February 15, 2010

• I feel like there is some underlying "togetherness" that all people who play Pokemon feel.  Whether you are 8 or 80, when you find out someone else plays Pokemon it's almost like you nod approvingly in your head, patting yourself on the back for finding another kindred spirit.  I've loved Pokemon as long as I can remember and the appeal doesn't fade with age.  Even as I am now able to play extremely complex and mature games, unlike when I first started playing Pokemon and still had to get my dad to kill the final bosses in FPS games, I can't deny my strange fascination with Pokemon.  I'm currently playing through Mass Effect, a game full of decisions that question your morality, realistic graphics (especially with my graphics card allowing visual recognition of the veins in people's eyes) that immerse you in the story and situations where you can kill whoever you want just because you feel like doing so.  I appreciate it as a plot driven story and thoroughly enjoy it, but there is something about Pokemon that it can never capture. 

  Pokemon is the same game, packaged over and over with new graphics and new characters.  It should be boring as hell and I should toss it aside after a few minutes when I remember how I've done exactly what I'm doing a bunch of times before in all the previous games.  Yet I continue to play.  I get excited each time I see a "new" Pokemon, even if I've caught it a bunch of times before on other games.  I delight in filling out my Pokedex, pretending that I'm bettering the world's knowledge of Pokemon.  There is a childlike wonder that never fades for me.  As a Pokemon trainer you are never evil or cruel or nasty and if you are it means you are shitty at battling and letting your Pokemon die.  There is no option to go around killing everyone for fun and profit.  You are simply a "researcher" of sorts and maybe that's why I enjoy it so much.

  Additionally, I have never met another "trainer" that I was extremely negative about.  And when I say trainer in quotes I'm talking about someone who is really into the game, not just someone who has played once or twice or might have played Red but never anything else like a certain husband I know.  It seems like the Pokemon community as a whole wants everyone else to succeed, to get all the Pokemon, to have all the items, to enjoy the game as much as possible.  People are always willing to trade and help one another, and because there is no option to screw one another over people who like doing that sort of thing shy away from the game.  It's a fantastic filter.  I mean...if you realllly wanted to be a dick you could be, but it's much more difficult than doing so in a game like, say, Counterstrike or something where being a dick is basically a summary of the game mechanics.

  Anyway, I just wanted to give a shout out to people who love Pokemon.  <3

  Also, if you are going to play the upcoming release, which is it?  Did you play gold or silver back in the day and are you going to follow your trend now or choose the opposite of what you played in the past for something new?  Do you still love Ho-oh or are you a Lugia fan?  Or will you just buy both because they're both going to be awesome?  Thoughts?

  • 2:57 pm
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