A poet once said . . . .

Why is the mainstream media only now picking up on the fact that Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain had been quoting the inspirational lyrics of a Pokemon movie theme song throughout the course of his campaign?





Personally, I respect Cain more now than I did a week ago.  That's what I call "owning it."  Of course, that still leaves all that other filthy stuff that he won't own to . . . .

How It All Went Down

If the roughly 30-level difference seems quite high, it is because, as you might have gathered from previous posts, I do not like to level-grind.  I believe that it is a symptom of bad game design, and thankfully I have found that the Pokemon games are better than that, placing greater, or at least equal, emphasis on strategy and tactics as on the grind.  I have long been of the belief that these games can be won without engaging in any random battles at all, and I have put my belief to the test through my own playthroughs, where I level up Pokemon only through experience gained from battles with NPC trainers at fixed locations.  The only time I engage a random encounter is when I want to capture the wild Pokemon, in which case my Pokemon does not gain experience from the battle anyway.  All of my Pokemon above are the result of me picking out my teams early, then spreading out experience evenly so that no one falls behind.

That said, I obviously didn't train all of these Pokemon in my copy of HeartGold.  These were my six best Pokemon hand-picked from across four different Pokemon cartridges.  Swampert migrated over from Emerald, Venusaur and Jolteon from FireRed, and Lucario was traded over from my Platinum team.  My Skarmory was bred from one that I had had to trade for with a SoulSilver player.  Only Typhlosion was part of my original HeartGold team, which I took to the Johto championship and through most of Kanto.  I normally only use six Pokemon per game (because it's hard to raise more than six), which I assemble early on and then stick with, but because this was supposed to be "the final match," I thought it only fitting to look back at my previous campaigns and bring in representatives from each of my past lineups, in order to construct my own comprehensive all-star team to pit against Red's.

As for the move setups, the only TMs used were to teach Jolteon Thunderbolt and Flash, the latter for its field effect allowing me to navigate the pitch-black Cerulean Cave.  Typhlosion and Venusaur learned Blast Burn and Frenzy Plant via move tutors, and a Heart Scale was used to make Skarmory "remember" Night Slash.  Everything else was learned either through leveling up or via HMs acquired as part of the story.  I also didn't use any stat-enhancing vitamins.

Now, on with the play-by-play:

Red would of course start with his signature Pokemon and the franchise mascot, Pikachu.  Pikachu is not even a fully-evolved Pokemon, and although it is very quick, its attack and defense ratings are poor.  Red's is equipped with a rare Light Ball, doubling its Attack and Special Attack stats, making it a legitimate offensive threat.  It's not a big deal, however, because Pikachu's best attacks, Volt Tackle and Thunderbolt, are Electric-type moves, which are completely ineffective against my lead Pokemon, the part-Ground-type Swampert.  That leaves Pikachu only Quick Attack and Iron Tail.  Quick Attack is a weak Normal-type physical attack, only mildly useful because it is guaranteed to strike first even against an opponent with a higher Speed stat.  The AI would normally only use it to finish off an already nearly dead Pokemon, thereby robbing it of a potential last gasp maneuver.  I wasn't worried about that.  The only move left for me to watch out for was Iron Tail, a very strong physical attack.  It's a Steel-type attack, however, meaning its effectiveness is reduced by 50% against Water-type Pokemon such as my Swampert.  More importantly, its accuracy is only 75%, so if it didn't kill me outright, a protracted battle would probably see it missing a few times, allowing me a few turns of unanswered attacks.

I started off the fight by using Mud-Slap, a weak Ground-type attack.  Earthquake was the much more powerful option, but I'm not a hardcore numbers guy, so I wasn't sure if I could take Pikachu out in just one turn.  If Earthquake only brought it to the brink, Red would just use a Full Restore to fully heal Pikachu and completely undo my work before I could finish the job.  Having faced that exact frustration against previous trainers, I had learned that, against opponents that I could only almost KO in one turn, the more effective strategy was to lead with a weaker attack, then finish with the stronger move in the second turn.  Mud-Slap is particularly useful for leading because it also has the added effect of lowering the target's accuracy, so Pikachu's already risky Iron Tail would become even less accurate.

The round began and, as anticipated, Pikachu attacked first with Iron Tail.  It was a hit, nearly halving my Swampert's health.  My Mud-Slap did what I needed it to, lowering Pikachu's accuracy and even doing decent damage, thanks to Ground's supereffectiveness against Electric.  Confident that my Swampert would survive another hit, I queued up Earthquake for the next round, while Pikachu again went for Iron Tail.  I smiled with satisfaction as Iron Tail missed this time and Earthquake sent Pikachu packing.

Red summoned Venusaur next, probably hoping to capitalize on its 4x Grass-type advantage against my Water/Ground Swampert.  As is customary in single-player story battles, however, I am permitted to change my own Pokemon in response to his selection before the round begins.  Typhlosion, my Fire specialist, is the obvious choice, but I decide to go with Skarmory instead.  Skarmory was my weakest Pokemon, the only one that I had brought without any specific purpose in mind.  I had it in my party because it is a practical necessity to have a Pokemon with Fly at all times in case I need to retreat quickly back to town, and Skarmory, the physical tank among Pokemon, is also the best Flying Pokemon with whom I would actually be okay wasting a move slot on Fly.  Being a Steel/Flying-type, it did have the advantage, both offensively and defensively, against Venusaur.  With its poor attack stats and options, I didn't expect the type advantage to overcome the level difference in this case, but I wanted to give Skarmory at least a chance to contribute in some way beyond just being a shield for my other Pokemon (although it was technically serving that role as well here).

I select Fly, which, in battle, is a modestly powerful two-turn attack that may be compared to the Dragoon's Jump in Final Fantasy--the user takes flight in the first turn, then strikes on the second.  Venusaur attacks with Frenzy Plant, the ultimate Grass-type move, with a Special Attack power of 150.  Venusaur is faster than Skarmory, so I have to take the hit before taking off, but Skarmory endures it surprisingly well--it would take another two Frenzy Plants to KO Skarmory, and since Frenzy Plant is also a two-turn maneuver that leaves its user having to recharge on the second turn, the battle could go on for some time.  The persistent Hail effect of the snowy battlefield meanwhile would whittle away at the health of both Pokemon, which was what I wanted, because I never intended for Skarmory to win the battle, only for it to weaken Venusaur enough to guarantee that I could finish it with a single attack from Typhlosion.

Fly does decent damage, and Venusaur switches from Frenzy Plant to Giga Drain in an attempt to recoup some lost health.  Skarmory gets off one more Fly before expiring to a second Giga Drain, after which Typhlosion comes in to finish the job.  Typhlosion is also slower than Venusaur, so it still has to put up with losing some health to a third Giga Drain, but I won't need Typhlosion either after this round.  Flamethrower puts Red's Grass Pokemon away at last.

