AAAAAAH IT IS SUCH A GOOD YEAR TO BE A POKEMON FAN!!!
WHY, YOU ASK?? WELL THERE ARE MANY REASONS. BUT BEFORE I DELVE INTO THAT LET ME FIRST SHARE THIS WONDERFUL LITTLE VIDEO WITH YOU:
IS IT TOO EARLY FOR SUPER BOWL COMMERCIALS TO BE POSTED ONLINE? YES.
BUT, I DON'T CARE. BECAUSE THIS IS HONESTLY JUST BEAUTIFUL AND SO TRUE TO THE POKEMON SPIRIT AND ISN'T EVEN TRYING TO SELL ANYTHING IN PARTICULAR. IT'S JUST A CELEBRATION OF POKEMON OVERALL. AND THAT'S WONDERFUL.
And it's also great for getting you in the right hyped-up mood to get excited about EVERYTHING ELSE THIS YEAR HAS TO OFFER.
BECAUSE LIKE ANY MILESTONE ANNIVERSARY YEAR SHOULD BE, IT'S FILLED WITH FUCKIN' AMAZING NONSENSE.
Like, how about, in the spirit of an anniversary like this, we go back to Pokemon's roots with
3DS PORTS OF THE ORIGINAL GEN I GAMES.
WITH WIRELESS COMMUNICATION SUPPORT AND EVERYTHING. THAT'S RIGHT, YOU GET TO EXPERIENCE THE ORIGINAL POKEMON GAMES AS THEY WERE MEANT TO BE PLAYED, COMPLETE WITH TRADING AND BATTLING AGAINST OTHER PEOPLE --
THE CORE IDEAS THAT INSPIRED THIS ENTIRE SERIES TO BEGIN WITH.
WERE THESE GAMES A BELOVED PART OF YOUR CHILDHOOD, ALTHOUGH YOU LAMENTED THE FACT THAT YOU COULDN'T TRADE OR BATTLE ANYONE? DID YOU BUY A GAMEBOY LINK CABLE ONLY TO FIND THAT FUCKING NO ONE EVEN WANTED TO PLAY WITH YOU, AND EVEN WHEN THEY DID, THE PIECE-OF-SHIT CABLE DIDN'T EVEN FUCKING WORK RIGHT??
OR DID YOU NOT AT ALL EXPERIENCE THE SAME PARTICULAR DILEMMA THAT I FACED IN MY OWN CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES OF THESE GAMES, BUT YOU STILL REALLY WANNA TRY OUT SOME CLASSIC POKEMON AND
ACTUALLY INTERACT WITH PEOPLE ON IT???
WELL THEN YOUR PRAYERS HAVE BEEN ANSWERED, BECAUSE NINTENDO'S BRINGING YOU SOME GORGEOUS CLASSIC POKEMON WHILE KEEPING INTACT THE BEAUTIFUL EXPERIENCE OF TRADING AND BATTLING WITH YOUR NERD FRIENDS, JUST AS IT WAS INTENDED TWENTY YEARS AGO.
BECAUSE YOU KNOW WHAT THE OTHER COOL THING ABOUT GEN I WAS?? "CATCHING 'EM ALL"
WAS ACTUALLY KIND OF A PLAUSIBLE FUCKING TASK, so long as you could actually trade with people. When playing the game, it's easy to see that,
ideally, catching a modest 150 species would be challenging but still at least
within reach if you could only trade to get the ones that you'll otherwise never have. Linking up with someone not possible for you?? TOO BAD. I GUESS YOU'RE NOT GETTING THOSE VERSION EXCLUSIVES OR THE OTHER TWO STARTERS. MUCH LESS ANYTHING THAT EVOLVES SPECIFICALLY BY TRADING.
YOU'RE SHIT OUT OF LUCK, KID.
UNTIL NOW.
And yes, I
did say "150" and not "151", cuz, in the original games, they literally never even programmed in any way to encounter Mew. Hell, Mew wasn't even originally planned to be in the game to begin with! They snuck it in at the last minute and a good chunk of the development team didn't even know about it until after the game's release. And it shows, too -- given the fact that Gen I Mew only learns a grand total of
five moves by leveling up, but is compatible with literally ALL TM's and HM's (I guess they didn't have much time to program specifics on that front), and uh, oh yeah, there's also the fact that ITS CODE IS IN THE GAME, AND IT IS A PERFECTLY FUNCTIONAL POKEMON IN EVERY REGARD,
BUT THEY LITERALLY NEVER PROGRAMMED ANY WAY FOR YOU TO ACTUALLY ENCOUNTER IT (which is why, famously, the only way to obtain Mew in Gen I is by exploiting a glitch). Oh, and it's ALSO the reason -- for all you Pokemon fans who were kept awake at night as a kid pondering this -- why Mew comes
after Mew
two in the Pokedex. Cuz originally only Mewtwo was supposed to actually be in the game to begin with, and they tacked Mew onto the end later. ...Which would also explain why the final count even wound up being 15
1 as opposed to keeping it at a nice, marketable number like 150. (THAT'S A FUN BIT OF POKEMON TRIVIA FOR YA!!!)
