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Pokemon Month: Beyond the Games & Fandom Creations
135 Plays10 months ago
Welcome to Pokémon Month! This month Satsunami is joined by wrestler and Pokemon fan Martin MacAlistair! Join the duo as they explore the vast world of the most popular media franchise out there, from rumours and fan creations to the first film and even a trivia quiz. So if you want to be the very best like no one ever was, join us on the 02/02/24 for our debut episode!
In this episode, Satsunami and Martin take on the world beyond the core game series, this time focusing on fandom creations. From fan games and fusions to the Nuzlocke Challenge, the duo take a comprehensive look into the topic. Has the Pokémon franchise really become influential beyond the games? And if so, what has it inspired others to make? Let's find out!
This podcast is a member of the PodPack Collective. The members are as follows:
Chatsunami
Casting Views
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2 Girls 1 Reusable Cup
Review it Yourself
Seismic Cinema
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Transcript
Introduction and Theme Setting
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi I'm Mark McCaster. Welcome to Chatsunami. We're here for a very special month. It's Godzilla month. It's not Godzilla month. It's Digimon month. Welcome to Pokemon month.
Guest Introduction: Martin McAllister
00:00:23
Speaker
Hello everybody and welcome to the second episode of Pokemon Month. My name's Satenami and joining me today is none other than the... I'm flinching. I'm ready for this. I'm tense. I don't know, Nuzlocke our fan creator, I've got nothing for this one, is the one and only wrestler extraordinaire and Pokemon master, Martin McAllister. Martin, welcome back. I'm so sorry.
00:00:55
Speaker
Thank you for having me. Thank you for the lovely introduction. It is good to be here. I am hyped that we're back for week two.
Pokémon's Influence Beyond Games
00:01:01
Speaker
I am hyped to talk about, but I think fan games, beyond the games, there's lots of things about the wider world of Pokemon. So what are we chatting about? So with that very subtle introduction, yeah, today we are going beyond the games. We're going beyond the anime. We're going beyond the, I don't know, beyond the truck. Beyond the rumors.
00:01:24
Speaker
This is the real truth of time at the Chasrin Abbey. And yeah, today we are going to be talking about Pokemon beyond the games. We are going to be talking about fan games. We're going to be talking about a making hand gesture. You can't see different ways to play the game. Yeah, we're going to be talking about, yeah, different ways to play the games. We're going to be talking about, yeah, just the fan experience of Pokemon. Because let's face it, Pokemon is one of those rare instances that you can
00:01:52
Speaker
pretty much play it. Although there is like a set core gameplay loop, you can really tackle it in any way you want, can't you? Yeah and I think what's so cool about it is it also lends itself to be very watchable.
The Nuzlocke Challenge Explained
00:02:04
Speaker
How you play it and there's a reason this game is, you know, all the Pokemon games are so popular on things like Twitch and YouTube and even, you know, podcasts, we're talking about it but it's so popular because it is very watchable regardless of how you play these games.
00:02:18
Speaker
And I think that's kind of what's led to this two branches of the same tree but fan games and the different ways of playing the game. It's because it's such an easy game loop and it's such an enjoyable game loop to watch. Oh absolutely, because it's very simple and it's well recognisable. You know, it's not the biggest media franchise in the world for no reason.
00:02:38
Speaker
But the fact is, in gaming especially, if you see that turn-based combat, you see the new creatures and everything, you know it's going to be Pokémon. And the fact is, because of that gameplay loop, it has attracted so many fans, it's attracted so many people that really want to change it for
Nostalgia and Personal Experiences
00:02:58
Speaker
themselves. Because this is the interesting thing that we're going to be talking about today, because let's face it, Martin, you're old, I'm old. What a very old 29, let's just say.
00:03:09
Speaker
Beyond the precipice, to borrow a phrase from the last makes sense. People do have, and this isn't, you know, a hot take or anything, people do want to still have the same nostalgia for a franchise that they've grown up with, that they've loved ever since they were younger. They want to have that same feeling when they play it and, you know, return to it. But then, of course, when you return to it, it's either outdated or you think, oh, this game's a bit childish, because obviously
00:03:35
Speaker
It's a game series that is dedicated towards kids and that's what we're talking about last week. No amount of realistic blood in a ROM hack is going to change that. Yeah there's been quite an interest in development over the years hasn't there? Yeah and I think anytime you talk about this we have to start with Nuzloks.