Red's third Pokemon is Blastoise, and I am again prompted to switch my own Pokemon.  Both Jolteon (Electric) and my own Venusaur have type advantage against the Water-type Blastoise.  Jolteon is the much safer choice, however, because I am almost certain that Blastoise will be packing an Ice-type attack, which would be supereffective against Venusaur.  Even so, poetry takes precedence over strategy in this case, and I am determined to take out each of Red's elemental starters with my own starter Pokemon.  Venusaur was my starter from back in Pokemon FireRed, where I actually technically played as Red.  But here I was ready to show him which of us was the true Venusaur master.  Besides, I had only bothered to scout Pikachu's moves, so I wasn't entirely certain that Blastoise would have any Ice attacks.

Blastoise leads with Blizzard, which one-hit-KOs my Venusaur before it can even act.  I'm feeling rather silly at this point, because I have wasted at least three turns with my foolishness.  First, I must now switch in Jolteon after all.  I have it use Thunder Wave to paralyze Blastoise.  Paralysis reduces a Pokemon's speed by 25% and also leaves it with a 25% chance of missing its turn due to inability to move.  I had relied heavily on Paralyze moves to get me through almost every major battle in every Pokemon game leading up to this.  Whereas the level and type mismatches I so often faced had regularly robbed even my best direct attacks of their punch, status afflictions did not discriminate, and a paralyzed Lv.75 Dragonite was just as likely to miss its turn as a much lower-level Pokemon.  I hadn't needed Thunder Wave against Red's first two Pokemon, but I expected it to again make the difference against Blastoise.

Blastoise uses Blizzard again, and it not only reduces Jolteon to near-death, but also induces the Freeze status, which is much rarer but even more debilitating than Paralyze.  I could use a Full Restore to get Jolteon back in condition to fight and maybe even win, but I still want to take out Blastoise with Venusaur.  The second turn I must waste is on reviving Venusaur.  I do so with the understanding that I will be sacrificing Jolteon on the front lines to another Blastoise attack.  The third turn I waste will be on reviving Jolteon.  To pull that off, I switch my weakened Typhlosion in for the unconscious Jolteon.  Typhlosion already did its job against Red's Venusaur, so I'm okay with sacrificing it to revive Jolteon.

When Typhlosion falls, it's finally time to bring in my Venusaur again.  With Blastoise paralyzed, Venusaur will be able to attack first this time.  I intend to finish it in one move with Frenzy Plant.  I'm gambling here, because I'm not certain that Frenzy Plant actually will finish it in one shot.  As I said, I haven't studied the math that deeply.  I know that Frenzy Plant has 150 Special Attack power and is supereffective against Water, but I don't know how exactly that translates into damage against whatever Blastoise's HP and Special Defense ratings are.  I only know that it will do a lot of damage.  With Blastoise having taken four rounds of Hail already, I take the risk that Frenzy Plant will be enough.  It is.

Red sends in Charizard next.  Again, I have a chance to swap out my Pokemon.  Typhlosion and Skarmory are dead, Jolteon and Swampert are at about 50%, and the Fighting/Steel Lucario would be at a severe disadvantage against the Fire/Flying Charizard.  I decide to leave Venusaur in, knowing that it will die immediately but intending to use that one turn to heal Swampert.  This proves to be an almost crucial error.

Remember that Frenzy Plant leaves its user unable to act in the next turn.  During the recharge period, you cannot attack, use items, or change Pokemon.  The one exception is that, in single-player battles, you can still shift your Pokemon out when prompted after defeating an opposing Pokemon.  Knowing this, I normally only use Frenzy Plant with the expectation that it will KO my opponent, so that I can then bypass the recharge period by switching out my Pokemon.  Somehow, I forgot to do so this time, and I was left to watch as Charizard toasted my Venusaur with a supereffective Flare Blitz, my turn completely wasted since I was not even able to heal Swampert.

I'm in a bad situation at this point.  I only have three Pokemon left, two of them in bad shape, the third out of the question for this match-up.  Even with the type advantage, I know Swampert will not be able to kill Charizard with just a single Waterfall.  Moreover, Charizard would be faster, and I don't know if my weakened Swampert would even be able to survive its first attack to get off a Waterfall.  I decide to send in Jolteon instead.  Jolteon is faster than any of Red's Pokemon, and it also has a type advantage against the part-Flying Charizard, but I go with Thunder Wave again instead of trying for damage with a supereffective Thunderbolt.  Thunderbolt would probably not one-hit-KO Charizard, whereas Thunder Wave's debilitating effects would give Swampert a chance in the event that Jolteon fell.

The Thunder Wave pays off immediately, as the paralyzed Charizard is unable to move for that turn.  I use the next turn to heal Swampert, and my Jolteon, not so fortunate this time, falls to a Dragon Pulse from Charizard.  I still don't think my Swampert can take out Charizard in one Waterfall, but with it now at full health against a paralyzed Charizard, I'm confident that it will win out in the end.  In fact, I'm so confident that, instead of attacking right away, I use Swampert's first turn to revive Jolteon, since I know I will need it later.  Luck is against me, as not only is Charizard able to move, but it gets a critical hit with an Air Slash, dismissing my Swampert unexpectedly in one move.  That's just rotten luck, as there's no way to really plan for these criticals, but it leaves me reeling.

I have to bring back Swampert, but a normal Revive only resurrects a Pokemon to 50% health.  That won't be enough if Charizard hits with Air Slash again, so I'll need a second turn to heal Swampert before I can send it out again.  That means I'll need two turns just to heal, and it's unlikely that Jolteon will survive longer than one.  Lucario's chances are only slightly better, but I have to go with that.  I send in Lucario and revive Swampert.  Fortunately, instead of using its Fire attacks, Charizard uses Air Slash.  Lucario survives to heal Swampert before falling in the next turn.

It's Swampert's second chance and, with the Hail having chipped away at Charizard, I'm ready to just go with the Waterfall.  To my dismay, it leaves Charizard with just a sliver of health, after which it strikes Swampert with Air Slash again to reduce its health by more than half.  I expect Red to use a Full Restore, both healing Charizard and curing its paralysis, thus leaving me in the worst possible condition, but before the round is up, the Hail, which takes effect at the end of every round, manages to finish Charizard off.  It wasn't all according to plan, but it worked out this time.

Red's signature Pokemon were all done.  Next up was Lapras.  A Water/Ice Pokemon, it was Red's only dual-type and also the one I knew least about among his team.  I left Swampert in so that I could revive Lucario.  Lapras took out Swampert with Blizzard, so I sent in Jolteon next.  Thunder Wave as usual, and then Lapras's Brine took out Jolteon.  A half-dead Lucario was my last Pokemon and I had no expectation of winning with just that, so I revived Jolteon again.  Blizzard took out Lucario, and now Jolteon was my last Pokemon.

