is hard at work repairing the DMA and Annie and Oakley have been apprehended and imprisoned for their crimes.
The Summary: Pokémon Heroes is a strange entry in the long-running franchise, one between generations and seemingly afraid to commit to focusing entirely on Hoenn as the anime wasn’t quite there yet. It’s a bit of a shame as we don’t get any new Pokémon featured here other than the titular Latias and Latios; even Annie and Oakley simply use Johto Pokémon rather than teasing use with more from the third-generation games. Latias and Latios are the highlights of the film, deviating from many of the other featured by being incapable of communicating beyond noises, but I feel their potential was squandered somewhat. I think more could’ve been made from Latias’s ability to change forms; like, why not have both assume human form and perhaps be unruly, cheeky teenagers who must learn to live up to their father’s legacy? Or perhaps more could’ve been made of Latias assuming Bianca’s visage, like her getting into trouble in town or the two being raised as sisters. Instead, it’s just an excuse for a lot of forced whimsy; Ash and friends must giggle and exclaim “Cool!” at things that really aren’t that impressive. Sure, Alto Mare is beautiful and visually unique but it’s grating seeing Ash and the others so enthusiastic about local traditions and such. I’m not saying they should disrespect them or anything; just act a bit more normal and leave the awe for things that deserve it, like the high-octane canal race. I quite liked Annie and Oakley, and their juxtaposition with Jessie and James and the Eon duo, but they weren’t really all that different from Domino/Agent 009 (Kerry Williams) and the Iron Masked Marauder (Dan Green) in that they were more capable and threatening agents of Team Rocket. In fact, one has to wonder why the film didn’t just re-use Butch (Eric Stuart) and Cassidy (Megan Hollingshead), though the answer is simply that them being associated with Team Rocket was a dub addition. Still, I liked Oakley’s descent into madness once she piloted the DMA, but it’s weird that this machine can do so much without any real explanation. It would’ve been nice to see the evil Pokémon it resurrects being something a bit more formidable, like Armaldo and Salamence, or to at least factor into the finale to up the ante a bit. The emotional gut punch of Latios’s sacrifice lands well, but it’s not enough to save the film, which meanders through a very predictable formula and offers very little not seen in the last two movies.
My Rating:
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
Pretty Good
Are you a fan of Pokémon Heroes? What did you think to Alto Mare and its Venetian aesthetic? Did you like the relationship between Latias and Latios? Do you think the film squandered the potential of the form change gimmick? What did you think to Annie and Oakley? Were you disappointed by the lack of third-generation Pokémon? Which Pokémon game, generation, and creature is your favourite and why? How did you celebrate National Pokémon Day this year? Whatever your thoughts, drop them in the comments below and go check out my other Pokémon content.
Upon the release of Pokémon: Blue Version and Pokémon: Red Version(Game Freak, 1996), a new craze swept through playgrounds. An entire generation grew up either playing Pokémon, watching the anime, playing the trading card game, and watching the feature-lengthmovies as clever marketing saw it become a massively lucrative and popular multimedia powerhouse. Accordingly, February 27th is now internationally recognised as “National Pokémon Day”, which I expanded to an entire month of Pokémon this February.
Released: 12 April 2023 Originally Released: 14 December 2000 Developer: Nintendo EAD Also Available For: Nintendo 64
A Brief Background: Pokémon’s status as a cultural phenomenon wasn’t just due to savvy marketing. It was thanks to a slew of merchandise and ancillary media, such as the popular trading card game, that the franchise dominated an entire generation on the Game Boy. Pokémon first made the jump to 3D two years after the original games released with the Japan-exclusive Pocket Monsters’ Stadium, a limited proof of concept initially created for the ill-fated Nintendo 64DD that was quickly followed by Pokémon Stadium (Nintendo EAD, 1999). Impressing with its lauded 3D rendition of the turn-based battles of the mainline games and ability to transfer Game Boy data via the underutilised “Transfer Pak”, Pokémon Stadium became a best-selling Nintendo 64 title. This success naturally led to a follow-up, first showcased at the 2000 Nintendo Space World festival and which expanded the concept to incorporate Pokémon from the second-generation games. Like its predecessor, Pokémon Stadium 2reviewed well; the game was largely seen as superior to the original, despite including many of the same features and issues, though its sharp difficulty spike was criticised. Like the first game, Pokémon Stadium2 was stuck on the Nintendo 64 for decades and extremely expensive to buy, until it was finally made available on the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pak in 2023.
The Review: Like its predecessor, Pokémon Stadium 2 is a collection of mini games, battles, and various options to gawk at your favourite Pokémon in 3D. In the original release of the game, players could again copy over Pokémon from the Game Boy games (all six versions) to take them into 3D battles against computer-controlled opponents or their friends in single or team-based contests. Of course, this option isn’t available in the Nintendo Switch Online version, but you can still use “rental” Pokémon (though, unlike the CPU’s Pokémon, these can’t be renamed and you can’t change their moves). Although all 251 Pokémon are represented in the game, you won’t get access to Legendary Pokémon Mewtwo, Mew, Lugia, or Ho-oh until you clear each of the game’s various battle modes. Rental Pokémon all come with four moves that have decent Type-coverage and try to accommodate different battle styles. For example, your Pokemon may sport a Physical and Special Attack move, a move to buff their stats (speed, defence, etc), and a move of a different Type (such as Ampharous, an Electric-Type, using Dynamicpunch, a Fighting-Type move). If you pick third-stage evolutions (Typhlosion, Lantern, Houndoom, etc) or Legendary Pokémon, your Pokémon will boast better stats (which you can now view when selecting a Pokémon) and more powerful moves, but these moves may have a greater chance of missing or will have less Power Points (PP). This time around, you can visit Earl’s Pokémon Academy and read through various tutorials (presented as “lectures”) to learn the controls and battle mechanics. You can also view stats and details about each Pokémon in the Library, learning about what each move does and viewing details on Type advantages, making it much easier to pick a diverse team and plan your attack strategies. Type advantages are key to scoring wins and, in Pokémon Stadium 2, you’ll need to factor in the new Dark- and Steel-Type moves and Pokémon. Dark-Types finally level the playing field against the all-powerful Psychic-Types, for example, and Steel-Type Pokémon can cut through Rock-Types.
New Types, items, and moves spruce up the battles but the core gameplay remains unchanged.
As ever, moves deal additional damage if you score a “critical hit”, but your Pokémon may also take recoil damage. You’ll need to be mindful of status effects such as being paralyzed or poisoned, though the game’s still rigged so no two Pokémon can be frozen or asleep per battle. As before, you’ll put together a team of six but only battle with three. You’ll see which Pokémon your opponent has but won’t know which ones they’ve picked, though I did find that Trainers and Gym Leaders tended to favour Pokémon of a certain Type this time (when challenging Falkner, for example, he and his underlings mostly used Flying-Type Pokémon). Still, you need to be mindful of enemy Pokémon surprising you with unforeseen moves and dragging battles out with moves like Protect, Disable, and Attract, which can cost you turns. The battle system has been tweaked here to incorporate items; when selecting you team, you can have them hold a single item that will passively take effect in battle. This will restore some health points (HP), or cure status effects like confusion, paralysis, or poisoning; however, you cannot manually use these items, and your opponent also holds the same items. Winning without receiving any damage earns you a continue should you be defeated (though abusing the save state feature greatly aids in this regard) and conquering the four “cups”, each with their own level restrictions and one of four PokéBall-themed trophies. The Gym Leader Castle returns, now pitting you against the Johto Gym Leaders and your Rival (who battles with Mewtwo, Ho-oh, and Lugia!) This time around, each Gym Leader has a different number of underlings you must battle beforehand, and Team Rocket even gatecrash the castle, forcing you to battle them. Besting all the Johto challengers unlocks the Kanto Gym Leader Castle, where you must face the Kanto Gym Leaders, Elite Four, and resident champion, Red, though you won’t have to battle past their understudies. Sadly, there is no big boss battle against a Legendary Pokémon this time around, though you’ll still unlock a much more challenging “Round 2” mode by winning all the cups and besting the Gym Leader Castle. There is a new cup on offer, Challenge Cup, where you’re forced to battle with a set team of Pokémon, and the “Event Battle!” mode is strictly for players with a game cartridge installed. Battles are as basic as before; since the items are limited, you can still get stuck if you’re hit with status ailments and it’s still way too easy to sweep your opponent’s team in a few hits.
Game modes are slightly expanded but it’s primarily a graphically improved copy of the last game.
There are more options to alter the game’s difficulty and you can even create your own rules for free battles and the expanded move and Type pool does mix things up. However, you’ll still be facing non-stop battles to get to Round 2, which can get tedious. The overly enthusiastic announcer returns, though can again be disabled, and Pokémon still don’t scream their names, which is much more true to the source material than the anime. While the returning 3D models aren’t much different, Pokémon Stadium 2 also brings the Johto Pokémon to life, allowing Lugia to dwarf the likes of Spinarak and even the battlefield. Though the new moves are also represented, the Pokémon still have limited attack animations, however the textures and details have been given a boost thanks to the Nintendo 64 Expansion Pak. Pokémon Trainers are still just profile pictures rather than 3D models but the battle display has been tweaked to include pre- and post-game comments from your foe and even mid-battle statements to better mirror the mainline games. Many of the Pokémon you face will again sport bizarre nicknames and even different palettes, but the arenas are just as empty as before. However, there are more of them and they have more detail and variety going on; even the PokéBall intros and outros have been made more grandiose and the menu screens are far more visually interesting. However, it’s still all very similar to what came before and just feels like a graphical glow-up rather than actually rendering arenas full of animated spectators. Remixes of all your favourite Pokémon themes try to keep battles fun and engaging and the introductory cutscene, title screen, and main map have been spruced up, but again it’s just presenting the same game in a slightly more appealing way instead of addressing the monotonous gameplay flaws. Once again, many game modes are locked off in this version. You can’t visit the Pokémon Lab to organise or bring in Pokémon from the Game Boy games, you can’t visit the “My Room” mode to see a 3D representation of your bedroom from the second-generation games, and you can’t utilise the “Mystery Gift” feature to earn items or decorations for your room.
In the absence of other modes, read up on gameplay mechanics and enjoy some new mini games.
Again, most annoyingly, you cannot access the GB Tower, so you can’t play the first- and second-generation Pokémon games or utilise the speed-up features you unlock through battle. The Hall of Fame and picture mode also seems to be missing, though you can view all 251 Pokémon from the academy, essentially giving you a 3D PokéDex, and take part in quizzes to earn Medals (presumably for bragging rights). A whole new batch of mini games are also on offer here; each has three difficulty levels, with a fourth unlocked by playing on “Hard” mode. There’s another quiz here, too, and you can challenge the “Mini-Game Champion” mode where you play through each mini game, rolling dice beforehand to determine how many “Tokens” are needed to win and competing for the top score. Some mini games are similar to those from before; Pichu’s Power Plant, for example, has you tapping A or B in conjunction with a direction to charge electrodes like Thundering Dynamo and Tumbling Togepi sees you rolling across a treadmill avoiding obstacles, like Run, Rattata, Run. Otherwise, you’ll be tapping A to fly about as Golbats, bashing other players and collecting hearts, tackling rival Hitmontop out of a sumo ring, pressing A at just the right time to slice through falling logs, and dashing various PokéBalls into goals for points. There’s a four-way version of Pong (Atari, 1972) in which you ricochet balls using Mr. Mime’s Barrier, you’ll be running laps around a dirty track with Donphan, counting Pokémon as they march past, and gathering up presents to fill Delibird’s sack. You’ll also be catching falling eggs and avoiding Voltorb with Chansey and playing a version of musical chairs in Eager Eevee, tackling Aipom and avoiding an exploding Pineco when they appear in the middle of the arena. Since I didn’t play Pokémon Stadium 2 as a kid, I have less nostalgia for these mini games but they’re a decent enough distraction. Technically, though, they’re better and more challenging than the last game. As before, you’ll be awarded with special prize Pokémon for beating the game’s battle modes; you’ll even unlock a “Move Relearner” mode, though you obviously can’t take full advantage of any of this since you can’t plug in a Game Boy game.
The Summary: As I said, I never got to play Pokémon Stadium 2 as a kid. I enjoyed the novelty of the first game, and was still playing the Game Boy games, but I think the game was just too difficult to come by or I was spending my money on more fulfilling Nintendo 64 experiences at the time. However, the second-generation games are my favourites so I was excited to see some of my favourite Pokémon, like Typhlosion and Lugia, come to life in 3D. In this regard, Pokémon Stadium 2 doesn’t disappoint; the new Pokémon all look great and the graphical bump provided by the Expansion Pak spruces up the visuals and makes battles a bit more engaging. Sadly, the arenas are still very bland and the game is basically a carbon copy of the last, flaws and all. Once again, it’s just a constant stream of non-stop battling with little to break the monotony. Incorporating items and allowing players to view details of the Pokémon, moves, and Types was great but it’s again all very limited. You’re limited by moves, by levels, and by your customisation options and these issues are only exacerbated in this version since you can’t access the Game Boy titles. To make matters worse, there isn’t even a big battle against, like, Lugia and/or Ho-oh. Sure, the Rival has these Pokémon but that’s not as epic as facing off against Mewtwo. The new mini games are a step up, for sure, and I liked how the overall presentation was much improved over its barebones predecessor. However, it’s still the same game at its core; you battle over and over for cups and trophies, then do it all over again in Round 2. The Rocket takeover was a fun inclusion; I would’ve liked to see that expanded on, maybe even looped in as a rudimentary story mode. Ultimately, I’d say this is the version of Pokémon Stadium you should focus your time and energy on because of the improvements it brings to the table, but it still falls way off the mark of giving a true 3D Pokémon experience and can’t help but disappoint as a result.
My Rating:
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
Pretty Good
Did you ever own Pokémon Stadium2 back in the day? What did you think to the graphical boost and the inclusion of items? Did you enjoy the new mini games? Were you disappointed that the core gameplay remained unchanged? Did you ever best all the cups and Gym Leaders? Would you like to see another title in the series? How are you celebrating National Pokémon Day this year? Whatever your thoughts on PokémonStadium2, drop them below and check out my other Pokémon content.
Upon the release of Pokémon: Blue Version and Pokémon: Red Version(Game Freak, 1996), a new craze swept through playgrounds. An entire generation grew up either playing Pokémon, watching the anime, playing the trading card game, and watching the feature-lengthmovies as clever marketing saw it become a massively lucrative and popular multimedia powerhouse. Accordingly, February 27th is now internationally recognised as “National Pokémon Day”, which I expanded to an entire month of Pokémon this February.
Released: 12 April 2023 Originally Released: 30 April 1999 Developer: Nintendo EAD Also Available For: Nintendo 64
A Brief Background: Pokémon was an instant cultural phenomenon when it first released. It wasn’t just because of the games, which cleverly encouraged players to “Catch ’Em All”; it was the slew of merchandise and ancillary media that made Pokémon a household name. Right from the beginning, Pokémon was followed by spin-off games; whether it was the incredibly popular trading card game or other videogame genres, like pinball, Pokémon dominated an entire generation, especially on the Game Boy. Two years after the original games released, Japanese Nintendo 64 players were treated to Pocket Monsters’ Stadium. Originally intended as a launch title for the ill-fated Nintendo 64DD, the game was limited to only forty playable Pokémon but set the template for 3D Pokémon battles. Pokémon Stadium was its successor, incorporating 3D models and animations for all 151 Pokémon and being chosen for international release over its predecessor, much like how the inferior Pocket Monsters: Green Version was superseded by its successors. It was HAL Laboratory president Satoru Iwata who studied the Game Boy source code and converted it to work on the Nintendo 64, though Pokémon Stadium’s other big selling point was its ability to communicate with the Game Boy using the unique (and sadly underutilised) “Transfer Pak” to import copies of Pokémon from the handheld titles. Pokémon Stadium was generally well received at the time; reviews largely focused on praising the 3D models and impressive adaptation of the turn-based battle system, though criticised the annoying announcer. Though a best-seller, and followed by a superiorsequel in 2000, Pokémon Stadium was stuck on the Nintendo 64 until it was finally made available to modern gamers, via the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pak, in 2023.
The Review: Pokémon Stadium is a 3D Pokémon adventure in which players could upload copies of the Pokémon from the Game Boy games and battle it out in 3D against computer-controlled opponents or their friends. Since the Nintendo Switch Online version lacks connectivity with the Game Boy games (which aren’t even available on the Nintendo Switch Online as of this writing), you’re limited to using “rental” Pokémon, which can’t be renamed or customised in any way. When you first start the game, only 149 Pokémon are available to rent but you’ll gain access to Mewtwo and Mew by clearing all the game’s battle modes. Each rental Pokémon has four moves, with the third-stage evolutions (like Blastoise and Charizard) sporting better stats (higher attack and defence, for example) but wielding more unreliable moves (such as Fissure, a one-hit knockout move that can miss four times out of five) or moves with less Power Points (PP), such as Fire Blast and Mega Beam. Although I mentioned stats earlier, you can’t view the stats for any Pokémon in the game, rental or otherwise. You have no idea how strong your Pokémon is beyond the level they are and you have no options to improve their stats. The best you can do is use moves that buff them in battle, such as Swords Dance, to increase your chances of attacking before your opponent, or ones that de-buff your foe (such as Sand Attack to reduce their accuracy). As ever, Type advantages are a key factor in battle; Fire-Type moves are “super effective” against Grass-Type Pokémon, for example, which have the edge over Water-Type Pokémon. Many moves also have a chance of landing a “critical hit” for extra damage, missing, hitting you with recoil, or causing status effects. Pokémon can be burned, frozen, put to sleep, paralysed, and poisoned and you have no way to solve these ailments as there are no items here (though the game’s rigged to ensure no two Pokémon can be frozen or asleep in a battle).
All your favourite Pokémon are brought to life to battle in 3D.
The limitations don’t end there, either. Although you assemble a team of six Pokémon, you only ever battle with three. Similarly, while you can see your opponent’s available Pokémon, you have no way of knowing which ones they’ve picked so it’s best to assemble a diverse team. Luckily, every Pokémon has a diverse move pool consisting of elemental attacks, status-inflicting attacks, buffs, or alternative elemental attacks (Marowak, for example, not only has Ground-Type moves but also uses Fire Blast, a Fire-Type move) to provide additional coverage in battle. If you win without taking a single hit, you’ll earn an extra continue to battle on should you be defeated (though the Nintendo Switch’s save state feature can mitigate this). When taking on the titular Pokémon Stadium, you compete in one of four “cups”, each imposing level restrictions, to win one of four PokéBall-themed trophies by gaining six consecutive victories. The Gym Leader Castle has a similar setup, except you only have to win four battles (besting three underlings before challenging the Kanto Gym Leaders, Elite Four, and your Rival) and there are no level restrictions. Besting all these battles unlocks a final super boss battle against Mewtwo, in which you take six Pokémon in battle to beat him, unlocking the much tougher “Round 2” mode and changing both the title screen and the main menu accordingly. Battles are pretty basic; once you get over the fun, colourful, cartoonish animations of the Pokémon, you start to see how limited your options are. You can’t do anything but power through if your Pokémon is poisoned, its moves are disabled, or it gets confused and attacks itself. Type advantages can see you sweep entire teams, but the diverse move pools mean you can’t underestimate opponents, especially if you chose poorly when assembling your team. Finally, battling non-stop can get really tiresome; it’s definitely a game best played in little spurts rather than trying to beat everything in one sitting as the novelty quickly wears off.
While the visuals are decent, gameplay quickly becomes tiresome.
The grating announcer doesn’t help; this overly enthusiastic guy will spout the same exclamations over and over, chastising you if you take too long or pick the wrong Pokémon and screaming praise for every correct decision. Luckily, you can turn him off from the options. Unlike in the anime, Pokémon don’t scream their name when in battle (except for a Pikachu imported from Yellow Version), but this actually makes the game more appealing in my eyes. Pokémon are rendered in full 3D and exhibit a lot of personality; Mr. Mime actually mimes when idle, Onix’s body rotates and squirms, Muk is all sludgy and gooey, and Primeape dances about ready to fight. Rival Pokémon often sport rudimentary nicknames and alternative colour schemes and, while they only have a handful of animations, these work for the moves they perform, which are all brought to life in suitably dramatic fashion even if physical moves (like Mega Punch and Slash) don’t actually connect with the opponent as the Pokémon stay on each side of the arena. You never see the Pokémon Trainers except in profile pictures before and after battle and, while audiences react and make noise in arenas, you won’t see any spectators (at least, not clearly, anyway). Arenas are largely empty and underwhelming, to be honest; some are suspended over water or lava, some are inside, some outside, and you battle Mewtwo in a surreal sky landscape, but there’s nothing to really see as the focus is squarely on the 3D Pokémon models and their attack animations. This is fine and it all looks good and more accurate than the depictions in the anime, but again it’s all quite bland and tiresome after a while. The game is bolstered by renditions of the classic Pokémon theme, battle music, and other in-game tunes, which are always fun to listen to, but the introduction movie is incredibly basic and just showcases a few Pokémon models flying about.
