With Pokemon Gold and Silver being released to Virtual Console today, there will be many players out there that will look up teambuilding guides, considering that the Gold and Silver versions were hard.

Some would look up things like “Best Team For (Pokemon game or region)”. While these guides seem well-thought-out and comprehensive, they are flawed and are generally terrible for making in-game teams. The reason for this is because these guides usually suggest full teams of six pokemon with the idea being to be prepared for what the game throws at you, but these guides are terrible for the late game, when you face much higher-level opponents, and the EXP you get from battle doesn’t spread as well among six pokemon, leaving you underleveled and struggling against the later, more powerful opponents. This can be overcome with grinding, but it’s a serious chore to level up six pokemon one-at-a-time.

A better way to play the game is to focus on a core of three or four pokemon of different types, so you’ll have that balance of team diversity, and be on par with most opponents you face. The other two team members can be there for HMs so you can overcome the numerous obstacles that these games throw your way.

So, on to the team:

Your starter should be Cyndaquil. It’s hands-down the best Johto starter, and is well-equipped to take on many of the game’s challenges. It’s a fire type in a region where it’s great to be a fire type, having an advantage against gym leaders such as Bugsy and Jasmine, and against the common Grass and Bug types that you see many trainers use. Fire types are hard to come across in Johto, but this one is available to you at the start of the game.

Not only that, Typlosion rocks. It can learn Thunderpunch and Earthquake, which gives it excellent coverage against pokemon it would normally struggle against.

Cyndaquil can solo the game until you get to Goldenrod City, but it’s not a bad idea to get it a Pidgey companion until then. For one thing, Cyndaquil is weak to Mud Slap, which is spammed by Falkner, and lowers its accuracy. Pidgey is immune to the move, and gives you another pokemon to switch into to bring Cyndaquil’s accuracy back to normal. Also, later in the game, you can have Pidgey use Fly to get you around. You can instead get yourself a Hoothoot to do the same thing, if you think Pidgey is too mainstream. Also, Hoothoot can learn Flash, so it’s actually better in that regard.

Once you make it all the way to Route 34, you can catch yourself two pokemon that do your team big favors. One is Abra. Abra only knows Teleport, so catching it mostly involves chucking Pokeballs at it right off the bat and hoping they work. Once you catch an Abra, it doesn’t do much of anything until it reaches level 16. But when it does, it evolves to a superstrong Kadabra, and immediately gains a useful attack move. Not only that, Kadabra tends to learn strong moves sooner than it really needs to. Its defensive stats are low, but with the kind of speed and special attack stats it has, it might not matter very often. Glass cannon.

If you know someone else with Gold or Silver, you can evolve it to Alakazam through trading. This makes an already great pokemon even better, but still isn’t necessary because Kadabra can still get you through the game.

The second pokemon you want to catch on Route 34 is Drowzee. Not to raise, but to trade to someone in the Goldenrod Dept. Store for a Machop. Machop is great for a number of reasons. For one thing, it can just about solo Goldenrod’s Gym. Not only that, it can beat the many Normal and Rock types that you run into with ease. It learns strong moves that match its type by itself, has a high attack stat, and stays useful throughout the game. The fact that it levels up faster due to being a traded pokemon is the cherry on top.

Now, some might wonder about how to handle Whitney herself. She has a reputation for having a Miltank that’s so strong, that it brings many playthroughs to an end by discouraging players from continuing any further.

While Stomp and Milk Drink are moves to watch out for, the main concern with Miltank is its move Rollout, which starts out weak but gets to the point of wiping out teams as it’s used consecutively. However, this can be easily beaten by lowering Miltank’s accuracy. Cyndaquil might be weak to Rollout, but it starts out as a weak enough move that Cyndaquil might get a few uses of Smokescreen in. If Rollout can’t hit consecutively, it doesn’t gain in strength. After that, Machop can clean up with ease. With this strategy, Whitney will be crying away in no time. For those who never beat her, that literally happens. Be ready for it. Oh Whitney, why do you have to make things hard for us, every step of the way?