It was not an ideal situation.  I had gathered now that Lapras could kill either Jolteon or Lucario at 50% health.  I doubted any of my other Pokemon would fare better.  Since a Revive only brought a Pokemon back at 50% health, I would again need two turns just to set up a Pokemon to take Lapras on.  With only one 50% Pokemon alive at a time, the only way I would be getting those two turns would be if Lapras missed a turn.  I would just have to keep switching between reviving Jolteon and Lucario until that opening came up.

Despite Paralyze's supposed 25% chance of stopping a Pokemon from acting, more than four turns went by without Lapras letting up one bit.  In fact, I think a full seven rounds went by, during which Jolteon and Lucario took turns dying.  At the end of that seventh round, I didn't even have any more Revives.  With a half-dead Lucario on point, I contemplated using one of my three Max Revives on Jolteon.  Max Revives are extremely rare and cannot be bought in stores, so they are only to be used in the most desperate circumstances.  Was this desperate enough?  I considered it, but then realized that, once Lucario died to resurrect Jolteon, I would just have to use another Max Revive on Lucario, because I needed Lucario to take on Red's final Pokemon.  No, I was going to have to make my final stand here, betting it all on Lucario.

I used a Hyper Potion to fully restore Lucario, then braced for the Blizzard, which I knew could do at least 50%, but which I could only hope would do less than 100%.  To my surprise, Lapras used Psychic instead.  And to my surprise, it did just less than 50%.  I wondered why it would resort to using a weaker attack, after having used Blizzard already to wipe out Lucario so many times.  The AI doesn't always make sense, but if there were an actual reason for this shift, it could be pivotal.  I tried to recall the last several rounds and count how many times Lapras had used Blizzard.  My guess was that Lapras had exhausted its uses of Blizzard, which left it with only attacks that would require three turns to take out a 100% Lucario.  If I was right, that was something I could work with.

I used another Hyper Potion and watched Lucario absorb another Psychic.  With my Lucario at just over half health again, I chose, instead of healing up or attacking, to use its Swords Dance move to sharply raise its Attack.  If Lapras used Psychic again, Lucario would survive and I would heal on the next turn.  If it used Blizzard, then Lucario might die and it would be game over.  But I was so sure I was right.

As it turned out, it didn't matter on that turn.  The Paralyze finally kicked in and stopped Lapras from attacking at all.  For the next turn, I had a few choices.  I still didn't feel a need to heal, but I could either attack with my boosted Close Combat or boost again with another Swords Dance.  Close Combat was a supereffective Fighting-type move with 120 Attack power, and the first Swords Dance would have raised its damage potential considerably.  But again, I didn't know exactly what "sharply raise" amounted to in practical terms, and I didn't know if I could KO Lapras yet.  As a part-Ice-type, Lapras was the only Pokemon on either team unaffected by Hail, so it was still at full health.

I took my chances and used Close Combat.  Lapras barely survived, and although it again could not move, I grimaced because I knew that Red would use a Full Restore on the next turn.  I used that same turn to use a second Swords Dance, guaranteeing that I would KO Lapras in the next hit.  The problem was that, if the now un-paralyzed Lapras attacked first, Lucario might die because the side effect of Close Combat is that it lowers its user's Defense and Special Defense.  So that Pyschic would hit a little harder the next time.

Ultimately, I had to bet on my Lucario being faster than Lapras.  If I healed and Lapras was faster hitting with Psychic for 50%, the fight was over anyway.  I would be forced to spend every turn healing just to survive the turn after, and a comeback would be impossible, unless I expected to outlast its uses of Psychic as well.  No, I went with Close Combat for the kill, and Lucario did not fail me.

Red's final Pokemon was Snorlax, an extremely durable Normal-type, which I had originally been saving Lucario for.  Again, I had to face the concerns of whether Lucario would be faster, whether it could one-hit-KO Snorlax, whether it could survive Snorlax's attack if either of the above was answered in the negative.  But I had come too far to have any more doubts.  Close Combat was the call, and that was it for the match.  Snorlax was out in one, and Red was done.

* * * * *

Was it the hardest Pokemon match of my life?  No, not by a long shot.  In fact, it was somewhat anticlimactic how easy it was.  I beat him on my first try.  I wasn't even forced to use any of my rare items.  Although I had used about 15 revives, most of that had been during the period when Jolteon and Lucario were taking turns dying against Lapras, which, in hindsight, may have been unnecessary.  Honestly, I had a much harder time against Lance at the end of the Johto campaign.  Now that was a truly hard-earned victory, one where I had had to rely heavily upon Paralyze, Leech Seed, Confuse, and accuracy-reducing moves and items, just to buy my Azumarill chances to take out Lance's overpowering dragons with Rollout, a normally weak Rock-type move that just happens to double in power over each of five consecutive hits, assuming its user can survive that long without missing, which was extremely unlikely against such opponents that could KO my best in one hit.  Up against that, I had had to perfectly plan every move in advance just to open up room enough for luck to enter in and win the day.

Although Red is supposed to be the ultimate trainer, in practice his team is highly flawed.  In terms of typing, it is more balanced than the typical Gym Leader's team, but most of his Pokemon are still only single-types with very common and exploitable weaknesses (i.e. no Dragons or Psychics to counter).  My team, on the other hand, although much lower in level than his, was by far the strongest team I had ever used.  It almost felt like cheating, even though my Pokemon were all legit and all my own, which I had raised from base forms and low levels over dozens of hours.  But the team I had used against Lance, consisting only of Pokemon I had caught in HeartGold, had included such Pokemon as Furret and Noctowl, both evolved from incredibly common Pokemon found within the first hour of play.  I would give them names and call them my own too, but any experienced player knows that these are garbage Pokemon.  It only made it that much more gratifying, however, when I managed to take them to the championship, winning it through a combination of effort and cunning.  A few key Thunder Waves notwithstanding, there was less of that cunning required in this fight against Red.

I suppose also, in general, the rules of the single-player game always favor the player.  Not only can you revive your Pokemon, unlike the AI, but that prompt to shift Pokemon after informing you of your opponent's next Pokemon is clearly unfair to the AI.  For obvious reasons, it's not a part of player-vs-player battles, and there's even an option to turn it off in single-player.  Were I to do so, I seriously doubt I would stand a chance against Red.  But that's not the default setting, not "regulation," as it were.  Leave it to masochistic players to challenge themselves with that.

As much as I wish Nintendo would take Pokemon somewhere new, I can't pretend that I won't be there when Pokemon Black/White comes out and is more of the same.  But for now, I'm satisfied knowing that, after training for six games in four regions over two generations, I finally beat Red and "won" Pokemon.

The 5 Cutest Pokemon

(Yep, I'm still playing Pokemon more than anything else.)

