Pokémon Snapped
September 03, 2004 - Pokémon has gone nowhere. The originals, Pokémon Red and Blue, came out in September of 1998. Two major Game Boy iterations and an assortment of console spin-offs later and you can count the significant upgrades on one hand. There have been tweaks, there have been variations, but the core experience has never been expanded upon in the fashion that the very nature of the franchise could allow.
Pokémon's premise is ingenious, but it's languishing. Part of this is a result of Nintendo's business decisions. The game seems to demand a massively multiplayer online RPG setting, but Nintendo's lack of an online presence killed the potential there before it could be realized. Even without being online, though, there are numerous other things that haven't experienced the growth that they are capable of. Instead of making the individual species of Pokémon more unique and interesting, they have simply increased the number of them from game to game. Instead of making battles increasingly more exciting and action packed (ala the battles in the cartoon), they have remained standard turn-based affairs. The emotional connection between trainer and Pokémon is supposed to be a key element in the franchise, and yet the relationship between the two in the games is largely mechanical.
Instead of breaking free of the limitations found in Pokémon Red and Blue, the Gold/Silver and Ruby/Sapphire editions embraced them and made them part of the formula that defines the series. I had personally only played bits and pieces of the Pokémon games before Ruby and Sapphire had come out, and had made the conscious decision to wait until those versions were released to get into the franchise. Imagine my surprise when the game that I bought was nearly identical to the mere bits and pieces of the last two games that I had played. Pokémon seems to be suffering from the Mega Man syndrome, where every game released is virtually identical to the one before it. While I can deal with that in an action-based franchise, I simply can't bear it in an RPG.
Now, I am fully aware that there is a sizable fan base that is perfectly pleased with the current state and direction of the Pokémon franchise. I won't claim that you people are wrong in your preferences; you're all entitled to your opinion. What I'm going to do in this article is explain what I, personally, think needs to be done with the series based upon my admittedly limited experience with it. I simply can't help but notice how much unrealized potential the franchise holds, to the point where after thinking about it for mere minutes I find myself overflowing with ideas.
The "dream game" presented from hereon out can be assumed to be a GameCube game, though it could also probably work on the Nintendo DS (due to its online capability). I'd much prefer to see the game in glorious 3D, however, so I'll run with the console idea for now.
When Worlds Collide
First things first. Pokémon needs to be a MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game). For those unfamiliar with the term, other games in the genre are Star Wars Galaxies, Everquest, and City of Heroes. Basically, you play in a perpetually existing online world populated by hundreds of other human players. Imagine Animal Crossing, but dozens of times larger, and every townsperson is controlled by a human player logged onto the system. (That's another franchise that desperately needs the MMORPG treatment, but that's a different article entirely.)
Why a MMORPG? Think about the Pokémon universe. There isn't a main character. There isn't a grand evil looming somewhere that only you can stop. The universe is full of trainers that are all striving towards an identical goal. "Become the Pokémon master!" You are one of hundreds, likely thousands. The idea behind the Pokémon games has always been that you are competing against those like you, those with the same ambition, to complete your quest. The question becomes, why can't the way you play the game mimic this system? Instead of competing against various trainers that are mere AI constructs, imagine constantly playing against other real-world gamers. No longer are you trying to defeat a trainer that has been programmed to fight, you are facing off against another human being who wants to become the Pokémon master just as much as you do. The very nature of the game universe is mimicked by the way the game is played.
But I probably don't have to explain to you why this system would be incredible, why it would pull you into the game so much more than the current method of doing things. I would imagine that one would be hard-pressed to find a gamer that didn't already believe that a Pokémon game taking place in a fully realized online world would be amazing. There are a couple things to consider before I go all-out with the idea, though. If the game is a MMORPG, you can only play it online. Without an internet connection the world simply wouldn't be accessible. That brings up the fairly realistic problem of audience-limiting. Pokémon games are so popular now that Nintendo probably wouldn't be too keen on the idea of drastically limiting their audience to those with internet connections, and likely even only to those with broadband connections. Nintendo has repeatedly expressed concern about this problem, and it is one of the key reasons they have yet to jump into the online marketplace. By the same token, however, we can assume that if Nintendo is even making an online Pokémon game in the first place, they have found a way around these hurdles. So, for the purposes of this article, let's live in the magical world where Nintendo has produced the brilliant and cheap online service that they have dreamed of.
