Like a Pokemon Virgin

A review of Pokemon Platinum for the Nintendo DS

I’ve THOUGHT about playing a Pokemon game for a long time, because of the pop icon status these card and video games have garnered over the years. It is especially odd that I never got around to playing any of them because I’ve been a huge Nintendo fan ever since the NES days. Of course, the only handheld games I really began playing in earnest were on the Gameboy Advance, so any Pokemon game on the Fatboy, or Gameboy Color would not have gotten my attention. Portable gaming in those days for me was definitely limited to Tetris, as it was for many people I imagine.

There was also the stigma it had of being a little kid’s obsession. Well, after reading over and over of there actually being some genuine appeal and gameplay involved in them, I decided to try it out. Now I’ve sunk a combined 55 hours into it. I’ve been playing it since March 2009. Previous to this game, my pokemon expertise consisted of being a dedicated Mewtwo player on Super Smash Brothers Melee (one of my top ten favorite games). I thought about picking up either Pokemon Diamond or Pearl on the DS, but I didn’t know which one to get. With Platinum, there was only one, and it also launched near to my visit to the Nintendo World Store in NY. I figured that would be a great place to buy my first pokemon game.

The game has two settings, the world exploration and the battle screen. The world exploration has the towns and trails between them. There are pokemon trainers scattered liberally across the world (of which you also are one).Upon seeing you, the trainers will challenge you to battle. There are also specific terrain types, that when walking through will randomly throw you into battling a wild pokemon, unaccompanied by a trainer. You never see these wild pokemon on the world exploration screen, but you only know one is there when you are forced to do battle. The world exploration features a pleasant top-down view, with simplistic character sprites, and cartoony houses and cartoony landscape features. Its colorful, crisp and very retro. It feels like you are wandering around a much friendlier Hyrule, from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. You can explore towns, houses, caves, mountains, oceans, and lakes, and it usually pays off to wander quite a bit.

The battle screens were less impressive. This game has been around a long time, the first one being released in 1998 in North America. The battle screen hasn’t changed a whole lot since then, even with the relatively capable technical abilities of the Nintendo DS. The battles consist of pretty much static almost unanimated characters stiffly bumping into each other. Its turn-based and most of the action is explained as it unfolds via text at the bottom of the screen. The disappointment with this though is really mostly just with the dated appearance of the animations and graphics. The gameplay that happens is pretty addictive. The pokemon come in several different types, ranging from ice to fire to rock, and there is a complicated rock/paper/scissors balancing act going on that determines how effective a given pokemon will be against another type. Wild pokemon can either be defeated for the experience points or captured to be added to your pokemon collection. You can only carry six pokemon at a time, but you can change up that roster with access to your whole collection, balancing out the six with a good range of different types and levels.

The actual pokemon characters themselves I really enjoyed. The animations aren’t great, but the illustrations are cool, especially the little pixelated sprites that represent the larger designs. I like the sheer number of pokemon in the game as well. There are a ton, not even including the evolved versions that one pokemon will change from as it levels up. The creatures are really bizarre combinations of each other, with some pokemon not seeming that different from another. Some are inspired from animals,insects and plants, and some are seemingly made up out of thin air. It reminded me of my M.U.S.C.L.E. (Millions of Unusual Small Creatures Lurking Everywhere) collection when I was little. The little pink inch-high rubber action figures were also from Japan and featured nonsensical character designs. Its just very fun collecting all these bizarre little things.

I remember you guys!

I beat the equivalent of eight boss battles. In the game, the towns contain gyms which house gym leaders, powerful pokemon trainers. There are eight gym leaders, and I beat them all. After I beat them however, I came across the “elite four”, which I hope are actually the last four trainers to beat. They are incredibly difficult, and have to be beat consecutively without any retreat between the four battles. I beat the first elite, but am stalled after that. I’m giving the game a rest for now, because I’ve been really wanting to start playing Retro Game Challenge. I definitely see myself coming back to Pokemon Platinum, and leveling up my pokemon in the wild sufficiently enough to beat the elite four. Maybe after Retro Game Challenge I’ll come back to it. Pokemon Platinum was a laid back game to play, and I liked the pacing of it as a handheld game. I would highly recommend it, and I’m sure I’ll be buying another Pokemon game in the future.