GAMING FEATURE
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POKÉMON
LOOKING BACK
It was February in 1996 when the RPG
phenomenon that we now know as Pokémon first
launched in its native Japan. With a completely
new entry in the core series, Pokémon Legends:
Arceus, launching this month, we catch up with a
bit of the history of how we got from there to here.
Words Bec Summer
I
t may be a world-beating phenomenon now,
but the origins of Pokémon lie in a selfpublished magazine entitled Game Freak, by
Satoshi Tajiri, back in 1983. Tajiri soon teamed
with an illustrator, named Ken Sugimori.
The huge game fans decided to take a
next step in 1989, teaming with multitalented
programmer Junichi Masuda to form
a game development company,
which they also called Game Freak.
They developed games for the
Famicom/Nintendo Entertainment
System, Super Famicom/ Super
Nintendo, Game Boy and SEGA’s
Mega Drive, while nurturing a
close relationship with Nintendo.
They were even entrusted with making games
starring the top game company’s mascots
Yoshi, Mario and his nemesis Wario.
During this time, Tajiri was fascinated with
the portable Game Boy, and how two units
could be connected via a Game Link cable.
This led to memories of his childhood, and an
interest in collecting insects. When combined
with a love of the Ultraman series that featured
big monsters squished into teensy capsule, this
kernel grew into the idea for Capsule Monsters,
which later became Pocket Monsters.
Proving that it’s worth persevering with an
idea that you truly believe in, Nintendo were
pitched the idea, but they rejected it – several
times. When the Game Freak crew became
closer with Nintendo’s game guru Shigeru
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Miyamoto, however, they finally convinced the
Big N that the idea was a good one. Little did
anybody involved know just how big it would
become...
After several years of development, and
with Game Freak skating frighteningly close
to bankruptcy, the first ever Pocket Monsters
game was completed, and released
early in 1996 in the now
familiar two flavours, in
this case Pocket Monsters:
Red and Pocket Monsters:
Green, for the Game Boy.
Together they included 151
creatures to catch, train and
trade with friends – using that Game Boy Game
Link cable – in order for the player to become
a Pokémon master. After the game’s popularity
exploded, a special edition Blue version came,
featuring improved graphics and sound and a
bunch of gameplay and glitch tweaks.
It wouldn’t be until 1998 that the rest of
planet Earth had an opportunity to get in on the
craze, when Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue,
based on the upgraded Japanese Blue release,
went worldwide.
Remaining a Nintendo exclusive for its major
releases – there have been side dalliances with
mobiles, online, Mac and Windows - Pokémon
games have come thick and fast ever since. The
core franchise kept things handheld, graduating
from Game Boy to Game Boy Color and then
Game Boy Advance, and onwards through
Nintendo’s DS, 3DS and later Switch.
Home consoles didn’t miss out on the fun,
with side series games releasing first on the
Nintendo 64, then through
GameCube and Wii. The
Wii U had to make do
with some classic games
releasing on its Virtual
Console.
Spinoff games have
come thick and fast, from
stadium battles to pinball, action
adventures to trading card
simulators and myriad different puzzle
challenges to a drawing game. Then
there was Detective Pikachu which, of
course, spawned a movie starring Ryan
Reynolds providing the lead character’s voice.
The Pokémon people certainly haven’t been
shy about trying new things. There have been
crossovers with super-popular fighting game
series Tekken, introducing us to “Pokken” in
two Pokken Tournament games, and even a
Pokémon Tetris.
Of course, we haven’t yet mentioned the
myriad television episodes, movies,
trading cards…
At current count there have been 122
different Pokémon video games released –
some of them upgrades of previous releases –
and a grand total of 898 Pokémon to add to the
ever-expanding Pokédex. If you’ve gotta catch
‘em all, you’ve quite some work ahead
of you!
ALL IS FAIR IN LOVE,
WAR AND POKÉMON
COLLECTING!
Being a real-world Pokémon
collector can send you down a
giant rabbit – or Buneary, if you
prefer – hole of options. Over the
years there have been several
special edition Nintendo consoles
released, and here are just a
handful of our favourites.
jbhifi.com.au
17/12/21 4:23 pm