00:03:51
Speaker
I think that comes up to what you're saying. So Nuzlocke is just a set of rules that people self-impose on the game but essentially if your Pokémon gets knocked out in the game you have to release it. There's all other rules about catching Pokémon and stuff but I think the core concept is you can no longer just throw your team into battle really nearly and hope for the best and it takes Pokémon which is a very casual and fun experience too. This is tense and everything matters now
00:04:14
Speaker
I think that's such a fascinating concept because it kind of covers what you're saying where you do get that nostalgic feeling and funnily enough a very similar game to Pokemon Nuzlocke when it was played as XCOM and the reason I say that is that's a strategy game where you get to name your characters and then if they die they're gone and I think that's part of what makes the Nuzlocke so fascinating is you name the Pokemon you get attached to it just like you would when you were a kid and you know everyone has these favourite Pokemon they have when they were kids when they played the games but now if you've captured this Pokemon you've given it its own name
00:04:43
Speaker
And when you lose that Pokémon boy does it hurt? Oh it does. Have you played a lot with Nuslox? No I've only ever managed to do two because my heart can not take care. I have done several and let me tell you it does not get easier.
00:05:00
Speaker
the very first one and of all things I think it was season one or probably more two but I think it was season two that I did a Chatsu Shorts episode where I talked about my very first experience with a Nuzlocke with Leif Green and I have to say for the most part it was like yeah
00:05:18
Speaker
this is okay, you know, this is interesting. And then I got to that battle where, you know, when you're going to the Elite Four, but before you go to the Indigo Plateau, usually you should fight Gary Oak there, but I don't know if he appears if you fight him at the start of the game.
00:05:34
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I could be wrong in that. It's been a while since I've played it, but either way, he ambushed me and I was like, right, okay, this is fine. No problem. And I was my starter at that point. And upon trying to grind up and get a very respectable team, I lost maybe 80% of my team.
00:05:51
Speaker
Everybody died. All I had was a Kadabra and a Dragonite because I kind of cheated. Well not cheated but I went to the game corner because I didn't pick up Eevee and settled on city so I bought the game corner and I thought right okay I've got two Pokemon here and then I had the shiny Roman effect and I found the shiny Primate which those three
00:06:16
Speaker
carried me there.
Fan Games and ROM Hacks
00:06:17
Speaker
But it was such an emotionally taxing experience because I thought, should I just start again? Should I keep going? And then I did. I kept going. And it was a fantastic experience, but it was just... my heart couldn't take it, as you said. But the other one that I did, which was
00:06:31
Speaker
probably the worst for me was the Pokémon White playthrough. That was horrific. Again, I was left with a Emboar, my starter, and a Gyarados because I did the whole thing. And then I did the postgame, I did the Elite Four and everything, and I was only left with those two. And this is the other thing that I never expected as well because you brought up the idea of having that personal connection with your Pokémon because you name them and everything.
00:06:57
Speaker
and the Pokémon that you catch and that you have to, and there's obviously caveats and things you can do to make it a bit more interesting, but you have to catch the first Pokémon paired route and it means that you have to use Pokémon that you're not really, like you wouldn't usually use. And one of those Pokémon that I've never really used is one called, I think it's Time Pole or something like a Time Pole. It's like this tadpole Pokémon that Gen 5 and I remember it evolved into, I think,
00:07:25
Speaker
I think it's Palpitoad. And I fell in love with this thing because it's like a ground water type. It's a bit like Quagsire in that regard. I loved it. I called it Hoppy. I was really enamored because it was like a core part of the team. And then I went into this cave and I thought one of the, I can't remember what the name is, but it's one of the fossil Pokémon that flies. And it took out Hoppy in the cave. I was so upset. It was my Avengers Endgame.
00:07:54
Speaker
Oh, it was heart-breaking. So, like, I was messaging my friends and they were saying things like, oh, do it for Hopi. And I was like, oh my God, Hopi! You know they have some sense, do it for Hopi.
00:08:08
Speaker
I was like, oh, this is heartbreaking. It's so tough. But that's the thing though, assuming I go to play the games normally now, I can't. I genuinely, I cannot play the games normally because when I go to heal my Pokémon that I've fainted, I feel as if I'm cheating. And I'm like, no, that's the way you're supposed to play the game normally, but I can't play it anymore.
