All right. Let’s get a look at you. Gotta figure out what the cringe-to-awesome ratio is.
I didn’t actually watch the Nintendo Direct broadcast when it first came out, ‘cause it was, like, the middle of the night in New Zealand and I’d been squinting at passages from Herodotus for two hours, so my immediate reaction was “I’m gettin’ too old for this $#!t.” So now you get to experience my first impressions of the broadcast as I watch it.
Brace yourselves.
Oh hi there, Satoru Iwata. Sure, I’ll listen to your… whatever. Knock yourself out.
Yay for nostalgia time. You know, I’ve always had mixed feelings about the whole two-versions thing, but he’s right, it does promote trading, and thereby interaction between players, and helps keep Pokémon from being a solitary pursuit… just as long as the damn link cable keeps working.
You have all the cool stuff from Gold and Silver to choose from, and you pick “shiny Pokémon” as the thing that defines that generation for you? Ah, whatever floats your boat, I guess.
Yes, double battles were cool, and it was neat that Ruby and Sapphire were released overseas so much more promptly than their predecessors. The wireless adapter that came with Fire Red and Leaf Green was great too, because it actually worked. You’re right, Iwata, that was a big step. Um… you don’t have any thoughts on the decision to remake Red and Blue? No? Okay, that’s cool.
And you’re rushing through the rest of the games. Yeah, I guess you’re tired of the retrospective stuff. Fair enough, I guess. Time to talk about the new 3DS games.
Hey, Pikachu; how’re you doing? Yeah, yeah, I know you’re excited, Iwata just told us OH MY GOD DID YOU JUST ELECTRIFY THE EIFFEL TOWER?
Right, trailer starts in earnest. We have mirrors, that’s pretty. And a full-sized player character image instead of a dinky little sprite, that’s a first. And… wow, okay. Yeah, I don’t know if “breathtaking” is totally fair but that is pretty. And… it looks like we actually are in France, because that doesn’t look exactly like the Eiffel Tower, but it’s close, and Pikachu was definitely in France. New region is based on Europe, I guess, the way Unova was based on New York? That’s kinda cool; I like Europe. (Please let there be a town based on Athens, please let there be a town based on Athens) Also our running shoes have been replaced with roller skates. That’s… actually kinda awesome.
AND STARTERS, with their foreign language names already set, no less. The Grass-type… Chespin, who is… I guess like a chipmunk with a chestnut helmet? And- oh, wow is that the battle interface? *ahem* Sorry. The Fire-type… Fennekin, who is… a fire-fox, which… well, yeah, y’know, that was kinda Vulpix’s thing, guys, and… yeah, okay, it sort of looks like you’ve given it psychic powers as well, which… was also Vulpix’s thing to an extent, and also Zorua’s as well, sort of, but I guess foxes are kind of important in Japanese culture and mythology so I’ll reserve judgement on that one. And, the Water-type… Froakie, who is… a frog. Well. All right. I’m guessing they never read my entry on Seismitoad but it’s not like I was expecting them to. Maybe they’ll do something else with Froakie besides give him sonic powers.
I see… lots of cool forest, a wild Pikachu, some other ‘traditional’ Pokémon… they seem to be making a point of that. I suppose that means they’re not going to do a Unova again and bar old Pokémon from their new region; hallelujah. WHOA raging columns of fire; please don’t tell me that’s a Gym; I don’t want to be bacon. And… okay, these are the new legendary Pokémon, I imagine. Giant… evil… Y-shaped bird… getting kind of a vulture vibe from this thing? I kinda think that designing a Pokémon specifically so it looks like the letter Y when seen from below is sort of a stupid design choice but it doesn’t impact too much on vulture-mon’s appearance from other angles, so I’ll let them have that one. And his counterpart… the blue crystal rainbow stag thing. Okay. Sure. Why not? I’m not really sure what they’re trying to go for with this one, because the choice of a stag and the forest setting seem to imply they’re aiming for the old ‘nature guardian’ archetype but the whole rainbow crystal aesthetic doesn’t seem to mesh with that. Hmm. I wonder what they have in mind there?
Pokémon X and Pokémon Y? Okay, so I guess you’ve finally run out of colours. After Black and White I suppose anything else would have started sounding forced. Speaking of which, there must be something significant in those names, since they wouldn’t abandon the traditional naming scheme without good reason, particularly after Black and White had such significant titles (the central theme of those games being duality, and the reconciliation of dualities). Only… what the hell do X and Y signify? Only thing that comes to mind for me is the two axes of a Cartesian plane, which… hmm. Well, they are making rather a lot of the 3D-ness of it all, as they usually do. Given that, I suppose it would make sense to have three games, X, Y, and Z to represent the three spatial axes of a three dimensional world. It doesn’t exactly have the same delightful symbolic resonance as Black and White, but I suppose I should wait for the games to come out so I can experience the plot before I give a final word on that. Based on the flaring of the letters in the logo, it looks like stag-dude’s antlers are supposed to recall the shape of an X the way birdie’s wings form a Y-shape, so… I guess they could be going for a land-and-sky thing based on X as the horizontal and Y as the vertical. Kinda paints them into a corner with Z, though, since Z is just… y’know… the other horizontal direction.
And you’re giving it a single release date for Japan and overseas! Wow, you’re really committed to this, aren’t you, Nintendo? Er… wait. Japan, the Americas, Europe and Australia. Um. Hello? New Zealand here? Um… are we Australia now? Guys?
Oh, whatever. Yes, thank you very much too, Iwata, that was… interesting.
Hmm.
This is either going to be amazing and wonderful, or a catastrophic waste of time and resources.
Possibly both.
I have to review the new Pokémon, don’t I? All of them? It’s, like, my schtick, isn’t it? And I have to do the whole “I hereby affirm/deny this Pokémon’s right to exist” thing again?
…great. Well, that’s my project for all of 2014.
I’m not totally sure what to make of this. I am made slightly uneasy by the emphasis the trailer puts on the visual aspects of the games, and the amount of work that’s going into a complete redesign of the graphics. I mean, I’m sure the games will be visually stunning, and that’s nice, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t really care all that much; I was totally happy with the old Ruby/Sapphire graphics engine. Still, that doesn’t mean they won’t be paying attention to the other aspects of the games. The graphics of Black and White were hyped too, and that didn’t stop them from having the best story the series has yet produced (continuing to reserve judgement on Black and White 2, since I still haven’t finished playing).
So I suppose my final word on this is that I don’t really do optimism, as a rule, but Pokémon X and Y haven’t made me want to beat my head against the wall. Yet.
Pokémaniacal 