For your next team member, you have a pick between two equally-good choices. One is Gyarados from the Lake of Rage. It’s convenient in that you get it as part of a scripted event, so you can’t miss it (though you can fail to catch it, so save the game before battling it). Once you catch it, it can clear through most opponents just using Thrash, which it can use several times in a row with just one PP. It can also learn Surf, Waterfall, and Strength, which are good as attack moves or to use Gyarados as an HM slave. The drawback for Gyarados is that it doesn’t learn any moves that both match its type and utilizes its outstanding attack stat. All Water moves are special attacks in gen 2, and Gyarados doesn’t learn any Flying moves.

It’s more inconvenient, but Lapras is an excellent alternative. It can only be found in Union Cave on Friday after having beaten Morty (Surf is needed to get to it), but it’s well worth the effort. It’s a little on the slow side, but it has high HP and its stats are otherwise balanced, and it’s a Water/Ice type that can learn Ice Beam by itself. You’d have Surf at that point, so you’ll have a strong move for it already, and you can teach it Thunder if you want.

The other two pokemon on your team can be HM slaves, which can include things like Pidgey/Hoothoot to fly you around, something that can use Whirlpool if you prefer not to teach it to Lapras, or if you’re going with Lapras, you can still keep Gyarados around for HMs.

You can use either Lugia or Ho-oh on your team, depending on which version you’re playing. If so, it might be better to use it as a substitution for another pokemon on your team, if to avoid type redundancy. Lugia might make a good replacement for Lapras/Gyarados or Kadabra, to avoid having too many weaknesses to Electric or Dark. Players might be a little squeamish about subbing out their starter, but Ho-oh can replace Cyndaquil/Quilava/Typhlosion pretty well. It might add another weakness to electricity to your team, but Ho-oh’s special defense is very high, so Electric attacks might not do much damage, anyway.

So, there you have it. With this team, Pokemon Gold and Silver will be much easier. Certain opponents such as Lance and Red still won’t be a cakewalk, but this can get you through much of the game, without having to power-level too much. If you want a challenge, the Gold and Silver versions don’t have a Hard Mode. But you can go with Chikorita as your starter. That would make the game plenty hard.

Disagree with some of my team choices? Comments section.

Another Pokemon World Championships has come and gone, and we get to look at another batch of winning teams. I saw the VGC Masters Division finals match live, which was a treat. But it was one pokemon in finalist Wolfe Glick’s team that had me watching with particular interest: Raichu!

Because I like Raichu, was was interested in seeing Glick take the title (also, I didn’t like the attitude of his opponent much). And I was not disappointed. After years of living in the mascot pokemon’s shadow, Raichu actually made the champion’s team, and as a key member!

It almost never happened. One of the Raichu’s key moves was Endeavor, a move a Pikachu can only have if it were a special gift Pikachu given to participants of a special tournament that only permitted Electric type pokemon, and that Pikachu would only have been awarded as a prize if Pikachu were used enough in the competition. (I participated in this competition, by the way.) The Pikachu was made available, and it’s evolved form, Raichu, made it into the champion’s team!

Here’s the breakdown of Raichu’s moveset, as made available on the official Worlds website:

Raichu
Timid Nature
Ability: Lightning Rod
Item: Assault Vest
– Fake Out
– Volt Switch
– Endeavor
– Nuzzle
HP 36 / Def 204 / SpAtk 20 / SpDef 68 / Speed 180

Glick switched Raichu in when he predicted that his Primal Kyogre would take a Thunder attack, which activated Raichu’s Lightning Rod ability, which draws Electric type attacks to itself, nullifies them, and gives Raichu a Special Attack boost for its trouble. Fake Out wouldn’t do much damage, as evidenced by the Attack-reducing Timid nature. It’s apparently there to disrupt the opponent’s plays, such as preventing Primal Groudon from attacking. High Speed gives Raichu a faster Fake Out, which can land before many opponent’s priority moves. Volt Switch can then get Raichu out of there while simultaneously attacking, so Raichu can get another Fake Out in later, and disrupt future Thunder attacks. The surprise for me is the presence of the Assault Vest item, which gives Raichu plenty of Special Defense. This Raichu can take an Origin Pulse attack, and then come back with an Endeavor to make the opponents easier to clean up for its opponents. Nuzzle gives Raichu a means outside of Thunder Wave to paralyze opponents, and isn’t restricted by the Assault Vest item.