00:08:28
Speaker
It's such a great, it's something you mentioned I want to bring up because one of the great things about Durslochen is you are forced into doing things that you wouldn't do and one of the rules I really like is no items in battle and I think that's like, you can't heal in battle, you can't use X attack and stuff and I think that's another layer of you're taking something that's supposed to be in the game out and therefore things are going to go wrong now and one of the things that's so interesting is when, as you said, where you've got different Pokémon that you wouldn't use, all of a sudden you've got a
00:08:54
Speaker
Magikarp and the Teemo you've got for me, I never used a lot of the bug Pokémon because you bring them into the first weapon and they go on. But then all of a sudden you're sitting there and your starter's got like free HP left and you're face to face with a Pokémon. You're like, if I switch, that Pokémon's gonna die anyway. But would I rather lose this one than this one? And that means I get a clean switch and then all of a sudden you're having to go in in-depth tactical analysis of what if I get crit when I swap back in the other Pokémon?
00:09:21
Speaker
complete nonsense and was like, this is what this game, this is what's hidden in here and Pokemon's incredibly in depth when you pull it apart and try to get into it. Because what's amazing is, and I don't know if you've ever seen this or if it even exists anymore but I used to frequent a, I think it was like the Nuzlocke
00:09:38
Speaker
forms it used to be called. It was amazing because it was like this form before I go on. One thing I want to say is, it's amazing how this all started because of a web comic. And the reason it's called on us, look for anyone wondering, is because the person who made it, he had a
00:09:54
Speaker
in these party and for some reason they drew it with the face of, and I've never seen Lost, but it was a face of a character called John Locke and that, so then it became Nuzlocke in The Racist History. But I remember the detail in these recounts, it wasn't just people saying, oh what's this Pokémon to come in here? You know it wasn't like that, it was these huge sprawling stories, the lore! Some of them were really captivating, you were reading them and then you almost felt their pain when you were reading it, you're like this is
00:10:24
Speaker
absolutely incredible and it's amazing the lore you build because one of the other ones that I have to admit I did on stream I think was I have to admit I was absolutely laughing at this because it was one when I was on Twitch and I said you what I'm going back to Pokémon again Pokémon green and I did a Nuzlocke based on it and I had a Raticate I think called Kevin. And then long story short Kevin got bodied by a Snorlax
00:10:52
Speaker
Oh no, sorry, it was Appa, the Butterfree, I think they got. I can't remember what happened to Kevin, but he died. Sorry kids, Christmas is cancelled. Kevin did. Rock talk, Kevin did. But then later on in the game, I caught a ghastly and the chat were saying...
00:11:07
Speaker
You know, jokingly, oh, why don't you name it Kevin? And I did. So Kevin came back as a ghost. And that's the thing though, it's just this story that you build beyond the games. Oh, it's an incredible thing. Like, if anybody hasn't played a Nuzlocke, I would heartily recommend it. A hundred percent. Yeah. But that brings us on, of course, not only to the way people play it, but the way people decide to try and make their own.
00:11:33
Speaker
some better than others. You know, you've got your Pokémon MMOs or attempts at MMOs before they get shut down by Nintendo. You've got your, I think, Pokémon Uranium was like a big thing before that got a cease and desist because Nintendo are very proactive. Proactive, that is a very good diplomatic word.
Machinima and Fusion Games
00:11:53
Speaker
The red panda lawyer on the corner is nodding.
00:11:56
Speaker
You're getting timed out right now. You just have so many fan games and I have to say this is something we were talking about before we started recording but varying degrees is the word I'd use. Yeah and what to me so fascinating about the fan games because there's kind of multiple layers to this so I actually want to scale back very slightly from fan games to fan hacks.
00:12:17
Speaker
because they're very slightly different so you get people that have just built on to the original games with ROM hacking things like that and what I think is really cool about them is they all scale from quality of life the running shoes are always switched on and or people have hacked the running shoes into the first generation of games just to make the games play a bit easier speed up I've seen one recently where it was someone did a demake of generation 3 put it into generation 1 stuff like that so you get like what's very simple and just taking what's already there and just giving a new lease of life we're bringing quality of life
00:12:46
Speaker
And one of the other really famous ones that I don't think looks that fun to play but I'm glad they made it was Pokemon 3D, which was Gen 1 but they just turned it into a 3D game. Again, I'm not playing because it looks terrible.
