Number Two!

Pokémon SoulSilver
Released in 2010, Original release titled Pokémon Silver for Game Boy Colour in 2000

The series that absolutely dominated playgrounds and the handheld gaming scene through the turn of the millennium.

I mentioned a few posts back that I was always a social gamer from a young age. Well, as for a lot of kids in the late 90s, the Pokémon games taught me to game socially too. The Pokémon titles are a series of RPGs (Role-Playing Games) aimed for children, wherein the point is to catch every critter and become the ultimate Pokémon master. In the first two of the franchise, Red and Blue (Green was a Japan-only release), players were challenged to defeat eight “type”-specific gym leaders throughout their adventure, culminating in the confrontation of the Elite Four and your rival for the title of Pokémon League Champion. The game didn’t end there though – the real challenge came after the main adventure, where you had 151 pocket monsters to find and capture.

I mentioned earlier the phrase “game socially”. The next hook in the series is that it is impossible to catch every Pokémon in a single game version because each variation omits the ability to find every creature alone. In order to own all 151 you had to meet up with a friend and trade via link cable. This method was fine for the era, however looking back on it people would agree that this was quite arduous. Thankfully over the last decade technology evolved, and now we can connect our gaming devices wirelessly over a local connection or a global one. The games themselves also evolved; from a now-seemingly humble 151 different monsters to catch originally, we’re currently at a whopping 493 – and the roster will soon expand upon the release of versions Black and White next year.

However, of every version out to date, to me the best was SoulSilver for DS released in Australia on March 25th this year. As you could already assume it is a remake of the original Silver version (alongside HeartGold of the Gold version) of 2000, though the game is less of a rehashing and more of a vast improvement. Aside from the updated graphics the game has a completely refined user-interface over the generation before it (Pearl/Diamond/Platinum), an updated Pokédex to account for all 493 creatures, the brand new Safari Zone (located west of Cianwood City), Pokéathlon and more. One stand-out feature though is the Pokéwalker – a pedometre to clip onto your clothes that allows you to capture more Pokémon, find items and gain experience points just by walking in real life. The gadget communicates to the game cartridge via infrared located at the top of each device to exchange the earned data. The Pokéwalker acts much like a Tamagotchi, except you don’t feed your pets and they are unable to die.

HeartGold and SoulSilver also have the ability to let the Pokémon at the top of your party to follow you on foot, a feature only before seen in Pokémon Yellow over ten years ago.

The Silver and Gold generation of Pokémon games were the  most influential of the entire series due to additions like the item-hold mechanic in which Pokémon can hold equipment such as health items to automatically heal during battles and items that boost their stats, a real-time in-game clock system for night and day to adjust accordingly for certain Pokémon encounters and the Pokégear. With the Pokégear players were able to receive phone calls from encountered trainers, listen to the in-game radio stations for contests, music and information on routes for which Pokémon are herding in, and consult a map of the region. The biggest additions however were the expansion of the Pokédex from 151 monsters to 251 and the ability to venture from Johto (the region you start the game in) to Kanto (the region from the first generation of Pokémon games) upon defeating the Elite Four. Essentially this meant the main adventure was twice as big since you go from having to fight eight gym leaders to sixteen, and that you were able catch critters indigenous to each region.

This game was huge – Johto is on the left, Kanto is on the right separated by Victory Road in the middle.

SO, why is it my second favourite game of all time? Well, there’s two reasons – the first is the amount of additions to the mechanics of the game and the scope of it. It wasn’t only an improvement over Red and Blue, but it helped redefine the genre. It was the second game to completely engulf me in its world; when I wasn’t playing it, I was thinking about it. I even used to write notes to myself of which Pokémon were cross-bed from others and how to attain certain evolutions such as the whole Espeon/Umbreon thing. Also, it was the very first game to make me have a “holy crap” moment upon realising the adventure was only half-way through after beating the Elite Four. The second reason is that Lugia (featured on the game cover) is my favourite Pokémon.