Raichu’s EV spread is pretty specific, but it’s designed with some specific circumstances in mind. For example, one of the most popular pokemon in Worlds is Mega Kangaskhan, which also has the move Fake Out. Between dueling Fake Outs, the fastest one wins out. This EV distribution allows Raichu to outspeed Mega Kangaskhan by one point. This spread also enables Raichu to survive attacks to allow it to get some nice Endeavor damage.

Glick was apparently one of three participants in the top 8 with the same strategy, so it seems like the idea to use Raichu in this way has been going around. Being someone who likes Raichu, I think it’s great to see Raichu finally get some love. And not just in the form of a Worlds victory, but also with a new form in the upcoming games, Pokemon Sun and Moon.

Was I talking about this new form? Yeah, I was talking about this new form. I was talking about it for days. This new Raichu uses its tail like a hoverboard. Not one of those has-wheels-and-touches-the-ground-but-we’ll-call-it-a-hoverboard-anyway kind of hoverboard that exists as a concession between our dreams and what we can currently produce, but this Raichu actually floats in place standing on its tail. So there.

This Raichu even gets a neat new ability, which doubles its Speed when electric terrain is active. Considering that Raichu is already very fast, this probably isn’t necessary, but it’s still cool. The one thing that might hold it back, however, is its new secondary Psychic typing, which isn’t a very good type competitively speaking. It’s weak to Knock Off, which is one of the most common moves on the competitive scene. There’s also Pursuit to watch out for, which would effectively trap Raichu in certain circumstances. Assuming its base stats remain the same, Raichu’s normally low Defense wouldn’t help much.

But, who knows? Some genius might figure out a way to get this Raichu on a Worlds winning team.

Before this.

A while back, I wrote an article that explored the question of whether Pokemon or Digimon came first. What I didn’t expect was for the article to be the big hit that it was. As of this writing, it’s easily the single most viewed article I’ve written for this blog.

From what I’ve seen, the article struck a nerve among Digimon fans, who didn’t like me saying that Pokemon came first. However, I likely wouldn’t have typed up the article if they didn’t keep insisting that Digimon came first.

In fact, to this day, Digimon fans continue to insist that their game came first, saying that Pokemon took inspiration for its concept from them. Some of them even continue to insist this after reading my article!

They might not have a strong history of accepting facts, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t continue presenting them.

As we are well aware at this point, the first copyright for Digimon was made by Akiyoshi Hongo, and it was dated 1997. Meanwhile, the first copyright for Pokemon was made in 1995 by Game Freak, even though the first commercially available Pokemon product wasn’t released until February 1996.

But what if it could be demonstrated that Game Freak, the owners of Pokemon, copyrighted creative elements that would be implemented into Pokemon years before Pokemon was officially released?

Behold:

Pictured above is a concept sketch for Capsule Monsters. If you’ve never heard of Capsule Monsters before, it’s the original concept for Pokemon. The picture above depicts a boy releasing a monster from a ball to fight another monster. Notice that Game Freak placed their name on this cover. Also, notice the copyright date: 1990.

If that weren’t enough, check out the following:

That’s instantly recognizable as the map of the Kanto region from the first generation of Pokemon games. The copyright date is a little hard to make out, but it does look like 1990, and the copyright holder is Game Freak Inc.

So, what does this mean? It means that basic elements of the Pokemon franchise, such as using monsters to battle other monsters, pokeballs, and even the map of the Kanto region, have existed in concept sketches and have been copyrighted years before someone decided to make something similar and call it “Digimon”.

There are more images like these that can be found on Bulbapedia, but I’ve selected these ones because they display the copyright dates. Other Capsule Monsters images shows early concept art for what would become pokeballs, pokemarts, and interaction between trainers on a route. It’s clear that these are concepts that would be implemented into Pokemon.

So, does the date of 1990 precede 1997? Yeah, it sure does. Does this mean that Pokemon came before Digimon? Yep. And it was being developed much earlier than many people originally thought. As of now, there’s no evidence of Digimon existing in any form prior to 1997.

So, that’s it. This proves that Game Freak didn’t steal from anybody with the Pokemon concept. Not that there was any reason for anyone to think that they did, but there are Digimon fans out there that think otherwise, for some reason.

Now, can we accept the facts and move on?

In a previous entry, I discussed whether or not the Pokemon franchise encourages witchcraft. It doesn’t, of course. But that’s not stopping various churches from taking the opportunity to win media attention for themselves by accusing it falsely.

