13 Years ago, in November of 1999, a man named Satoshi Tajiri was interviewed by Time Magazine.
His brainchild, a couple [of] humble videogames for a dying 8-bit handheld managed to spawn a worldwide phenomenon.
What began as an idea he had 9 years ago had blossomed into a behemoth that had become its own card game, manga,
television series, upcoming movie, and more.
And, as unlikely as it sounds, their popularity was only rivaled by their own brilliance.
Believe it or not, Pokemon Red, Green, and Blue were among some of the best designed games to come out of that era.
And while their popularity was unprecedented, it wasn't a freak accident.
The Pokemon games were not only unique,
they were actually great RPGs that accomplished things that few other games before them even attempted.
For example, not a lot of games let you choose from up to 151 potential characters to play as AND let you customize those characters moveset to a certain extent.
This opens up BILLIONS of possible team combinations and countless strategies one can employ...
all on a handheld RPG.
And this is a cool enough concept on its own, but with the link cables, you could pit your team against a friends team.
Up to that point, handhelds and RPGs often featured very isolating single-Player experiences,
so you can imagine how novel it was when a HANDHELD RPG not only managed to break these boundaries down,
but also made facing off your friends a CORE part of the experience?
And it didn't end at fighting each other! You COULD use link cables to battle, but you could ALSO use them to bargain.
Trading was another thing that made the game's unique, and it wasn't just a tacked-on feature.
Almost everything about the design of Pokemon inherently lent itself well to the idea of linking up and trading:
from the hidden IVs and EVs, to the fact that the games were on handhelds, to the sheer AMOUNT of Pokemon scattered across all the games.
It ALL helped advance the concept of trading in different ways.
if you caught a Gumflepuff and your buddy caught a Gumflepuff,
chances are their initial stats are going to be different, even if they were the exact same level when you caught them.
And say their starting stats WERE the same: chances are, the two Gumflepuffs would improve faster in different areas.
This is due to the way that the games were programmed, and it essentially makes every Pokemon you encounter unique in its own way,
so even though you already have a Gumflepuff, you might want to get your hands on your buddy's Gumflepuff because it seems to deal more damage.
The way the stats are handled by the game encourages trade.
Moving forward, the fact that the original Pokemon games were released on handhelds pretty much meant you could take your team anywhere,
like to a school or a park where you're likely to meet OTHER people who also have the game.
As opposed to just making idle conversation about the Pokemon you owned, you could trade and battle right there on the spot.
The platform the games were released on encouraged trade.
Also, the sheer amount of Pokemon packed into those original games encouraged trade.
Even if you and your buddy both owned Red version,
he might have managed to nab something like an Abra that you missed on your playthrough of the game,
so, once again, you're PROBABLY going to want to trade.
So, some of you have probably noticed that I've been skirting around a part of Pokemon that annoys people even to this day:
It's the fact that the games are released in twos, with certain Pokemon being exclusive to certain color versions.
A fair amount of people think that this version exclusivity is just a cheap move to try to sell more games -- which very well MIGHT be the case with the newer Pokemon games --
But when it STARTED in Generation 1, it was actually so much more honest in earnest than a dirty marketing move.
It was a design decision - and a good one, at that.
Splitting the Pokemon across two games encourages trading, and trading was such a key aspect that made the original Pokemon games stand out from the other games at the time.
A kid on the playground, YOU had exclusive access to Pokemon your FRIEND wanted, and your FRIEND had exclusive access to Pokemon YOU wanted.
It actually gave you even MORE incentive to trade, and it brought an honest element of camaraderie to the table.
If everybody could catch every Pokemon on their own cartridge, then the incentive to trade would have been GREATLY diminished --
-- and, if I haven't hammered this point home enough, trading was just such a crucial concept that those original games were designed around.
Now I know there's going to be a lot of you who are into the meta-game and clearly disagree with me on that point,
and perhaps a few other points,
and I totally see where you're coming from.
I just ask that you keep in mind most people who bought Pokemon Red, Green, and Blue in the 90s WEREN'T in it for the meta game.
Moving on, another unique thing that pokemon did that most people seem to take for granted is that certain moves your Pokemon learned
had practical applications inside as well as outside of battle.
Years ago when I played through my first Pokemon game,
I was forced to catch Pokemon that I otherwise would have passed over because they could learn moves that were invaluable for my progression.
The game pretty much pinned me down and told me to catch more Pokemon.
Back then it annoyed me, but I look back on it now and see that was yet another defendable, if not good, design choice.
Making these moves exclusive to certain Pokemon helped make these creatures stand out from one another a bit more.
It differentiated their roles inside as well as outside of combat,
And it showed the player that in this universe, Pokemon were good for more than just fighting.
It also helped tie the overworld together with the battle screen,
and made the world within the game more consistent in ways that games even to this day are still struggling with.
Overall, it's just a really interesting dynamic which you didn't see in a lot of other RPGs.
While it DOES force some players into catching and doing things they might not be interested in,
I feel the amount of good it brings to the table more than makes up for that arguably small drawback.
