February 27, 2020 Is The 24th Anniversary Of Pokémon
February 27 is Pokémon Day!
I bet a lot of people are wondering why February 27 was chosen as Pokémon Day, and this is the reason — the original Pokémon games, Red And Green (Red And Blue outside of Japan) was released on this day in 1996.
People in Twitter have shown their appreciation of all things Pokemon-related with the hashtag #PokemonDay:
Aside from that, the AR game Pokemon Go has some events lined up for this entire week: https://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-news/pokemon-gos-pokemon-day-celebration-event-features-armored-mewtwo-and-clone-pokemon/
Full disclosure, I am a huge fan of Pokémon (and videogames in general) ever since I was a child — I could talk ALL DAY about Pokémon — and a lot of things that I’m saying here are “preaching to the choir” to other Pokémon-fans. But I will explain this as best as I can to people who are not familiar with any of these.
Outline Of Pokémon’s History
The brainchild of Satoshi Tajiri (director, game designer, scenario writer, map designer of the original Pokémon Red And Green), Pokémon was inspired by Tajiri’s childhood hobby of collecting bugs and trading bugs; and he wanted to share that feeling and sense of exploration with children who grow up in urban areas. (Side opinion: I collected bugs too when I was a child, and my father told me that when he was a child him and his friends collected bugs and made the beetles fight with each other.)
In the games, players take the role of a child who catches Pokémons, ranks up as a Pokémon trainer, and competes to achieve the title of Pokémon Master.
Ever since then, Pokémon has spawned several mainline videogames under Gamefreak, the Pokémon Company, and Nintendo:
- Pokémon Yellow (1998, Game Boy)
- Pokémon Gold And Silver (1999, Game Boy Color)
- Pokémon Crystal (2000, Game Boy Color)
- Pokémon Ruby And Sapphire (2002, Game Boy Advance)
- Pokémon FireRed And LeafGreen (2004, Game Boy Advance)
- Pokémon Emerald (2004, Game Boy Advance)
- Pokémon Diamond And Pearl (2006, Nintendo DS)
- Pokémon Platinum (2008, Nintendo DS)
- Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver (2009, Nintendo DS)
- Pokémon Black And White (2010, Nintendo DS)
- Pokémon Black 2 And White 2 (2012, Nintendo DS)
- Pokémon X And Y (2013, Nintendo 3DS)
- Pokémon Omega Ruby And Alpha Sapphire (2014, Nintendo 3DS)
- Pokémon Sun And Moon (2016, Nintendo 3DS)
- Pokémon Ultra Sun And Ultra Moon (2017, Nintendo 3DS)
- Pokémon Ultra Sword And Shield (2019, Nintendo Switch)
There are even spin-off games such as:
- Great Detective Pikachu (2016, Nintendo 3DS) which is the basis of the movie Detective Pikachu
- Pokkén Tournament (which is like Tekken the fighting game, except the fighters are Pokémons), for arcades in Japan in 2015, and for the WiiU in 2016, and ported to the Nintendo Switch in 2017.
- the ubiquitous AR game Pokémon Go in 2016 (of which The Pokémon Company / Gamefreak and Nintendo have partnered with San Francisco-based Niantic)
- Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! (2018, Nintendo Switch) which are remakes of Pokémon Yellow, which came out in 1998, and incorporated elements from the Pokemon anime series. They feature connectivity with Pokémon Go and support an optional controller, the “Poké Ball Plus”.
- and aside from that Pokémon characters have appeared as guest fighters in the Super Smash Brothers fighting games series (which is considered a huge badge of honor and signal boost for any franchise gets included at all).
Outside of the videogames, there is the collectible card game called Pokémon Card Game (sometimes called Pokémon Trading Card Game and abbreviated to PTCG or Pokémon TCG),which rivals the complexity and competitiveness of Magic: The Gathering or Battle-Tech or Yugi-Oh, and has the major tournaments to match. Pokémon TCG was first in 1996 by Media Factory in Japan. In the US, it was initially published by Wizards of the Coast; The Pokémon Company eventually took over publishing the card game in June 2003.
And of course the anime TV series and several movies, of which the most famous is Detective Pikachu.
Same Formula?
Even though Pokémon is popular, the mainline games also have some things that it can improve on. For one thing, the game loop, game mechanics, and exploration have stayed the same since 1996. All the improvements are just graphical. There are new games like Temtem, which are inspired by Pokemon, but add new features and gameplay mechanics.
For example, Temtem is inspired by Pokemon, but makes the game into an MMORPG: https://store.steampowered.com/app/745920/Temtem/
If Pokemon can learn from these games and modernize, then it might be better. But they probably have no incentive to change their formula since it works so well for them. Hopefully having other games as competitors to this niche will motivate the Pokemon series to evolve too. https://www.gamespot.com/articles/temtem-what-pokemon-can-learn-from-the-mmo/1100-6472781/
The Positive Influence Of Pokemon
In the videogames, players can choose to play as a boy-child or a girl child.
When I was a child, I was really happy about that, because I can play as myself, since I can play as a girl.
But I found out later that it was possibly something better for trans people, because they can choose to play as themselves too and the professor who starts you on your journey to be a Pokemon trainer does not assume your gender.
I found this out when I was looking for a picture of Professor Oak from the original game asking “Are you a boy? Or are you a girl?” Here is the article: http://game-positive.weebly.com/blog/why-pokemon-is-extra-special-when-youre-trans
If it’s something that makes people happy, I would say that it’s positive.
Pokémon Is Everywhere!
Pokémon became so ubiquitous that even people who don’t know much about videogames or don’t play videogames have at least heard of or are familiar with Pokémons.
It’s gotten to the point that publications and media that are not mainly about videogames much less about computers and technology, such as The Economist magazine, have written about the 20th anniversary of Pokémon, since they recognize its cultural impact to the world.
The Pokémon Day and “Pokémon Of The Year” was even covered in Newsweek. 1996-me would never have been able to imagine that something Pokémon-related would be covered in a non-gaming magazine.
(We truly live in an interesting timeline.)
What Is This Business of “Pokémon Of The Year”?
For the uninitiated, every year on Pokémon Day, people around the world vote on which one is their favorite Pokémon, which will be awarded with the honor of “Pokémon Of The Year”.
This year, the winner is Greninja (Pokémon No. 658), from Pokémon X And Y, with a total of 140,559 votes. Geninja is a Pokémon that looks like a ninja-frog, whose attacks/powers are Water/Darkness-based. Greninja’s popularity
English version of the video is here:
Special Announcement?!
Aside from that there is a special announcement: a new Pokémon has been announced:
Zarude is a new Pokemon that will be patched into Pokemon Sword And Shield. It is a Dark/Grass type Mythical Pokemon that resembles a rogue monkey. It will appear in the Isle of Armor DLC set to release in June 2020.
Anyway, dear readers, did you also grow up playing Pokemon? If yes, do you STILL play Pokemon? Which Pokemon game is your favorite? Which one is your favorite Pokemon? Did you vote for “Pokemon Of The Year” this year?
Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!