00:12:57
Speaker
because these games were not made for 3D but it's an incredible project and I think it's really cool they've done it but that's that side of it but when it comes to fan games like the full-on this is a person what we've done is they've taken it's usually the generation 3 games because I think they're a bit easier to deal with and they will make either a completely original game or they will do something with the assets so some of those like you said varying degrees of success what I really like about them is the ones that always try to get quite edgy
00:13:24
Speaker
And I guess as we get older, and I guess you've probably covered a lot of this when you spoke about Sonic, but it's a lot of crossover. Are people really wanting Pokémon to be way edgier than it is? Yeah, because I think it was when we did Sonic Month that Adam and I were discussing Shadow the Hedgehog and how the only reason for its existence was, I kept saying,
00:13:46
Speaker
can Mr Sonic have a gun? And they said, no, no, don't be daft, we're obviously not giving our flagship mascot a gun. Unless we can make money. Yeah, so they didn't give Sonic the gun, but they gave Shadow the gun. So yeah, there's that kind of overlap between people growing up with the games and wanting something a bit more mature for the pallets, as it were. Some hit their pallet towns. Yeah, Paris and Nintendo. Seasoned the sisters.
00:14:16
Speaker
plays, for one sake. But yeah, you get an overlap of people who don't really understand, I suppose. And I don't mean to be critical against anyone, but some people who don't understand that at the end of the day this is a children's franchise, and don't get me wrong, I've played up to, what do I say, Generation 7 or 8? I don't know, whatever Sword and Shield is, because I used to know the generation
00:14:41
Speaker
and now there's just so many. I think it's Generation 8 but anyway, I've played up to Sword and Shield and I feel as if the games are definitely getting a lot more kid friendly. It's not like in the 90s where it was cool to have an antagonist or rather a rival who was just a complete prat towards you who was like, oh I'm gonna kick your Pokémon in the face and you're like, why would you do this?
Realistic Fan Art Critique
00:15:07
Speaker
Why would you do this? Oh because I'm edgy and you know this and that because that was probably a wonder in the 90s and early 2000s. Hashtag it was a different time.
00:15:16
Speaker
But yeah, for nowadays, it's all very squeaky clean. Oh, I'll help you be the very best in things. And on the one hand, you know, you do look at that as an adult and think, these kids these days, they've got a soft and everything. But at the same time, I can blame them for making a child's franchise child friendly, you know. You can't sit here and be like, oh, it's the worst thing ever. I do agree. I think it's gotten a lot more kid friendly. But as a kid's franchise,
00:15:44
Speaker
I hate to say it. That's why they've got things like Detective Pikachu which is a bit more, you know, it's not overly adult. It's very much more appealing to teenagers and people who grew up with it and so forth. So yeah, there's a lot of, um, what's the right word here?
00:15:59
Speaker
A lot of games that are, as you said, are quite edgy, realistic blood, quote, unquote. One of the things I always laugh at is people that want the Pokemon games to be more difficult but don't understand difficulty curves. Oh yeah. And so you'll get a lot of the fan games, the first battle will be like level 20 and you've got like a level five. And it's like, this isn't a fun experience. What you've done is you've wanted a team full of Lucarios that are all level 20s and you've not really thought about, wait a minute, the player's got a level two Bulbasaur here.
00:16:27
Speaker
For all the criticism that Game Freak and Pokemon Company get, they do know how to structure a game correctly. But one of the things I think is really cool is the next step beyond the ROM hacks, which is people using the assets to make entirely new games. And obviously Pokemon themselves have done this, which I think is why it's caught on so well. So you get things like Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, which is like an entirely different genre of gaming or Pokemon Snap, things like that. So people want to also do that.
00:16:53
Speaker
Yeah. One of the best ones I've seen of that is a game called Pokémon Nightmare Invasion and this is, I think it's RPG Maker, I could be wrong, it could be a ROM hack, but effectively you're a detective and you get called to investigate everyone's favourite lavender town but it's not set in the Pokémon world. It's set in our world, it's effectively like Silent Hill and over time Pokémon start appearing but it's like Alakazam and you know they're using like mind control and stuff and it's a really clever game and they've taken the assets from Pokémon and made a shooter detective game
00:17:22
Speaker
like basically Resident Evil or Silent Hill using Pokémon. It's like that is an incredible achievement but also the fact the game's decent is like so surprising. Like that someone put their heart and soul into something like that even though we were kind of teasing about the other ROM hacks is like some people do put an incredible amount of effort into these. They are incredibly challenging to do and as you mentioned often you just get hit with a season to sis at the end of it all but what a testament to people's love of Pokémon that they want to do that.