While the mini games are fun, many of the game’s best features are now missing.
Of course, it’s not all battling in Pokémon Stadium, but that is half of the story in this version of the game. Normally, you could visit Professor Samuel Oak’s lab and organise or trade in Pokémon from the Game Boy games, but you can’t do that here. Most notably, you used to be able to access the GB Tower and play the original games on your TV screen, with options to speed up the gameplay at hand, but that’s also not available. Since you can’t import Pokémon, you can’t get the special Surfing Pikachu, though you’ll still be awarded with one of eight semi-rare Pokémon each time you clear the Gym Leader Castle. You can still visit the Hall of Fame and view the Pokémon character models up close, though you must best the Gym Leader Castle with all 151 Pokémon to do this (which also earns you a Psyduck that knows Amnesia). Luckily, you can still visit the Kids Club and play the many fun mini games on offer, either against the computer or alongside your friends. Here, you’ll copy Clefairy’s dance instructions, gobble up sushi with Lickitung, race against Rattata, cast Hypnosis against other Drowzee, see how any times you can get Magikarp to splash, charge up a dynamo with Pikachu or Voltorb, defend against incoming rocks with Kakuna and Metapod, toss Ekans like a ring, and dig into the ground with Sandshrew. These mini games are only short but they’re quite fun and addictive; the timing can be a little off at times and other times you must pay attention to not drain your health bar, but it’s enjoyable enough battling alone or against friends. I do wish the game did more with these, though, like maybe had a random mini game play during the cups to let you earn single-use items or some kind of buff. Other options include a gallery (another limited feature where you can photograph Pokémon to view its model, though you obviously can’t print these anymore), the ability to jump straight into a CPU battle, and unlockable stickers for the gallery when you beat “Round 2”. Beating the Kids Club’s “Who’s the Best?” mode on “Hard” unlocks the “Hyper” difficulty, but it can’t be denied that the game’s appeal and longevity suffer with this version since you can’t access the GB Tower.
The Summary: I remember when Pokémon Stadium was announced and first released. It was the first time I can remember pre-ordering a game, and all my friends and I delighted in seeing our portable Pokémon brought to life in 3D. It was a big deal then, but it can’t be denied that Pokémon Stadium hasn’t aged well, hence this shorter review. It’s certainly still a lot of fun and a nostalgic high to see those early 3D Pokémon models, which were reused for many years after and are actually more lively than in some of the modern games, and I loved that they made noises like the in the Game Boy titles rather than screaming their names like in the anime. There are a few options available here, but Pokémon Stadium is essentially a glorified party game. When you’re not battling for cups and trophies, you’re battling the Gym Leaders, a friend, or the computer. When you’re not doing that, you’re playing mini games which, while fun, aren’t enough to sustain your interest for longer than half an hour or so. Without the GB Tower functionality, Pokémon Stadium loses a lot of its replay value, and you’re forced to focus on the repetitive and tiresome battling. With limited options, no items, and no room for customisation since you can’t import your portable team, the battling just appears very shallow and basic. As a 3D representation of Trainer and Gym Leader battles, it’s serviceable but Pokémon Stadium only does a rudimentary job of representing that one aspect of the mainline games. It’s fun enough in short bursts, but even then it can be tedious hearing the same announcements over and over and essentially just hitting A again and again to spam super effective moves since it lacks the depth and complexity of its far superior portable counterparts.
My Rating:
⭐⭐
Rating: 2 out of 5.
Could Be Better
Did you enjoy Pokémon Stadium? Were you excited to see your team brought to life in 3D back in the day? Which of the mini games was your favourite? What did you think to the limited battle options and repetitive gameplay? Did you ever fill up the Hall of Fame and defeat Mewtwo? Are you disappointed that so much of the game is inaccessible in this version? Would you like to see another battle-centric 3D Pokémon game? How are you celebrating National Pokémon Day this year? Whatever your thoughts on PokémonStadium, feel free to leave them below and check out my other Pokémon content across the site.
Upon the release of Pokémon: Blue Version and Pokémon: Red Version(Game Freak, 1996), a new craze swept through playgrounds. An entire generation grew up with Pokémon, as clever marketing saw it become a massively lucrative and popular multimedia powerhouse. Accordingly, February 27th is recognised as “National Pokémon Day”, which I expanded to an entire month of Pokémon this February, which is even more fitting given that February 6th is the day that Mew gave birth to my favourite Pokémon, Mewtwo!
Released: 10 May 2019 Director: Rob Letterman Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures Budget: $150 million Stars: Justice Smith, Ryan Reynolds, Kathryn Newton, Bill Nighy, Suki Waterhouse, Ken Watanabe, and Rina Hoshino/Kotaro Watanabe
The Plot: When his ace detective father goes missing, Tim Goodman (Smith) reluctantly teams up with his Pikachu partner (Reynolds) and aspiring report Lucy Stevens (Newton) to unravel the mystery.
The Review: Pokémon: DetectivePikachu takes place in Ryme City, a bustling, neon-drenched metropolis billed as a utopia for humans and Pokémon alike to live and work together in harmony. The city was built by billionaire tycoon and Pokémon advocate Howard Clifford (Nighy), a disabled visionary who poured his heart and soul into protecting Pokémon and fostering positive relations between them and humans. Much of this is related to the audience during Tim’s train ride to the city and in a format not unlike the “Welcome to the World of Pokémon” introductions included in many of the animated features, and is a fun way to show how Ryme City sets itself apart from other regions and locations. There, Pokémon battling is banned and people are discouraged from having PokéBalls. The relationship between humans and Pokémon is supposed to be more symbiotic and mutually beneficial, though that doesn’t stop everyone Tim meets asking where his “partner Pokémon” is. We’ve seen similar cities to this in the videogames and anime; indeed, the idea of humans working alongside Pokémon has been present since the first games. However, it’s presentation in this decidedly Blade Runner (Scott, 1982) inspired environment is not just to stuff in a load of Pokémon cameos but also to acclimatise viewers to the idea that, in this world, Pokémon are real and integrated into society. Still, the world of Pokémon: DetectivePikachu should be instantly recognisable to series fans and the film thankfully doesn’t bog down its run time with heavy handed exposition into its mechanics. This may be somewhat alienating to newcomers but it’s pretty clear from the title and the presentation who this film is aimed at, and I appreciate that it embraces the concept and plays it straight. It also has some tenuous ties to both the anime and the videogames: Mewtwo is said to have “escaped form the Kanto region” twenty years ago and Pikachu tearfully sings the anime’s original infectious theme song at one point, meaning the film can easily be seen as an extension of one or the other (or both, if you like). Layman viewers are tossed a bone in the main character, Tim, who is noticeably distinct from every other character he meets in that he doesn’t have a Pokémon partner and seemingly has no interest in the creatures.
Distraught Tim reluctantly partners with Pikachu to investigate his father’s death.
Again, this isn’t something new; the animated features often include characters either wary of or disinterested in Pokémon. Tim was an avid Pokémon fan as a kid; young Tim (Max Fincham) followed and participated in battles, collected the cards, and lived the Pokémon life. However, that all changed when his mother died; this drove a wedge between him and his father, who threw himself into work with the Ryme City Police Department, leaving Tim to be raised by his grandmother (Josette Simon) and grow up resenting both his father and the Pokémon he preferred to spend time with. Rather than growing up to be a Pokémon Trainer, Tim takes up a tedious job in insurance and has no interest in partnering with a Pokémon but ends up lumbered with his father’s cheeky Pikachu partner when he travels to Ryme City following his dad’s sudden death. Tim’s clearly shaken by his father’s demise and wrestling with conflicting emotions. He struggles to express himself when meeting with Harry’s friend, Lieutenant Hideo Yoshida (Watanabe), who relates that Harry always loved his son. This is little comfort to Tim, who’s clearly rattled at being denied the chance to get some closure and just wants to get home as quickly as possible. The deerstalker-garbed Pikachu completely upends that, however, since Tim can strangely understand the pint-sized detective. Tim initially reacts to this with shock and horror, believing he’s either going mad or has been adversely affected by a mysterious purple gas he discovers in Harry’s apartment. Even when he accepts that no one can understand Pikachu but him, Tim is reluctant to assist the Pokémon in figuring out what happened to his partner. Believing he lacks the same detective skills and expertise as his father, Tim repeatedly shuns Pikachu, who latches onto him out of desperation since he’s suffering from amnesia but feels it “in his jellies” that there’s more to Harry’s death than the media and the police want to admit. Pikachu’s insistence is infectious, and Tim reluctantly agrees to help with his investigation, aiding Pikachu by talking to humans for information while Pikachu interrogations Ryme City’s Pokémon. Though he’s uncomfortable carrying Pikachu on his shoulder and indulging his hairbrained theories, Tim proves a great asset when they question Harry’s informant, a Mr. Mime, leading to a hilarious moment where Tim threatens (through pantomime) to light the Pokémon on fire!
Aspiring journalist Lucy helps Tim and their investigation leads them to Clifford Howard.
Tim also provides Pikachu with the strongest lead in their muddled case when he’s accosted by aspiring reporter Lucy Stevens and her Psyduck (Michael Haigney). Struggling as an unpaid intern repeatedly ignored and chastised by her peers, Lucy is desperate to break a big story and senses that something’s amiss about Harry’s death. This is primarily because she has acquired several vials of the purple gas Harry was investigating, a strange substance known as “R” that temporarily drives any Pokémon that inhale it into a blind rage. Though he claims otherwise, Tim is clearly smitten by Lucy (and, honestly, I don’t blame him) and, while he doesn’t tell her the truth about Pikachu, he does review her notes and work with her to figure out what’s going on. Pikachu tries to help Tim flirt with and grow closer to Lucy, but despairs when Tim proves to be awkward around her and lack game. However, Lucy doesn’t seem to mind and finds the troubled young man charming, even when he’s stumbling over his words or making a fool of himself. While Yoshida believes Harry perished in a car crash, Clifford’s advanced holographic technology shows the detective survived and that both Mewtwo and Pikachu were at the scene, compounding the mystery further by naming his resentful son, Roger (Chris Geere), as the one behind the R. Thanks to Lucy’s digging, Tim learns of an abandoned research facility where Mewtwo was held against its will and harvested to synthesise R, and all signs point to the genetically engineered Pokémon turning its wrath on its captors and, by extension, Harry, who was contracted to capture it. Though this is clearly the big break Lucy has been looking for, she never abandons Tim in favour of getting her scoop like some fictional journalists. Indeed, they remain united throughout the film, working together to help each other, though Lucy continues to run into obstacles when she desperately tries to warn Ryme City’s inhabitants about the R gas in the final act.
Though suffering from amnesia, Pikachu is determined to solve the mystery of Harry’s disappearance.
Since he isn’t a detective, Tim’s at a loss about how to investigate his father’s death and even more helpless at uncovering proof that Harry survived. Thankfully, Pikachu is more than capable of carrying the bulk of the detective work. Though he’s suffering from amnesia, he’s no less determined to root through newspaper clippings, articles, photographs, and unturn any stone to find some kind of connection. Fuelled by caffeine and an insatiable lust for solving a good mystery, Pikachu tackles the investigation with gusto, chattering a mile a minute and standing up to any challenge. This bites him in the ass when he and Tim infiltrate an illegal underground Pokémon battle run by Sebastian (Omar Chaparro) and Pikachu’s forced to battle a voracious Charizard to get information from Sebastian, a sequence that showcases Tim has retained knowledge of Pokémon battles, but the amnesia has caused Pikachu to forget how to fight! Pikachu’s stunned to see he was at the scene of the crash and heartbroken when the Pokémon Comprehensive Laboratory (RCL) footage suggests that he betrayed Harry and led to his death/disappearance by freeing Mewtwo. Tim, Pikachu, Lucy, and Psyduck’s desperate escape from RCL sees them eluding not just a contingent of Greninja but also nearly crushed to death by giant Torterra masquerading as a forest, further results of the RCL’s horrific Pokémon experiments. Pikachu is gravely injured during the escape, which deeply upsets Tim. Despite him shunning Pikachu, and all Pokémon, he comes to connect with the adorable pint-sized detective and is devastated at losing him, both because he considers him a friend and partner and also because he’s the last link to a father he never knew. Luckily for them, some local Bulbasaur guide them to Mewtwo, who heals Pikachu and adds a touch more exposition to what really happened before being ensnared by Roger’s drones. However, this brief glimpse leaves Pikachu despondent and he wanders off, believing he’s a danger to everyone, only to stumble upon the crash site and realise it was the Greninja who attacked Harry’s car, not Mewtwo, and rush to help Tim confront the true mastermind behind the film’s events.
The Nitty-Gritty: Given the movie’s title, it should be no surprise that Pokémon: DetectivePikachu is primarily a mystery story. There’s the obvious mystery surrounding Harry’s unexpected death, which evolves into a mystery about whether he survived or not, what happened to him after the fact, and what role Mewtwo and the Cliffords played in it all. Pikachu, Tim, and Lucy are united in investigating this conundrum, which intersects with all their lives: Lucy’s been investigating the R gas, which was found in Harry’s apartment and produced at RCL, with each step piecing more of the puzzle together for them. Along the way, they’re hounded by numerous obstacles: first, the R gas turns some Aipom rabid, showcasing how dangerous the gas can be, then Tim and Pikachu have to survive a battle with a similarly enraged Charizard, and finally they face persecution from Roger and his minions as they seek to recover Mewtwo and cover up their tracks. All the while, they’re shadowed by Clifford’s mysterious and unnerving bodyguard Ms. Norman (Suki Waterhouse), who turns out to be a Ditto in disguise, and forced to flee from every confrontation since Pikachu cannot remember how to fight and Psyduck’s powers are too unpredictable to be reliable. This means Pokémon: DetectivePikachu doesn’t have many traditional Pokémon battles or mechanics, a fact only exacerbated by Ryme City outlawing battles. Indeed, Sebastian’s arena is the closest thing we get to seeing Pokémon battles; the rest of the time, the characters are fending off or running from Pokémon driven into a frenzy by R. It’s an unusual approach but it seems to serve the narrative well. This isn’t the traditional story of an aspiring Pokémon Trainer earning badges and overcoming a nefarious team of criminals. It’s a young man desperately trying to figure out what happened to his estranged father in a colourful and chaotic world where Pokémon of all shapes and sizes exist.
Many Pokémon are brought to life but the effects often suffer as a result.
The idea of doing a live-action Pokémon movie had been doing the rounds for some time and many aspiring digital artists had tried to show how the concept would work on the likes of Deviantart, with these efforts being pretty close to the final result. Pokémon: DetectivePikachu is stuffed with all kinds of Pokémon, from Machamp and Snubble working with the police department, to firefighting Squirtles and various Flying-Type Pokémon soaring through the skies of Ryme City. Charmanders walk the streets, Jiggypuff (Rachael Lillis) sings karaoke, Greninja hunt our protagonists, and gigantic Torterra shift the very landscape and it’s all taken entirely in stride. There’s literally nothing unusual about these creatures wandering around as they like and the integration of Pokémon into human society is fun to see, though the CGI can be questionable at times. It’s obvious that most of the work went into bringing Pikachu to life; he’s the most detailed, expressive, and nuanced of all the film’s Pokémon. Everything from his little red cheeks, his glassy and vivid eyes, and the tufts of fur on his body are beautifully brought to life, and he interacts seamlessly with Tim at all times. The same isn’t true of most other Pokémon, unfortunately. While Gengar looks great rendered as a gaseous, leering spirit, Charizard, Machamp, and even Psyduck appear a bit too cartoony. This is largely because the filmmakers stick very closely to the Pokémon’s original designs, which is commendable and definitely brings them to life, but results in them sticking out against the more realistic backgrounds. It’s a bit like Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Zemeckis, 1988) but, whereas it made sense for the Toons to appear as living cartoons, it doesn’t quite work for these supposedly real creatures to appear so fake. I definitely think it works for the most part and I’m impressed that Pokémon: DetectivePikachu includes so many Pokémon and integrates them so well, but I do wonder if the effects might’ve been better served by focusing on a handful of Pokémon. Like, maybe if Ryme City were a little different and Pokémon are largely banned and Clifford was trying to change that, so you’d only see a few different types of Pokémon, freeing the animators to make them look as good as possible. It’s a minor thing, but a noticeable one, for sure.
Tim stops Clifford’s mad plot and Mewtwo finally reunites him with his father.
Sadly for me, the Pokémon who suffers the most from this is Mewtwo. Appearing sleek and eel-like, it lacks the armoured, menacing appearance it usually exudes, though it’s no less threatening in its actions. Once again captured and experimented on, Mewtwo flies into a rage and destroys its facility, but is unable to save Harry from the Greninja attack. However, his loyal Pikachu offered to house Harry’s consciousness until Tim could be brought to Mewtwo to reunite Harry with his recuperated body. These revelations all come after it’s revealed that Clifford’s Ditto has been posing as Roger all along (or, at least, for much of the film) and that Clifford was behind everything. Interestingly, Clifford’s goal isn’t world domination or power; it’s to transfer his consciousness out of his crippled body and into the most powerful Pokémon of all. Successfully possessing Mewtwo’s body, Clifford unleashes the R gas throughout Ryme City using a balloon parade, turning all Pokémon feral and leaving them susceptible to his Psychic powers. Again, this isn’t to control them, but rather to use Mewtwo’s hitherto-unknown ability to merge a human’s consciousness with a Pokémon to literally unite the two species in a forced harmony and allow humanity to “evolve” into a better form. While the mismatched Pikachu battles Mewtwo atop the balloons, having rediscovered his Electric-based attacks, Tim fends off Ms. Susan, who assumes various forms (including an unsettling masquerade of Lucy) and removes Clifford’s control device from his prone body, breaking his connection to Mewtwo. Sadly, Lucy isn’t much help during all this as she’s infused with her Psyduck while trying to get the panicked civilians to safety, but she’s charged by the real Roger to break the story after Mewtwo restores everyone to normal. This includes Pikachu and Harry, who returns to full health as Ryan Reynolds and is delighted when Tim decides to stick around and build bridges with his estranged father.
The Summary: Pokémon: DetectivePikachu has a lot going for it. I really liked the design of Ryme City, how it mixed old and new technologies and East and West in its makeup and echoed the tech-noir design of Blade Runner to be both sleek and futuristic but also grimy and dangerous at the same time. I quite liked Tim’s character and his arc; it’s nothing especially ground-breaking but I think Justice Smith did a great job with the character’s emotions and charming awkwardness. I loved Kathryn Newton; she’s super cute and I liked that they didn’t have her simply be obsessed with her career and screw Tim over for her big break, though she does get a bit shafted in the finale. Ryan Reynolds was also great as the wise-cracking, coffee-obsessed Pikachu. Pikachu is as adorable as ever but given a fun edge through his snarky demeanour and obsession with cracking the case and figuring out what happened to his memories and his partner. It was a bit of a shame to not follow a more traditional Pokémon story and characters, but I think it works well for Pokémon’s first live-action outing. I feel the movie appealed to both long-term fans and newcomers by choosing this format and it help make the presence of these cartoonish creatures more acceptable by focusing on them as just an everyday part of life. Sadly, the effects can be a bit hit and miss; like I said, I think the filmmakers overreached a little by featuring a few too many Pokémon and the CGI does suffer at times as a result. Pokémon: DetectivePikachu also struggles a bit with its pacing; it seems to drag a little in the middle, making exciting sequences seem lifeless in the process, and I wonder if this could’ve been prevented by having Lucy be a Pokémon Trainer and thus injecting some traditional battles to keep the pace up. Still, it’s a fun and heart-warming film that appeals to kids and has some fun content for adults (mostly in Ryan Reynolds’ depiction of Pikachu), and it’s worth it just to see Bill Nighy go on a maniacal rant while possessing Mewtwo’s body!
My Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Great Stuff
Did you enjoy Pokémon: DetectivePikachu? What did you think to the depiction of Pokémon in a live-action aesthetic? Did you like the mystery surrounding Harry and Tim’s depiction as reluctant partner to Pikachu? What did you think to Ryan Reynolds’ portrayal of Pikachu? Were you disappointed that there weren’t more traditional Pokémon battles? What did you think to the CGI and was your favourite Pokémon included here? How are you celebrating National Pokémon Day this year? Whatever your thoughts, drop them in the comments below and be sure to check out my other Pokémon content.