While such churches may experience some short-term monetary gain from their false accusations, I believe that there’s too much potential in their actions for them to backfire.

There are two major reasons why I think this, and this entry examines them.

For one thing, waging a false accusation is what is referred to in the legal community as defamation. I know that there are plenty of people out there that believe heavily in the freedom of expression. I’m one of them. However, I know well that not every form of expression is protected under the law. Defamation is not a legally-protected form of expression.

To be specific, putting something false and injurious into publication is a form of defamation that is referred to as blasphemous libel.

Before I go much further, I think it’s a good idea to point out that the intent of this article is not to provide legal advice, and that I may be mistaken on some points. A lawyer would be a much more dependable source of information of this kind. I am not a lawyer, even if in some regards I may think like one.

In civil tort law, a person who believes that they’ve been victimized by libel can sue the person that they believe libeled them for compensation for damages. To succeed in doing this, the plaintiff must be able to demonstrate that the defendant is the one that disseminated the lie. In this case, it would be easy, as it would mean providing documentation that the company in question posted the defamatory content to their web space. In the age of screen captures, this is not at all hard to do.

Also, the libelous claim must be false. In this case, the libelous claims are that the Pokemon franchise is demonic and encourages witchcraft. None of the Pokemon games contain even a trace of demonism or witchcraft.

Not only that, it must be demonstrated that the claims would have caused damage. Pokemon is a huge intellectual property with tens of millions of fans, possibly hundreds of millions. Because of how widespread the libelous claims have become, it’s easy to imagine that Nintendo lost millions of dollars in revenue as a result.

Defamation cases usually involve demonstrating that the defendant had the intention of causing harm. However, there are cases where the nature of the lie is so inflammatory that it does not need to be demonstrated how it could cause harm to someone, and that if it could be demonstrated that someone made the statement, their intent to harm is assumed. That is what is referred to as defamation per se. To falsely accuse a game company of promoting witchcraft would very likely fall under defamation per se.

If it seems extraordinary to you that someone can get in trouble for insulting a game company, you may find it interesting that the Anti-Defamation League went after Saudi Arabia for claiming that Pokemon was part of a Zionist plot to undermine Islam.

The second major reason is a scriptural one. The Bible certainly does have something to say about defamation. It soundly condemns it.

For one thing, one of the Ten Commandments is against it. The ninth commandment is as follows:

“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
Exodus 20:16

While the act described is specific, Bible scholars generally have an understanding that the commandment applies to all forms of defamation, even going as far as saying that it applies to all forms of dishonesty. The following relates to it:

“You shall not circulate a false report. Do not put your hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. You shall not follow a crowd to do evil; nor shall you testify in a dispute so as to turn aside after many to pervert justice.”
Exodus 23:1-2

Furthermore:

These six things the Lord hates,
Yes, seven are an abomination to Him:
A proud look,
A lying tongue,
Hands that shed innocent blood,
A heart that devises wicked plans,
Feet that are swift in running to evil,
A false witness who speaks lies,
And one who sows discord among brethren.
Proverbs 6:16-19

The Psalms speak of slander in more than one place, but this stands out in particular:

He who secretly slanders his neighbor,
Him I will destroy;
The one who has a haughty look and a proud heart,
Him I will not endure.
Psalm 101:5

This Psalm was written by king David. Interestingly, he actually did have a man executed who spread a false report. 2nd Samuel chapter 1 tells us about how an Amalekite attempted to take credit for the death of king Saul. Whether David believed the Amalekite or not makes little difference, since he was either confessing to murder, or telling a lie about the king.

If these churches had spent more time reading the Bible, they’d probably have thought twice before slandering a game company for profit. Having said this, I do recognize that there are plenty more reasons to suspect that these churches don’t actually take the Bible seriously enough to allow it to have an effect on the way that they live or conduct their businesses.

Defamation is a serious offense. If you belong to any church that actively engages in it, you should probably find a different one, fast.

Pokemon has been a popular game, but it’s been quite some time since Pokemon made the news the way it has lately with the release of Pokemon Go.

For many of us today, Pokemon Go doesn’t need much explanation due to its popularity. In summary, it’s a cell phone app in which players move about in real life using their phone to physically travel to different locations to find creatures called “pokemon” that can be battled and added to the player’s collection.