First, the basics. The game would take place over the entire Pokémon world, not just a single continent. That means you can visit the Kanto, Johto, and Hoenn regions throughout the game, and each region would have different native Pokémon. Not only would this serve to better give the impression that you're playing in a real world, it would create necessary technical divisions. Many MMORPGS mirror the entire world over multiple servers, so there could be multiple versions of the same location with completely different people in each version at the same time. What I'm envisioning, however, is a world where there's only one version of any given place. Everyone is in the same world at the same time. I'll get into that more in a little bit, though, since the initial declaration poses numerous technical hurdles.
Stripping back all extraneous and causational activities, the basic purpose and quest would be similar to all of the previous versions of the game. Start out as a budding Pokémon trainer, acquire badges through battles at against Gym Leaders, and eventually challenge the Elite Four (and the previous champion) so you can be the Pokémon master. I'm imagining a system where all gym leaders are played by Nintendo staff members, who additionally act as server moderators. The pacing of the game would have to be significantly slowed, so you wouldn't be able to rifle through the gyms or max out your Pokémon after a mere week of power-playing. Beating a gym leader would be a significant achievement, not merely a step on the ladder. The game would run on a series of "seasons", with each season having a new champion. The length of these seasons could be as short as a month, or as long as an entire year. I would imagine that the longer the season, the better. After all, if you're trying to mimic the game world you can't rightfully expect to become a Pokémon Master in a mere matter of weeks. However, very long seasons could create harsh imbalances between people who have been playing for months, and those who just picked up the game. For that reason, a middle ground would likely need to be reached.
For balance reasons, there would be a level or ability cap at each gym. Basically, if you already trained a multitude of amazing Pokémon in the first season, you wouldn't be able to use those same Pokémon in the beginning gyms for the next season. You could still use them later on in that season, but you'd have to train some fresh meat for the preliminary rounds. Those who would prefer to continue using their highly trained Pokémon, however, would be able to compete in other organized competitions throughout the season. Numerous clans and teams could be formed around a basic framework provided by Nintendo, so there would be plenty to do if you didn't feel like competing in the standard tournament series. There would also still be the ever-enticing goal of catching 'em all.
Traversing the World
Let's talk some more about servers and regions. The key thing to try and maintain is the illusion of one all-encompassing world. To that effect, there would be two distinct levels of division. One, the three regions. Two, a multitude of towns and cities within each region. Each town or city would be a single server, with a predetermined traffic cap. There would be a certain number of spaces for people who live natively in the town, as well as a certain number of spaces for people who are visiting. Each town would have several surrounding natural areas; you could stick around and do plenty of battling, training, or capturing in the wild.
The crux of this system involves traveling from server to server. The best way to explain is likely a bit of role playing, so let's step into the shoes of one particular trainer. This trainer, let's call him Ash, lives in Pallet town. He owns his own house, which he can customize to his heart's content. He's spent his hard earned cash on furnishings, home expansions, and landscaping. It's a fairly prestigious little hovel. Anyways, Ash can go out into the woods at any time to look for new Pokémon. The woods are sprawling and expansive, several real-world miles in width. He can hop on his bike and trek over to one of the nearby routes, where he'll find plenty of other trainers that live in his town to battle with. He's also likely to run into other trainers from other towns and regions that are visiting.
One day, Ash decides it's time to explore outside of his hometown. He travels to the far edge of town, where there's a bus stop. Let's jump outside of Ash's world for a moment. The bus stop (or boat dock, depending upon the particular location) allows for travel between towns in a single region. In order to get on the bus, you have to buy a ticket. Buses run on schedules, just like in the real world, and ticket sales depend upon availability. If there are open visitor slots in the destination town, the system is very simple. Buy a ticket, your spot is reserved, and you leave on the bus when it arrives. It becomes more complicated when the server is maxed out, however. You can't rightfully take a bus to a town with no open visitor slots, so there won't be tickets currently available for that town. What you can do is put in a ticket reserve. If a visitor from that town decides that they want to leave, you'll have first dibs on the ticket that then becomes available. If you're elsewhere in town when the bus is ready to leave, a message will pop up alerting you and giving you the option of teleporting to the bus station. (Hey, it is still a video game after all.) At that point, it becomes a simple player exchange. As the other person leaves your destination town, you take their place.