5. Jirachi

4. Plusle

3. Mudkip

2. Marill

1. Azumarill

There you have it--my official, definitive list of the top five cutest Pokemon.  Accept no imitations.

Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver

I was fifteen when Pokemon Red/Blue arrived in the States in 1998. Too old to enjoy the cute monsters and perhaps too young to look past them, I sampled Red for about an hour before giving up. I denounced the concept as too reminiscent of dog fighting, but I was really more put off by the battle system that struck me as archaic. Some years later, I gained an appreciation for the finely tuned mechanics, thanks to the pure battling experience offered in Pokemon Stadium. Thus, as a nineteen-year-old college student, I decided to give the series another try when Ruby/Sapphire came out in 2003. Well, that endeavor ended prematurely much like my first attempt; as it turned out, having beaten Stadium with a team of "rental" Pokemon, I still had no patience for the main game routine of wandering around in tall grass and tossing out dozens of Poke Balls before a rare Pokemon agreed to go inside one.

It was not until 2006, when Nintendo partnered with Toys "R" Us to give out the legendary Mew for the Game Boy Advance editions, that I finally "got it." I was mostly familiar with the original 151 Pokemon (i.e. the ones in Stadium), so I still believed Mew the rarest of them all. Even though I had never been able to get more than an hour into any of the main games, the chance to acquire this Pokemon, impossible to catch within the game itself, ignited something within me. (Maybe it helped that I was now out of school and bored at work.) I dug out my copy of Ruby and waited three hours in line at Toys "R" Us to get that Mew. With that hardest one down, "catch 'em all" actually sounded feasible for once, and so I set myself to the game once more and this time promised myself that I would stick with it. Some forty hours later, I was not close to being a master, but I discovered that I actually did enjoy Pokemon after all, and I immediately followed up my playthrough of Ruby by taking on FireRed, Emerald, Colosseum, and the just-released Pearl, beating them all in turn in about a six-month span.

By the time Platinum came out last year, I considered myself quite the Pokemon adept, despite having gotten into it late. Perhaps the only gap in my experience was my not having played the second generation of Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal, which many enthusiasts considered the series's high point. I was certainly not going to go back to play a Game Boy Color game that offered no cross-compatibility with my GBA and DS games, especially as I did not believe in the noteworthiness of being the best entry in a series of practically identical games. As they did with the GBA remakes of first generation, however, Nintendo and Game Freak have given late-comers like me a second chance to experience Gold/Silver. I don't know how exactly Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver for the DS compares to the vaunted GBC originals, but I will say that it is the best Pokemon game that I have played.

It's not likely to change anybody's mind about the series; it is still very much the same experience as you'll find in any of the other main installments since the original (which is why a straight-up "remake" for this series may sound like a silly idea). The pursuit of the complete Pokedex is still as sickeningly addictive as ever. Tossing Poke Balls at uncooperative wild Pokemon can be tedious and frustrating, but it can also be as habit-forming as any real-world collecting hobby. The other appeal for me remains the deceptively deep combat. I've always appreciated that the AI foes in these games all play by the same rules as the player, so that you feel like you have to tactically outmaneuver an actual person, instead of an unfairly overpowered behemoth with just a ton of HP to be whittled down by tapping A over and over again. Of course, Pokemon may be the only RPG with an active competitive scene, so the fighting engine has to be balanced for player-versus-player.

That said, after beating Pearl, I was ready for a hiatus from the formula. I thought it was burnout from having played too many games in too short a span without any break, but, playing Platinum alongside HeartGold, I now realize that Diamond/Pearl/Platinum specifically is just not that enjoyable. They tried to make that game a bigger, more expansive experience by making towns larger and dungeons much longer, to no one's benefit. With the typically repetitive mechanics and absent plot, it could become a real drag to get stuck spending too much time in any one area. HeartGold/SoulSilver is much breezier by comparison, and the journey moves along at about the perfect pace to continually introduce the player to new Pokemon and Pokemon trainers.

Even the story is vastly more interesting. In practice, the plot is not at all engaging, but, then again, neither is Beowulf anymore a stimulating read outside an academic environment, in my opinion. There is a certain poetry to HeartGold/SoulSilver's narrative construction in conjunction with FireRed/LeafGreen.

SPOILERS (Seriously?)

FireRed/LeafGreen (or Red/Blue) begins with just a boy setting out from home to explore the land of Kanto. Journeying from town to town with the Pokemon he catches along the way as his only companions, he makes friends and rivals and challenges himself by taking on gym leaders. He tangles with Team Rocket, ultimately defeating its leader and saving Kanto from the criminal organization's nefarious schemes. The boy and his Pokemon gain experience from these battles, eventually earning their way into the Pokemon League to challenge the champion. The silent protagonist proves himself the strongest trainer in Kanto, but, instead of taking on the mantle of champion, he continues on his journey. With his Pokemon ever at his side, he rides off on his bicycle and into legend.

HeartGold/SoulSilver (or Gold/Silver) picks up the story three years later in another land, where another young boy (or girl) sets out on a similar journey. He collects Pokemon, earns badges by defeating gym leaders, and contends with a bitter rival that may have some connection to Team Rocket, whose remnants have now relocated to the Johto region in a desperate bid to reach out to their missing leader. After this new protagonist becomes the strongest trainer in Johto, the story comes full circle as he makes his way to Kanto. There, the player gets to walk familiar routes and reunite with the Kanto gym leaders, who have grown stronger and more mature. You get to revisit all the old towns and see how they have developed free of Team Rocket's corrupting influences. Finally, you find the legendary Red himself standing at the summit, still very much the same boy that the player set out with on that first journey. In a silent duel of wandering champions, Red finally meets his match, only proving that the quest is truly never-ending. And thus the two boys part to continue along on their journeys.

Tsunekazu Ishiharu, producer of Pokemon Red/Blue and currently president of The Pokemon Company, recently revealed that Pokemon Gold and Silver were originally intended to be the "finish line" for the series (keep in mind that, while Gold/Silver was only the second generation, there had already been four first generation games released over the course of three years in Japan). Indeed, not only were they probably the best games in the series (maybe until their own remakes), but they were also the only legitimate sequels. Later games essentially retold the original's story, only changing the names and outfits, but Gold/Silver actually completed what Red/Blue began.

As in every subsequent release, the original game's world consisted of eight gyms, each championing one of the fifteen different Pokemon types. Gold/Silver then added two types and gave players another eight gyms to conquer, with no repeats from the first game, so that, between the two, every one of the seventeen Pokemon types was represented by a gym, with the exception of Dark, which happened to be the type favored by Team Rocket's interim leader in Gold/Silver, as well as the last and strongest member of the Johto League's Elite Four. Later games did not add any more Pokemon types and had to cut off access to the old regions and gyms, so that they could instead recycle old types in new gyms without it seeming redundant. That's a shame, because getting that ticket to ride to the original game world is the most exciting and rewarding moment in HeartGold/SoulSilver.