00:17:47
Speaker
You're absolutely right because there's a lot of creators that I've seen online, not even like Alpharadio, the usual ones that look into the core mechanics of the game, but there's been quite a few that I've seen that kind of develop from
Fan Games vs. Official Games
00:18:02
Speaker
it. I mean look at other things like Temtem and what's the other one? Cassette Beast.
00:18:07
Speaker
Thank you, I'm glad we're on the same wavelength there. You know those kind of things Digimon excluded here but you know those type of indie games that have spawned from Pokemon and they've essentially just taken the same core mechanics and yeah they've basically just reformed them into their own thing and it is amazing to see how people do get inspired because when you were talking about how they use assets to make their own games one of the ones that I find interesting is the almost machinimous
00:18:36
Speaker
the people I've made. Did you ever see a lot of these growing up? Like just in general? I was aware of them that they're not something that I was too into at the time but you were telling about this before we started so I'd like to hear more about it. Yeah so one of the ones I remember when I was growing up and I saw this on YouTube it was... it didn't age well.
00:18:54
Speaker
I mean it was made by a teenager, evidently and very obviously a teenager, and it was like a cross between the Pokémon, Dragon Ball, but the thing is the way they would do it is they would record the gameplay but they would also hack the game so that they were able to change the scene and everything, they were able to do battles between certain characters and things and would do palette swaps of
00:19:22
Speaker
The colours of the characters. It's a clever idea, but I'm gonna be honest, even when you're doing punching animations, where a clever is a clever dude walking into someone and the wee hours are going dun, dun, dun, dun. And that was meant to be the punching bit. It was like he would do the teleport, so he would hear like that.
00:19:40
Speaker
didn't you? But the weird thing as well is they would have custom sprites in these characters, so there was like sub-series where people would again like a detective one, they would be a detective with a little carrion, they would have this fully fledged story. But the genre that was most popular that I noticed was the Pokémon Legend series, so the most popular one I saw was the Water Pokémon Legend, where again the Dragon Ball Z
00:20:07
Speaker
But you know, you would have other things, like you would have Grass Pokémon, Legend, Rock Pokémon, Elemental, you know, you would have all these different people coming in, Fire Legend and things like that. They would do crossovers, you know. But the fact is, despite the intense lore here, the fact is that it's just amazing how that spawned from the games.
00:20:27
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's so similar to Sonic, in many ways it was like, people want this extra layer to these games, they want to be in them, they want their characters to be in them. Something you mentioned earlier as well as like, fake Pokémon, the fake ones, and like, how that's its own genre of people like, wouldn't it be cool if this Pokémon actually evolved into this Pokémon? And what if this happened? And what if it's this incredible, like, every time a new Pokémon game starts coming out, a whole bunch of fake ones get sort of brought out because people are like, hey, I saw this clip from a Japanese newspaper and it was saying that this Pokémon's in Sony.
00:20:57
Speaker
and it's just like, no you drew that yourself out there, you're trying to get the people on board but like some of the stuff you look at was amazing for that. My favourite one for that and it reminds me of, do you remember that scene in The Simpsons where I can't remember Homer telling something to Bart Lisa and Marge and Lisa says, mum, tell us how it really happened and she says very dejectedly. That's how it happened, Lisa, she goes, ah. See when they get a real leak and they think, oh no this will take like slow
00:21:25
Speaker
swamp pair I can remember that was floating around and oh it's so funny people going no no no where's the real leak and everyone just haters like that's the real leak here guys oh no oh no there's two pokemon fan games that I think deserve a hell of a lot of praise that I want to talk about in a wee bit the first one I think pokemon showdown oh yeah because this is like this is like probably the biggest to the stage where I forget it's a fan game so pokemon showdown so I don't know it's just like an online
00:21:52
Speaker
battle simulator eventually. So you go on, you build your team and you get to fight people and effectively it's just like an online Pokemon Coliseum and the fact it exists is so bizarre to me that shows you Game Freak have never covered it. You feel that makes sense that there's never been a thing that you can just plug in and type in a Pokemon and get them and I think that's such a fantastic concept and it's led to things like when we're talking about Nuzlocke's earlier that you'll see people who like the proper hardcore Nuzlocke
00:22:17
Speaker
Ironman people will go on to Pokémon Showdown and type in this Pokémon events, this Pokémon level 50, level 50. It's gonna hit me with this, how much damage is it gonna do? And Pokémon Showdown will go, a hundred. You know, it can work it all out. I think that's such an incredible thing and you get all these people that do various compilations Pokémon Showdown, the test out teams and there's world tournaments in it. I just think it's an incredible bit of kit that someone's made this and it's got a huge online community
Evolution of Pokémon Games
00:22:40
Speaker
as well.