So now Ash is in another town. He can climb the nearby mountain to find some trainers to battle or some Pokémon to catch, or he can visit some of the shops around the town. When he gets tired of it, he can hop a bus to another town, or take the bus back home. When going back to his home town, he never has to put in a ticket reserve. He's got a house waiting for him; there will always be an open slot with his name on it. If he's in another town and logs off the system, he'll be sent back to his home town automatically. You can't have people idling on a server and taking up precious slots when they're not playing, after all.
So let's say Ash has explored the crap out of the Kanto region. His sights set high, he decides that he wants to travel to the Hoenn region. That's very far away, though, and not a simple feat. First things first, he has to order plane tickets. He can schedule them for a multitude of times, so he could theoretically try and travel with several friends that all schedule together. There are only a limited number of spaces for travelers from other regions, however, so he may have to wait a good chunk of time before a slot opens up for him.
Let's step out of Ash's world again. Inter-region travel would be very similar to traveling between towns, but travel would be restricted between three hub cities - one in each region. Once you arrive in your destination region, you have to find temporary lodging. This is the true traffic limiter for inter-region travel. If there are no hotel vacancies in a destination city, you can't fly there. You have to buy a reserve ticket and wait for someone to leave, just like bus travel. While towns have two classifications for open slots (visitors and residents), cities would have three classifications (visitors, residents, and visitors from other regions). As such, the servers for the three cities would have to have a significantly higher traffic capacity than those that are used for regular towns. Once you arrive, your hotel room becomes your new temporary home. It functions identically to your house in your hometown, in that you'll be returned there if you log off in another town in the new region, and that you can return to it without having to wait at any time. Hotels require a constant source of funding to maintain, however, so they aren't feasible if you want to stay in a new region for an extended period of time. If you run out of cash, you will be deported back to your home in your native region.
Amazed by the grandeur of this new region, Ash decides that he wants to move there permanently. So while he's visiting, he goes house shopping. There may be some new-builds that he could move into, but he wants a home with some history. As he walks through one of the nearby towns, he sees a "for sale" sign on a charming little house. He inquires within, and has a chat with the owner. It turns out that they're looking to move to Kanto, so the two set up a deal. The new house is upgraded a little more than Ash's old one, so he throws in some extra cash and the two trade homes. A permanent server-switch is performed, and Ash is now a proud resident of the Hoenn region.
The Stars of the Show
We've covered how the worlds will work, but have yet to touch on the actual monsters that this game revolves around. The most important thing this time around is that all of the Pokémon will be unique. Not just in terms of character design, but in terms of actual usefulness. One of the biggest problems with the Pokémon franchise right now, from my point of view at least, is a lack of variety. Pokémon are designed in every which way, but they all pull moves from the same general pool. You could have a dozen fire Pokémon, but odds are that they'll end up learning (or being taught) the same general moves. The only reason to have multiple fire Pokémon, in most circumstances, is because they have different stats. Pokémon are effectively bundles of stats, which you end up teaching the same general powerful moves at high levels. You end up trying to "catch 'em all" solely for the sake of completion, not because you want to exploit some particular ability that a Pokémon has.
With such a huge number of Pokémon, though, it would be exceedingly difficult to create a set of unique moves for every single monster. There's nothing I'd like more than 400 Pokémon with completely individual moves, but I'm fully aware how unlikely that will be. One solution would be to drastically cut the number of Pokémon, maybe even down to the original 151. I will admit, however, that I like the fact that there are a lot of them. It gives the impression of a more diverse world, and I like the whole "catch 'em all" idea. I think a better idea would be to radically alter the method by which Pokémon learn moves, and battle in general.
If you catch a Pokémon in the wild (a relatively low-level one), it won't know any moves. That is, it won't know any of the typical TP-consuming type of moves that are the current standard in the Pokémon games. Many Pokémon are just squirrels and birds, things of that nature. They aren't natural fighting machines. As such, they start out exactly like what they are - wild animals. All they'll be able to do is scratch with their claws, peck with their beaks, etc. The most notable thing about all this, though, is the nature in which battles would be fought.