It’s certainly a novel idea, so it’s no surprise that it’s been taking off as well as it has. It’s perhaps also no surprise that there are news stories about people behaving carelessly with the app, considering that the app encourages physically travelling from one location to another.

Pokemon has gotten to be so popular that there are some who are asking whether there is any spiritual danger to playing Pokemon. So, what about that? Is there any spiritual danger to playing Pokemon? Does Pokemon encourage witchcraft?

The answer to both of these questions is, “No, why would you think that?”

The reason why many people think that is because some popular religious figure made a case that was convincing enough for them, and they decided to look no further into it.

As cynical as it may sound, many religious leaders out there treat religion as a business. It is a business that is facilitated by media attention, and because of this, it is conductive to their business to pick on whatever happens to be popular at the time. And at this time, what happens to be the biggest dog in the yard is Pokemon.

There is nothing intrinsically harmful about Pokemon, so accusing it of encouraging witchcraft is a needlessly divisive move. However, its popularity makes it a convenient target for attention getters.

So, is there any harm in waging a baseless accusation if one’s intention is to further the gospel?

The answer to this question is “Yes, and that should be obvious to you.”

This is because you cannot promote the message of the Bible with an act that the Bible condemns. And charging someone with a false accusation is something that the Bible soundly condemns.

Let’s get real, here. Pokemon is a game that was made by a group of people who thought that their ideas would make a great game. It’s their life’s work. It’s something that makes people happy, which is good for people who enjoy the game, and it helps the game makers pay the bills, which is good for them. The game makers should not be accused of promoting witchcraft or any similar accusation, because that was not their intention when making the game. Taking cheap shots against honest people who produce a harmless product is not an action that should be taken to further the gospel.

What’s more, children are not stupid. Telling a child that Pokemon promotes witchcraft is like telling a child that Santa is real. Eventually, the child is going to learn what’s really going on, and they’ll end up trusting the judgement of their parents less.

Waging a false accusation is not a Christian act, and making a children’s game the target of the accusation doesn’t make the act any less harmless.

As of this writing, I haven’t played Pokemon Go. It would probably be a little while before I do. As for false accusations, I’ve been targeted with that kind of thing before, so I don’t have very much patience for it. It’s especially disappointing when religious leaders do it, and it’s petty when they decide to pick on a cell phone game, of all things.

Pokemon is hugely popular. Even today, two decades after its debut, Pokemon continues to be a phenomenon. Even at its lowest point, Pokemon had a fan base tens of millions strong.

Something that popular is bound to see different takes on it, and in Pokemon’s case, there were many. How many people out there remember Monster Rancher? Or Magi-Nation? Or Fighting Foodons? Out of the many Pokemon me-toos, the most popular was Digimon.

When you mention Pokemon and Digimon in the same breath among gamers, you’ll see many of them take sides. Usually, they’ll side with Pokemon. No surprise there, Pokemon is much more popular. But if you ask any of them why they like Pokemon more, you’ll see many of them throw their hands up and say “we just do.” It would seem as though few people truly understand why Pokemon is more popular, as though Digimon were somehow a superior product in every sense, but people have come to a consensus to like Pokemon instead, just because.

However, people don’t like things without reason. Pokemon turned out to be far more popular, even if people don’t know how that came to be. This article explores the reasons why, even though Digimon superficially offers a more interesting experience, Pokemon has won the hearts of many millions more.

One thing that Digimon fans point out is that Digimon offers the better anime.

And in a sense, this is true. Digimon focuses on telling epic stories of adventure and character development. While Pokemon does something similar, Digimon is different in that it tells one or two season long story arcs centered around a cast of characters who are out to defeat some foe that threatens the well being of a world or two.

On the other hand, Pokemon is about Ash and Pikachu, and how they travel from town to town collecting gym badges. After a while, Ash does collect all the gym badges in a region, then participates in some competition before moving on to another region where he collects another set of gym badges. It’s formulaic.

So why? Why does the Pokemon anime consistently get better ratings?

The answer is, because of that formula. It’s a long-term strategy. Sometimes, a person who watches will take a break from it. When they return to it, they expect some familiar concepts and/or characters to have remained in place.

