 | The old man replays a favorite Pokemon title |
I recently completed a second playthrough of Pokemon Alpha Sapphire.
I own Omega Ruby as well, but I don’t know that I’ve ever finished it. No reason except that I prefer the color blue over the color red. And I sorta dig Kyogre.
So, I sat down to write a review of the thing.
But, since we’re hanging out here at Honest Gamers, let me just be honest and say that I don’t know how to review a Pokemon game. Pokemon, at this point, is such a phenomenon in our culture that distilling a single game into a review seems like a crazy notion. There are Pokemon games, both mainline and not, there are several iterations of a Pokemon anime, there are Pokemon trading cards. There are Pokemon plushies. A couple of years ago, Pokemon even broke into the high stakes game of Superbowl ads.
Much more than that, though, as I sat down to collect my thoughts in anything like an objective way, it occurred to me that I can’t be objective about the game, and, further, that I don’t play Pokemon games as they’re “meant” to be played.
The thing that I learned about myself is how particular of a player I am. I play a sort of old-school Pokemon game. I do the 8 gyms. I don’t try to catch ‘em all, but catch ‘em many. I beat the Elite Four. I breed a few...but only a few...Pokemon, sometimes to trade and sometimes to fill the Pokedex with an earlier form. This time through, I didn't breed any.
I don’t particularly care about:
-Pokemon Amie
-Online trading
-Online battles
-Hair or clothing styles (I am perfectly fine that this game didn’t continue that from X and Y)
-Secret bases
-Pokeblocks
-O Powers (I didn’t even realize that these were in the game until I read a review after playing)
And I particularly don't care about:
Pokemon Contest Spectaculars
Cosplay Pikachu
Disagree with me? Fine. Go play your own game. I’m good with that.
One of the cool things about these Pokemon games is that you can have a complete experience, playing pretty much as you want to play. It’s good to have Pokemon Amie options (though I guess I prefer the way that they integrated that into an after-battle sequence in Gen VII...that seemed a more naturalistic way to clean up and thank the little guys who have been battling for you). But you can play a perfectly respectable game without using it. Some folks like connecting with their team in that way; I don’t. Some folks want more multiplayer in everything; I don’t. I play games, in fact, to have some time away from other hominids.
Pokemon, from the beginning, has been playable both by young kids, who probably dig the anime and know a lot of the Pokemon and have some vague idea of types, and also older folks, who can dig more deeply into its systems. They satisfied my 6 year old son back in the day, and they satisfy this 54 year old man today. I’m not a hardcore Pokemon player...I’m really more of a casual player. However deep you go into Pokemon, though, there’s always a deeper level available to you. There is always more to know about Pokemon types, their advantages and disadvantages against other types (we’re up to 18 types now). There is always more to know about moves and move sets, habitats, natures, breeding. There is a ton of Pokemon lore to be learned, such as Eevee and it's many evolutions. Some folks talk about stats such as IVs, EVs, etc. (I use those last two terms without quite knowing what they are or what they mean. I guess I’ve found my level.) There is enough going on in the game to make for a really deep RPG, if that’s what you’re looking for. I enjoy those things, but tend at some point to take another route. I have a theory that Pokemon, at least at my level of casual play, is a relatively easy game. You *can* optimize your team in every way, and yeah, that’s pretty fun, but you can also use most any Pokemon that takes your fancy on your team, so long as you balance the types. That Pokemon might be a strong starter, or a sort of gimped creature like some Pokemon naturally are. I used a Farfetch’d on my team in a Pokemon X playthrough, because I loved the image of him carrying around his green onion. Later, I was hugely disappointed to see him on someone’s “Worst 10 Pokemon” list. Awww. He did great on my team! And he's now in the Hall of Fame. Take that!
O Powers? Don’t need ‘em.
Here are some of my favorite moments in the game, in no particular order:
Diving. Eerie to be deep underwater, battling an ancient Relicanth.
Petalburg Gym: It’s cool to know that I’m following in my dad’s footsteps in becoming a Pokemon trainer. And very cool to eventually whoop his ass at his own business.
Soaring: The first time I played this game, soaring very nearly broke my heart. It’s unlike anything we’ve seen in a Pokemon game before (or since). You can fly over the entire landscape, even reaching new areas. Every once in a while, you’ll encounter some new Pokemon for a sky battle unlike you’ve imagined them before. You can land on islands with portals. If you’re brave enough to stick your arm a portal, you might pull out a legendary Pokemon that will take about everything you have to bag it.
Delta Episode: Upon completing the Elite Four, the player embarks on a pretty tightly scripted narrative that can be completed in an hour or two. Usually, the stories of mainline Pokemon games are pretty thin. Here, the developers show that a more story-driven arc can work. I’m unsure why they included this, but I’m glad they did.
Sea Mauville: Interesting to explore this one-time lab that is slowly becoming decrepit and sinking into the ocean. I didn’t find it because the game pointed me to it...I was just out exploring, which makes the discovery all the more cool.
Sneaking up on Pokemon. The DexNav is one of the best mechanics we’ve seen in Pokemon. I love sneaking up on these little beasties that the DexNav alerts us to, Pokemon that are evident only because their little wagging tail is sticking up out of the tall grass, or the top of their head out of the water.
Fighting Kyogre. I am embarrassed to report that I used my Master Ball on this guy. I try to use my Master Ball on tougher customers (though in Ultra Moon I accidentally used it on a Metapod or somesuch. I remember the event; I’ve blocked out the details). The first time I played, I caught Kyogre relatively quickly. This time, he escaped a Quick Ball, lots of Ultra Balls, and a few Timer Balls, all the while ripping my team to shreds. The only Pokemon left standing was a Magicarp that I was babysitting until he evolved into a Gyrados, at which point I reluctantly pulled out my Master Ball and caught the primordial beast. (Yeah, I had saved before the battle, but I really don’t like relying on such things. We play ‘em as they come.)
I’m an old man; I don’t suppose I’ll ever give Alpha Sapphire another playthrough. Maybe, though. With the DexNav especially, it’s one of my favorite Pokemon games, though it’s perhaps less emotionally involving than X was, and not as nostalgic for me as Gen IV was. It just seems like a really solid entry in the Pokemon canon. We do lots of remakes in the Pokemon universe, maybe too many, but I’m glad they remade this game on the Gen VI engine and gave us once again the experience of “too much water.”
Maybe you’ll want to step into the tall grass of the Hoenn region yourself, and see what jumps out.
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honestgamer - May 18, 2018 (01:07 AM) I'm a casual player too, and I think there's value in discussion from that perspective, because there are a lot of people who enjoy Pokemon but not so much that they're ready to devote a child's endless energy and time to studying the matter. Pokemon Sun/Moon were fun and I dove pretty deep into those, but I haven't played the Ultra versions that came later or the bulk of the Pokemon games that came before. I'll be interested to see what comes out for Switch. Also, like you, I don't play these games for the online battles. I just tend not to enjoy them and would rather have my own solitary adventure. Maybe it's because when I was a child and becoming addicted to games, that was part of the whole package deal. |
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