00:22:40
Speaker
It is quite weird that I'm not willing this into existence but it's weird, you're right, how Game Freak hasn't stopped it unless there's been a back and forth or there's been news about it that I'm not aware of but yeah, it's amazing how it is still available nowadays and especially with Nintendo because as we established they are very trigger happy when it comes to taking down different properties that relate to theirs. Even when you get fan animations and things they're
00:23:09
Speaker
quite, I mean they're a bit like Disney in that regard in the sense that someone makes like this really cool, very similar thing and they go oh no you can't do that. Which I can kind of understand because as a very harshly established here, Pokemon is a children's franchise so I can
00:23:26
Speaker
kind of see why they wouldn't want people outside their sphere of influence promoting their product, as it were, even though the fact has gotten so bad that, you know, they can't. Can I talk about something that is a bit... And this is something that I'm sure you've seen, I'm sure, the wider Pokémon community have seen. Can we talk about ugly depictions of Pokémon?
00:23:46
Speaker
Like realistic depictions of Pokemon. And I use that so loosely because back in the day it was limited to the anime, it was limited to the games. You had the ugly sprite, that's all you had. But when it came to realistic depictions, we didn't really get a proper one until Detective Pikachu, I want to say. Whenever they promoted it, do you remember the cartoons and things promoting the games and it was the bus driver?
00:24:12
Speaker
They're like crunching them together. And there was a cartoon version of themselves, or, nowadays, I forgot, like, Pokémon Go, it's gonna be the 3D ones. Yeah, but then very much the Pokémon from the games print out world. But there was a guy, I don't know who the person is, but I think it's the same guy who got maybe hired or maybe inspired to design for. Exactly. That'll never go wrong.
00:24:36
Speaker
But I think he was the source of influence for the way they designed the Realistic Pokemon in Detective Pikachu. Now here's my problem, there are a lot of people who do Realistic Pokemon and they look ugly as hell, I'm sorry. I cannot stand, see when it's like, oh yeah but that Pokemon would have spooks and horrible boils over it, it's like, why?
00:25:00
Speaker
Pokémon is a fantasy game where you catch magical creatures. It might say you take it into the real world, and we've done an extensive episode talking about Pokémon in the real world and all that, but why would you want that? Why would you want the ugliest thing? Whenever you see even cute Pokémon like Pikachu or Eevee, it's like something about the Dark Ages. Like that big rat with teeth and things. It's like, oh yeah, because that's what I want to catch. That rodent.
00:25:26
Speaker
It's like don't turn out man, now Jesus man, you know what I mean? There's just one final game I don't want to talk about and I've been holding this off because I unironically, this is a fan game and I unironically think this is the best Pokémon game I've ever made. It's called Pokémon Fusions. So if you haven't seen Pokémon Fusions, you will have seen Pokémon Fusions in some form because you'll have once upon a time there was websites and they would just combine it to its rights.
00:25:46
Speaker
And someone went, wouldn't that be funny if that was in a game? And so you catch two Pokemon and you confuse them. And what's really incredible is that original website idea would just take the two sprites and just kind of go, there's the top half, there's the bottom half, there's your new Pokemon, and it would join the two Pokemon. So you'd get like Charmander and Bulbasaur and it'd become Bulbachar or something, then it would come back to you.