When people think of the Digimon anime, they think about the starring characters, such as Tai, Matt, Agumon, and those other familiar faces. When they take a break from it, they expect those familiar faces to still be there when they come back, because those are the faces that they associate with Digimon. However, if the fan has been away for a long time, they may come back to discover that Tai and Agumon are no longer anywhere to be seen, even though they were once the main characters! As a result, older fans that expected certain characters to remain are alienated.

When people think of the Pokemon anime, they think of Ash and Pikachu. While characters have left Ash’s group and new characters have been introduced, Ash is still there, and so is Pikachu.

This has been spoken of as though it were some weakness of the Pokemon anime. But in reality, it’s been its strength. Again, sometimes, fans go, but later come back again. Pokemon makes it easier for them, because the two main characters that fans expect to find upon return are still there. Meanwhile fans of Digimon that attempt to return to the show but don’t find the old main characters have to readjust to a new cast, and they may not be up for that kind of emotional reinvestment, especially when faced with the prospect that the new cast may not still be there in a season or two.

So, while the Digimon anime may have better writing, the Pokemon anime wins out in the long run, because it remains consistently Pokemon, whether you like Ash or not.

On to the second point, Digimon fans like to point out that Digimon designs are better. What do they mean by “better”? Apparently, that Digimon are gritty and heavily-detailed.

For a few examples of Digimon designs, check out the following:

Wow. Any one of those guys look like they could kick Mewtwo’s butt. Just how edgy can you get?

But here’s the thing: We don’t really care for that as much as one might think. In fact, the Digimon designs look like someone has been trying way too hard to impress us. That’s something we can see right through, or at least notice on a subliminal level.

While Digimon may try really, really hard to impress us with their terribly edgy designs, they aren’t the only ones that have an edgy appeal to offer. For one thing, gamers adore Castlevania, even though the edginess factor isn’t nearly as blunt. In gaming, it’s not hard to find something that’s been overdesigned to stain our undergarments yellow. In fact, that stuff’s everywhere.

Pokemon’s simpler designs are welcome because they have a wider appeal. A girl can adore a Pikachu because it’s cute, and a boy may find Pikachu interesting because its electrical potential has a connotation of danger. That’s the kind of thing that Digimon doesn’t manage to pull off quite right. That’s especially glaring considering that Digimon originated as a Tamagotchi game. And in any case, the appeal of a wild, edgy character isn’t really as wide as one might think.

One can point out that Pokemon places a lot of emphasis on cuteness. Which it does. That doesn’t hurt it that much, because the cuteness of one pokemon usually doesn’t distract much from its other qualities, such as the strength it has in spite of that cuteness.

Besides, cuteness really isn’t a bad thing. In fact, it’s great that Pokemon has that aesthetic appeal. Pokemon scratches an itch that most other games out there don’t even bother reaching for.

The third point, and perhaps the most obvious is that the Pokemon video games are plainly superior.

There aren’t very many people who argue against this one. That doesn’t mean that Digimon games are bad. There are some good ones.

The main problem is Digimon games usually vary significantly from one installment to the next. While the Digimon World games are RPGs, the original Digimon game for the Sega Saturn was a Tamagotchi simulator. There are those who consider Digimon World to be the gold standard for the Digimon experience, while others favor the Tamagotchis. As a result, there is fragmentation among the fanbase as to what one may expect from a Digimon video game. (Digimon isn’t the only game to do this. The Yu-Gi-Oh video games are very inconsistent as to whether to follow the rules of the trading card games.)

Pokemon games are so similar from one installment to the next, that the pokemon themselves can be transferred from one version to another, allowing players to keep playing with the individual pokemon that they’ve grown attached to as the series progresses.

One can point out that the main series Pokemon RPGs are formulaic, varying little from one installment to the next. A similar point could be made about the Pokemon anime, but if you remember that same point above, you’ll know that that didn’t hurt the Pokemon anime very much at all. As stated above, that kind of consistency can be a real strength.

People who play a certain game usually take a break from it after a while. When they return, they expect those familiar core mechanics to remain intact. This is what makes Pokemon such a friendly game for casual players: it doesn’t alienate players with changes to the experience. In fact, that’s reasonable to expect. The things that make Pokemon distinct have remained.

In light of this, one can understand that Digimon’s dissimilarities from one installment to another is a liability. For a long time, things have been thrown out there to see what sticks. It takes strength to stick to one’s strategy.

For the fourth point, Pokemon is more original. No surprise there, because Pokemon came first, and Digimon was an attempt to copy someone else’s popularity.