Upon the release of Pokémon: Blue Version and Pokémon: Red Version(Game Freak, 1996), a new craze swept through playgrounds across the world. An entire generation grew up either playing Pokémon, watching the anime, playing the trading card game, and watching the feature-lengthmovies as clever marketing and a co-ordinated release and multimedia strategy saw it become not just a successful videogame franchise but a massively lucrative and popular multimedia powerhouse. Accordingly, February 27th is now internationally recognised as “National Pokémon Day”, which I expanded to an entire month of Pokémon this February.
Released: 16 November 2018 Developer: Game Freak
The Background: Pokémon was an instant cultural phenomenon back when the games first dropped, taking playgrounds by storm and dominating almost every aspect of my generation through a slew of merchandise. I remember being so adamant about purchasing Pokémon: Blue Version that I bought it brand new rather than getting a cheaper copy of Pokémon: Red Version and my friends and I routinely played at school or on the Nintendo 64 thanks to Pokémon Stadium (Nintendo EAD/HAL Laboratory, 1999). Although the developers originally intendedmy favourite games/generation of Pokémon, Pokémon: Gold Version and Pokémon: Silver Version(Game Freak, 1999) to be the final entries in the series, Pokémon videogames continued to be developed, with new features, improved graphics and mechanics, and a whole bunch of new Pokémon being introduced in each generation. Yet, in all that time, we never really got a proper version of Pokémon on home consoles; they were always spin-offs, battling games, or neutered versions of the main role-playing experience, which remained exclusive to Nintendo’s handhelds. Nintendo’s development of their Switch console changed that, however; thanks to the Switch’s unique ability to be both a handheld and a home console, players were finally able to experience a main series Pokémon game in glorious high definition with the release of Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! (ibid, 2018) Though remakes of the first Pokémon games, the Let’s Go games (like pretty much all Pokémon games) proved both successful and popular.
The Plot: The time has come for you and your childhood rival to receive your very own Pokémon from Professor Oak and challenge the eight Kanto Gym Leaders in a bid to become a Pokémon Master. However, your progress is fraught with danger as the nefarious Team Rocket seek to steal Pokémon for criminal acts, in addition to genetically creating the most powerful Pokémon of all!
Gameplay: Essentially, Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! is exactly the same Pokémon game we’ve been playing for decades now, though this is only to be expected as it’s another remake of the original games. Like otherPokémon titles of this calibre on the Nintendo Switch, the game is played from a top-down, slightly isometric perspective that evokes the style of the Game Boy and Nintendo 3DS Pokémon titles; while the gameplay retains a simple control system (you control your avatar with the left stick, make selections with A, back out of decisions with B, and bring up the in-game menu with X), you can choose to play with the Joy-Cons attached (my preferred style), separated, or even use the Poké Ball Plus accessory when catching Pokémon. Interestingly, Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! is somewhat light on the handholding; Professor Oak will run you through the basics of Pokémon at the start of the game, as always, and non-playable characters (NPCs) offer hints, tips, and additional information regarding battling, catching, trading, and raising Pokémon, but gameplay isn’t interrupted every few minutes for a tutorial or bout of exposition, which actually makes the game feel a little too barebones at times as it seems content to simply offer a graphical and mechanical overhaul of the original games. Still, the modern conveniences are well welcome; items are divided into “Pockets” in your bag, allowing you to quickly find, use, and arrange healing items, evolution stones, Technical Machines (TMs), and candies to restore, power-up, or evolve your Pokémon. Unfortunately, you can’t assign an item to a quick button like in later Pokémon games but, to be fair, you really don’t have much need for this since items like the fishing rods and bicycle are missing this time around. Your inventory space now seems to be unlimited, which is even better, so you never have to worry about trekking back to a PC to dump items to pick up others.
I wasn’t a fan of the game’s new motion-sensor catching mechanics.
As ever, wild Pokémon will be encountered all over Kanto, hiding in grass, bopping in the sea, and emerging from the ground when in caves. This time around, the Pokémon all clearly appear onscreen; while they can spawn out of nowhere and swarm all around some locations, you can see where they are and even get an idea of how big or small or rare they are thanks to on-screen colourings and indicators, meaning it’s easier than ever to spot a shiny Pokémon or avoid an encounter altogether since random battles are effectively a thing of the past here. New to this game is the “Combat Point” (CP) mechanic, which allows you to see, at a glance, how good a Pokémon’s stats are, and Pokémon naturally still have “natures” that determine their statistical growth. Once you encounter with a wild Pokémon, you’ll see how different Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! is from its predecessors and contemporaries; the game switches to a first-person perspective and essentially borrows the gameplay mechanics and functionality of Pokémon Go (Niantic, 2016). You can select different Poké Balls, with each one having a different capture rate, one of numerous berries which can calm the Pokémon down, make them easier to catch, or increase your chances of acquiring items and bonuses from a successful capture, get some help, or flee from the battle. You won’t be inflicting damage on the wild Pokémon; instead, you must ready your Poké Ball, wait for the Pokémon to settle down, and toss the Poké Ball between some coloured rings to try and snag it. The level, size, and rarity of the Pokémon generally determine show difficult it is to catch, but even low-level Pokémon can burst out of Poké Balls if your throw is bad or just to be annoying, and you have to be quick and accurate as wild Pokémon can flee from battle. Some certain Pokémon, like the Legendary Birds and the two Snorlax, will need to be battled before you can catch them, which gives you about five minutes to whittle their Hit Points (HP) down before switching to this new capture system. Since I’ve never played Pokémon Go, I wasn’t a fan of this new mechanic, which basically boils down to mindlessly tossing Poké Balls, trying to get a “Excellent!” rating, and swinging the Switch around like an idiot to get a better aim. It’s an extremely different strategy and mindset for long-term players, one that encourages you to catch every single Pokémon you see as this is the primary way of earning experience points (EXP) and levelling-up. Thankfully, Poké Balls, Great Balls, and Ultra Balls are easily obtained from shops and NPCs, but I found this forced mechanic too the “Gotta Catch ‘Em All” tag line a little too literally.
In addition to traditional battles, you can pet and feed Eevee to keep it happy.
Pokémon Trainers are still a thing, so you’ll still have the chance to take part in some traditional battles. Here, you and your opponent take turns to inflict damage or status effects on each other or use in-battle items to heal or relieve status effects. You can’t run from a Trainer battle, but you can switch your Pokémon between rounds, which you’ll want to do when your opponent uses a different “Type” of Pokémon to yours. As ever, this is like Rock/Paper/Scissors, making Water-Type Pokémon “Super effective” against Fire-Type Pokémon, Fire-Types melt Ice-Types, and Fighting-Type Pokémon shatter Rock-Types. Thanks to onscreen text, the advantages of the modern user interface, and the colourings of certain Pokémon, it’s a pretty simple system to figure out. Trainers have all the same options as you, so they can switch their Pokémon at any time, heal or buff them with items, but can attack without fear of running out of Power Points (PP). Each move is limited by PP; when it runs out, you’ll need to use an Elixir or heal up to restore it or risk resorting to “Struggle”, which inflicts serious recoil damage. While it’s possible to succeed with just one or two powerful Pokémon, it’s best to have a diverse team with decent Type coverage in their moves; thankfully, Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! makes this even easier by including far more moves and TMs, especially for your Eevee, to allow for greater Type coverage with each Pokémon. Similar to Pokémon Yellow Version: Special Pikachu Edition (Game Freak, 1998), you’re forced to start with a specific Pokémon, in this case Eevee. Sadly, you can’t evolve Eevee, but certain NPCS will teach it a number of super useful elemental moves, allowing it greater Type coverage than usual. Eevee is your constant companion and can be petted and fed berries to increase your bond with it; this affords you benefits in battle, such as Eevee holding on with 1HP or shaking off status ailments. This’ll also happen with the other Pokémon in your party, however; any Pokémon can follow you around, like in Pokémon: Yellow and Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver (ibid, 2009), allowing you to interact with them to see how they’re doing, ride certain Pokémon in place of the bicycle, and they’ll even sniff out or dig up items. Pokémon can also now be renamed at any time and marked with symbols, you can easily move them and their moves around as you like and, even better, you no longer need to visit a PC to move Pokémon to and from your party; you simply do this at any time from the menu, and you can also send the many wild, disposable Pokémon you’ve caught over to Professor Oak where they’ll be lost forever in return for some candies.
Eevee can be bolstered with candies and learn Secret Techniques to expand the world.
These candies take the place of the vitamins and feathers of the previous games, allowing you to feed them to your Pokémon to boost their stats (Attack, Speed, HP, etc). You’ll find these across the game as well and they’re great for quickly boosting stats, with some candies even being specific to Pokémon and giving a boost across all stats, though Pokémon will require more candies the stronger they get and some are locked behind a level cap. Levelling-up can be a bit of a chore thanks to the massive emphasis on catching Pokémon, meaning it’s best to put your money into stocking up on Poké Balls or talking to NPCs to get some extra ones to help you get more powerful. Thankfully, you can still track your progress from a handy onscreen EXP bar; by default, all Pokémon automatically earn EXP from every encounter as well, meaning levelling-up is easier and faster than ever, and you can still trade and use special stones to evolve Pokémon into more powerful forms. This also facilitates the ongoing plot of completing Professor Oak’s PokéDex, a handy-dandy encyclopaedia that tells you where Pokémon frequent and gives you insight into them. Evolving Pokémon also gives them access to newer, usually better moves, though each can only learn four moves at a time; you can either replace an existing move or not learn the new one. An NPC allows your Pokémon to relearn forgotten moves in return for Heart Scales and you can use the TMs as many times as you like, which is always useful. Even better, Hidden Machines (HMs) are now a thing of the past; instead, Eevee learns “Secret Techniques” from NPCs, generally by completing story-based side quests. These allow you to chop down trees blocking your path, light up dark caves, surf across water, and fly to Kanto’s different towns using Eevee and relegates moves like Surf and Fly to TMs. This is extremely useful as it now means you don’t need to clog up your party with HM slaves or have useless HM moves in your arsenal. As ever, your Pokémon can be afflicted with status effects that slow, damage, or hinder them; poison, burns, sleep, and paralysis are the most common though you’ll also have to watch out for moves that cause you to “flinch” and miss a turn, Pokémon avoiding your attacks, and being put into a confused state. Treat and train your Pokémon well and they’ll shake off these ailments, but you can also use various items and the ever-useful Pokémon Centers to restore your Pokémon to full health. If you go into a battle unprepared without taking advantage of the manual save feature, you may be overwhelmed and end up defeated, which’ll cost you some hard-earned PokéDollars and return you to the last Pokémon Center you visited, but you’ll also find helpful NPCs, beds, and healing zones in some areas that avoid a long trek to heal up. You also need to be mindful of levelling-up too quickly; if your Pokémon is too high a level, and you don’t have the appropriate Badge, they may disobey you by ignoring your commands or loafing around.
You’ll tackle some familiar puzzles alongside visiting a handful of new areas.
If you’ve played the original Pokémon games and their remakes before then you’ll be instantly familiar with Kanto which, despite a new coat of paint and some tweaked quality of life features, is basically exactly the same as before. You’ll be taking ladders through maze-like caves, exploring a luxury ship, fetching stuff for NPCs, and solving some rudimentary puzzles using teleporters, hidden switches, and pushing blocks to lower doors. Quite often, you’ll explore areas to acquire keys to progress, which means clearing out Team Rocket and rescuing NPCs. While the Celadon City Game Corner is still present, you can’t play the slot machines anymore; the Safari Zone is also gone, with the rare Pokémon from these areas now appearing out in the wild and the latter replaced with the Pokémon GO Park, where you can transfer Kanto Pokémon from Pokémon Go. In-game trades allow you to acquire different Pokémon and even different forms from other Pokémon regions, and you can still trade and battle with friends as long as you’re paying for the Switch’s online functionality. There’s a very limited incorporation of the “Mega Evolution” mechanic here, too; certain NPCs award you special stones that allow a small handful of Pokémon to “Mega Evolve” once per battle, making them tougher and more fearsome, and some Trainer battles will also see you facing off against a Mega Evolved Pokémon. Very rarely, you’ll also take part in double battles, either by yourself or alongside your rival, though these really don’t happen as often as they could (and should, considering how often you encounter Jesse and James of Team Rocket). Finally, you have a few rudimentary customisation options for your avatar, including gender and skin colour, and can mix and match various outfits that you’re awarded from NPCs; Eevee can also be dressed up, which is quite cute, but this isn’t as in-depth as in other Pokémon games.
Graphics and Sound: Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! naturally benefits from the greater graphical processing power of the Nintendo Switch, utilising a slick, colourful 3D anime approach that really brings Ken Sugimori’s artwork to life in the best way possible. Freed from the grid-system of the original titles but not overwhelming the player in open-world gameplay, Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! transforms the formally limited, pixelated environments of Kanto into far bigger, much more detailed locations. Unfortunately, there’s no day/night system and no weather or seasonal elements, but towns and routes are bright and full of NPCs to chat to, buildings to enter, and Pokémon to encounter. The characters are all instantly familiar but with a new coat of paint; your NPC and rival aren’t strictly the Red and Blue of old, looking and acting slightly different (the rival is way more friendlier and actually helps you at a few points) and Blue actually shows up to offer advice and take Giovanni’s place as the Viridian City Gym Leader. The game also takes inspiration from the anime and Pokémon: Yellow by including and expanding upon the role of Jesse and James, with their Meowth often preceding their appearances and the duo have a far greater impact on the plot by taking the place of other Team Rocket grunts and executives.
The whole game pops thanks to its colourful, 3D, anime aesthetic.
Although the game’s Pokémon are limited to the first 151 from the original games, outside of a few different forms from later games in the franchise, they’re all full of life and can get very energetic when you encounter them in the wild, bouncing, floating, and dodging about the place and even swiping at you (though this just causes your Poké Ball to miss). Pokémon also appear more or less to scale, meaning Onix bursts from the ground and dominates the screen, Voltorbs are tiny globes, and some (like Arcanine) can be rode around to speed up your movement. Each has remixed cries from the original game apart from Pikachu, which gleefully shouts its name, and Eevee, which has a series of squeaky chirps. As if making towns bigger and livelier wasn’t enough, the Gyms have also had an impressive overhaul; spectators are often present, in addition to more detailed interiors, and you’ll even be treated to special cutscenes when encountering Legendary Pokémon and such. The script seems mostly the same as before, with a few alterations here and there that kind of place it as both a follow-up and a retelling of the first two games, and all the redone tunes are as charming and memorable as ever.
Enemies and Bosses: During your Pokémon journey, you’ll battle with other budding Pokémon Trainers; their Pokémon start at low levels, generally with only one or two in their party, but you’ll face progressively tougher opposition as you progress. While you can usually predict what an enemy Trainer will do as they tend to use moves that have a Type advantage over your current Pokémon, they can sometimes surprise you and it pays to go on a mad catching spree between battles to level-up, focus on increasing certain stats, and bringing your team as close to the level cap as possible, utilising moves that are super effective and taking advantage of the shared EXP to easily dominate the opposition. As ever, your most persistent foes throughout Kanto are the nefarious Team Rocket; this gang of Poké-nappers have taken over buildings and even entire towns in a bid to steal Pokémon or technology like the Silph Scope and Master Ball for their own evil ends. Generally, Team Rocket grunts aren’t much different from other Pokémon Trainers and stick to common Pokémon like Zubat and Ratatta, but you’ll also battle Jesse and James a few times thanks to their added importance on the plot. Like in the anime counterparts, they’ll use Koffing/Weezing and Ekans/Arbok but don’t send out Meowth this time around. You’ll also encounter your rival at various points; he’ll either be one step ahead of you, join you for certain side quests, offer advice and award items, and will challenge you to test your skills. A new Trainer class in this game are the Coach Trainers; these guys must be manually challenged and will award TMs and other goodies after you best them, but generally offer a tougher or more advanced challenge compared to regular Pokémon Trainers.
After conquering the Gyms and the Elite Four, some powerful Legendary Pokémon await you.
Your Pokémon journey requires you to travel far and wide across Kanto defeating the eight Gym Leaders to earn their Badges; these increase the strength and level cap of your Pokémon and allow entry into the Pokémon League and each Gym Leader specialises in a certain Type of Pokémon (though, handily, opposing Types can usually be found nearby if you need one). Before battling the Gym Leader, you’ll need to get past their proteges and, often, a puzzle of some kind, such as pressing hidden switches, navigating an invisible or hedge maze, or teleporting from room to room. This time around, many Gyms cannot be fought until you have a certain Type or level of Pokémon, encouraging catching and grinding, though the Gym Leaders remain as simple as ever to any experienced player. After defeating the Gym Leaders, you can battle them again once a day for some extra cash, which is always appreciated as Trainer rematches are disappointingly sporadic in this franchise. Once you’ve defeated them all, you challenge the Elite Four and the Pokémon League Champion without any breaks or free health restoration between bouts. Again, these have been bolstered by the Switch’s graphical power and some of the moves and line-ups of the Elite Four have been mixed up; I mostly noticed this with Lance, who now doesn’t have those two Dragonairs. While the Pokémon League offers a daunting challenge, it’s pretty simple to stock up on Hyper Potions and Revives to help if things get tough and you can battle them as many times as you like afterwards to help level-up. Although you won’t battle wild Pokémon 99% of the time, you still encounter the likes of Snorlax, the Legendary Birds, and Mewtwo; these are timed battles and can be a bit jarring as you suddenly have to shift to the traditional style of play, subduing the opponent with status ailments and whittling their HP to zero so you can start the laborious process of catching them, essentially turning these bouts into mini bosses, of sorts.
After beating your rival, you’ll challenge the best of the best across Kanto.
As he’s a lot friendlier than Blue, your rival is far more easy-going and any sense of urgency about wiping that smug smirk off his face is gone this time around. To counter your Eevee, your rival uses Pikachu (which, annoyingly, he eventually evolves into a Raichu, which isn’t fair as you can’t evolve your Eevee) and will not only amass a well-balanced and diverse team of Pokémon by the time he beats you to the Pokémon League but can also Mega Evolve his Pidgeot during the final battle. While he often presents a slightly more formidable challenge, especially once he’s got his aforementioned Pidgeot and Raichu teamed with Vileplume, Rapidash, Slowbro, and Marowak, defeating him isn’t any harder than beating any other Trainer or Gym Leader; simply strengthen your team, swap them as necessary, and hammer away and you’ll soon be crowned the Pokémon League Champion. Your rival might not be a complete douchebag this time around, but Blue is still a smarmy git and he shows up a few times throughout the story to help fend off Team Rocket and test your mettle as a Pokémon Trainer. After you defeat Giovanni and conquer the Pokémon League, Blue installs himself as the Viridian City Gym Leader, offering one of the game’s three hardest battles, the other two being Green and Red, with Green awaiting your challenge inside the Cerulean Cave after you’ve caught Mewtwo. Once you best the Pokémon League, 153 “Master Trainers” appear all around Kanto; these guys specialise in one Pokémon and, annoyingly, you can only battle them with that same Pokémon and they’re at such a high level that you basically need to grind-train every possible Pokémon just to stand a chance against them. If you manage to defeat six of them, Red can be fought outside of the Pokémon League, with all three of the original Trainers having a diverse team of high-level Pokémon and fully capable of Mega Evolving one of their Pokémon.
Power-Ups and Bonuses: It seems like even more items, both obvious and hidden, are strewn all over Kanto; they’re either onscreen or sniffed out by your Pokémon, gifted by NPCs, or bought from PokéMarts. Healing items like the various Potions, restorative items like the Revives, and status-healing items can take care of your ailments either in battle (at the cost of a turn) or outside of battle and you can temporarily buff your Pokémon’s status with items like X-Speed. You can also buy the game’s various Poké Balls from PokéMarts (being awarded a Premier Ball with bulk purchases) but these are also freely given by NPCs, after battles, and found all over so you’re never short of catching devices. You can find nuggets and stardust to sell for big cash, special stones to evolve Pokémon, and even items that fend off wild Pokémon or draw out more powerful and rarer variants. Berries make a return to the franchise, though in a slightly different capacity; you can feed them to Eevee to improve your bond but they’re best used against wild Pokémon to make them easier to catch, though you can’t have Pokémon hold items for in-battle buffs (potentially because battling is such a secondary feature in this game). Other items are slightly changed, too; the Poké Flute can’t be used in battle, for example, moves like Teleport and Dig can’t seem to be used outside of battle, and you’ll give the guards tea (given to you by Brock) rather than water, just to mix things up.