Imagine two CPU characters fighting each other in Super Smash Bros Melee. Or Tales of Symphonia with all characters on auto, and all techs disabled. Basically, you've got two opponents battling it out without any user-input, dependent solely on their inherent AI fighting routines. This would be the most basic form of battle in this new Pokémon game. You can't expect a monster that you just captured to be a fighting genius. If you suddenly release it from a Pokéball, it will fight wildly against its opponent based solely upon instinct. From a technical standpoint, this is its default AI routine. All Pokémon, when pitted against each other, will fight based upon an AI that you help cultivate throughout the course of the game.
So how do you develop this AI? Any activity that you involve a particular Pokémon in will help mold the way it acts. Let's say the Pokémon is a grass type, and you routinely use it against fire types. As any good Pokémaniac knows, grass gets owned by fire. So after being continually beaten up by fiery foes, your grass type starts acting more defensive when battling against those types. Perhaps it even develops a complex, and refuses to come out of its Pokéball when you try and pit it against a fire type. In this fashion, your Pokémon will learn to trust or distrust you. Giving potions when your Pokémon is hurt, pulling it out of battles before it faints, these are all things that will cause your Pokémon to trust you more. And if it trusts you more, it will likely behave better in battle. It will be generally braver and more responsive, knowing that its trainer is there to help it out.
Outside of fighting battles, there will be numerous other ways in which you can train your Pokémon. Let's say your Pokémon's main weakness is its speed. You can take it out of its Pokéball in a field, and run around with it. It will slowly but surely become faster as you train it in that fashion. If it's weak, you can have it carry around something heavy for a while. It would be very similar to training your creature in the PC game, Black & White. You would have to be careful not to over-train your Pokémon in a single stretch of time, however. Too much training and they'll faint, preventing any further training for a good chunk of time and lowering their trust of you. It would be a necessity to prevent players from making their Pokémon incredibly strong in a very short period of time.
Then we have special moves. They would work similarly to the special moves in the current generation of Pokémon games, consuming TP with each usage and having a particular offensive or defensive effect. The method of learning special moves would be slightly different from the current games, however. For instance, you could have your Pokémon learn a different initial special move depending upon the style in which it has been fighting the most. If it's been particularly offensive, it might learn a new attack. If it's been getting its butt kicked, it might learn a new defensive technique. Depending upon the initial move your Pokémon learns, it can then proceed down a particular series of learnable moves that are related to the original move. Use the original move 50 times and your Pokémon will learn a more powerful version of the same technique. It would be very similar to the method of learning new techniques employed in Tales of Symphonia. A Pokémon's proficiency at performing a particular move would also improve as it uses a move more and more. A Pikachu that has just learned Thunder Shock may miss often, and be lacking in power. A more experienced Pikachu would have a considerably more accurate shot, and likely do more damage with each strike.
Battles themselves would take place in a 3D area filmed from a primarily isometric camera angle. Each trainer would stand at opposite ends of the screen as their Pokémon battle in the middle. Things would play out like they do in the Pokémon cartoon, with the two monsters running around and fighting against each other freely. Your most basic job as a trainer would be to assist your Pokémon's standard AI with vocal commands. If the enemy is sneaking up behind your Pokémon, yell "watch out!" to try and warn it. If you see a weakness in the enemy's defense, order your Pokémon to quickly strike. Much like the ATB (Active Time Battle) system used in the PSX era Final Fantasy games, each Pokémon would have a time bar that denotes when they can use a special move. The speed at which the bar fills up would depend upon that Pokémon's natural speed, and while the bar fills up the Pokémon would run around and fight with its natural abilities. Once the bar is full, the trainer decides when and how the special move is to be used. You can immediately call out to your Pokémon and order it to perform a technique, or wait with a full bar and have your Pokémon perform the move with particular timing based upon how the battle is playing out.
Winning a battle would depend upon how well your Pokémon was trained, and how well you worked with it during the fight. If did a lousy job with training and just tell your Pokémon to use techniques over and over again during a fight, a more battle-weathered Pokémon might be able to easily evade your attacks and even adapt to some of your techniques. If you don't time your special attacks well, the opponent's Pokémon may block or evade the move. The best trainers will spend individual time with their Pokémon to strengthen their stats and base abilities, and battle with them often to refine their strategies and general battle-readiness. There could be a multitude of ways in which you could train for specific circumstances, perhaps even by pitting your own Pokémon against each other and training them to adapt to certain attacks or techniques.