Not everyone wants to accept that Pokemon came first. I’ve already written an article proving that to be the case, laying the issue to rest, so I don’t have to get too much into that here.

Still, it’s pretty obvious that Digimon was born in a marketing meeting in an attempt to make some quick cash off of Pokemon’s popularity. While we don’t talk about that very often, enough of us do see right through that, and we don’t like the idea of supporting such a blatant lack of creativity.

To take something and say “Look, we can make it better by making it edgier and more X-treme!” doesn’t earn a lot of respect.

The fifth point is that Pokemon is generally a far more positive experience. And, believe it or not, there’s a lot of demand for that kind of thing.

Think about how many games are out there in which the main character is out to save the world. Some of the sharper readers out there would point out that that’s nearly all of them. It’s a recurring theme in video games: the relatable main character sets out on a quest to save the world from some bad guy or personified evil or abstract concept, gathering items and/or abilities along the way.

Done. So. Many. Times.

The Digimon games are yet another installment about unrealistically-heroic pre-teens saving the world from some evil that threatens to end it in some creatively dreadful way. And to be sure that that point gets across, it beats you over the head with some of the same edgy, overdesigned monstrosities that were previously discussed.

While Pokemon games usually also star kids who save the world, what’s noteworthy is that the tone of the adventures is far different. This is apparent in the settings of the games. The upcoming installments, Pokemon Sun and Moon, have settings based on Hawaii. The setting of Pokemon X and Y was inspired by France. Very nice settings that are very conductive to a positive and uplifting tone (even if France is a tad overrated).

Pokemon games have such an energy and enthusiasm about them, it’s almost as though each game were some large festival that players participate in each time they play the game. They even made some games based on New York City and managed to convey the same positivity. Think about the kind of creativity that would take.

If the idea of your game is to have a main character go on a long journey to save the world, you know how many games you’d be directly competing with that have the same theme? Just about every single one.

That’s what makes it so great that Pokemon at least tries to be different in tone. Pokemon games star kids who want to be champions. Not because anyone is counting on them, but because they want to be good at something. Pretty good idea for a game, right there.

The sixth point is that Pokemon has a far more developed competitive game. This has much to do with the fan base, but it is due in large part to the intrinsic elements of the game, so I think it does deserve a mention.

Pokemon has a much larger, far more developed competitive game. This is interesting considering that, when Pokemon was first made, it wasn’t originally intended to have much of a competitive aspect outside of link battling. While many may be loathe to admit it, the existence of fan communities such as Smogon may have played a large part in the development of Pokemon’s competitive game.

Love it or hate it, Smogon is huge. At first, it provided an online simulator, with simple rules to balance the game more than link cable battles. Mewtwo and Mew were deemed uber, so Smogon didn’t allow them. Over time, things got more complicated, but Nintendo began hosting official Pokemon tournaments with rules very similar to Smogon’s. Perhaps one was inspired by the other, though it’s likely that Nintendo recognized on their own that similar rules were better for the game.

The very fact that competitive communities such as Smogon exist and are as large as they are makes the case that there has been a huge demand for competitive Pokemon.

On the other hand, Digimon hasn’t been doing very much competitively. That’s not to say that they’ve been doing nothing. There have been Digimon tournaments, but they’ve been rare.

When it comes to a competitive Pokemon event, it’s usually either a video game or trading card game event. That’s seldom a problem for someone, because Pokemon fans typically play one game or the other (or both).

On the rare occasion that a Digimon event is held, it might be a button-mashing fest with the Digivice, which not many people own. Or it might be a trading card game event. But which trading card game? Digimon has tried more than one.

After a while, Nintendo has put more effort into making the Pokemon RPGs more competitively balanced, which has resulted in a better game. That was pretty good news for the many players who wanted Pokemon to have a stronger competitive aspect.

Those are the reasons that are apparent to me why, between Pokemon and Digimon, Pokemon has succeeded in having a much wider appeal. This is not an article on how Digimon is stupid and why people should not play it. If you enjoy a game, that’s a pretty good reason to play it. I wrote this article because it’s not very obvious to many people why Pokemon turned out to be the far more popular game.

Is there a reason that I missed or a counterpoint that you’d like to bring up? Comments section.