Before you guys flame me in the comments,
I know that there were a lot of other RPGs before pokemon that allowed you to use skills inside as well as outside of battle,
But most of those were spells like "heal" that didn't really serve as much of a unifying or universe expanding design purpose, like they did in Pokemon.
All right, so the excellence of Pokemon doesn't end at the games, either.
Nintendo and Game Freak did things OUTSIDE of the video games that helped fuel the series' popularity.
As an example, remember when Red, Green, and Blue first came out?
It was still a time when video game companies could make money off of RUMORS.
Well, in the '90s, there are over 100 Pokemon that you KNEW about,
but I recall going to school and hearing rumors that there were OTHER secret Pokemon hidden or buried deep within the game.
These rumors made you want to explore and play the games even more,
and it added an air of mystery and discovery that we have since lost with the ubiquity of the internet and GameFAQs.
I mean, I guess we had Herobrine, but you know
Here's the awsome part I was getting to: Game Freak DIRECTLY contributed to these rumors by hiding Mew in the games.
Under normal circumstances, it was impossible to get Mew without participating in a special event or trading with somebody who already had Mew.
This helped fuel the rumors about OTHER hidden Pokemon released during special events,
or glitches one could exploit to GET these hidden Pokemon.
All of this really helped to keep players searching and exploring,
and it even brought a lot of new players in - especially in the east.
According to some of Game Freak's staff (and this even coincides with the sales figures),
Pokemon's success in Japan was greatly assisted by these promotional events, like the one that ran in Korokoro comic.
SOME of the original developers even go so far as to say that, if number 151 was never added into the code for promotional purposes,
Pokemon might have never made their way outside of Japan.
And, that's... kind of a weird thought.
...But I digress [haha].
Alright, so this last point I'm going to make is probably the crowning jewel of genius that [is] embedded in the crowns that sit on Nintendo and Game Freak's hypothetical heads,
and I'd hazard to say that it's one of the main reasons why the franchise grew as BIG as it did and why it's still around today.
Pokemon was arguably one of the most successful attempts at making a trans-media world.
What I mean is almost any knowledge a kid learns about Pokemon while watching the anime can be DIRECTLY applied, one-to-one,
with situations that they encounter in the game.
You would actually learn more about the video game by watching the show.
Then, a strategy you developed in the video game might have applications in the card game.
THEN, something you saw in the card might pop up in the show.
It might just sound like I'm giving the creators too much credit,
and as with a lot of things I mentioned, all of this can just be chalked up to a REALLY slick marketing move, and, to some extent, it is.
However, children DID get some benefit of it.
It enriched their experience and expanded their knowledge of this really cool universe they genuinely enjoyed learning about and interfacing with.
I was one of those kids.
I remember sitting on a launch table with a few classmates during school, and we are all talking about Pokemon
Everybody there had seen the anime except for one kid who only owned one of the video games,
Yet we were ALL able to have a conversation about Pokemon because the universe was just so consistent across all the different mediums.
Few franchises have ever really accomplished something like that.
Previous shows, like Transformers, also established trans-media worlds. And they were pretty successful,
but I think it's safe to say that Pokemon's trans-media foray was a great deal more tightly integrated,
and it brought a lot more to the table than almost ANYTHING that came before it and a lot of things that have come since.
Pokemon Red, Blue, and Green and the entire Franchise as a whole during the 90s and early 2000s weren't just unique:
they were RIFE with good design decisions.
The original two games were also genuine labors of love for the developers.
During the project's outset, Tajiri pitched the idea of the original Pokemon games to Nintendo more than once, and they turned him down each time.
It was only with the help of some guy named Miyamoto that Nintendo finally agreed to help fund the project.
Then, over the course of the development, Game Freak nearly went bankrupt,
and Tajiri had to stop taking a salary so he could afford to pay the other workers.
If you go back and read an interview with Tajiri, Sugimori, or anybody else who was involved with the project,
you get a sense that they really believed in what they were working on.
And if you play Red, Blue or Green, you can almost feel the amount of heart those guys put into it.
Those first generation titles seem so open and earnest in ways that you don't really see enough of today.
Not only were the games well-designed from top-to-bottom, but the entire franchise as a whole actively worked all of its parts in Tandem,
and they played off of each other really well.
the ideas the series embodies are not only great,
but the execution of those ideas was spot-on almost every step of the way.
...And, I could really go on for a while about this,
So I'm just going to close it out with a quote of Tajiri from the Times Magazine interview I mentioned earlier:
"Everything I did as a kid kind of rolled into one -- that's what Pokemon is.
Playing video games, watching TV, Ultraman with his capsule monsters -- they all became ingredients for the game...
The idea for Pokemon clicked in my mind.
The basic idea for Pokemon seemed a good fit for Game Boy."
You know what, Tajiri? I think you might have been onto something.
Everybody there [messes up line] Ow! Hit my elbow!
Everybody th-- did I just scrape my elbow? Wow...