00:26:06
Speaker
But what happened to this game is there's an entire Discord community who have made, I want to say like 100,000 sprites or something like, I mean some ludicrous number and it's only going up every day where they're drawing all these Pokemon combinations because
00:26:21
Speaker
It's got access from Gen 1 to 8 or 9, whatever it would be. So that's like multiple billions of potential combinations of Pokémon, but this one, this game has like, you can combine all these Pokémon and they get certain moves and they get certain types. It's Generation 1, or the Kanto region I should say, sorry, is the basis of the game, but they've also added their own stuff and they've changed the story and they've kind of dealt about in different ideas. There were things that were kind of hinted at in other games, you know, like Team Rocket have a much bigger presence and they're more like, not
00:26:48
Speaker
competence read the word but they're a lot more involved because that was hinted at the games we never really did that and i genuinely think it's the best pokemon game ever made i don't know how i feel about that about the best pokemon game ever made being made is not made by pokemon but what's so fascinating to me is like i said you can combine any pokemon with any pokemon it raises the pokemon from 800 to approximately 1 billion or something why nintendo haven't had this idea for themselves so they could make 1 billion plushies
00:27:16
Speaker
I do not know but I will be my one thing about this whole thing about going to games is doing us a lot, do a randomizer but number one thing I'm going to recommend from all of this is go play Pokemon Fusions because it is renewed my love of Pokemon. Really? Yeah. Wow. I do not play many Pokemon games. Obviously I don't play any new ones because... But why? Because I'm not going to sit and pay 60 quid on the Switch for a gig here. I played Pokemon Stadium recently but Pokemon Fusions, incredible game and I'd recommend it to anyone because I do think it's genuinely a piece of art.
00:27:46
Speaker
I don't know how to describe it. The interesting thing is the fact that the fans have looked at the almost realistic animal study aspect, which I have to say isn't something, ironically enough, not really promoted as much in the game. So it's like, oh yes, big Pokémon, strong Pokémon, good for team.
00:28:06
Speaker
You know, that's it. They don't really go beyond that to say, oh, because I mean the Pokedex does, but then they even start to get a bit agey when they're like, this sandcastle likes to eat children. And you're like, oh my god, no, I'd rather not.
00:28:21
Speaker
I'd rather not play this game than game. But yeah, it's really interesting because there's a lot of people who talk about the regional varieties of Pokémon, Steam Pokémon if you will, and I don't know, I don't know about it, I was in this region though. Yeah, it's interesting to see that even though I think
00:28:39
Speaker
I think it was Generation 7, Sun and Moon, although I keep it wrong in that, but I'm sure it was Sun and Moon that introduced them, so it's like you would get regional varieties of Pokémon that already existed. You know, you got Vulpex, Raichu, which is still one of my favourites. Although Raichu is one of the best Pokémon ever made. It really is.
00:28:58
Speaker
you know when you think back and you think oh what Pokemon team would I have in real life and usually I think well I'd have to have Pikachu because it was the very first Pokemon and that would definitely evolve it to ride you because I love it but it is so good that I would retroactively go back in time and be like stop.
00:29:14
Speaker
I've often did that along with Raju. Take this guy on the surfboard instead. Yeah. I mean, he hates pancakes and he's got psychic powers. What more could you want? Well, more do I want out of my own life. Yeah. But that's the thing though, and that is a very big problem with the games. It's like the intro's just a really cool feature, whether that's Mega Evolutions or that's regional variants. And technically they brought them back in Scarlet and Violet, but they look awful.
00:29:36
Speaker
I think it's something because they do constantly pick up new ideas and drop them. So this is a new one in Scarlet and Violet, which I can't remember the name of. Teterra? Teterra something? It's like you change the type of the Pokémon. Oh, Teterlai. That's what I said. So if you just call it acid, it editors note what I said and put in the right thing.
00:29:53
Speaker
that will be gone next generation because they'll move on but like that's kind of why we have like fan games especially something like Pokemon Showdown because that still has Giga Max and Dynamax and Mega Evolutions they all exist at once and the games weren't meant for that and that's kind of what's amazing about it I think it's so fascinating
00:30:08
Speaker
Because I mean on the one hand you could look at it as its own experience, its its own isolated thing. Gen 6 was the gen of Mega Evolution, Gen 7 was the Z moves, Gen 8 was Dynamaxing, Gigamaxing, Chadmaxing if you will. And then of course the other one was that Terrorization probably, I don't know.
