A Wild King Has Appeared!

 

I can't mention how, but I've recently been playing some old Pokemon games on a handheld not named the Gameboy. (Moroes if you're reading this, I finally did it.) It seems like over the years I forgot just how good these games actually were.

 

Sure the Pokemon series has some issues. Every game is nearly identical:

 

-You start off getting a pokemon from a professor(3 you can choose from), get a pokedex, and go on a quest to catch em' all.

-There is some rival that you bump into occasionally who picks a pokemon of your pokemon's weakness

-usually an early town you go to is a city

-you encounter a legendary pokemon

-There is some kind of group of criminals who steal pokemon for their big mission( eg. Team magma)

 

But all of these don't seem to matter to much if you ignore the facts and just enjoy the game. Pokemon does so many things that games today don't do. A lot of new games try to make everything so complex and the game ends up tripping over its own feet because it is made too complex. Pokemon offers a simple gameplay scheme that is easy to get into but difficult to master. The task of building up your team, leveling up your Pokemon, battling, and trying to "Catch 'Em All" is so straightforward yet it is what gaming is about, which is being just plain fun. You can be sucked into the world for hours at a time because it is very addicting.

 

As mentioned earlier, many people bring up the argument that the Pokemon games are almost always the same in gameplay and story, and this is very true. Yet it doesn't seem like that big of a deal beacause the Pokemon games are just timeless and almost never lose their appeal. The gameplay formula is pretty damn good already so there' not much reason to change it. And for the story always being the same basic plot, well that's not why you're going to play is it?

 

Replaying some games in the series just made me want to give my 2 cents on it. Also it made me realize that you're never too old to play Pokemon. Well in public maybe, but you can always secretly enjoy the games.