February 1996

Soon to hit the shelves is Nintendo’s newest game, Pokémons. In this game, you go around and explore the Kanto region, which is largely inhabited by creatures called Pokémons. You catch the Pokémons using Poké Balls, train them, and then do battle against other trainers with the ultimate goal of becoming the best trainer in the region.

You start off as a 10 year old boy in Pallet Town and you are told to go say hello to Professor Oak by your demanding mom, which probably explains why your dad is never around. Fortunately for you, Oak gives your first Pokémon so you can finally escape your poor excuse for a town and hightail it to the next one. Before doing that though, you have to battle Oak’s grandson. Don’t feel bad about crushing him because he’s a massive analbag. In fact, you can pretty well call him whatever you want because Oak suffers from some pretty bad Alzheimer’s and can never remember what his own grandson’s name is. Want some petty revenge? Tell him that his grandson’s name is Dickweed.

The Pokémons themselves go to show how unimaginative Nintendo is. Case in point: a rat Pokémon named Rattata. To be fair, you can’t name it something too cool because it’s just a rat, but it still doesn’t make me exactly want to catch one of them. It gets worse, though. How about a snake Pokémon named Ekans? Come on Nintendo, you’re not fooling anyone, that’s just “snake” spelled backwards. Honestly, what’s next, a friggin’ ice cream cone?

One of your objectives in Pokémons is to discover and collect all 151 Pokémons and record them in your Pokédex. The thing is, though, all the Pokémons have already been discovered! Even if you go catch yourself a Pikachu in the wild and record it in your Pokédex, other people have that Pokémon and already know about it. You found a super rare bird? Guess what? It’s a legendary Pokémon. By definition, it’s been known about for a while! Thankfully, fortune smiles upon you again and Oak’s Alzheimer’s ends up allowing you to get some pretty dope stuff. Since he’s long forgotten that all these Pokémons have already been discovered, he rewards you with items the more Pokémons you record in your Pokédex.

All in all, I don’t see this game going anywhere. The hours you have to spend grinding away just to get a half-decent Pokémons team get dull so fast. Plus, you’re only putting in all this work so you can, what, beat one of the eight gyms? Become the Pokémons League Champion? Then what? Nothing! All those hours spent to raise a badass team and no one strong enough to make a dent in your starter. The game is still okay and I recommend trying it out, if just to see what makes a lukewarm game.