Additional Features: Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! keeps things incredibly simple with its available Pokémon; no Pokémon outside of the original 151 (and a couple of different forms and a new Pokémon) appear in the game and some are missing since you can’t get the likes of Sandshrew/Sandslash, Grimer/Muk, and Scyther in this game, requiring you to trade with a friend who owns Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! Trading is also key to evolving certain Pokémon, like Machoke and Haunter, and you’ll need another player to acquire both fossil Pokémon. Once you’ve beaten the game, there’s a little bit of post-game content to come back to; obviously, there’s the PokéDex to complete and the Master Trainers to find and challenge, though this latter is more tedious than exciting. In what will probably be a disappointment to many, there’s no Battle Frontier or anything like that, and there are no other areas to visit beyond the likes of the Cerulean Cave and Power Plant, which is disappointing to me as we don’t even get the Sevii Islands here. Mewtwo awaits in the Cereluen Cave, as mentioned, and the Legendary Birds are in the usual locations, offering inconsistently difficult encounters (I caught Articuno on my second Ultra Ball, Moltres took a few more, Zapdos was quite erratic, and I simply tossed the never-miss Master Ball at Mewtwo). Pokémon legends Red, Blue, and Green are also out there for you to battle but getting to Red isn’t the most enjoyable task available and the rewards are negligible. Similarly, beating the Master Trainers and competing the PokéDex primarily just gives you kudos and bragging rights, though you will be able to ride certain Pokémon to fly across Kanto after beating the Pokémon League, which offers a slightly different dimension to your travels. Otherwise, you can try and hunt down shiny Pokémon, look for the biggest and smallest Pokémon around, and make use of the co-op mode to journey alongside a friend and the Mystery Gift and Pokémon Go functionality to transfer other Pokémon into the game.
The Summary: Although my love for the franchise has ebbed somewhat over the years, basically to the point where I don’t really buy new Pokémon games on the regular since they’re largely the same and don’t really offer much new material, I am a fan of the series and I was somewhat interested in journeying through Kanto one more time in Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! Graphically, the game is very impressive; with the series seemingly moving more towards open-world, open-ended gameplay and introducing more extraneous mechanics to the franchise, it’s nice to get back to basics, but Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! is maybe a little too basic for its own good. Opting more for a fancy new coat of paint rather than really expanding upon the original games’ content in any meaningful way, Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! is a fun enough nostalgia trip but lacking in many ways; not including much in the way of substantial post-game content was a disappointment, to say nothing of the laborious Master Trainers and the decision to not include Pokémon or mechanics from other regions and games (like a day/night cycle, weather effects, hold items, and such). What really soured the experience for me was the incorporation of Pokémon Go mechanics; I admit that I’m biased about this as I don’t really play or like Pokémon Go, but there wasn’t much fun to be had in tossing Poké Balls at Pokémon without much skill or thought. You simply wait for the circles to line up, and for a good opening, and just toss Poké Balls and/or berries until you catch it, making for an extremely simplistic and monotonous level-up system. I loved that Jesse and James had a bigger role, and that Blue showed up on the side and being able to battle him, Red, and even Green (though I was a little disappointed that Professor Oak wasn’t the Pokémon League Champion at the end). Riding Pokémon was quite fun, as was letting Pokémon travel beside you and giving Eevee a real personality, but the lack of customisation options and challenge was unfortunate. Overall, if Pokémon was “Baby’s First RPG”, Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! is “Baby’s First Pokémon” and, while I enjoyed it well enough, it was a bit of a barebones package that played things a little too safe, and a little too quirky, for my liking.
My Rating:
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
Pretty Good
Did you enjoy Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee!? How do you think it compares to the original games and their remakes, and which Pokémon game is your favourite? Did you enjoy having Eevee as your partner and what did you think to the special moves it could learn? What did you think to the new catching mechanics and did they make or break the game for you? Did you ever defeat all of the Master Trainers and Red? Who made it into your final team and did you ever complete the PokéDex? Which Pokémon is your favourite? How are you planning to celebrate National Pokémon Day this year? Whatever your thoughts on Pokémon, feel free to leave them below or on my social media.
Upon the release of Pokémon: Blue Version and Pokémon: Red Version(Game Freak, 1996), a new craze swept through playgrounds across the world. Entire generations have grown up with Pokémon as clever marketing saw Nintendo’s newest franchise become a massively lucrative and popular multimedia powerhouse that endures to this day. Accordingly, February 27th is now internationally recognised as “National Pokémon Day”, which I’m expanding to an entire month of Pokémon every Tuesday in February.
Released: 7 July 2001 Director: Kunihiko Yuyama Distributor: Toho Budget: Unknown Stars: Veronica Taylor, Dan Green, Tara Sands, Kazuko Sugiyama, Rachael Lillis, Eric Stuart, and Masahiko Tanaka
The Plot: After being transported through time by the legendary Pokémon Celebi (Sugiyama), young Sammy (Sands) teams up with Pokémon Trainer Ash Ketchum (Taylor) and his friends to defend the spritely Pokémon from the nefarious Iron-Masked Marauder (Green), who seeks to enslave Celebi with a Dark Ball.
The Background: Pokémon (Nintendo/Creatures/Game Freak, 1995 to present) became an instant phenomenon once it came over from Japan: it dominated playgrounds as kids played the videogames, collected the trading cards, and tuned in to the still-ongoing anime series (1997 to present). So successful was this multimedia marketing strategy that it led to the aptly-titled Pokémon: The First Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back (Yuyama, 1998), a box office success that started a slew of feature films that expanded upon the anime and promoted the newest Pokémon videogames, especially the franchise’s most powerful and elusive creatures. Despite earning less than the first film, Pokémon the Movie 2000: The Power of One(ibid, 1999) still made over $130 million against a $30 million budget; however, while Pokémon 3: The Movie: Spell of the Unown (ibid, 2000) had a far smaller budget, its $68.5 million box office made it the least successful Pokémon movie. Miramax took over the international distribution and released the fourth movie straight to video rather than in cinemas, one that followed a similar formula to is predecessors, and successors, by featuring a Pokémon almost elusive as Mew at the time due to only being legitimately available through a special event. Unfortunately for the super cute sprite, Pokémon4Ever was met with largely negative reviews that criticised its pacing and execution. Despite this, its limited theatrical run saw it make around $40.8 million and Pokémon movies continued to be produced over the years, with Celebi making a feature-film return in 2010.
The Review: Like many kids who played Pokémon back in the day, I was enamoured at the prospect of Legendary Pokémon, rare, incredibly elusive creatures who often represented the elements. Back in the first and second generation of Pokémon, none were more scarce than Mew, the 151st Pokémon that couldn’t be legitimately obtained in the original games outside of Japan. Rumours and hearsay regarding Mew persisted and, for me, it was this mystery as much as Pokémon’s irresistible popularity that made the first movie such a big hit at the time. When it came time for my favourite games in the series to be released, I was all over the marketing and anticipating the next batch of Legendary Pokémon; while I don’t recall anywhere near as many rumours revolving around Celebi, the time travelling pixie was equally elusive for the longest time. It wouldn’t be until the second generation games were remade and made available on the Nintendo 3DS’s Virtual Console that Celebi became legitimately available and you’d be lucky to pick one of them up in one of Nintendo’s giveaway events. However, while there was still enough intrigue surrounding Celebi and Pokémon, I distinctly remember that I started to lose touch with the franchise around the time that Pokémon 4Ever was released; the third movie lacked compared to its predecessors, I was moving on to other interests, and, for a while, I was just a bit burned out from the franchise at the time, so this is definitely about when my fandom towards Pokémon became much more casual.
Ash and friends befriend a time-displaced boy and help protect an injured Celebi.
Pokémon 4Ever is the first of the Pokémon movies to begin with a helpful introduction; for any clueless parents watching or uninitiated kids, former Pewter City Gym Leader and Pokémon Breeder Brock (Stuart) delivers an opening monologue that establishes the world and Ash’s dreams of becoming a Pokémon master. As is often the case, Ash is so distracted by his unending desire to prove himself in battle that he almost misses his ferry to Arborville, a town built out of treehouses deep within a dense forest in the Johto region. On the way, they spot a Suicune (Tanaka) on the riverbank and perplexed by this unusual Pokémon, Ash calls his friend and mentor Professor Samuel Oak (Stuart Zagnit). Professor Oak identifies it as a Legendary Pokémon who “personifies the North Wind” and is capable of personifying water, something he offhandedly claims to have first-hand knowledge of. Excited at the prospect of encountering more rare Pokémon nearby, Ash naturally runs head-first into the forest and comes across Sammy, a time-displaced boy who’s jumped ahead forty years thanks to a panic-stricken Celebi. Despite an initial misunderstanding due to his confusion, Sammy quickly befriends Ash and his friends and eagerly joins them in seeking out Celebi and the renowned “Lake of Life”, though he lacks Ash’s adeptness for physical exertion. A Pokémon enthusiast who sketches wild Pokémon, Sammy bravely shields the Celebi and forms a bond with it not unlike the one between Ash and his long-time partner, Pikachu (Ikue Ōtani), fighting alongside both with his own Pokémon that pop from archaic PokéBalls.
The carefree Celebi is corrupted by a Dark Ball and only Suicune can help defend the forest!
First seen being pursued through the forest by a selfish hunter (Stuart), the fairy-like Celebi is one of a species of extremely rare Pokémon that is regarded as the “Voice of the Forest”. Like almost every Legendary Pokémon featured in the movies, Celebi is a Psychic-Type Pokémon but, in a change of pace, can’t telepathically communicate with its newfound friends and it’s barely able to defend itself with psychic barriers and vines. Instead, Celebi uses its unique time travel ability when in extreme distress, which transports it and quiet, unassuming Sammy, to the present day. Injured and weak, Celebi depends on the assistance of others to protect it, which the protagonists and wild Pokémon are only too happy to do. Once restored to full health, Celebi exhibits a joyful, childlike playfulness, heals Misty’s (Lillis) briefly-injured ankles and takes Ash and Sammy on a flight over the forest. Unfortunately, Celebi undergoes a dramatic change of character when captured and corrupted by one of the Iron-Masked Marauder’s “Dark Balls”; its powers are amplified and turned against the forest it so coveted, turning it into another of the evil-doer’s mindless slaves and encasing it within a “big twig monster”. Luckily, nature has a more proactive defender nearby to help out; Suicune, sensing the danger, spirits Ash, Sammy, and Pikachu to safety and bests the Iron-Masked Marauder’s Tyranitar (Unknown), though even Suicune’s power fails against Celebi’s monstrous form and it takes a desperate plea from Ash and Sammy to bring Celebi to its senses. As much as I like Suicune, I can’t help but be disappointed that the three Legendary Beasts were split up between movies and specials; Entei, Suicune, and Raikou wouldn’t appear together in a film until 2010 (ironically reuniting Suicune with Celebi, although they were all different versions of these Pokémon) but Suicune fares slightly better than Entei as it’s at least closer to its actual in-game depiction.
The Iron-Masked Marauder seeks to corrupt Celebi’s power and twist it to his own destructive whims.
Naturally, Ash and his friends are pursued by Jessie (Lillie), James (Stuart), and Meowth (Maddie Blaustein) of Team Rocket, who are instantly undone first when Jessie gets a leg cramp and then when they crash to the ground after delivering their motto. Although Sammy is concerned for their welfare, the others simply ignore them with barely a glance, severely diminishing what little threat they might’ve had in favour of the new villain, the reprehensible Iron-Masked Marauder. Although also allied with Team Rocket, this mysterious and egotistical foe has his own ambitions to overthrow Giovanni (Ed Paul) using Celebi’s time travelling powers. The Iron-Masked Marauder uses his custom-made Dark Balls to capture Pokémon and bend them to his will, favouring powerful Pokémon like Tyranitar that he turns “evil” and far more dangerous. Selfish, vindictive, and craving destruction, the Iron-Masked Marauder is about as one-dimensional a villain as you could ask for, lacking a true name and any motivation beyond power for the sake of power. Unlike Team Rocket, whose ambitious contraptions always fail them, the Iron-Masked Marauder helms a gigantic mechanical, spider-like walker and is so infamous and fearsome that Team Rocket are instantly besotted after witnessing his power. Bolstered by their newfound alliance, Team Rocket brazenly confront their enemies, backed up by the Iron-Masked Marauder’s formidable technology, which he uses to easily capture and corrupt Celebi and devastate the natural landscape. However, even Jessie, James, and Meowth are horrified when the dark Celebi twists the forest into a lumbering, kaiju-esque monstrosity and goes on a rampage, with the Iron-Masked Marauder at the helm and Jessie trapped within.
The Nitty-Gritty: While there are often themes regarding the power and misuse of nature in Pokémon, often with the titular creatures at the forefront of these issues, they’re particularly prevalent in Pokémon 4Ever. This wouldn’t be the first or last time we’d see a diminutive, innocent Pokémon used for evil or a natural landscape plundered by a ruthless villain, but it’s all the more potent here since Celebi effectively “speaks” for nature itself, and represents its carefree spirit with its cheery demeanour. Thus, while it futilely lashes out with vines to protect itself, Celebi is by far the weakest and most vulnerable of the Legendary Pokémon seen so far; it’s entirely dependent on anonymity, the kindness of others, and the healing power of the Lake of Life, meaning it’s easily overwhelmed by the Iron-Masked Marauder’s Tyranitar. Paradoxically, Celebi is also one of the most powerful Legendary Pokémon because it can travel through time. This aspect is only really a small part of the movie, featuring as a local legend, Celebi’s signature ability, and a means to displace Sammy from time. However, this also introduces an interesting wrinkle in that this version of the movie explicitly reveals that Sammy is a young Professor Oak, suggesting Professor Oak favoured Ash because of the friendship they built as children and that his PokéDex came from his love of drawing the Pokémon he encountered as a boy. Most of Pokémon4Ever takes place in a dense forest that is home to a shrine and the fabled Lake of Life, a healing water where Celebi is said to flourish. CGI is used to give the forest depth and speed to make Celebi’s flying more exciting, but the film is undeniably more like a longer episode of the anime with a greater budget and lacks the cinematic punch seen in the first two movies, despite some attempts to establish atmosphere with waterfalls and a dense fog.
Celebi is revived, the Marauder is defeated, and the forest is saved through the power of teamwork.
While CGI works for the various battles, sweeping scenes, and background elements of the movie, it falls completely short when bringing the corrupted Celebi’s forest-dragon form to life. A swirling mess of twigs and branches, this ugly monstrosity looks more like a heap of hideous wet autumnal grass than anything remotely intimidating, no matter how many mouth lasers it spits out. Due to its more whimsical nature, Pokémon 4Ever is surprisingly light on battles; much of the film is focused on Ash, Sammy, and Celebi’s friendship, so Misty and their newfound friends have little to do but offer support, though Brock does have his Onix (Unknown) help Suicune deal with Tyranitar. Consequently, battles are very brief due to the Iron-Masked Marauder’s corrupted Pokémon being so much more powerful and requiring either a bit of thought or a greater power to topple. Despite this, the forest is badly ravaged; although Ash and Sammy bring Celebi to its senses, the effort of it destroying its draconian body proves fatal and the Lake of Life is unable to revive it due to the damage caused by the battle. Luckily (and conveniently), Suicune is on hand to purify the lake, restoring it to full vitality and, after a brief period of doubt (Ash trying to force feed the shrivelled Celebi berries is particularly heart-breaking), Celebi as well. Following a victory lap with its kin, Celebi repays the favour when he plummets to the ground after dispatching the vengeful Iron-Masked Marauder, who’s left dishevelled, unmasked, and helpless to the mercy of the locals and wild Pokémon. With the forest restored, Suicune impassively departs and a grateful Celebi transports Sammy back to the past following a heartfelt farewell to his new friends. Although Ash is happy to see his friend returned home, he can’t help be sad but, when he shares the news of his adventure with Professor Oak, we learn that his promise to see Sammy again came true as the boy grew up to become his wise and friendly mentor.
The Summary: I’ve made no secret about my love for the second generation of Pokémon; the Johto games remain my favourite in the entire franchise and a huge reason for that is both the simplicity of Pokémon and its popularity at the time. However, as much as I enjoy these games and this time in the franchise, even I have to admit that the Johto movies suffered from the law of diminishing returns; rather than getting bigger and more grandiose, the third and fourth movies opted for smaller, more interpersonal tales, which is fine but I wonder if children really watch Pokémon for this sort of content. Celebi is cute, for sure, and it makes a change to see a Legendary Pokémon onscreen that isn’t a rampaging powerhouse, but there’s not a lot of substance to Pokémon 4Ever to really keep me engaged. I appreciate the attempt to tell a more whimsical and carefree story, one that makes you re-evaluate Ash’s relationship with Professor Oak, but I can’t help but be disappointed with the execution. Perhaps if it had been done a little differently, like having the Iron-Masked Marauder commanding corrupted versions of the Legendary Beasts and Ash teaming up with Ho-Oh instead (or alongside Celebi). I think what fundamentally lets Pokémon4Ever down is the lack of cinematic punch; as much as I love the soundtrack from Mewtwo Strikes Back, it’s a little cheap to recycle elements of its score, the opening titles are lazy and boring, and the lack of exciting battles or visually interesting CGI makes this easily one of the most forgettable Pokémon movies. There are no lessons on offer here that kids couldn’t learn from better animated movies or the Pokémon anime, which taught the same lessons about friendship and respecting nature and freedom on a regular basis, and even the allure of the elusive Celebi can’t save this one from being a disappointment.
My Rating:
⭐⭐
Rating: 2 out of 5.
Could Be Better
Did you enjoy Pokémon 4Ever? What did you think to the choice to craft a more low-key, whimsical story? Did you like the depiction of Celebi and the friendship between it, Ash, and Sammy? What did you think to the Iron-Masked Marauder as the main antagonist and his corruption of other Pokémon? Were you disappointed that the Legendary Beasts were split up across the movies and specials? Which Pokémon game, generation, and creature is your favourite and why? How did you celebrate National Pokémon Day this year? Whatever your thoughts, drop them in the comments below or on my social media and be sure to check out my other Pokémon content.
Upon the release of Pokémon: Blue Version and Pokémon: Red Version(Game Freak, 1996), a new craze swept through playgrounds across the world. Entire generations have grown up with Pokémonas clever marketing saw Nintendo’s newest franchise become a massively lucrative and popular multimedia powerhouse that endures to this day. Accordingly, February 27th is now internationally recognised as “National Pokémon Day”, which I’ve expanded to an entire month of Pokémon every Tuesday in February.
Released: September 2017 Originally Released: 16 July 2015 Developer: Game Freak Also Available For: Arcade and Nintendo Wii U (Original Release)
The Background: Ever since it was brought over from Japan, the Pokémon franchise has been all about spin-offs and ancillary media; the first generation of videogames and tie-in merchandise ensured that Pokémon was an instant cultural phenomenon, taking playgrounds by storm through the games themselves, the trading cards, stickers, magazines, and toys galore. It didn’t take long at all for spin-off videogames to be produced alongside the main series; we got a videogame of the aforementioned trading card game, some pinball and puzzle games, and even a much-loved on-rails photography videogame. Although battling is very much at the heart of the Pokémon series, the closest it came to being featured in a one-on-one fighter was the inclusion of Pokémon characters in the Super Smash Bros. series (Various, 1999 to 2018) until Pokémon Company CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara brainstormed new ideas for the franchise with Tekken (Various, 1994 to 2018) producer Katsuhiro Harada and Soulcalibur (Bandai Namco Studios, 1995 to 2018) producer Masaaki Hoshino. While Ishihara wanted mainly Fighting-type Pokémon featured in the game, Hoshino pushed for more variety amongst the playable fighters, and the game was initially released as a somewhat unpopular and unprofitable arcade fighter before being ported to the Wii U, where it was received much more favourably. An enhanced port was then released for the Nintendo Switch a few years later; this new version of the game included all the previous downloadable content (DLC) and was also met with largely positive reviews.
The Plot: The player’s created character aspires to reach the top of the Ferrum League alongside their partner Pokémon. However, the tournament is soon interrupted by a mysterious and violent Shadow Mewtwo, which has been corrupted by a strange phenomenon in which Gaia, the energy that allows Synergy Stones to bond the humans and Pokémon in Ferrum, is draining away.
Gameplay: Pokkén Tournament DX is a 3D fighter in which players customise a 2D avatar and synch up with one of twenty-one different partner Pokémon using a “Synergy Stone” to not just command them to battle as in the mainline games, but effectively battle as the Pokémon in what basically amounts to a series of never-ending battles in different towns across the Ferrum region in the appropriately named Ferrum League. Unlike in the mainline Pokémon games, you won’t actually be traversing an overworld map; instead, the Ferrum region is represented by a simple map screen where you can navigate to different towns, each of which allow for different options, such as initiating online battles, changing your game settings, customising your avatar and Pokémon, or partaking in the single-player story mode, or single or team-based battles. Before you jump into the story or an actual battle, your guide, Mia, strongly advises you to check out the game’s tutorial and this is heavily advised as well, though the game’s controls actually aren’t as complicated as the tutorials make you think (it doesn’t help that there are a lot of tutorials, with each aspect of battling being broken down into separate categories and sections).