For players of Red/Blue (or FireRed/LeafGreen), returning to Kanto and battling the original gym leaders again can be a haunting experience in much the same way as revisiting Shadow Moses in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, or exploring the mansion in Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition's "Lost in Nightmares" scenario. I imagine there would be yet another nostalgic dimension for players who actually traveled through Johto the first time around. Even if you've never played any version of Red/Blue or Gold/Silver before, the inclusion of almost the entire Kanto region makes for one of the best post-endgame "second quests" in gaming. It nearly doubles the length of the game, which effectively offers players twice as many meaningful battles as even the games that came after Gold/Silver. The remakes even go a little further toward making HeartGold/SoulSilver the definitive Pokemon experience by tossing in many rare Pokemon not originally found in Johto (some not even native to Kanto) and including cameos by some Ruby/Sapphire and Diamond/Pearl characters. And of course that battle with Red still makes for the perfect ending, such that I'm doubly disappointed that Black/White looks like it will be more of the same, because HeartGold/SoulSilver would have been the perfect sendoff to the classic formula.

As for the few brand new features in Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver, the Pokeathlon is a cool concept--who wouldn't love to see their little Pokemon sprites racing around a track?--but, even with multiplayer, the touchscreen-based mini-games are too clumsily executed to be anything but frustrating. The Pokewalker, on the other hand, I see as a fairly significant and positive advancement for the series. It is, in essence, just a more primitive version of a Tamagotchi crossed with a pedometer. In conjunction with the main game, however, it is much more attractive than that idea should be. It's embarrassing to say so, but being able to take your Pokemon around with you outside of the game makes your bond with them seem so much more real, while sending them into battle back on the DS is a lot more gratifying than raising a Tamagotchi ever could be. And the ability to level up a Pokemon just by taking it out for a walk has even encouraged me to get back on the treadmill, so I have to thank it for that.

If you have any interest in getting into (or back into) Pokemon, this is the game to play. It is the biggest, best, and most complete Pokemon experience yet. Even without trading, there are only about sixty Pokemon out of the current 493 that cannot be gotten through playing just either HeartGold or SoulSilver (I played HeartGold but recommend SoulSilver for Skarmory). I even kind of consider the lack of a compelling story as a point in the game's favor; since it doesn't require much attention, I can play the game while watching TV, and I have consequently sunk more hours into this than any other game (or other diversion, period) in the last two months. And I'm not even done yet.

Oh, the Pokemanity!

So, last time, I had to go through quite an ordeal to download an exclusive Pikachu-colored Pichu from GameStop. This time, again through GameStop, Nintendo was offering the legendary Jirachi. Thankfully, there were no unanticipated difficulties. Only the usual shame of being a grown man standing alone in a GameStop store and playing Pokemon on his Nintendo DS. Did I mention that I actually have to download these things four times to my four separate copies of Pokemon? Yes, thank you, I am hardcore. And yes, I have become painfully well-acquainted with the twenty-second start-up sequence for these games. The worst part is that I just found out that Nintendo is now making the Pichu download available over wi-fi for anybody who missed the GameStop event, so I need never have embarrassed myself (twice) for that thing. No word yet on whether Jirachi will be offered the same way, but I really do hope that this is the beginning of the end for my (Pokemon-related) public humiliations.

That Yellow Bastard

So Nintendo has been running the "Pikachu-Colored Pichu" event, wherein a shiny Pichu for use in Pokemon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum has been made available for DS download exclusively at participating GameStop locations across the country. Naturally I was there on day one. Too bad Pichu wasn't.

Now, I want it clearly understood that this was not my first rodeo. Having attended every Toys"R"Us Pokemon event dating back to the Mew giveaway for 3rd-gen (back when we actually had to wait in line for hours to trade with a single sweaty employee packing a loaded GBA cartridge), I've been doing this for a while, so you can well imagine I've got the procedures down pat. Drive over at twilight, park in the back lot, duck my head low, turn on my DS and start downloading over wireless from the safety of my vehicle, all to the soothing ambiance of passing young children explaining Pokemon to their parents in the background.

As I drove over to that GameStop, the plan remained the same. I parked my car outside the store and readied my DS to download the Mystery Gift.

No signal.

I couldn't understand what the problem was. I was parked even closer to the presumed source than I had been with any of the Toys"R"Us events. I could only guess that maybe GameStop's Pichu-distributing server was not as dispersive as the ones at Toys"R"Us. That left me with only one option, off-putting as it might be.

I walked into the store, knowing full well that there would be almost no way to hide myself in that tiny establishment. Seeing customers waiting in line and browsing the shelves, I could only hope that clerks and patrons would keep each other occupied as I made myself as inconspicuous as possible, a lone adult male playing Nintendo DS while standing in the corner of a GameStop store.

Still nothing.

A less determined man might have given up at this point, but that's not me. I got in line behind two customers and waited for assistance with my Pokemon download. Some minutes later, my turn came up and, thankfully, there was no one else waiting behind me.

"Um, do you guys have this Pokemon thing?" I asked weakly.

"Oh, you mean the pre-order for Heart Gold and Soul Silver?" replied the young female clerk.

"Um, no, the poster on the door says there's a free download?"

She looked baffled. Clearly, I was dealing with an amateur here. Then I noticed that she had, sitting right in front of her, a stack of fliers advertising this very promotion.

"Uh, it's this thing," I said, pointing to the fliers.

She picked one up as if noticing it for the first time.

"Hey," she called over to the other clerk, also a young woman. "Do you know anything about this Pokemon download? It's a Pikachu-colored Pikachu? Pichu?"

"Oh, yeah, I think there was an e-mail about that. It might not be set up yet."

This second clerk was understandably distracted, however, with helping an older lady customer, who was there trading in games with her 6'4" thirty-year-old son. I guessed the games were his, though she had been the one doing all the talking. As their cashier processed the transactions, I noticed the mom looking at me. I smiled sheepishly in recognition before turning away.

"Um, can you set it up?" I asked the first clerk.

"Oh, they're supposed to send us a thing," answered the second clerk. "I don't know if we got it yet. (Boss) didn't mention anything about it, and I have no idea how this works."

"Sorry," apologized the first clerk.

And so I walked out of there bitter, ashamed, empty-handed. The Pichu would have to wait another day.

(Pichu Bros. perform the Fusion Dance to DNA Digivolve into Captain Planet. Probably.)

If I designed the next Pokémon game...

Although I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about the series now, I actually only started playing Pokémon proper about three years ago, when, finding myself with an overabundance of time on my hands, I decided to start on Pokémon Ruby, which was then already several years old. What struck me about the game was that it really wasn't very much fun, yet there was a highly addictive quality to the monster collection concept. I then proceeded to play through FireRed, Emerald, and Pearl in rapid succession.