The whole idea here is that you aren't just some guy who captures various monsters and forces them to fight each other. You legitimately take the role of a Pokémon trainer, and work with your team to win battles and become stronger. If you just sit back and watch your Pokémon fight, you'll find yourself quickly bested by trainers and Pokémon that work as a team.
Building your Army
But how would you go about capturing these Pokémon in the first place? There are a couple things about battling and capturing Pokémon in the wild that I find quite irksome. The fact that these creatures, no matter what their variety, will always attack you when you come near doesn't make any sense to me. I would imagine that the vast majority of Pokémon would flee from a trainer crashing through the underbrush. I know that there are some more realistic ways of luring and capturing Pokémon in places like the Safari Zone, but I don't think these methods need to be confined to special areas.
There's also the fact that capturing Pokémon in the wild is the natural beginning of any Pokémon Trainer's journey, but it is portrayed in a horribly barbaric fashion. The main pastime of the Pokémon universe's occupants is the violent capture and enslavement of innocent forest creatures, which are then forced into mortal combat against their will. For such a cheerily portrayed world, the underlying truth behind these Pokémon's cruel fates is callously disregarded.
What I'd like to propose is a system where Pokémon are no longer "captured," but are instead "recruited" through non-violent means. I'll try and illustrate this system with an example. Let's take the role of Ash again, as he takes a walk through a forest. He may periodically see Rattatas or Pidgeys running through the underbrush or flying through the canopy. Let's say he wants to add a Pidgey to his lineup. His strategy would mirror that of a birdwatcher in the beginning. Follow a Pidgey to its nest, and attract it with bird calls. Perhaps from a flute that he acquired at a nearby shop. Once he has its attention, he baits it with food to draw it near. He may do this for several days, gradually building trust with the bird until it will happily sit on his shoulder and eat from his hand.
At this point, the bird's "friendship level" would be high enough for it to be recruited. A Pokéball could then be tied to this particular Pidgey, and it would be able to be "summoned" whenever that Pokéball is selected in battle. Pokémon wouldn't actually LIVE in the Pokéballs any more; they'd live in the wild where they were originally found. Using a Pokéball effectively teleports its linked Pokémon to your side. A key feature in this is that the teleportation is based upon the Pokémon's actual desire to be summoned. If you never use a Pokémon or are generally cruel to it, it might not answer the call from the Pokéball. You'd either have to return to where that particular Pokémon lives and befriend it again, or choose to permanently sever your connection with it.
There could be some other methods of befriending Pokémon, using the prior system as a basis. Let's say there's a Nidoking desperately trying to save its children from a forest fire. If you whip out a water Pokémon and save the small Nidorans, the Nidoking would be indebted to you and form a Pokéball pact with you right then and there. Or maybe you find a lone egg in the desert, and take care of it until it hatches. The baby Pokémon that hatches could believe that you're its mother, and boom. There's another Pokéball pact. Other more humanistic Pokémon, like Mewtwo for example, may choose to form a pact with you after you defeat them in battle.
The whole idea here is that the system becomes a lot less video-gamey and a lot more believable. No more being jumped by rabid Rattatas in every field you walk through. No more knocking Pokémon out and not being able to capture them because you can't limit the power of the Pokémon you're trying to capture them with. Fewer systems based on stats and leveling up and more systems based upon actual trainer/Pokémon interaction.
The Ever-Looming Plot
Let's be honest here. The plots in Pokémon games have never been above the second-grade reading level. They exist solely to give your character a reason to travel around the continent. Oh no, Team Magma is trying to cover the world in lava! No one cares. People are playing the game because they want to complete their quest of catching all the Pokémon, and defeating all the trainers. With that said, though, I won't suggest the complete and utter removal of all plot-esque elements. What I'd prefer is a more dynamic and optional inclusion of plot-related events.
The main plot of the game, plain and simple, would the chronicle of your journey to become the Pokémon master. Everyone would have the same main plot elements, namely each gym and the final clash at the championship. All of the pieces in between the gyms, however, would depend entirely upon where you happen to be and what you happen to be doing. A dozen events may be occurring in towns and fields across the continent, but you only become involved in those you happen to be near and decide to investigate.