Battles take place on two panes and your attack choices depend on what your opponent’s doing.
Still, the tutorials relate the basics of battle: X unleashes a strong attack while Y sends out a weaker or ranged attack, and mixing and matching these inputs (along with movements of the analogue stick or control buttons) will allow you to string together combo attacks to deal additional damage. B allows you to jump, and you can also attack in mid-air, while A performs one of a series of Pokémon-specific attacks, some of which can drain your hit points (HP) or inflict status ailments on your opponent. You can bring up your Pokémon’s attacks, special moves, and combos from the pause menu at any time, and even alter the controls to suit your specifications, but there really isn’t that much depth to the combat; I got along pretty well just using a standard series of combos and heavier attacks, but the tutorial also details how you can hold the R trigger to block, roll and dash out of harm’s way, and initiate a switch between the “Field Phase” and the “Duel Phase” using certain attacks, charging a “Piercing Attack”, or grabbing your opponent for a throw by pressing Y and B together. When in the Field Phase, you’re free to navigate the fighting arena, restricted only by the energy fields that surround you, and easily able to jump over, counter, or charge right through attacks. The Duel Phase switches to a 2.5D sideways perspective like a classic Tekken game and slightly alters the controls to accommodate this, allowing for low attacks and high-stance attacks to knock your opponent’s feet from under them or intercept an aerial attack. This makes fights more about getting up close and personal with your opponent, and you’ll quickly find yourself pummelled unless you counter incoming attacks with X and A or block against hem (though beware as you’ll get staggered if the opponent breaks your guard). Although Pokkén Tournament DX doesn’t include the usual Type-advantage where Water-types trump Fire-types and so forth (despite Mai claiming attacks to be “Super effective!” during battle), each Pokémon favours either power, speed, long-ranged attacks, or is a slightly more well-balanced fighter, and it also features variation of this in the “Attack Triangle” feature. This allows counter moves to trump normal attacks, grabs to win over counters, and normal attacks to fend off grabs, and successfully timing each attack based on what your opponent is doing will not only deal damage and potentially change the battle field, but also refill a small amount of your HP and fill up your “Synergy Gauge” and “Support Gauge”.
Burst Attacks and Support Pokémon can fundamentally change the course of a battle.
When your Synergy Gauge is full, you can press L and R together to enter “Burst Mode”, which will change your Pokémon’s appearance (generally to a Mega Evolution) and not only power-up their attacks but also allow you to pull off a devastating “Burst Attack” which unleashes their most powerful move against your opponent, though this can be blocked and even countered. Filling up the Support Gauge allows you to call in a temporary Support Pokémon; you’ll pick from a whole bunch of these before each battle, and they come in groups of two. While you unfortunately can’t mix and match these to create a customised support team for yourself, each Support Pokémon has their benefits; Support Pokémon will either attack your foe, disrupt them in some way (usually with status effects), or enhance your fighter, meaning you could get a temporary speed, power, or health buff or your opponent may become stunned or disorientated, and timing the use of a Support Pokémon is key to turning the tide in a battle. Battles are fought in a best-of-three format and, between rounds, you must switch to a different Support Pokémon, though you can assign “Cheers” to Mia that will boost your gauges in different ways and potentially allow you to summon a Support Pokémon automatically in the next round. While the Support Gauge fills over time, and you can pick up “Synergy Power” across the arena to boost both gauges, Pokkén Tournament DX definitely emphasises fast-paced, arcade-style action over any kind of patience as your battles are timed and your opponents quickly become very aggressive, though you can alter some of these settings in the options menu. While the tutorials make it seem like battles are quite complicated, they’re really not; I barely even used the block button, and found it annoying that the counter option wasn’t mapped to it as well. Consequently, I found it much easier to spam some ranged attacks at the start of a fight, hit a grab, and charge a Piercing Attack to pummel my opponents, landing a few character-specific attacks here and there (this was risky as I fought with Shadow Mewtwo, and a lot of its special attacks drained its HP) before finishing them off with a Burst Attack.
You’ll find yourself battling endlessly to clear the Ferrum League and complete the optional missions.
Mia claims that you need to learn about the different opponents and arenas but, again, you really don’t; you can best most opponents by attacking aggressively and, while Synergy Energy does spawn differently in each arena and they are either bigger or more enclosed, the fights quickly became very monotonous for me. This wasn’t helped by the success criteria for the single-player story, which sees you battling through the Ferrum League over a series of battles. You start at Rank D and must win a certain number of fights, either in single battles or by tackling five opponents in a row in League Matches, to increasing your standing in the rank. Once you’ve won enough fights, you’ll enter an eight-man tournament, which you must win to face the League Master in a “Promotion Test”. Win that battle and you’ll move on to the next rank to do it all over again, battling more and more opponents to qualify for more fights and finding your foes becoming faster and more aggressive with each Rank. After every fight, win or lose, you’ll receive a star grading based on your performance; varying your attacks and ending with a Burst Attack flourish will score you more points and earn you more PokéGold, which buys clothing and outfits for your avatar and Mia. You’ll also earn experience points (XP) from each victory and loss; when you earn enough XP your Partner Pokémon will level-up and you’ll earn Skill Points that you can use to upgrade their attack, defence, the speed their gauges charge, and how long their gauge effects will last when triggered. Each Rank also comes with some missions for you to complete; these generally involve winning a certain number of battles, winning in a certain way or using a certain number of specific attacks, and summoning specific Support Pokémon a set number of times. With enough victories, you’ll be given one Bonus Key per mission board to automatically complete a mission, and successfully completing them all will complete a picture puzzle, net you additional PokéGold and titles and clothing for your avatar, and will load up another board with more missions to complete. If single battles start to wear thin for you (and, trust me, they will), you can take part in team battles from the main map. This sees you pick a team of three Pokémon to battle against another team of three in an elimination battle; the damage you take and the amount your gauge is full carries over between rounds, but you can still set your Support Pokémon between each round. Sadly, these battles don’t ever appear in the main story, meaning there’s little incentive to deviate from your chosen Partner Pokémon as that’s the easiest way to stay strong enough to compete with the higher Ranked matches.
Graphics and Sound: While it lacks some of the more memorable tunes seen in the mainline games, Pokkén Tournament DX makes a great first impression with a spectacular CG opening sequence; sadly, such cinematics are few and far between during the bulk of the game. They’ll pop up here and there, but the majority of the game’s story is told using 2D avatars that barely move and using text and dialogue boxes rather than cutscenes. This, as much as the pretty generic battle music, really lets the game down; I get that it’s just a standard arcade fighter, but a little bit more effort could’ve gone into the story and the presentation of the game outside of the main battles. Instead, the story is very secondary; occasionally, your opponents will talk smack to you before and after battles, Mia will chime in with some story-specific spiel to advance the narrative, and you’ll have to move to areas outside of the main overworld map to meet story objectives, but it’s all very cheap and not very becoming of a game that carries such a hefty price tag. Additionally, the map screen is as basic as it gets, and you’ll be absolutely bombarded with Mia’s “helpful” advice during battles unless you shut her off in the main settings.
The opening cutscene and in-battle graphics are where the game’s presentation really shines.
Once you actually get into a battle, things noticeably improve; all the game’s Pokémon are beautifully rendered in just the right balance between realistic and fantastical, very much in the same style as seen in Pokémon: Detective Pikachu (Letterman 2019). Pokémon have a number of different intro and outro animations, and these change depending on whether you’re in Burst Mode or not, and will take on different colours in mirror matches. Attacks are big, colourful, and eye-catching, with Pokémon like Sceptile, Gengar, and Charizard impressive with twisting vines, portal-based spectral fists, and plumes of fire, respectively. Also impactful are the Burst Attacks, which basically amount to a short cutscene when your Pokémon will unleash their most powerful attack, and this really helps to sell the danger of these moves so you definitely want to make sure that you unleash yours before your opponent does. Unfortunately, the arenas don’t fare anywhere near as well as the fighter’s character models; I barely even noticed any difference between each arena, even when inside a haunted house or on the deck of a ship with Magikarp flailing about. You can see buildings and other Pokémon in the background in almost every arena, but there’s really nothing much there to make them all that interesting; there are no stage hazards to worry about, no weapons to pick up, and the only things that really change between them are how restrictive they are and where the Synergy Energy spawns in. Thankfully, battles are generally too fast to really make this much of an issue but you’re forced to have so many fights that it’s hard not to notice that the areas are pretty bland and almost interchangeable.
Enemies and Bosses: In true fighting game fashion, every single Pokémon you can select from will be your opponent at some point in the game. I would say that it pays to get to know what each Pokémon is capable of, but that’s not really that true; sure, Machamp is bigger and slower than, say, Lucario and will buff itself up rather than striking fast and using ranged attacks, and Croagunk is a sprightly little bastard who can whittle down your health pretty quickly with its lightning-fast attacks, but what works against one will generally work against all. There’s a decent array of Pokémon on offer here; while the absence of guys like Hitmonlee and Hitmanchan is questionable (and I don’t really get why we needed two Pikachu…), the inclusion of Suicune, Chandelure, and Darkrai helps to make the available roster very varied so it’s not all focused on Fighting-Type Pokémon. As mentioned, it is useful to take note of what your Pokémon can do; I stuck with Shadow Mewtwo the entire time, whose special attacks drained its HP, but some Pokémon are better attacking from a distance, so you need to be more aware of the field and where you are, while others need to be up close and personal to deal heavy damage. When battling them, though, a simple strategy of dodging, jumping, and keeping up the aggression until you can call in a Support Pokémon or hit your Burst Attack will win you the day more often than not, and the only time I really struggled with anything other than this was when I was trying to complete the different missions and had to hold back on my attacks as a result.
Alongside challenging the Ferrum League, you’ll also contend with the super powerful Shadow Mewtwo.
To advance up to the next Rank, you’ll need to best the League Master. While you’d think that these battles offer something different, they really don’t; League Masters will use Pokémon you’ve probably fought five or six times up to that point, and the only real difference is that they might be at a higher level, and thus have more HP or be more aggressive. After you best each League Master, however, the story will kick back in and you’ll have to battle Shadow Mewtwo; this thing is pretty much well beyond you for the majority of the story, boasting HP in the thousands and making short work of you. I think it might be possible to beat it early on, but I sure as hell couldn’t; in fact, I was barely able to eek out a victory when the story culminated in battling it head-on since it’s easily the toughest fight you’ll have in the story mode. Before you battle it, you’ll have to face three trainers in three new areas a bid to try and cure Mewtwo of its corruption, and these fights actually offer something different as you’re denied the use of Support Pokémon and/or your Synergy Gauge. When you finally battle Shadow Mewtwo for the last time, you must endure the first round without your Synergy Gauge and your Support Gauge will only fill up once Shadow Mewtwo is constantly in Burst Mode in this fight and you’re also denied the buffs Mia provides between rounds. In the second round, you’ll also enter a permanent Burst Mode but will only be able to use your Burst Attack once and there’s no Synergy Power to collect, meaning that these battles can be extremely gruelling as Shadow Mewtwo is a very fast, very aggressive foe who’s constantly coming at you and looking to land his Burst Attack.
Power-Ups and Bonuses: Your primary power-up during a fight will by the Synergy Power that spawns in across the arenas; you’ll need to get in their quickly as your opponent can pick these up as well, and it means the difference between filling your gauges or being on the receiving end of their Burst Attacks. It’s a good job the game subjects you to endless battles as you’ll quickly see the benefits of applying Skill Points to your Partner Pokémon; I’m much more focused on attacking so I tended to boost the attack stat above the others, but lengthening the duration of your burst and speeding up your gauges can really help make the tougher battles a lot easier. Unfortunately, though, that’s about it; you don’t learn any new moves, you can’t assign different items or power-ups to your Pokémon, and just about the only other thing you have at your disposal are the Burst Attacks and Support Pokémon. Support Pokémon are a mixed bag; each one charges up at a different speed, and they each have positives and negatives, but it sucks that you can’t customise your own little support team and are stuck with what the game gives you.
Additional Features: You might think battling through the main leagues will be the end of your journey here, but sadly it’s not. After you purge Shadow Mewtwo, two more unlock, with the last one full of the game’s toughest challenges. You can also revisit the Shadow Mewtwo stages from the story mode whenever you like to take on those unique gauge-less battles, return to each of the leagues you’ve already cleared to mop up any outstanding missions you have left, and you’ll even unlock a new arena to battle in after clearing the story. Throughout the course of the game, you’ll amass a great deal of PokéGold; unfortunately this is all spent on clothing and gear for your avatar and Mia rather than interesting stuff like new arenas or fighters. The clothing options are kind of limited, despite there being a decent variety and colour options, since you can’t mix and match them. New items unlock when you hit certain milestones or complete missions, and you’ll also unlock titles for your avatar and can assign them taunts. There’s an online battle mode, and daily challenges to complete as well, but there really isn’t anything all that fun to unlock. As if that wasn’t bad enough, this “DX” version of the game isn’t even complete as you need to shell out to purchase two more fighters, which also come with two more sets of Support Pokémon and outfits for Mia, which really soured me on the game as I expect a “DX” version to include everything available from the game.
The Summary: I was really excited to get my hands on Pokkén Tournament DX; I’m not a big Tekken fan but the game looked and seemed really unique and exciting and I was hoping for a really fun brawler that did new things with the franchise. Technically, I got that: Pokkén Tournament DX is very similar to other 3D fighters you might find available as online-exclusive releases in that it has a minimalist approach to its interface and story and focuses on frantic, hard-hitting action with just enough bells and whistles to keep you interested. Unfortunately, it’s lacking in a lot of depth; the customisation, battle, and story options are extremely limited and it’s ultimately pointless earning all that PokéGold and those titles once you’re satisfied with your avatar. There’s also very little incentive to try out the other Pokémon as this actually puts you at a disadvantage due to the level-up mechanic; if the emphasis on the different fighting styles had been more prominent, and the story mode different depending on which Partner Pokémon you chose like other fighters, this might have encouraged experimentation but, for me, it really didn’t. Also, the game becomes very laborious very quickly; after about an hour, you’ve pretty much seen everything it has to offer and there’s very little to keep you engaged as it’s just battle after battle, with the same tactics triumphing 99% of the time, in bland arenas with an excitable girl bellowing annoying statements at you. While the game’s fighters look great and the presentation is pretty impressive at times (in battles and the rare CG cutscenes), the whole package feels very cheap and like it should have just been a budget digital-only title, making for an overall lacklustre experience that left me disappointed since I was expected a little but more (and definitely not expecting to have to pay for additional content!)
My Rating:
⭐⭐
Rating: 2 out of 5.
Could Be Better
Have you ever played Pokkén Tournament DX? If so, did you enjoy and where did you first play it? Which Pokémon was your go-to fighter, who was your favourite support duo, and which Pokémon was your least favourite? Did you enjoy the focus on continuous battling or did it grow tiresome for you, as well? What did you think to the plot involving Shadow Mewtwo and did you ever conquer all of the leagues? Would you like to see another game in this style sometime, and if so what improvements would you make? Which Pokémon spin-off is your favourite and why? How are you celebrating National Pokémon Day this month? Whatever your thoughts on Pokkén Tournament DX, share them below or comment on my social media and be sure to check out my other Pokémon content.
Upon the release of Pokémon: Blue Version and Pokémon: Red Version(Game Freak, 1996), a new craze swept through playgrounds across the world. Entire generations grew up with Pokémonas clever marketing saw Nintendo’s newest franchise become a massively lucrative and popular multimedia powerhouse that endures to this day. Accordingly, February 27th is now internationally recognised as “National Pokémon Day”, which I’m expanding to an entire month of Pokémon every Tuesday in February, which is even more fitting given that February 6th is the day that Mew successfully gave birth to my favourite Pokémon, Mewtwo!
Released: 13 July 2013 Director: Kunihiko Yuyama Distributor: Toho Budget: Unknown Stars: Sarah Natochenny, Miriam Pultro, Scottie Ray, Samia Mounts, Eileen Stevens, Jason Griffith, and Ikue Ōtani
The Plot: Ash Ketchum (Natochenny) and his friends arrive in Pokémon Hills, where a Red Genesect (Ray) and its brethren seek to forcibly make their home. This attracts the attention of the Unovan Mewtwo (Pultro), who seeks not only to challenge the Genesect’s power but to shield them from the abuse of their human creators.
The Background: It would be foolish to deny how influential Pokémon (Nintendo/Creatures/Game Freak, 1995 to present) has become ever since the first games were released. The success of the game is only ever half the story when it comes to Pokémon, however; the franchise has dominated a wide variety of media over the years, thanks in no small part to the still-ongoing anime series (1997 to present). Following the financial success of the aptly-titled Pokémon: The First Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back(Yuyama, 1998), animated feature-length productions became commonplace for the franchise, with fifteen released by 2013 and the last three focused on promoting the fifth generation of the videogames. Reportedly, Genesect and the Legend Awakened drew inspiration from New York City for its setting but the main story surrounding the film was its inclusion of Mewtwo. While this isn’t surprising considering Mewtwo is one of franchise’s most popular characters, what made this different was that this version of the character was entirely new due to legal issues and therefore more recognisably female. Debuting at number two at the Japanese box office and going on to become the tenth highest-grossing film of the year in Japan, Genesect and the Legend Awakened received mostly mixed reviews; some praised for its darker tone and cinematic scope while others criticised the inclusion of a new Mewtwo and largely derivative plot.
The Review: By the time of Genesect and the Legend Awakened, the anime was firmly entrenched in the Unova region and Ash and his faithful friend Pikachu (Ōtani) were traveling alongside Iris (Stevens), a Gym Leader specialising in Dragon-Type Pokémon and accompanied by Axew (Kayzie Rogers), and Cilan (Griffith), another of the region’s Gym Leaders who favoured Grass-Types. My experience with these seasons of the anime is almost entirely limited to the feature films that were released around this time, though the dynamic between the three really isn’t all the different from what was seen between Ash and his other travelling companions; they function as his moral support and guidance, but there are some interesting distinctions, such as Iris being a bit of a wild child and Cilan being very loquacious. The three find themselves in New Tork City, a bustling island metropolis that features a grand park right in the middle (a “Central Park”, if you will), Pokémon Hills, in which various Pokémon roam freely beneath a special dome and where Ash encounters the mysterious, armoured insectoid Pokémon known as Genesect (Stevens). Immediately intrigued by the strange creature, Ash is blown away when it showcases the ability to switch between a bipedal form and a super-fast, aerodynamic form that’s perfect for flying (and sky-surfing), and further stunned when it exhibits the ability to talk using telepathy. Ash and his friends are moved by the lost Genesect’s plight; it’s desperate to return “home” and Ash is determined to help it, only to incur the wrath of its overprotective patriarch, the Red Genesect, who regards all humans as a threat.
Ash and his friends are astounded by the Genesect and the sudden appearance of an all-new Mewtwo.
Luckily, Mewtwo is on hand to defend them, but its priority is safeguarding Pokémon rather than humans; although Ash briefly expresses familiarity with Mewtwo, he mentions nothing of his previous encounters with it and the two are strangers to each other, largely because this isn’t the same Mewtwo he’s met before. While Mewtwo focuses on helping the Genesect and defending the local Pokémon, Ash and the others are also assisted by a concerned Sableye (Bill Rogers) that’s driven from Pokémon Hills by the Genesect’s aggressive invasion, and befriend the friendly, childlike Genesect they first encounter. This friendly Genesect opposes Mewtwo’s belief that all the Genesect crave destruction and simply wants to go home, where its beloved Panna Lotus flowers bloom, a desire shared by its brethren and which makes them susceptible to the Red Genesect’s destructive whims. As ever, Ash is shadowed by Jessie (Michele Knotz), James (Carter Cathcart), and Meowth (ibid) of Team Rocket and meet a new friend, Eric (Jake Paque), a park ranger who oversees Pokémon Hills and brought and ancient Panna Lotus flowers there from Absentia Natural Park, an achievement he’s very proud of given the rarity of the flowers. Naturally, Eric primarily delivers exposition regarding the city and its famous Pokémon reserve and realises that the Genesect’s invasive nest poses a significant threat to the city as it directly siphons its power supply and he proves instrumental in restoring power to the city while the genetic Pokémon engage in a furious battle. Team Rocket’s desire to kidnap Pikachu gives way to a plot to capture the Genesect, and Mewtwo, not to curry favour with their boss but to realise their own ambitions for power. Of course, they’re easily dispatched by the Genesect, once again reducing them to a throwaway gag that has little impact on the plot. Similarly, there’s not much for Iris or Cilan to do here; when they are useful and bring a bunch of wild Pokémon to help quell the Genesect’s attack, they quickly realise that the brutal fight is misguided as the Genesect simply want to live in peace and are largely being forced to attack by the red-hued leader.