Burnout was inevitable, but I was also disappointed at how little the game really evolved with each installment. For the most part, each generation added just a slew of new Pokémon to catch, while implementing only subtle changes to the technically sound but incredibly old-school turn-based battle engine.

That pattern is inherently catastrophic. As of the fourth generation, we're already at close to 500 Pokémon, not even including multi-form monsters such as Deoxys. Are Nintendo and Game Freak seriously just going to keep on adding? "Gotta catch 'em all" is already an impractical goal at best. What happens when we hit four digits? Will any even among the most diehard fanatics still bother to try?

Personally, I think we've already reached the limit of this design, and it's now time for a Pokémon revolution. (No, not Battle Revolution.)

Aside from the monster collecting, Pokémon has, for me, always been about the battling, so my redesign would concentrate on overhauling the combat engine.

Perhaps the most significant change yet introduced to Pokémon battling was the introduction of two-on-two combat in Ruby/Sapphire. In practice, double battles were rare, and the core games have remained primarily one-on-one, with up to six Pokémon per side tagging in and out. I think that's a shame, because, in my opinion, two-on-two only enhanced the combat by adding new options and encouraging a deeper consideration of the team-building that is so much the essence of the game. As such, before Diamond/Pearl came out, I initially thought going three-on-three would be the logical next step. Now, on second thought, why not just take it all the way to full six-on-six, setting aside the tagging altogether, as team members fill assigned roles within a more organic, simultaneous framework?

Complementing the more crowded battlefield would be a real-time engine to largely eliminate turns. Rather than giving the player direct control of the Pokémon, however, I would prefer to keep to a more strategic approach inspired by the Gambit system from Final Fantasy XII, utilizing preset if-then AI scripts to command them indirectly.

This would mean that the fighting would be mostly automated, but, hey, take a stroll through any online Pokémon forum, and you'll run into heated "theory fighter" debates that make Shoryuken.com seem casual by comparison. Given how much of the fight is determined before it even begins by the setups, we may as well spare players the formality of tapping A to issue commands during combat. That way, instead of mashing A to get through the first several rounds of the stat-boosting "Dragon Dance" with Gyarados, it will just do it automatically according to plan. Unless, of course, it's facing an unfavorable matchup, in which case the if-then preset will have it shifting intelligently to defense. Then again, with so many allies on the field, maybe its teammates could be instructed to help stall, while it powers itself up in the back.

As for the player's role once the fighting begins, the trainer would toss out healing items, issue manual tactical adjustments (i.e. call plays) as necessary, and make substitutions. Yes, in addition to moving to six-on-six on the field, I would also propose adding a reserve of another six backup Pokémon, bringing the experience closer to an actual professional team sport. All of this would occur in real time, so a swift input mechanism (e.g. touch screen) would be needed. The substitutions, in particular, I picture operating fluidly as in a hockey game.

Finally, as a fighting game fan, I've always hated the idea of having RPG-type "levels" and semi-random stats in a competitive game, upsetting the pure contest of skill and strategy. I'll concede that having a team of Pokémon bred and built by yourself can strengthen your attachment to them, but, once in the competitive arena, I would favor the option to normalize the stats and focus more on testing the players' custom move sets and AI routines.

It's foolish of me, I know, to waste my time dreaming about a game that Nintendo will never even consider, but I do believe that something radical must be done with the series to avert a horrible crash within just one more generation. Alas, I suspect it's more likely that they will simply start removing old Pokémon while continuing to add new ones, in order to keep the "Gotta catch 'em all" experience barely manageable according to the same old formula. I suppose, within the fan community of Pokémaniacs who can name all 493 Pokémon, that would be considered "radical," but not in a positive way.

The Essentials #24: Pokémon Puzzle League

Panel de Pon / Tetris Attack

Nintendo's Puzzle League series actually began with 1995's Panel de Pon for the Japanese Super Famicom. Developed by Intelligent Systems, Panel de Pon was a competitive puzzler in the vein of Puyo Puyo. Players had to group together panels of like color in order to clear them from the board and send them over to fill the opponent's screen. The game ended when one player's side became so vertically overcrowded that it could no longer contain any further panels that continued to appear.


The original Japanese Panel de Pon featured an original story and graphics full of cutesy fairy characters. Then, as now, the severely risk-averse Nintendo of America had concerns about the mass marketability of a new IP with such a distinctively Japanese aesthetic flavor, so when the game arrived in North America a year later, it went through extensive rebranding. The North American release not only ditched the fairies, replacing them with Yoshi's Island-themed art and characters, but also threw in the Tetris name because the always savvy marketing department concluded that, to Americans, "puzzle game" meant Tetris. The result was Tetris Attack, one of the last titles of consequence on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.


I remember first encountering Tetris Attack at a demo kiosk at the local Toys "R" Us. I gave it a whirl and found it immediately intuitive, addictive, and incredibly charming, but after about ten minutes of play, I concluded that the mechanics suffered from a crucial design flaw, and so I passed on purchasing the game.

Pokémon Puzzle League

Nintendo gave Panel de Pon another chance in 2000, however, with the release of Pokémon Puzzle League for the Nintendo 64. Produced specifically for North America, the new edition again dispensed with Panel de Pon's girlish aesthetics, this time rebranding the game to tie it into the Pokémon craze of the moment. Specifically, the game was based on the popular Pokémon animated series, incorporating the anime-specific characters, featuring the authentic voices and catchy tunes of the English adaptation, and even including a fully-animated opening sequence.

While the Pokémon theme may not have been to everyone's taste, the power of the N64 afforded several technical enhancements that definitely upped the intensity of the experience. For versus, players could choose from a variety of Pokémon trainers from the anime, most of whom were also recognizable from the first Game Boy titles (although it was missing certain late-game boss characters who had presumably not yet appeared on the show at the time of the game's release). While they offered no mechanical differences, the trainers and their Pokémon possessed character-specific voice clips that, in competitive multiplayer, may have been my favorite part of Pokémon Puzzle League. In a single-player game, the incessant howling every few seconds of Ash's "I'm gonna win!" or Koga's haughty "Work harder, young one!" could become quickly obnoxious, but in versus, that was entirely the point. Any trash talking by the players would be rendered redundant, as the cheesy canned taunts of the characters, like the best fighting game victory quotes, did a better job expressing one's dominance and were also more demoralizing to the opponent when the chatter became one-sided. Even better were the Pokémon themselves. Each trainer had three Pokémon, and as established in the anime, the little monsters could only speak their own names. In Pokémon Puzzle League, this happened whenever a player pulled off a combo, using gravity to cause a chain reaction, whereby one set of cleared panels would set up those above them to fall into place for another clear. Each hit of the combo would be accompanied by your Pokémon yelling its own name, and successive hits would be matched with ever more animated cries, until "Cloister" became "Cl-l-l-l-loister!" to sound the veritable death knell for the opponent, who would know to expect a massive pile of garbage blocks to rain down on his screen.