These events would be the primary venue for using Pokémon outside of battles. Perhaps a little boy runs up to you, and tells you that his Skitty is trapped up in a tree. Whip out your Bulbasaur, and save the poor thing with its vine whip. The little boy may give you a reward. There would be far more in-depth events than the preceding example, however. Let's say someone's Charmeleon got ticked off and set a building on fire. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to rescue everyone in the burning building. In all likelihood, you won't be the only trainer around. So it's up to you and whoever else decides to jump in to save the day. By using various Pokémon and their abilities, you traverse the building and rescue people one by one. Maybe someone has a Pidgeotto, and fly people out of the building to safety. However, they don't have any water Pokémon that can put out the fire that blocks their way. By teaming up and forming temporary parties, groups of people can complete events together.
However, we can't have fifty trainers rushing this building all at once. There would have to be conditions built into the system that would convince certain trainers to pass on certain events. Rushing into a burning building is a very dangerous gambit, after all. Especially if you're a low-level grass Pokémon trainer. If you're in a disadvantageous situation and you still manage to pull it off, however, your rewards would be that much greater. Maybe your grass Pokémon becomes resistant to fire after this event, giving it an enormous advantage in battles from thereon out. Maybe you decided to use a fire Pokémon, and after interacting with the flames in the building directly, it learns a new flame-manipulation technique that can be used in battle.
At the end of the season, you can look back on your achievements and find that your own story was completely different from everyone who was playing around you. Continuing threads could begin as you complete events that you come upon, and events could start to occur in progression. Maybe because you stopped a fire in this one town, a criminal managed to survive and is now wreaking havoc in another town. You might become famous because of several noble deeds, to the point where an event occurs in one town that can only be completed if you happen to show up. A system like this would work even better if Nintendo employed script writers throughout the entire run of the game who would create new events on the fly based upon how previous events in the world were treated.
Conclusion
After writing this piece, I find myself being more depressed about the future of the Pokémon franchise than anything. The knowledge that Nintendo will likely never implement changes as radical as the preceding has probably ruined me for future iterations of the franchise that are made from the current mold. After all, every fully-fledged Pokémon game that has been released in the last six years, regardless of how cookie-cutter they all were, has sold in the kabillions. It seems that the buying public is perfectly happy with the current state of things.
If the Pokémon franchise ever does go online, it likely won't be in a MMORPG fashion. The game will play the same way as it always has, and you'll probably be able to join in mini-tournaments and play against other interested trainers like an online version of Pokémon Stadium. It'll be neat, I guess, but nowhere near as incredible as it could have been.
Pokémon is Nintendo's cash ticket with the younger crowd, and upping the sophistication of the game to attract more of the older market probably isn't on the top of Nintendo's to-do list. Though, Pokémon Colosseum was considerably darker than the GBA games from a thematic standpoint. Maybe, just maybe, Nintendo's looking to expand the general appeal of the franchise. I highly doubt the changes I've proposed will ever be considered, but I'd be more than happy to be proven wrong.
Quelle: cube.ign.com
Link:
http://cube.ign.com/articles/544/544508p1.html
Link:
http://cube.ign.com/articles/544/544508p2.html
Link:
http://cube.ign.com/articles/544/544508p3.html
Link:
http://cube.ign.com/articles/544/544508p4.html
Link:
http://cube.ign.com/articles/544/544508p5.html
Link:
http://cube.ign.com/articles/544/544508p6.html
Tja, was soll ich sagen, das wäre natürlich das Über-Spiel. Einige Ideen von dem Text sind mir schon in ähnlicher Form im Kopf herumgeflogen, andere lassen sich nur extrem schwer realisieren. Wie zB durch Freundschaft Pokémon bekommen. Die meisten Leute haben keine Zeit mehrere Tage lang ein Pokémon in der Wildnis zu besuchen, um sich mit ihm anzufreunden.
Was mir besonders gefällt sind die Ideen die Pokémon individuell zu trainieren, in denen man sie herumlaufen lässt, oder ihnen Sachen zum Tragen gibt. Auch das Lernsystem von Tales Of Symphonia würde bei Pokémon gut dazu passen.
).