Mewtwo is compelled to help the Genesect, but the Red Genesect is determined to enforce its will.
One of the things I absolutely loved about Mewtwo Strikes Back was the sense of mystery and foreboding surrounding Mewtwo (Philip Bartlett). The entire opening sequence was devoted to its tragic origins and painting it as a destructive and slighted Pokémon, and from there it was kept shrouded in shadow and mystery before its big reveal. Much of that is tossed out of the window here; Mewtwo is the first character we see onscreen, blasting through the skies over the Unova region, and she is presented as being sociable with local Pokémon and enjoying testing her limits by freely assuming her Mega Mewtwo Y form. Although Pokémon are rarely identified by their gender in the anime (even Pikachu is generally just called “it”), I feel comfortable describing this Mewtwo as a female since her voice is clearly female and her Mega Mewtwo Y form clearly evokes female anatomy, all of which demonstrates that this is an entirely different character from the one we knew before even commenting on her more carefree nature. In comparison, the Red Genesect and its brethren emerge from dark clouds and cross through frigid mountains, indicating that they don’t enjoy the same freedoms as Mewtwo. The Red Genesect is clearly positioned as the group’s leader; unlike its regular purple variants, it is forceful, commanding, and confident, exuding a maternal protectiveness over its kin and is fully capable of bending the other Genesect to its will when they hesitate to follow its commands. While all the Genesect see others, especially humans as a threat, they’re largely timid and childlike; the Red Genesect, however, is aggressive and forceful, attacking Mewtwo even after she helped its kin and leading the Genesect in an all-out assault against Pokémon Hills in order to build their nest.
The Nitty-Gritty: The visual inspirations of New York City are undeniable in Genesect and the Legend Awakened; it’s normal for Pokémon to base its regions and towns on real places but the influence is so strong here that New Tork City may as well be the famed City That Never Sleeps. Not only is it a lively megalopolis with a central reservation for wild Pokémon, its skyline is dominated by skyscrapers, sirens are everywhere, it’s lit up at night with hustle and bustle, and humans and Pokémon work together to maintain the city. One thing I will say about the Pokémon movies is that their presentation definitely improved as the years went on; the blend between traditional animation and CGI is far less jarring than before and used to great effect whenever the Genesect and Mewtwo engage in battle or multiple Pokémon fill the screen. The Genesect are very unnerving Pokémon; they’re very rigid and almost robotic, but also capable of unleashing powerful elemental attacks with their different “Drives” and transforming into a faster form at will. Their childlike demeanour and blank expressions are also quite unsettling, making the Red Genesect’s domineering personality all the more unnerving as it barks orders and forces its kin to assert themselves even when they have no desire to.
Inexplicably, we have a new, female Mewtwo who distracts from the enjoyable moments.
So, it’s clear from the moment we first meet this Mewtwo that she’s different from the last one; this Mewtwo enjoys testing her powers, especially her Mega Evolution, even going so far as to breach the upper atmosphere to go beyond her limits. Like its more recognisably male counterpart, this Mewtwo was created by a group of scientists using Mew’s genetic material; however, she endured horrendous torture at the hands of her creators, seemingly destroying them in a bid for freedom and finding acceptance and friendship with Unova’s wild Pokémon rather than being driven to destroy humanity. Thus, just as the male Mewtwo wished to liberate Pokémon from human control and fought valiantly to keep its clones safe from persecution, this Mewtwo is very protective of Pokémon. She doesn’t hesitate to swoop in and carry the Genesect to safety when they’re threatened by an avalanche or to shield others from the Genesect; however, while she has no love for humans, she’s far less aggressive towards them and simply chooses to ignore them rather than directly target them. Mewtwo feels a kinship with the Genesect due to their similar backgrounds; like her, the Genesect were genetically recreated against their will after Team Plasma extracted their DNA from fossils. The comparisons don’t end there; just as Mewtwo was scientifically augmented to have incredible psychic powers, the Genesect were outfitted with powerful laser cannons, and they too also went on a destructive rampage soon after being awakened and have been searching for their place in the world ever since. Mewtwo’s first instinct is to help them but, when the Red Genesect proves hell-bent on destruction, she stands against them purely to protect the native Pokémon. Even now, I find the decision to introduce an all-new Mewtwo incredibly bizarre; I get that there were legal issues, but I feel like a more creative solution could’ve been found, or maybe just excise Mewtwo from the script altogether as it’s really weird that another Mewtwo was created by the exact same methods and resulted in an almost identical character; maybe if she had been shiny or spent the entire time in her Mega Evolution form it would’ve helped but, as is, it’s very confusing and distracting from everything else happening in the film.
After a selfless sacrifice and a vicious battle, the Red Genesect finally ceases its relentless attack.
Since Mewtwo so strongly associates with the Genesect’s plight, she’s eager to help them but is met with aggression at every turn from the Red Genesect, which refuses to listen to reason and forces Mewtwo to battle it in the heart of the city in an action-packed fight that resembles a kaiju battle! Mewtwo’s Mega Evolution gives her the speed and power she needs to match the Red Genesect’s unrelenting assault; she shields herself from its energy beams, vanishes in the blink of an eye, and moves so fast that time slows around her. Once again, Ash is compelled to throw himself in the line of fire to shield innocents from the Genesect’s relentless attack, only this time it’s the friendly Genesect that takes the hit, sacrificing itself to save its new friend. This only compels the Red Genesect to redouble its attack, however, which Mewtwo is more than willing to match; using her Mega Evolution, she takes on the Red Genesect and three remaining kin all by herself, easily dodging and countering their attacks with her blinding speed. Unfortunately, the city’s power supply is damaged during the fracas and the nest goes up in flames, trapping and threatening all within. Thankfully, the downed Genesect is revived by the sight of its beloved flowers and fights to put out the flames alongside the other Pokémon, saving the other Genesect and proving to them that they need not fear the world. Blinded by rage, the Red Genesect refuses to back down and even opens fire on its brethren; frustrated by the creature’s stubbornness, Mewtwo pushes herself beyond her limits to force the Red Genesect into the upper atmosphere, where they both finally realise that their lives have more meaning than pure destruction and that even anomalies such as them can coexist in the world. Moved by the sight of a world without boundaries, the Red Genesect finally relents, and the other Genesect work alongside the other Pokémon to save the two as they plummet to the ground on re-entry. Thanks to Ash’s friendship and help, Mewtwo relaxes her prejudices against humanity and, in the aftermath, the protagonists help their newfound friends construct a new nest in Absentia Natural Park, where the Panna Lotus flowers are plentiful, finally allowing them to build the home they’ve longed for since their resurrection.
The Summary: Genesect and the Legend Awakened is definitely one of the poignant Pokémon movies; generally, the films teach similar messages about acceptance and friendship and equality but, by retreading some of the same ground that we saw in Mewtwo Strikes Back, the film touches upon some of the more mature themes regarding identity and acceptance that made that first movie so memorable. As is often the case, there isn’t much for Ash’s supporting cast to do here, but there’s a decent enough reason for that; the plot is firmly focused on the dynamic and parallels between Mewtwo and the Genesect, especially the hyper-aggressive Red Genesect, which embodies all of the destructive prejudices of Mewtwo’s male counterpart and cares for nothing other than the survival of itself and its kin. This parallel works well in the film, since Mewtwo may not care for humans but she absolutely cares for the safety of Pokémon, and results in some explosive action sequences as we finally see Mewtwo unleashing her true power, but it’s hard to really be that invested since this isn’t the same Mewtwo we’ve come to know. I wish I could say that the movie is able to overcome this but, while it is entertaining in its own right, it just sticks out like a sore thumb; had this been the same Mewtwo, the juxtaposition of one genetically-engineered Pokémon opposing another, one that has learned to set aside hatred and violence, with a less morally inclined counterpart would’ve landed so much better. Ash could also have been more invested in Mewtwo’s battle, rather than simply helping out because he’s such a friendly kid, and Mewtwo’s story could’ve come full circle in a satisfying way. Instead, I just can’t help but keep asking why there’s another Mewtwo, how she can possibly be so similar to the other one, or wondering where the male Mewtwo is or if it even exists! If you’re able to set all this aside then this is a pretty decent Pokémon feature, one that delivers an important message, but personally I can’t really get past this decision and it makes the film more of an anomaly than anything else.
My Rating:
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
Pretty Good
What did you think of Pokémonthe Movie: Genesect and the Legend Awakened? Were you put off by the bizarre inclusion of a new version of Mewtwo or did her Mega Evolution make up for this? What did you think to the Genesect and their plight, specifically the Red Genesect’s vendetta? Were you disappointed that the supporting cast didn’t have much to do or did the visual spectacle distract from this? How are you celebrating Mewtwo’s birthday this year? Whatever you think about Genesect and the Legend Awakened, Mewtwo, and Pokémon in general, leave your thoughts in the comments below or leave a reply on my social media.
Upon the release of Pokémon: Blue Version and Pokémon: Red Version(Game Freak, 1996), a new craze swept through playgrounds across the world. An entire generation grew up either playing Pokémon, watching the anime, playing the trading card game, and watching the feature-lengthmovies as clever marketing and a co-ordinated release and multimedia strategy saw Nintendo’s newest franchise become not just a successful videogame franchise but a massively lucrative and popular multimedia powerhouse that endures to this day. Accordingly, February 27th is now internationally recognised as “National Pokémon Day”, which I expanded to an entire month of Pokémon this February.
Released: 8 July 2000 Director: Kunihiko Yuyama Distributor: Toho Budget: $3 to 16 million Stars: Veronica Taylor, Eric Stuart, Rachael Lillis, Amy Birnbaum, Dan Green, and Ikue Ōtani
The Plot: Professor Spencer Hale (Green) is transported to a chaotic dimension by the mysterious Unown (Various), leaving his young daughter, Molly (Birnbaum), devastated and alone. Her grief causes the Unown’s power to rage out of control, manifesting an illusionary Entei (Green) and transforming her home into a crystal-like palace. When Entei kidnaps Ash Ketchum’s (Taylor) mother, Delia (ibid) to appease Molly’s wish for a mother, Ash and friends must brave the danger to break the Unown’s unruly spell.
The Background: Pokémon (Nintendo/Creatures/Game Freak, 1995 to present) was an absolute phenomenon when it came over from Japan: it swept through playgrounds as kids played the videogames, collected the trading cards, and were mesmerised by the still-ongoing anime series (1997 to present). This fantastic marketing strategy was all it took for the aptly-titled Pokémon: The First Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back(Yuyama, 1998) to become a box office success and kick-started a whole series of feature films designed to expand upon the anime and promote both the newest Pokémon videogames and showcase the franchise’s most powerful and elusive beasts. Although it earned less than the blockbuster first movie, Pokémon the Movie 2000: The Power of One(Yuyama, 1999) still made over $130 million against a $30 million budget and Pokémon was arguably at its peak thanks to the anticipation around the newest games in the series. The third feature-film was afforded a much smaller budget than its predecessors and was the first Pokémon movie to premier in IMAX cinemas. Unfortunately, the film’s $68.5 million box office meant that it was the least successful of the first three Pokémon movies and it was met with largely negative critical reviews; however, it has amassed something of a cult following and is regarded by some to be one of the best Pokémon movies.
The Review: Pokémon 3: The Movie opens in the beautiful town of Greenfield, a lush and verdant town in the Johto region that is knowing for is sweeping hills, windmills, and fields of flowers. It’s also home to the Spencer Hale and his daughter, Molly, who live in a luxurious mansion that overlooks the entire town. Every evening, Spencer reads to his inquisitive and loving young daughter from a picture book that imagines what some Legendary Pokémon look like; although she’s particularly taken with Entei, she also highlights the mysterious Unown, a group of interdimensional, Psychic-type Pokémon who have long been the subject of Spencer’s extensive research. However, while Spencer and Molly have a very close, loving relationship, it’s clear that there’s a void in the lives and their household due to the disappearance of the Spencer matriarch, who mysteriously vanished one day while helping Spencer with his research, leaving Molly without a mother and Spencer to carry the burden of guilt.
Molly is devastated when her father disappears, and overjoyed when he “returns” as Entei.
Spencer has doubled down on his research; aided by his assistant, Schuyler (Ted Lewis), Spencer has been conducting an in-depth investigation into a site of ruins where the stone walls are covered in carvings that resemble the Unown. Unfortunately, after discovering a chest full of small stone tablets engraved with the different alphabetical shapes of the Unown, Spencer is also whisked away to the cosmic void of the Unown Dimension, a swirling place of mystery while the Unown constantly rotate around and sing their names. Schuyler is left dumbfounded at Spencer’s sudden disappearance, and Molly is left absolutely heart-broken and alone; with both of her parents gone, she’s left only with the Unown puzzle pieces and the heartfelt wish to have her father returned to her. Her tearful plea summons the Unown and, while she is delighted that they’ve come to “play with [her]”, their true intention is slightly more malicious as they apparently feed off of her grief-stricken wishes in order to become stronger. Fuelled by her dreams of a crystalline home, the Unown transform the mansion a piece at a time until it represents pictures from Spencer’s book, and their power is so great that they’re able to answer her desire for the return of her father by conjuring an illusion of Entei, whom Molly believes is her father’s spirit returned to her.
Ash risks everything to rescue his mother, who is captured and brainwashed to be Molly’s “Mama”.
Quite coincidentally, Ash, Pikachu (Ōtani), and former gym leaders Misty (Lillis) and Brock (Stuart) just happen to be passing by and run across a trainer native to the area, Lisa (Lisa Ortiz). After Brock strikes out with her (with one of the film’s most amusing lines, “I’m Brock, from Pewter City! And I want to be your boyfriend!”) and Ash is able to beat her in a surprisingly evenly matched Pokémon battle during the film’s opening credits, Lisa guides them to Greenfield so that they can rest up at the Pokémon Center and take in the town’s much-lauded beauty. Suffice it to say that Ash is unimpressed, and the group is horrified, to find that the once stunning landscape has been almost completely overtaken with the Unown’s bizarre crystalline wasteland. Even perennial bothers Jessie (Lillis), James (Stuart), and wise-cracking Meowth (Maddie Blaustein) of Team Rocket are stunned to find Greenfield in such a state, and it’s not long before a news crew (Kathy Pilon and Roger Kay) arrive to try and restore order and report on the strange events. Back in Pallet Town, Delia Ketchum, Ash’s mother, sees the news report and is distraught at the continued suffering of her old friend, Spencer Hale, and she and Professor Samuel Oak (Stuart Zagnit) resolve to travel to Greenfield to get to the bottom of the what’s happening, and to check on Molly. While others are alarmed by the startling transformation of Greenfield, Molly revels in her crystal palace; she delights in playing with her “Papa” and seeing her wishes literally spring to life before her eyes, but her longing for her mother remains. Seeing Delia on the news broadcast reminds her not only of her own mother, but also of the times when Delia and Ash would visit her and her family in years past, and she wishes for Entei to bring her a “Mama” to complete their little family. This adds an interesting personal wrinkle to the film’s plot that has been absent from the previous two films as Entei boldly introduces itself to our heroes by subduing and kidnapping Delia right before Ash’s eyes and holding her captive in Molly’s crystalline palace. Ash is horrified when his mother is kidnapped, and immediately leads his friends on a rescue mission to get her back, literally putting his life at risk to brave the crystal wasteland and scale the tower and reach her.
Entei is the Unown’s avatar and determined to protect Molly, regardless of the morality.
Although Entei’s powers are formidable enough to render Delia a mindless drone who fully believes that she’s Molly’s “Mama”, its spell is broken when Delia sees Ash in danger, but she’s smart enough to quickly realise what’s been going on and to play along with the deception in order to try and reach Molly. Delia recognises that Molly has been very alone for a long time, even before Spencer went missing, and sympathises with her pain, but cannot condone Entei’s enabling and the disruptive influence of the Unown. It’s important to note for Poké-enthusiasts out there that the Entei seen is this film is not the Legendary Pokémon whom it resembles. Rather than being a reincarnated Pokémon known for its blazing Fire-type attacks, Entei is a creation of the Unown and more akin to a Psychic-type Pokémon. At the time, I considered this an odd decision as it kind of wastes the natural characterisation of this creature as one of a trio of Legendary Pokémon, but it actually goes a long way to supporting the deeper themes of the film surrounding grief and a child’s desire for love and affection. Born from Molly’s memories of her father, her love for him, and her idolisation of his strength and loyalty, Entei is granted incredibly powers by the Unown that are contrary to those it has in the games; it can teleport, control the minds of others, create crystalline structures at will, and spit out a powerful aura blast in addition to its durability and strength being theoretically inexhaustible. It is as strong and as capable as Molly wishes it to be, and as long as she believes in it, it can accomplish almost any feat, regardless of whether that action is morally right or wrong. A constant companion and guardian to Molly, Entei fully accepts her belief that it is her beloved “Papa” and goes to any lengths to keep her happy and to protect her, even battling against its out of control masters.
The Unown’s power is virtually limitless, and directly fuelled by Molly’s innermost desires.
So devoted is Entei to Molly that it not only bows to her every wish, but also encourages her to wish for more and to believe that she can anything she desires. When the authorities try to breach the crystal formation, Molly throws a temper tantrum and demands that they be kept out but, when she spots that Ash and the others are Pokémon trainers, she quickly wishes to engage them in Pokémon battles. Thanks to the Unown’s near-limitless power, the interior and environment of the palace constantly changes, and also allows Molly to conjure unbeatable illusionary Pokémon and even age herself up to be a more competent Pokémon trainer. Of course, thanks to the Unown’s power, she’s easily able to best her more experienced opponents with the likes of Teddiursa (Erica Schroeder) and Phanpy (Megumi Hayashibara) even when she should be hopelessly outmatched. She’s even able to flood the area with water, and allow her and Misty to breath underwater, so great are her powers, are she becomes so lost in her fantasy that Entei is empowered enough to battle even Ash’s stubborn and formidable Charizard (Shin-ichiro Miki), which arrives not only to help its former trainer but also to pit its strength against an opponent such as Entei. However, the battle proves destructive, wrecking much of Molly’s new home and leaving the heroes’ Pokémon hurt, and Charizard in danger of being killed by the furious Entei; the only hope for the heroes is for Delia, Ash, and the others to help remind Molly of her real family, both those who are gone and the family she could have by forming a bond with real Pokémon, which causes her to finally snap free from her fantasy and demand an end to the fighting.
The Nitty-Gritty: One of issues I had with Pokémon the Movie 2000 was that it tried a little too hard to raise the stakes in comparison to the first film; while Pokémon: The First Movie was reconfigured into more of a worldwide threat in the English dub, the second film explicitly put the entire world at risk, so it’s a nice change of pace to see the third film tell a far more grounded, more personal story. This is most obvious in Delia’s larger role; up until now, she’s merely been a cameo or a bit-player in the films, but she’s a pivotal inclusion in this film and the driving force behind Ash’s excursion into the crystallised Greenfield. Indeed, he is driven to an uncharacteristic anger at her abduction, which is focused entirely on Entei and transforms into a battle of wills as Ash regards the beast as a mere illusion and Entei adamantly seeks to prove its reality and defend Molly by any means necessary.
Molly’s desire to have her family back means she dreams up her own fantasy world free from sadness.
Of course, it’s Molly’s sadness and grief that is at the heart of the movie’s story; already struggling after the loss of her mother, she was left despondent when Spencer disappeared as well and unable to properly process her anguish. When the Unown respond to her dreams and wishes, she finally feels that hole in her heart has been filled and is easily convinced that everything she is seeing is “real” and that she can be and have whatever she wants “as long as that is her wish”. It’s a powerful, emotional aspect of the film, and easy to forget that Molly isn’t some malevolent or mean-spirited antagonist. She’s just a frightened, lonely little girl who desperately wants her beloved “Papa” and “Mama” back, and is overjoyed to see her father returned in the form of Entei and her every wish brought to life by the Unown’s power. Similarly, Entei is not a necessarily vindictive entity; it’s simply acting out Molly’s wishes, whatever they may be, but bolstered by such vicious and formidable power that it transforms the once beautiful crystal tower into a hazardous landscape of spikes and battles Charizard with such an unmatched ferocity that it’s even posed to kill the helpless and outmatched creature. While Entei seems to fill the void in Molly’s life and heart, Delia and Ash and the others try to convince her that it’s merely another aspect of the Unown’s illusionary power; a false reality she’s conjured to shield her from facing the real world. Through them, she sees that real relationships can be forged through friends, partners, and make-shift families that can be just as fulfilling as having her every wish granted.