The fabulous production values were just a part of one of the most feature-packed titles on the N64. In addition to versus play and a single-player story mode that adapted most of the boss battles of the original Game Boy game, Pokémon Puzzle League offered a bevy of alternative play modes. Most of these were single-player affairs of little interest, but the "Puzzle University" mode constituted a brilliant repurposing of the assets toward a fundamentally different puzzle experience in which the player, freed of the pressure of an opponent or time limit, had to solve static stages by completely clearing all panels within a predetermined number of moves. A comprehensive training mode, meanwhile, walked the player through the basics, as well as some of the more advanced techniques, of one of the deepest puzzle games ever designed. Most curious was "3-D" mode, which was essentially just the regular competitive game, except that, in this mode, the left and right boundaries were removed, and the playing field was reshaped into a cylindrical tube that wrapped around, with the pieces lining the surface of the tube. This significantly increased the amount of area that you had to cover, and it could become overwhelming having to keep an eye on the height of the blocks facing away from the screen. The unwieldy mode was basically a novelty that didn't even appear fully implemented into the game's design. One source of amusement, for example, involved trying to play 3-D mode against the CPU. Intelligent Systems clearly never bothered to program the AI to deal with the wraparound field of 3-D mode, and it was almost sad to watch the CPU working just the immediate side of the field, while the the back half continued to rise toward the ceiling. The CPU would often even inadvertently kill itself by manually hastening the ascent to provide more blocks to work with in the front, never realizing apparently that there was an overabundance in the back.

As for that "crucial design flaw" that ruined Tetris Attack for me? Well, it was still there in Pokémon Puzzle League, and it was actually less a flaw than a technical limitation, less a matter of design than of input.

The distinguishing feature of Puzzle League's gameplay is that, rather than falling from the top of the screen as in Tetris or Puyo Puyo, the panels continually arise from the bottom of the screen as horizontal lines that span the entire width of the field. The player has no control over how they are arranged as they appear, so instead of manipulating the blocks, you control a cursor that can highlight two horizontally adjacent pieces and flip them around. My issue with this concept as realized in Tetris Attack and Pokémon Puzzle League was that the directional pads of the SNES and N64 could not possibly move the cursor around as quickly as the human mind could perceive potential moves in the block arrangement. If, say, you spotted an opening on the opposite corner of the screen from your current position, you would have to slowly maneuver the cursor over there through clumsy diagonals, losing much precious time in the process. And that was without even trying to flip any panels along the way. It was comparable to aiming in a first-person shooter using a control pad instead of a mouse, except that, as far as I knew, Puzzle League never had a mouse-controlled version. But to me, it was the same problem of the theoretical game being strapped down by the practical constraints of a crude manual input mechanism that simply wasn't up to task for the concept.

Later Editions

Pokémon Puzzle League received a Game Boy Color port/sequel in 2000 called Pokémon Puzzle Challenge. This followup featured characters and Pokémon from the Gold/Silver era, but, without the production values or convenient multiplayer of the console version, it was missing most of what made Puzzle League worth playing. In 2003, Panel de Pon was included, along with Dr. Mario and Yoshi's Cookie, as part of the Japan-only Nintendo Puzzle Collection for GameCube. Two years later, Nintendo released the Dr. Mario/Puzzle League double pak for the Game Boy Advance, establishing plain Puzzle League as the official international version of Panel de Pon for regions outside Japan. Just as "Pokémon" was removed from the title, the included version of Puzzle League was stripped of all characters--no fairies, Yoshi, or Pokémon.

Most recently, the Puzzle League/Panel de Pon series arrived on the Nintendo DS in the form of Planet Puzzle League, released in North America in 2007. As with the GBA version, Planet Puzzle League has no story nor characters and sports a vaguely futuristic skin reminiscent of other handheld puzzlers such as Meteos and Lumines. The new look is slick but cold, and the livelier personalities of Tetris Attack and Pokémon Puzzle League remain sorely missed.

The loss of character is easily forgiven, however, in the face of the giant leap forward in control offered by the DS. The advent of touch controls finally solves the input hurdle that hindered the earlier editions. Now instead of desperately scrolling around with the D-pad, you can instantly reach the panels you wish to flip by tapping them with the stylus. Traditional controls are still included as an option, but in my opinion, there is simply no comparison, especially when things get tight, and you need those blocks to be moving as quickly as you will them.


The other major addition in Planet Puzzle League is versus play with more than two players, although it is sadly limited to only four players, compared to the eight-player of Tetris DS. Nevertheless, support for three or four players drastically alters the dynamic of the competitive game, allowing a broader range of play styles beyond just slinging the biggest chains possible. I'll admit that Pokémon Puzzle League gradually became less fun for me as it grew ever more apparent that my younger sister was simply leagues ahead of me. I just didn't practice enough to develop the time-slowing instincts and all-at-once vision that allow experienced players to consistently pull off chains of more than four moves. Even with the aid of the game's built-in time-stopping mechanic that paused the action after each link to facilitate further chaining, I rarely ever got four-chains except by accident. That's still the case in Planet Puzzle League, and not even the new stylus controls can bridge that gulf, but the addition of two extra players can open things up a bit. Three lesser players can combine to exert actual pressure against a single powerhouse that would otherwise dominate any one-on-one match, and that can give a steady player such as myself enough room to hang in there for a while and try to outlast everyone else.

Beyond the multiplayer, Planet Puzzle League is disappointingly empty. There's no single-player story, no training mode, no 3-D mode, and no head-to-head records keeping. In many respects, it's a tremendous step down from Pokémon Puzzle League on the N64. In the areas that matter most, however, it's an improvement. The stylus controls are absolutely essential, while the expanded multiplayer support further enhances what was already one of the greatest competitive puzzlers out there.

The Essentials #8: Pokémon Stadium

I've played and enjoyed my share of Pokémon, but my first experience with the series was not very pleasant at all. Out of curiosity, I had decided to sample one of the early titles, probably Red or Blue, maybe Yellow. About an hour into the game, I was thoroughly unimpressed, even a little disgusted. The extremely basic Dragon Quest-level menu-driven combat was archaic even for the time. The single-minded storyline was complete rubbish, and there was something innately unsavory about the whole concept, which struck me as far too close to cockfighting. And the very first boss had completely annihilated me because it turned out that I had picked the worst possible Pokémon to take him on. Since the pathetic bug Pokémon I had caught randomly were no better, my only real option would have been to level-grind until I was sufficiently strong enough to brute force my way through. Well, I had zero interest in doing that, so I put it away, feeling thoroughly disappointed in Nintendo.