Wouldn’t it be really cool if Nintendo added the original Pokemon games to the 3DS eshop? It’s what people have been asking for since about the time the 3DS was released. If this video from the official Pokemon YouTube channel is an indication…

…that’s just what they’re going to do.

I think this is some pretty cool news. I have some fond memories of the original Pokemon games, and one of these games would help to relive some old memories of treks in the Kanto region.

Hearing about this takes me back to the late nineties. I remember going to school and having shows like Home Improvement and Goof Troop to watch on TV. And Quack Pack. And Doug. So yeah, I was happy that I had a Game Boy for entertainment.

So we’re not missing out on the important feature of trading, it’s going to be possible through local wireless! Another neat thing about this announcement is the timing. At about this time, many of the original Pokemon games have depleted the internal battery that was used to store save data.

At one point, game saves were stored using battery backup, likely because the game cartridges used some sort of SRAM, which is a kind of volatile memory that loses its contents when power is no longer supplied to it. In such cases, an internal battery would have been used to keep power supplied to the SRAM even when the player wasn’t playing and the cartridge wasn’t in the system. If the battery ran out of charge, however, the player lost their save data, which was especially tragic for players that had pokemon that they liked. Recently, a Japanese man made the news after having left his Super Famicom on for 20 years because he did not want to lose his Umihara Kawase save data.

The good news is that because the 3DS games are saved using non-volatile memory, game saves would not be lost due to a depleted internal battery.

When playing the original games again, one might think about how the Pokemon series has come a long way. Some of the noticeable quirks of the original games include:

• Back then, TMs could only be used once.
• When a pokemon forgot a move, it usually didn’t have a way to relearn it.
• The Psychic type was pretty much at the top of the game.
• Missingno. was easy to find. It would be surprising if it weren’t removed.
• Mew was considered unobtainable, but that didn’t mean that some players didn’t look for it anyway. However, a glitch was discovered that made it obtainable. Whether it remains in the game is to be seen.
• The option to play as a girl wasn’t available.
• Pokemon didn’t have abilities
• They also couldn’t hold items
• You couldn’t breed pokemon, for all of Brock’s talking about it. This means that if you picked a Squirtle and also wanted a Charmander, finding someone to trade it to you was really hard.
• They might fix some of the bugs, but the original Pokemon games were so buggy, that it might have been how some players were introduced to hexadecimal.

And there’s more. None of that means that Pokemon Red, Blue, Green or Yellow are bad games. However, some players are likely to better appreciate the features available to them in newer games by playing a version of Pokemon where those features are absent.

However, some new features may be implemented. Perhaps some sort of move relearner will be implemented. Perhaps TMs will be reusable. Maybe the female main character from FireRed and LeafGreen will be selectable in a low-resolution form (that would actually be pretty cool).

Or maybe (this would be a big one) there would be a feature that would make these games trade compatible with 6th gen games, with newer pokemon appearing in the games with sprites in an older graphical style. If a person sets their expectations high, they might be setting themselves up for disappointment. Still, it’s fun to think about how a pokemon like Chespin or Goomy would look in Red/Green style.

Now that classic Pokemon games are announced for the eshop, there are other possibilities. Personally, I’d like to see the Gold, Silver and Crystal games added to the eshop. Perhaps, in time, that’ll happen. There’s also the possibility of the GBA versions, Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald, though they’d probably be on the Wii U eshop, considering that many GBA remakes have been appearing on that platform.

Oh yeah, here’s a cool feature that many of us who played the classic Pokemon games didn’t get to experience: playing them on a handheld with a backlit display screen. The original Game Boy (and even the GameBoy Color) didn’t have a backlit screen, so many of us had to play somewhere bright to see what was going on onscreen. Also, on the original, there was the challenge of getting the adjustable contrast just right.

Another feature that will help is the presence of a rechargeable lithium ion battery in the 3DS. When Pokemon Red and Blue were released in the United States, there was a temporary shortage of AA batteries, which were needed to power the original Game Boys.

I’m likely to get one of these games. One question would be, “which one?” I think that the Yellow version will probably be the most popular. If the Green version is released on the American eshop, I’d probably get that one. However, the Green version wasn’t released in the States, so that might not happen. Maybe I’ll get the Red version. I like the Red version’s exclusive pokemon.

Also, there’s the question of which starter to go with. I’d probably pick Bulbasaur.