Probably the darkest and most personal Pokémon movie despite the odd changes to the source material.
I have to say that, given the trajectory of the Pokémon movies, I was surprised that a Pokémon as unremarkable and weak as Unown be such a focal point of this film, especially considering the next most obvious choice would have been to focus on Ho-Oh and the Legendary Beasts. Instead, though, Entei, Raikou (Katsuyuki Konishi), and Suicune (Masahiko Tanaka) were split up across specials and movies and it would take quite some time for Ho-Oh to actually make a real movie appearance. I guess this helped to make the movies a bit more unpredictable, and it certainly helped to make the Unown a surprising threat in this film, but I can’t help but feel like it was a missed opportunity. Still, the Unown are given an unexpectedly malicious edge in this film; while ostensibly appearing to be somewhat mischievous and aloof, their ability to read people’s minds and alter reality based on their wishes and dreams quickly makes them a threat to all of Greenfield. Not only do they transform the landscape, but they but many lives in danger through their quasi-avatar, Entei, and the strength of Molly’s tumultuous emotions soon sends their Psychic powers into overdrive. By the time she’s ready to leave behind her dreamworld and return to reality, the Unown have exerted so much power and thrown into such chaos by Molly’s emotional state that they’ve lost control of the illusion and the crystalline formations threaten to trap, or kill, everyone within. Their only hope is Entei, whom Molly pours all of her hopes and dreams and belief into to break through the Unown’s protective barrier and undo their magic, dispelling itself in the process. Although distraught to see her father-figure unmade, Molly has learned the value of friendship, co-operation, and family from Ash’s example and her story ends on a happy not when the Unown return not only Spencer but also his wife from their dimension. Thus, Greenfield is restored, Molly regains her true family, Delia is rescued, and Ash and the others continue on their Pokémon journey.
The Summary: As much as the first two Pokémon films were a spectacle that released right as the franchise was at its peak, Pokémon 3: The Movie opts to tell a far more personal and emotionally-charged story by focusing on a little girl’s loneliness and despair and having Ash’s mother be caught up in a chaotic situation. This is easily the best part of the movie’s appeal, beyond the brutal and unrelenting battle between Entei and Charizard, and definitely makes it a worthwhile watch and worthy follow-up to its predecessors. It’s a very different movie from the last two, which placed the most powerful, mysterious, and elusive Pokémon at the centre of their stories and kind of slapped action set pieces around them, such was the allure of the Legendary Pokémon they featured, whereas Pokémon 3: The Movie fundamentally alters the characterisation, abilities, and role of Entei and the Unown in service of its story. As much as I appreciate the effort put into crafting a more poignant story that tackles the grief felt be the loss of a loved one and reinforces Pokémon’s overall themes of friendship and partnership, I still can’t help be disappointed by the depiction of Entei in this film. For me, splitting the Legendary Beasts up for so long as a major misstep and deprived us of seeing them make a proper, big screen impact. Still, this doesn’t dilute the story we’re given here and Pokémon 3: The Movie remains a unique entry in the Pokémon movie series since it keeps the stakes grounded and personal; while the literal world isn’t at risk, Molly’s dreamworld is and so is Ash and Delia’s (since they mean the world to each other), which really helps to make for a much more relatable and focused narrative. The Unown’s limitless and unpredictable powers, coupled with Entei’s mounting ferocity, make for a surprising threat against the heroes, who are constantly outmatched at every turn and only triumph by appealing to a frightened and hurt little girl’s heart, which definitely helps the film to make an impact even if I would have preferred more focus on the actual Legendary Pokémon.
My Rating:
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
Pretty Good
Are you a fan of Pokémon 3: The Movie? What did you think to the more personal grounded focus? Did you like the depiction of Entei and the Unown or would you have preferred to see them portrayed closer to the source material? What did you think to Delia’s larger role and the focus on Molly’s grief? Which Pokémon game, generation, and creature is your favourite and why? How are you celebrating National Pokémon Day today? Whatever your thoughts, sign up to drop them in the comments below or feel free to leave a reply on my social media.
Upon the release of Pokémon: Blue Version and Pokémon: Red Version(Game Freak, 1996), a new craze swept through playgrounds across the world. An entire generation grew up either playing Pokémon, watching the anime, playing the trading card game, and watching the feature-lengthmovies as clever marketing and a co-ordinated release and multimedia strategy saw Nintendo’s newest franchise become not just a successful videogame franchise but a massively lucrative and popular multimedia powerhouse that endures to this day. Accordingly, February 27th is now internationally recognised as “National Pokémon Day”, which I’m expanding to an entire month of Pokémon every Tuesday in February.
Released: 26 January 2018 Originally Released: 14 December 2000 Developer: Nintendo Original Developer: Game Freak Also Available For: GameBoy Color
The Background: I’ve talked before not just about Pokémonbut also about how Pokémon: Gold Version and Pokémon: Silver Version (Game Freak, 1999) are my favourite games in the franchise. Thanks to the success of not just the first Generation of Pokémon videogames but also an aggressive multimedia strategy, Pokémon became an instant cultural phenomenon across the world, and yet the developers originally intended for Pokémon: Gold and Silver to be the final entries in the series. The sequels immediately sought to improve upon the gameplay, graphics, and mechanics of the first games; developed exclusively for the GameBoy Color, the game would feature a greater colour palette, backwards compatibility withthe previous games, a real-time internal clock, and one-hundred new Pokémon to collect and battle (in addition to two new Types, Dark and Steel). Although many of these Pokémon were dropped, or significantly redesigned, during the game’s development, Nintendo offered the otherwise-inaccessible Celebi as a promotional extra and Pokémon: Gold and Silver were highly anticipated by me, personally, thanks to the new Pokémon cropping up in the animeand movies.
Anticipation was high for all-new Pokémon videogames thanks to the anime and the franchise’s popularity.
This Generation stands out for me for including things like a day/night cycle, breeding, and including the entire region of Kanto as post-game content and, like Pokémon: Blue and Red, Pokémon: Gold and Silver were not only highly praised at the time but also soon followed by a third entry, Pokémon: Crystal. While essentially the same game, Pokémon: Crystal was a trend-setter for the franchise, allowing players to choose the gender of their avatar, including partially animated battle sprites, featuring a whole additional side-story revolving around Suicune and the Unown, and debuting the ever-popular Battle Tower for players to further test their mettle. Again, thanks to Pokémon’s popularity and including additional elements as an incentive for a further purchase, Pokémon: Crystal was well received upon release and has been noted as one of the bestPokémon games. Many elements from Pokémon: Crystal became series staples in subsequent releases, and featured prominently in the Gold and Silver remakes, and the game was later released on the 3DS Virtual Console with the Celebi event included as standard.
The Plot: The time has come to receive your first Pokémon from Professor Elm and challenge the Gym Leaders and Pokémon of the Johto region. However, your journey is disrupted by your mysterious rival, who stole one of Professor Elm’s Pokémon, and the villainous Team Rocket, who seek to return the group to their former glory. Things are further complicated when you cross paths with Eusine, who has made it his life gal to earn the respect of the legendary beast Suicune.
Gameplay: As I said, I regard the second generation of Pokémon games as my favourite in the franchise; I remember going out of my way to get Pokémon: Blue when it first came out, and then snapping up Pokémon Yellow Version: Special Pikachu Edition (ibid, 1998) simply because of how popular the franchise was, and me and my friends were so eager for new Pokémon games that we readily downloaded barely-translated ROMs of Gold and Silver just to experience them. I had Pokémon: Silver back in the day, but always wanted Pokémon: Gold and never had the chance to play Pokémon: Crystal as I was firmly into collecting for the Game Boy Advance by then, so I jumped at the chance to get it before the 3DS Virtual Console shut down for good simply because of how much I enjoyed Pokémon: Silver and Pokémon: HeartGold (ibid, 2009). Essentially, Pokémon: Crystal is the same Pokémon you know and love: the game is a top-down role-playing game (RPG) in which players get to first pick their gender, name their avatar, select from three starter Pokémon, and embark on a journey to raise a well-balanced team, challenge the Johto Gym Leaders, and take on the Pokémon League. As was the style at the time, Pokémon: Crystal isn’t prone to holding your hand; you can talk to non-playable characters (NPCs) for clues, tips, lore, and some instructions but you’re mostly left to your own devices, though the game often bars your progress behind impassable objects like trees, bodies of water, or battling trainers that can only be bypassed by defeating Gym Leaders or acquiring Hidden Machines (HMs). As before, Pokémon: Crystal utilises an extremely simple control scheme that lets you organise your party, equip and use items, and save your progress or alter settings quickly and easily, and the user interface is vastly improved over the last games, with your pack now divided into pockets for key items PokéBalls, and healing items and even lets you set an item to the ‘Select’ button for quick use.
Pick your Pokémonand head out into Johto to tackle a whole new crop of Trainers and challenges.
As ever, gameplay is divided into exploring the overworld and one-on-one battles against wild or trainer-owned Pokémon. On the overworld, you’ll chat to NPCs with A, activate switches and pressure pads, and pick up items; if you walk into grass, caves, or surf on water, you’ll soon encounter a wild Pokémon, which switches the game to a battle screen where you and your opponent take turns to inflict damage or status effects on each other, or use in-battle items to heal or relieve status effects or try and capture the Pokémon. You can also run from wild Pokémon (as long as you’re a higher level), but not from a Trainer battle, and many wild Pokémon can also now flee from battle, which can make capturing them trickier. Pokémon battles are dictated by a “Type” system that’s basically a version of Rock/Paper/Scissors; Water-Type Pokémon inflict greater damage against Fire-Type Pokémon, for example, while Grass-Types trump Water and are weak to Fire. There are now seventeen different Types of Pokémon in the game, with Dark- and Steel-Types adding an extra dimension to battle as the previously all-powerful Psychic-Type Pokémon now have a formidable weakness in Dark-Type Pokémon and moves. While some moves, like Bite, have changed Type to align with this new system, it’s all pretty simple to figure out thanks to battle text informing you when moves are “Super effective” or “Not very effective” and external factors like your location, wild Pokémon names, and their colouring and appearance cluing you in on the best attack strategy. If you’re fishing in the sea, for example, and hook a Qwilfish (which is blue, clearly identified as a fish), it’s pretty obvious that you need to use a Grass- and Electric-Type to inflict maximum damage. At the beginning, you can pick between three different Pokémon, a Fire-, Grass-, or Water-Type, and I recommend keeping them in your party and five to ten levels higher than the rest of your team simply because they are your first Pokémon. You can choose to give this Pokémon, and any others you catch (but not ones you acquire via trading) a nickname to personalise them, and you’ll you can swap around your Pokémon’s moves at any time either in-battle or from the pause menu, or swap or release them from the PCs found in Pokémon Centers.
Level-up to become stronger, and make use of the game’s new evolution methods to discover new Pokémon.
To ease you into the game, early wild Pokémon and Pokémon Trainers are all at low-levels and you’re usually always at an advantage because your Pokémon have higher stats. Winning Pokémon battles will award your Pokémon with experience points (EXP); earn enough, and your Pokémon will level-up, which will increase their Hit Points (HP), Attack, Defence, Speed, and Special stats (now split into Special Attack and Special Defense) and thus make them more powerful. One of the best quality of life improvements in Pokémon: Crystal is the addition of an in-battle EXP progress bar so you can easily keep track of your Pokémon’s progress, and you can swap out Pokémon in battles to share EXP and level them up faster, which you’ll want to do as it’s helpful (though not necessarily necessary by any means) to have a diverse team with decent Type coverage. Don’t level-up too fast, though, as your Pokémon will disobey you if they’re too high a level and you don’t have the appropriate Gym Badge. I like to circumvent this by grinding between Gym battles; by keeping my main Pokémon five to ten levels stronger, but a few levels below the level cap, it can ensure that I’m always stronger enough for the next battle, though I did notice that I was spending more time grinding between Gyms than in my Pokémon: Yellow playthrough. Pokémon will learn new moves from levelling-up, or from Technical Machines (TMs), and it’s recommended to give your Pokémon moves that play to their strengths (if they have a high Attack stat, for example, you don’t really want to have moves that are all Special Attacks) and go against their Type (teaching Poison-Type moves to Grass-Type Pokémon, for example) so they have greater Type coverage in battle. In addition to the untrackable Effort Value (EV) points (earned by consecutively battling certain Pokémon, so defeating a bunch of Hoothoot in a row will boost your HP stat by one point), Pokémon: Crystal also introduces a hidden “Happiness” stat. the more you travel with, use, and care for your Pokémon, the happier it will become; you can boost this stat by grooming them and feeding them Vitamins (which also boost individual stats) or equipping them with certain items in order to max out their Happiness and trigger their evolution.
You can shrug off status effects with Berries, and new HMs offer more exploration options.
As before, battles and gameplay are as hard as you make them; if you don’t bother levelling-up a diverse team, then battles will eventually become harder to win. You can avoid a Trainer battle by staying out of the sight line of Trainers, but I recommend battling every Trainer you come up against to strengthen your team and earn PokéDollars, and some Trainers will even give you their phone number and call you with tips or for a rematch. Trainers are much more capable this time around; not only do they have all the same options as you when it comes to swapping and healing their Pokémon, but they also don’t have to worry about running out of Power Points (PP). Pokémon can still only know four moves at a time, so you’ll have to either replace an existing move to learn a new one or visit the Move Deleter to do this outside of levelling-up or to forget HM moves, and each move has a certain number of PP. When you’re all out, you can’t use that move anymore and will eventually either have to use “struggle” (which inflicts recoil damage to you), replenish PP with a Berry or Elixir, or restore your Pokémon at a Pokémon Center. If you’re not careful in battle, your Pokémon will end up “fainting” when their HP is drained and, if all your Pokémon faint, you’ll “white out”, lose some money, and respawn at the last Pokémon Center you visited. As before, you also need to be wary of status effects, which can cause Pokémon to flinch (basically miss a turn), become confused (often resulting in them hurting themselves), miss their attacks, fall sleep or become paralysed or poisoned (which also drains HP when on the overworld), burned, or frozen. While some attacks and items will also boost your stats and your chance at inflicting greater damage with a “Critical Hit”, Pokémon: Crystal features far more moves that power up and negate certain Types, like Sunny Day and Rain Dance buffing Fire- and Water-Types, respectively. You can undo these status effects using certain items, and can have your Pokémon hold Berries that they’ll automatically eat when inflicted with a status effect or at low HP or PP to help them shake off these debilitating effects.
New mechanics and quality of life improvements make the game much more fun to play.
Victory in Trainer battles earns you PokéDollars to spend in PokéMarts and at vending machines on healing items, hold items, Vitamins, single-use power-ups, and other useful gear to help you in battle or with raising your Pokémon. Items and Pokémon can be stored in PCs when required (you can still only have six Pokémon at a time, so any additional Pokémon are automatically transferred to your PC) but you can choose to have your mother save some money for you, which will award you with extra items and toys to furnish your bedroom with. Although you still only get one save file, you can manually save your progress at any time on the overworld and I recommend saving frequently, and especially before Gym Leader battles or encounters with Legendary Pokémon so you can reset if you make a mistake. Just like before, you need to defeat eight Gym Leaders to earn their badges and challenge the Pokémon League while also working on completing Professor Oak’s PokéDex by capturing Pokémon. The PokéDex has also received an upgrade, making searching for and viewing Pokémon much easier, but you’ll still only be able to fully complete it by trading with Gold, Silver, and even the Generation One games using the “Time Machine” function and by evolving Pokémon through battle, raising their Happiness, using special stones, or by trading (often now with them holding a special item). You can manually cancel some evolutions, and even have Pokémon hold an Everstone to suppress their evolution, which is sometimes recommended as Pokémon learn moves faster in their weaker forms and some moves can only be learned prior to evolution. Another new feature in this game is breeding; each Pokémon is either male, female, or gender neutral and you can leave two Pokémon at the Day Care to be raised outside of battle or, if they’re compatible, breed either a pre-evolution like Pichu and Igglybuff or a slightly stronger version of an existing Pokémon with moves they wouldn’t normally learn. When Pokémon breed, you’re given an egg; these eggs will hatch after you’ve taken a certain number of steps or cycled a certain distance, and breeding can be a great way or filling up the PokéDex quickly alongside regular battling, though you won’t be able to breed Legendary Pokémon and some take longer to produce an egg than others.
Of all the side quests, the one involving Suicune is the most prominent.
A Pokémon’s gender is clearly visible next to their name in battle, and a further quality of life feature is that you’ll see a little PokéBall next to a wild Pokémon’s name to indicate that you’ve caught it, and the game is littered with similar helpful additions mainly tied to your PokéGear. This device houses your map, phone, and a radio which lets you listen to shows offering tips or music that will either wake up Pokémon or put them to sleep and allow you to track the mysterious goings-on at the Runs of Alph. Here, you’ll investigate strange symbols and encounter the useless Unown, though there are slide puzzles to play here and twenty-four different variations of this Pokémon to find and record for a nearby scientist. Your progress is again restricted by trees, water, and dark caves, but now you also have to content with waterfalls and whirlpools. You can again get past these obstacles with HMs, which again double as faster ways of traversing the map: Fly, for example, lets you fly to any Pokémon Center on the map, but you can also use Dig to quickly exit caves (especially useful when you’re out of Escape Ropes), Teleport to warp to exits, and acquire a bicycle (but, sadly, not a skateboard) to dramatically increase up your movement speed. Many of the same minor puzzles return from the last game, meaning you’ll be pressing switches or pushing boulders or using teleport pads to get around, though you’ll also encounter slippery ice, a strange plant that can only be moved using a special water bottle, and numerous instances where the local Gym Leader is either busy with another task or won’t battle you until you’ve complete a side quest. These primarily involve the returning Team Rocket, who have been cutting the tails off Slowpoke, take over the radio tower, and steal vital components from the Kanto power plant. When team Rocket is in town, you’ll need to clear them all out to make the Gym and other areas accessible, but you’re also hounded by your rival, a red-haired boy who stole a Pokémon from Professor Elm and is obsessed with power. Other side quests include searching for a Farfetch’d in Ilex Forest, competing in a bug-catching contest, fetching medicine for a sick Ampharos, feeding Berries to a poorly Miltank, exploring Dragon’s Den, and capturing a strange Gyarados at the Lake of Rage. This will most likely by your introduction to “Shiny” Pokémon, extremely rare palette swaps of Pokémon that occasionally appear in battle. Perhaps the most prominent side quest here involves the Legendary Beasts, specifically Suicune; the three beasts are released into the wild early into the game but, while you’ll randomly encounter Entei and Raikou while wandering around and be left tearing your hair out as they constantly flee from battle, you’ll come across Eusine in his search for Suicune as you journey around Johto and eventually be able to tackle the elusive beats one-on-one to add it to your collection.
Graphics and Sound: Obviously, Pokémon: Crystal is still going to be noticeably limited compared to later games in the series, but the improvements between this game and not just the first generation but even Gold and Silver are pretty impressive. I never thought of the Game Boy Color as being an especially powerful device compared to the original Game Boy, but this game is huge compared to the first games, with a vibrant colour palette that is far more detailed than what we saw in the first games. Towns and routes are much more visually interesting, with grass and trees and plants swaying and bobbing as you explore, the town and route names popping up onscreen, and a distinctly Japanese aesthetic to the far more impressive interiors of buildings. All of the sprites have been given a complete makeover, meaning overworld sprites and battle sprites are far more diverse and detailed; there are new Trainer classes available in the game, new animations for the PokéBalls, and not only a bunch of new moves added to the game but much more interesting and visually exciting attack animations, with more frames and colours being utilised to really make the most of the Game Boy Color’s capabilities. Although you can’t have a Pokémon follow you around like in Pokémon: Yellow, Pokémon now have little animation frames when they appear onscreen, sparkle when they’re Shiny, and even their menu and HM sprites have been overhauled to make them more distinctive.
It’s amazing how much better Pokémon looks, sounds, and plays on the Game Boy Color hardware.