00:30:29
Speaker
but they are really emphasising that they do this in the films and things, even when they retroactively go back in the films and they say things like, we want to show that Pokémon is a cohesive world now because when it started off completely, you know, it was completely fractured as it were and they were still not sure whether they wanted real animals with it or not. And I mean the fans even pick up on this of course, but then once the universe got bigger, it got more successful, they kind of thought, right, we need
00:30:59
Speaker
to read this in guys we need to unite it together and it's just it's such a weird thing to see it all come together yeah it's something that I think fans are trying to do they're trying to basically patch up not the mistakes as it were but they're trying to patch up what Game Freak
00:31:16
Speaker
can't really yeah i think calling the mistakes isn't the worst thing because you do see the community you know we've always talked a length about pokemons again for kids and there's a lot of others that like it and therefore they're always going to be left behind but the things like why can't all 900 pokemon be in one game why does something have to get left behind why why did these characters that we really like not ever turn up again i think i think that's always going to be something that pokemon the fans will try to plug those gaps for and that's the thing though it's something that i think you've brought up to me before like in the past the fact that if
00:31:46
Speaker
somebody doesn't like a game and you know they complain about the new iterations and then you think well they've got the old ones to go back to. There's a lot of people who are making modern iterations of the old games so they're bringing the nostalgia from the old ones and they're bringing it to the new because it's something that Game Freak
00:32:04
Speaker
doesn't really do like they had Pokemon Let's Go and they've had the remasters of games to vary degrees of success. Heart Gold Soul Silver, absolutely fantastic. Then Omega Ruby Alpha Sapphire, people enjoyed it enough I think that it still looked on relatively fondly but it did miss out a lot of content. But then by the time we got to Brilliant Diamond, Shining Pero, kind of
00:32:28
Speaker
drop the ball. And that's the thing though, now people are going in and creating their own things and it's amazing to see it. But yeah, if Nintendo would stop striking them down, that'd be nice. I do want to quickly mention Game Freak when you listen to this before you strike us down. We'll come back strong. We'll come back strong.
00:32:43
Speaker
can you put in like a hard mode back into the game because that was in one of the games like black and white and can you also put a thing in that stops generally dishes and items thanks i have to say if there's a marvellous comic at the episodes but yeah black and white black and white 2 height of pokemon i would say it's by far one of if not the best pokemon and that's coming from someone who adores the drollto games that is like the tier that i think everyone should be striving to because i mean i think
00:33:07
Speaker
even when people go back to put in the sprites and things for the new Pokémon, they still base it off of Black and White, which is really interesting. That's what I think I was going to say when you said Black and White the best. I think they are, and I think when people go back to the older games, like us talking about quality of life improvements, it's the stuff from Black and White gets put back in. That was the game that was the best to play. On that note, Martin, thank you so, so much for talking about Pokémon beyond
Episode Conclusion and Further Content
00:33:33
Speaker
the games. I've got nothing left to say, thanks.
00:33:39
Speaker
And yeah, if you want to listen to more episodes of Pokemon Month, as well as other episodes with us just messing about, you can catch us on the website, Chatsunami.com. I also want to thank our panel of Patrons, Robotic Battletoters and Sonya, thank you so so much for supporting the show. If you want to get more exclusive content such as commentary tracks, early access and exclusive episodes, please check out our Patreon, patreon.com forward slash Chatsunami.
00:34:24
Speaker
Previously on Chatsunami, we've analysed what makes a good horror game, conducted a retrospective on Pierce Brosnan's runs James Bond, and listened to us take deep dives into both the Sonic and Halo franchises. Also, if you're an anime fan, then don't forget to check us out on our sub-series, Chatsunani, where we dive into the world of anime. So far, we've reviewed things like Death Note, Princess Mononoke, and the hit Bayblade series. If that sounds like your cup of tea, then you can check us out on Spotify, iTunes, and all big podcast apps. As always, stay safe,
00:34:31
Speaker
Until then, stay safe, stay awesome and most importantly...
00:34:54
Speaker
Stay awesome, and most importantly, stay hydrated. Hello, my name is Kayla, and my co-host Lexi and I host a podcast called A Little Wicked. On our show, we discuss true crime cases such as serial killers, missing persons, and victims of crime, along with cults, conspiracies, cryptids, urban legends, and everything in between. Find us on Apple, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to podcasts.