It wasn't until a few years later, when I tried Pokémon Stadium for the Nintendo 64, that I warmed up to the series and started to appreciate the depth and appeal of its gameplay.

The 1999/2000 release, developed by HAL Laboratory, rather than series creator Game Freak, was the first title to make use of the N64 Transfer Pak, which came included in the game's oversized box. The clear antecedent of the connectivity experiments of the GameCube and Game Boy Advance, the Transfer Pak allowed players to plug in select Game Boy cartridges to access special features on certain N64 games. In the case of Pokémon Stadium, the attraction of the device lay in the ability to import a player's exact team from Pokémon Red, Blue, or Yellow. The team could then be used in any of the main battle modes.

For multiplayer matches, Stadium was a great option, as the 3-D graphics on the larger space afforded by a TV screen offered a far more exciting venue, also allowing spectators to view the action. There was even an announcer shouting overenthusiastic phrases. On the downside, the game never actually showed the contact as Pokémon attacked one another. It would just show the one Pokémon performing the attack animation, then cut to a shot of the target reeling from the blow. The overlong animations also grew tiresome over time, and abundant transitions made for a much slower-paced experience than the Game Boy titles.


The single-player modes, meanwhile, offered plenty of challenges to test players who had already mastered the Game Boy titles. The game featured several "Cup" modes of multiple levels each, where players could compete in tournaments against AI trainers. More compelling was the Gym Leader Castle, where players could take on the boss trainers from Red and Blue. While veteran players would have already beaten them in the original games, these trainers now came with new tricks and Pokémon teams that provided fiercer challenges than anything experienced in the Game Boy titles.

For those unfamiliar, Pokémon utilizes traditional turn-based, menu-based combat. Parties are composed of up to six Pokémon, which fight one at a time but can tag in and out at the cost of a turn. The main twist is that every Pokémon has an assigned type (Fire, Water, Grass, etc.), which is strong, weak, or neutral against other types. A Pokémon's type can be as important, if not more so, than its level, as a savvy player can and often must abuse type advantage to overcome a higher-level foe.

In the main handheld titles, most opposing trainers, including bosses, employed themed teams consisting of Pokémon all of a certain type. This gave the characters themselves gimmicks, in lieu of actual personalities, but the one-dimensional teams were often too easily swept by a single Pokémon with a type advantage. Furthermore, most bosses didn't even have full teams of six. As a sort of "pro" circuit for players who had already made it through the Game Boy adventures and wanted more, Stadium offered tougher battles against trainers with more sensible and balanced teams, requiring that players employ deeper strategy in constructing their own teams. Winning all of the Cups and the Gym Leader Castle then opened up the opportunity to take on Mewtwo, essentially the final boss of the game.


In many ways, Pokémon Stadium was a glorified expansion pack that relied heavily on the Game Boy titles. In my case, however, I didn't have any Game Boy team to import, so I didn't quite view it that way. For those who either, like me, had no Pokémon of their own, or simply wanted to play with Pokémon they hadn't yet caught in the Game Boy titles, the game allowed players to "rent" any of the then 151 Pokémon, minus Mewtwo, for use in any of the modes. The rental Pokémon came with pretty much the bare minimum stats for their levels, and their movesets could not be altered in any way. This left them at a clear disadvantage against legitimately-caught Pokémon of comparable levels, or against the slightly juiced teams of the AI trainers. Clearly, the game meant to encourage players to use their own Pokémon, and perhaps it wasn't thought very likely that a player could make it up to and past Mewtwo using rental teams. It was a credit to just how engaging the combat was that I ended up doing just that.

It was actually my younger sister, then an avid Pokémon fan, who had been playing the game until she got stuck on a frustrating match against Sabrina, the psychic gym leader, at which point I offered to help. Despite my limited experience with the series, I had played enough other turn-based role-playing games that I felt confident enough to at least give it a try. Freed of the burden of having to collect and train my own monsters, I began to see the depth of the combat itself. Unlike other RPGs I had played, the computer couldn't really cheat, as it was bound by the same limitations as the player. With levels being roughly equal, it really came down to who played the better match. In that sense, it more closely resembled the fighting games that I loved than the RPGs I had played, which typically required only that the player be at a high enough level for any given fight.

I didn't end up winning that first match, but I was intrigued and determined to try again. After my sister quickly led me through the basics of the Pokémon types, I came back with a different team of rental Pokémon and handily outmaneuvered Sabrina. From that point on, I was hooked. I found it both rewarding and liberating having to defeat my opponents through strategy and foresight, knowing that I couldn't rely on level-grinding to get me through. As I faced increasingly superior teams, my plan typically involved using status-afflicting moves to paralyze the enemy or put them to sleep, or lowering their accuracy or speed, then whittling them down with the most effective attack I had available. And, on defense, there were times when I'd have to sacrifice one Pokémon in order to save a more immediately valuable one. The Mewtwo battle was a particular highlight, as, at one point, I even had my Ditto use Mimic to morph into a mirror of the almighty Mewtwo, albeit one with inferior stats. Of course, I would still lose occasionally and each time come back with a better set of Pokémon, a tactic which would not have been feasible had I been required to catch and train all of my own Pokémon.

In addition to providing a new 3-D platform for battling, Pokémon Stadium also allowed players, via the Transfer Pak, to play the Game Boy Pokémon titles on the N64, in much the same manner as the Super Game Boy or Game Boy Player. Curiously, this was not a standard feature of the Transfer Pak, and the Pokémon titles were the only Game Boy games that could be played on the N64.

As a final bonus, the game included nine Pokémon-themed mini-games for up to four players. These were simplistic Mario Party-style affairs, but they provided an amusing enough diversion for younger players.

Pokémon Stadium was the Pokémon title that got me into the series, and, now, after having played so many others, I find myself really just wishing for another version of Stadium. It removed all the chaff of the monster catching and training, allowing players to enjoy the pure battling experience at their leisure.


Additional Information

This was actually the second Pokémon Stadium title. The original Pokémon Stadium was a Japan-only release that contained only forty-two Pokémon. Really, it was more of a prototype or demo for this game.

A third N64 installment, released in 2001 as Pokémon Stadium 2 in North America, offered more of the same but added compatibility with the second-generation Pokémon titles (Gold, Silver, Crystal). Regrettably, I never picked it up, as I was ready to move on to the GameCube by that time.

Since then, the series has been effectively replaced by Genius Sonority's console Pokémon titles: Pokémon Colosseum, Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness, and Pokémon Battle Revolution. These titles carried on the ability to transfer teams from the portable games for battle on the TV screen, but the two GameCube titles were otherwise quite the opposite of Stadium, focusing on lengthy quests that played out like mediocre versions of the handheld titles. I haven't played Battle Revolution for the Wii, but, from what I've heard, it's much more of an expansion pack than Stadium ever was, as the rental options are far more limited, making Diamond/Pearl connectivity a practical necessity.