While Johto’s towns and areas aren’t really all that different from Kanto’s, and are probably a little less visually diverse than I’d like, there’s still some fun locations to explore here. Goldenrod City has a Game Corner and a large PokéMart like Celedon City, but also an underground passage, a radio tower, an ice cave, and the Magnet Train which can allow swift access to and from Johto to Kanto; structures like Bellsprout Tower, Burnt Tower, and Tin Tower are not only great places to train ut also key to catching the game’s Legendary Pokémon; and you can even explore a lighthouse (which is full of holes to fall down) and the entirety of Kanto! Perhaps the biggest new feature in this generation was the inclusion of a day/night cycle; at the start of the game, you set the date and time and, as day turns to night, the palette changes accordingly and this even affects the evolution and appearance of some Pokémon. Different NPCs and events will also happen on certain days, and noting the date and time is essential for completing the PokéDex and acquiring certain items. Although the game is bolstered by some jaunty, memorable little chip tunes and Pokémon cries are much improved, the sound is still a bit of a weak spot here; you can tune into different radio channels to change the music though, which is fun. While your pack is far easier to navigate, its capacity is still limited, but storing and retrieving items is much easier this time around, as is rearranging the order of items in your pack, and you can interact with far more on the overworld: Berry plants, Pokémon blocking your path, and even certain trees can all be interacted with to pick-up items or trigger a battle, and you can again use the Itemfinder to seek out hidden items. Like in Pokémon: Yellow, Pokémon: Crystal features an all-new intro sequence, this one focusing on Suicune and the Unown, and you can even choose to play as a girl if you like (though this has no impact on the gameplay other than changing your sprite).
Enemies and Bosses: In your quest to conquer the Pokémon League, you’ll battle a wide variety of Pokémon both in the field and in use by various Pokémon Trainers. Wild and Trainer Pokémon begin at low levels, generally between three and six, but get progressively stronger as you advance to new areas and when you’re called for a rematch, which will help you to grow stronger on a rising curve. Your ability to weaken these Pokémon for capture or defeat them is directly tied to your Pokémon’s current level and moves; if your Pokémon is weak and only knows moves like Bubble and Leer or bring an Electric-Type into a forest or a Bug-Type into a cave you’ll struggle to advance. The same applies to Pokémon Trainers; they start off using one or two weak Pokémon like Sentret and Spinarak but eventually use more formidable and evolved Pokémon. They’ll also withdraw them, heal them, or buff them with items and, while you can exploit the enemy A.I. at times, Pokémon Trainers tend to use moves that have a Type advantage over your current Pokémon. Pokémon: Crystal introduces new moves that can prolong or frustrate battles as well; Protect will render your next attack useless, Spikes will damage any Pokémon you send into battle, and some moves, like Dynamic Punch, not only hit hard but also inflict confusion on their victim. Still, with enough grinding and a diverse team, you can easily overcome every opponent you face; simply take some time between Gym battles to level-up, develop specific stats if that’s your jam, and bringing your team as close to the level cap as possible, utilising moves that are super effective and sharing EXP wherever possible, and you can easily trample over the opposition once you’ve gotten past the uphill battle at the start of the game.
Team Rocket are back and you’re hounded by an arrogant rival with a superiority complex.
After being absent for a few years, Team Rocket has come back but they’re far less of a threat than in the first generation; these nefarious individuals are easily identified by their black attire and caps and will impede your progress until you’ve cleared them out of towns, towers, and buildings. When exploring their hidden base in Mahogany Town, you’ll be constantly beset by the gang when you walk in front of security cameras, though Pokémon League Champion Lance is on hand to help you out by healing your team. When you encounter them in the radio tower, you’ll have to battle a Rocket Executive posing as the tower’s director, and they’ve been cutting off Slowpoke tails to sell them earlier in the game, but Team Rocket’s grunts really aren’t much of a threat and tend to stick to common Pokémon like Rattata, Muk, and Zubat. In comparison, your rival is much more malicious than Blue from the last game; this guy (often dubbed “Silver”) is not just rude, arrogant, and obsessed with training only the most powerful Pokémon, but also a conceited bully, pushing you away and past you and refusing to help fend off Team Rocket since it doesn’t suit his goals. Unfortunately, the rivalry between you isn’t as big of a factor as in the last game; the rival pops up at various points throughout the game, but it’s easy to forget he even exists and he doesn’t even end up being the Pokémon League Champion, which is a shame as it would’ve been easy to have him be the mastermind behind Team Rocket’s return and maybe tie him into the Ruins of Alph and Suicune sub-plots. Your rival will steal whatever starter Pokémon has a Type advantage against yours (in my case, he took Chikorita) but eventually expands his team to include Sneasel, Golbat, Magneton, Alakazam, and Gengar to give him good Type coverage across the board. However, a diverse and high-levelled team can easily send him packing in every encounter; in my playthrough, I barely even needed to swap my Pokémon out between each round thanks to teaching my Feraligatr Bite, Ice Punch, Surf, and Dynamic Punch and going into every encounter at least ten levels higher than him, making him a visually interesting but hardly challenging successor to Blue.
You’ll occasionally need to complete some side quests or solve a puzzle to battle the Gym Leaders.
A whole new world to live in means eight all-new towns and eight new Gym Leaders to battle, each specialising in a specific Pokémon Type and often (but, oddly, not always) protected by a number of protégés and some light puzzles, such as a maze, obscured path, or the pushing of boulders. Other times, Gyms will be empty, locked, or otherwise barred and you’ll need to complete a side quest to gain entry. While you don’t have to fight the Gym Leader’s minions, I recommend it so you don’t miss out on some EXP and cash, and it’s again recommended to have a diverse team on hand (though you can often helpfully find wild Pokémon nearby that can counteract the Gym’s specialty). Your first challenge is Falkner, who uses Flying-Type Pokémon; as long as you don’t have a Grass-Type on hand and, honestly, why would you?) this isn’t anything to worry about and you can improve your chances by taking a slight detour and catching a Ground-Type Phanpy. Bugsy is a walk in the park if you have a Fire-Type, though I felt the pinch against his Scyther’s Fury Cutter since I opted for Totodile instead of my usual Cyndaquil. Most players run into a brick wall when faced with Whitney and her Miltank, which can deal increasingly more devastating damage with its Rollout attack, but I honestly had no trouble besting it was a Level 28 Croconaw using Bite and Ice Punch (though a Fighting-Type Pokémon or moves are your best bet against her). Neither Morty or Chuck are much of a challenge either since you can take both out with Psychic-, Dark-, and Electric-Type moves, while Fire- and Water-Types are your best bet at taking out Jamsine’s Steelix. Electric- and Fire-Types will also allow you to make short work of Pryce’s Ice-Type Pokémon (indeed, the hardest thing about him is skidding about on the icy floor of his Gym) and, while Clair’s Dragon-Types can be intimidating and easily paralyse you, they’ll also fall pretty quickly if you have Ice-Type Pokémon or moves on hand. Defeating each Gym Leader awards you a badge that increases the game’s level cap, powers up certain stats, and allows you to use HMs outside of battle to reach new areas, and also awards you some useful TMs, like Dynamic Punch and Shadow Ball, but take care after defeating Whitney as you won’t immediately earn her badge and must talk to one of her underlings to convince her to hand it over.
The best of the best await at the Pokémon League…unless you’re levels ahead of them…
Once all of the Gym Leaders are defeated, you’re ready to take on the Pokémon League. To reach the League, you need to use your HMs to navigate through Tohjo Falls and the cavernous Victory Road, where you’ll battle your rival once more and encounter some high-level Pokémon to help push your levels higher. You’ll want to make use of the makeshift Pokémon Center and PokéMart right before the Elite Four to heal up and maybe stock up on restorative items since you again need to battle all four Trainers, and the champion, consecutively to become the champ. Each of the Elite Four has a full team of Pokémon, with a general speciality in mind but also Type coverage to keep you on your toes; your first challenge is Will, who uses Psychic-Type Pokémon but, thankfully, these are dual-Types so you can use Dark-, Ghost-, Electric-, and Fire-Type moves to easily cut through his Pokémon, though you could be caught off-guard by confusion or freezing if you’re not careful. Next up is Koga, upgraded from a Gym Leader to one of the Elite Four and still rocking the Poison-Types, making him easy pickings for your Ground- and Flying-Type attacks. The only member of Elite Four to return from the first generation is, ironically, one of the weakest of that game, Bruno. Though he’s got a bigger, more diverse team, he’s still a Fighting-Type specialist so you can easily best him with Psychic-Type moves. These are slightly negated against Karen, however, since she has Dark-Types on hand but, again, her Pokémon are dual-Types so you can balance things out with Fire- and Water-Type Pokémon. Your final challenge is against Lance, the Dragon-Type expert who’s now the Pokémon League Champion. Lance is easily the toughest Trainer battle so far…on paper, at least…since he has three Dragonites and even fan favourite Charizard on his team. However, but this point my Feraligatr was way overpowered and I managed to sweep his whole team using Bite, Surf, and Ice Punch without any issue. Toppling the Elite Four sees you and your team again entered into the Hall of Fame and declared Pokémon League Champion; you can battle the Elite Four again and again to earn more cash and level-up your team, but you’ll find challenge enough awaiting you in the post-League content.
Some of Kanto’s Gyms have undergone a bit of a reshuffle, with Blue installed as your final opponent.
Becoming the Pokémon League Champion earns you a ticket to board the S.S. Aqua and travel to Kanto, where you can not only explore the entirety of the region from the first game, battling new Pokémon Trainers with higher-level Pokémon, but also take on the eight Kanto Gym Leaders once more! Because you start in Vermillion City, the order you battle the Gym Leaders is mixed up; some are missing their puzzles and protégés as well, and all have bigger, more diverse teams and, though you’ll earn their Badges and they’ll be added to your total, you can’t view these on your Trainer Card and only two of them will award you TMs after you beat them. First up is Lieutenant Surge, now rocking two Electrode and an Electabuzz alongside his signature Raichu, but he was nothing compared to my overpowered Donphan. I got a bit mixed up and fought Misty next, which you can only do after fighting past the Nugget Trainers and interrupting her date; while her Water-Type Pokémon don’t stand much of a chance against a good Electric-Type Pokémon, this won’t help you against her Quagsire so maybe switch to a Grass-Type instead. I battled Erika next, who can be frustrating with her tendency to use Full restore, cast Sunny Day, and her ability to drain HP from your Pokémon, but at this point my Feraligatr’s Ice Punch and Suicune’s Aurora Beam were more than enough to topple her. Koga’s daughter, Janine, now resides in Fuschia City’s Gym but she uses Poison-Types just like her dad so you can get past her in much the same way you did him, and Brock and Sabrina are similarly easily taken out using Water- and Dark-Types, respectively. Since Cinnabar Island was wrecked by a volcanic eruption, you won’t find much of anything there except a Pokémon Center and Blue, the Viridian City Gym Leader, who directs you to the similarly barren Seafoam Islands to battle Blaine. Neither Blaine nor Blue have any underlings to worry about and, while Blue’s team is as diverse and powerful as ever, yours should be more than up to the task of matching him blow for blow and recapturing the Kanto Gym Badges.
As if Red wasn’t tough enough, the Legendary Beasts will flee from battle and the new Birds take a lot of Balls to snag!
With these in your possession, Professor Oak allows you access to Mount Silver and the game’s most taxing challenge of all: a battle against Red, the protagonist from the first game, who’s well-rounded team not only has great Type coverage but is also in the high-seventies (with his Pikachu being the highest-level Pokémon you’ll face in the game at a whopping Level 81). While battling Red is tough in and of itself, it’s made all the more difficult by the fact that you need all the GMs to even reach him, meaning you’re at a severe disadvantage since you’re either down a couple of Pokémon to make room for a HM slave or have had to substitute better moves for HMs. Aside from red, there are some one of a kind Pokémon to find in the wild, too: Sudowoodo block your paths and need triggering with the Squirtbottle, you’ll need to tune into Kanto’s radio stations to awaken the Snorlax blocking your path, a Shiny Gyarados waits in the Lake of Rage, and you’ll encounter a wild Lapras in Union Cave’s basement every Friday. Although Kanto’s Legendary Pokémon are entirely absent (the power plant is now up and running, Seafoam Islands is a simple cave, Victory Road has been rearranged, and Cerulean Cave is inaccessible), Johto’s are literally out and about to find. Entei and Raikou will randomly appear in different areas of Johto, fleeing immediately (or using Roar to scare your Pokémon off) and forcing you to use the PokéDex to track them down and use moves like Spider Web and Mean Look just to have a chance at catching them, damage and status attacks you inflict will carry over even if they flee, however, but these two are still a massive headache to get a hold of and Pokémon: Crystal makes things unnecessarily difficult by forcing you to have caught all three Legendary Beasts to even spawn an encounter with Legendary Bird, Ho-Oh, atop Tin Tower. Conversely, one of my favourite Pokémon, Lugia, can only be fought at Whirl Islands after reaching Pewter City and acquiring the Silver Wing, and all of these Legendary Pokémon (and some wild Pokémon) can be a chore to catch unless you inflict sleep or paralyse and whittle them down to a slither of health as they just love to break out of PokéBalls and, unlike the last games, where you obviously used the instant-catch Master Ball on Mewtwo, it can be tough to decide which Pokémon to use your Master Ball on here (though I’d recommend Ho-Oh).
Power-Ups and Bonuses: Both Johto and Kanto are littered with pick-ups to be found, gifted from NPCs, or bought from PokéMarts. All the same healing and restorative items from the last games return, such was Potions, Revives, Awakenings, and Antidotes, though you can now find various Berries that have the same function and can be held and automatically used by Pokémon in battle. As you progress, PokéMarts will start to sell more advanced items, like Hyper Potions, Max Revive, Escape Ropes, PokéDolls to help you flee battles, and likes of X-Attack for a one-time stat boost. Vitamins and evolutionary stones a far harder to find on the overworld, but can be bought from Goldenrod and Celadon City’s Department Stores and are great for raising individual stats and quickly evolving Pokémon, and you’ll also find Nuggets to sell for cash (and sell most items you find) and key items like the Itemfinder, EXP All, and various rods. Another new addition to the game are held items that give your Pokémon certain boosts and buffs; Quick Claw can make them move faster, fr example, while Amulet Coin will double the cash you earn and Leftovers will see them restore a little bit of health between every move. Many of these will increase the power of certain Types, such as Charcoal powering-up Fire-Types, and some are even needed to be held for Pokémon to evolve.
There are more items than ever before, and even your radio can help you out in a pinch.
As ever, you’ll need a steady supply of PokéBalls if you want to catch ‘em all; these again come in three purchasable types (regular PokéBalls, slightly better Great Balls, and even better Ultra Balls), with the Master Ball being a one-of-a-kind, never-fail PokéBall that is best saved for a Legendary Pokémon. You can also find Acorns in trees and, when you give these to Kurt in Azalea Town, he’ll turn them into one of seven new PokéBalls after a day of waiting: Level Balls make catching lower level Pokémon easier, Friend Balls increase a Pokémon’s Happiness stat faster, Lure Balls make it easier to catch Pokémon encounter while fishing, Moon Balls make it easier to catch Pokémon that evolve using a Moon Stone, Heavy Balls are best used against heavier Pokémon, Fast Balls can be useful against Pokémon like Entei and Raikou who like to flee from battle, and Love Balls increase your chances of catching Pokémon of the opposite gender to your own. Like last time, TMs can only be used once, while HMs can only be unlearned using the Move Deleter, and different Pokémon level-up, breed, and hatch at different speeds and at different times of the day; some don’t learn useful moves for some time, others don’t learn any decent moves at all (I’m looking at you, Unown!) or moves that boost their stats, which is useless to me as I prefer to fill my move slots with offensive moves. Some Pokémon also don’t evolve at all, which can lower the incentive on using them as you don’t see as much progression when battling with them, while other Pokémon have abilities like Sweet Scent that can attract wild Pokémon, and you can also have Pokémon hold various mails to send messages to other Trainers you trade with.
Additional Features: Although Generation two added one-hundred extra Pokémon to the original 151, “only” 223 are actually obtainable within the base Pokémon: Crystal game so you’ll need to trade with Gold, Silver, Red, Blue, and/or Yellow in order to complete the PokéDex and fulfil Professor Oak’s life dream and earn yourself a nifty little certificate for you efforts. A lot of your post-game time and energy will be spent catching, raising, trading, and breeding Pokémon to fulfil this objective, and the day/night cycle and new additions to the gameplay mean you are given far more options to evolve and acquire Pokémon. As mentioned, you can store a limited number of phone numbers on your PokéGear and battle Trainers again when they call you, or travel to Viridian City and make use of the Trainer House to battle either a random challenger or the last human player you fought against, which remains a fun addition, and battles and trades such as this are a great way to extend the life of the game and motivate you to getting your team up to the maximum level. Also, you’ll be spending a lot of time in the Game Corners trying to buy or earn the coins necessary to get those elusive Pokémon and traipsing around Johto trying to lure out the Legendary Beasts, but this generation of Pokémon remains my favourite for its unmatched post-Elite Four content.
Travel to Kanto in the post-game, tackle the Battle Tower, and spawn in a Celebi to catch!
As mentioned, you get to travel to Kanto after becoming the Pokémon League Champion! This, effectively, doubles the timespan of the game but, while Kanto is now populated with much tougher Trainers than before, your team should be more than capable of winning the day. Still, I’ve always loved this feature, and Kanto is notably different, too; towns, caves, and routes have been switched about, new Pokémon are included, and certain areas are either inaccessible or altered, which really shows the flow of time since the last games. You can talk to Red’s mother in Pallet Town, where you find out he took off and hasn’t been seen in years, get the power plant back up and running so you can hop on the Magnet Train, and pay a visit to the new radio tower in Lavender Town, which replaces the haunted Pokémon Tower. Viridian Forest is now gone, as is Cerulean Cave, and Mount Moon is much shorter than before, but I loved seeing Blue installed as the Viridian Gym Leader and just being able to explore this region again and really wish that subsequent Pokémon games had done something similar. Pokémon: Crystal is also notable for being the first game to include the Battle Tower; located just off the coast off Olivine City, this facility lets you battle other Trainers and awards you Vitamins for consecutive victories. Though never really something I’ve enjoyed, the Battle Tower is a fun extra inclusion, and even offers level and Pokémon restrictions to keep you from using Legendary Pokémon. Best of all, though, is that the 3DS version of the game includes the GS Ball event, meaning you can place the GS Ball in a shrine at Ilex Forest to spawn the elusive Celebi and finally, legitimately, catch the little blighter!
The Summary: I’ll be the first to admit that, when it comes to the second generation of Pokémon games, I’m extremely biased when it comes to these games. For me, this was when Pokémon was at its peak of popularity; we were so desperate to play these new games and so captivated by the new Pokémon and mechanics, and while I’ve enjoyed Pokémon games since these, none of them have quite been able to recapture the magic of Johto. Consequently, it was an absolutely joy to finally play through Pokémon: Crystal; the game is such a massive step up from its predecessors, improving and refining basically everything from the first game and adding much-needed quality of life mechanics like the EXP bar, better item and Pokémon management, and vivid, impressively detailed graphics for such a basic handheld system. The new features offered in this generation were also fantastic; the day/night cycle was a fun little inclusion, one I missed from the Game Boy Advance titles, and adding breeding really helped to speed up PokéDex completion as you could raising Pokémon traditionally whilst also getting in the steps to hatch and egg and get Pokémon to breed all at the same time. Adding the ability to rebattle previous Trainers was great too, though the constant interruptions from phone calls does get annoying; while I love the aesthetic, detail, and colour of the game, I have to admit that Johto doesn’t really stand out all that much and is basically like a reskin of Kanto for the most part, but Pokémon: Crystal adds a few extra bells and whistles to compensate for that. Animating the Pokémon, for starters, really helps to make the game feel much more alive, as do all the additional attacks and battle animations that help the game feel faster, more action-packed, and less like a Tiger Electronics LCD game like in the first generation. Being able to play as a girl was a nice inclusion, as was the attempt to expand on the Legendary Beasts by giving Suicune a larger role, but ultimately these aspects and the rival system weren’t as prominent as they could’ve been. Thankfully, the new Pokémon more than make up for this, with some of my all-time favourites being found in Johto (Ampahros, Lugia, Houndoom, Typhlosion, and Marill, to name a handful), and I loved seeing how the world has changed since the last game. Of course, this is best seen in the still-unmatched post-game content; letting you travel to, explore, and challenge Kanto once more was an ingenious idea and makes the game feel so much bigger than even some of the Nintendo DS titles, which generally settled for the Battle Frontier and little else. Add to that the tough-as-nails battle against Red, the ability to trade to the previous generation, and the addition of Celebi to the game and you have what very well may be the definitive version of classic Pokémon for me.
My Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
Fantastic
Are you a fan of Pokémon: Crystal Version:? How do you think it compares to the original gamesand which of the second generation titles was your favourite? What did you think to the new mechanics introduced here, like breeding, genders, and the day/night cycle? Did you struggle against Whitney and her Miltank? What did you think to the rival? Did you enjoy getting to revisit Kanto and did you ever capture Entei and Raikou? Which of the Pokémon games, and titular monsters, is your favourite? How are you planning to celebrate National Pokémon Day this year? Whatever your thoughts on Pokémon, sign up to leave them below or drop your comments on my social media and be sure to check in next week for more Pokémon content!
Dr. K's Waiting Room 