But, back to the point -- is it likely that the 3DS ports of Red/Blue/Yellow will have patched the aforementioned glitch that was previously the only way of getting Mew? (Along with probably a lot of other glitches because uh, yeah, there were a FUCKING TON OF THEM in Gen I, even way beyond the really infamous ones.) Unfortunately, that is a distinct possibility -- especially since that glitch can do a lot more than summoning Mew. Screw around with it too much and you can unleash
HELL and it is literally the reason why I can't even walk onto route 7 anymore on my old copy of Red without the game fucking up in all sorts of freaky ways. And while I'm probably not the only one who would fucking fangirl squeal upon seeing a Missingno on a fucking 3DS screen, it's rather understandable as to why Gamefreak might want to patch a lot of this crazy shit up.
(Kind of makes me wonder if they can really catch everything, though. There were just so many glitches...)
BUT, THAT SAID, does this mean that, since using the 3DS console's superior technology to remedy the flaws of some old games is apparently a possibility, it's plausible that they might actually try to hand out actual MYSTERY GIFTS for Mew in this game?? Well, I don't know. That's kind of wishful thinking, and I honestly wouldn't be too surprised if they didn't really give us any way to encounter Mew at all. And honestly? I'd be ok with that -- since being able to collect 150 Pokemon by trading with other people precisely the way it was intended is more than good enough for me.
Besides, it's been fucking
forever since they gave out an event Mew. That thing's probably one of the rarest and most coveted -- if not
the rarest and coveted -- event Pokemon on the market right now, if only because I'm pretty sure there hasn't been an event for it since Gen III.
So, even the idea of a Mew mystery gift on the
current generation of Pokemon games just seems like something that'll never happeOH WAIT WAIT WAIT.
WAIT.
MEW MYSTERY GIFT FOR GEN VI, YOU SAY???
WELL HOLD ONTO YOUR BUTTS, CUZ MEW'S COMING,
AND IT'S NOT ALONE!!!.
THAT'S RIGHT, NOT ONLY DO YOU GET MEW, FUCKING
MEW AS AN EVENT STARTING NEXT MONTH, BUT 2016 WILL ALSO BRING US A GRAND TOTAL OF
ELEVEN. EVENT. POKEMON. AND I DON'T MEAN EVENTS AS IN "HERE'S SOME COOL SORT OF RARE POKEMON THAT YOU COULD PLAUSIBLY CATCH ON YOUR OWN BUT WE'RE HANDING IT OUT FOR FREE CUZ IT'S STILL COOL AND RARE" --
NO, I MEAN,
EVENT-ONLY POKEMON, SHIT LIKE MEW AND CELEBI AND ALL THOSE OTHER FANCY PANTSY CANNOT-TRADE-THIS-ON-THE-GTS-FOR-SOME-REASON-EVEN-THOUGH-PLAYERS-ARE-STILL-CAPABLE-OF-ASKING-FOR-IT-ON-THE-GTS-
FOR-SOME-REASON SPECIES THAT'VE SPENT THE PAST 20 YEARS CLUTTERING UP THE POKEDEX WITH SLOTS THAT HAVE SLIM-TO-NONE CHANCES OF BEING FILLED BECAUSE THEY'RE FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE TO GET YOUR HANDS ON UNLESS GAMEFREAK DECIDES TO BE GENEROUS AT JUST THE RIGHT TIME -- EMPTY SLOTS THAT JUST SIT THERE, TAUNTING YOU, LIKE VERSION-EXCLUSIVES ON THE POKEDEX OF A FUCKING GEN I GAME THAT'S NEVER BEEN ABLE TO CONNECT TO ANYTHING EVER.
BUT NO MORE, CUZ NOW'S YOUR CHANCE TO CATCH UP WITH
ELEVEN. EVENT. POKEMON., ALL THROUGHOUT THIS GLORIOUS YEAR.
ARE YOU EVEN HEARING ME???
AN EVENT FOR ANOTHER RARE EVENT-ONLY SPECIES EVERY MONTH STARTING IN FEBRUARY!!!
Have I convinced you that 2016 is the best year in Pokemon yet??? Well don't be convinced just yet, because I feel I should remind you all that POKEMON GO NEVER STOPPED BEING A THING.
YEAH,
THAT'S COMING OUT THIS YEAR, TOO. Oh, wait, what's that?? You're still skeptical of the game living up to what you hoped it would be, because you couldn't get any concrete info from those beautiful but admittedly not-very-informative trailers??? Well APPARENTLY YOU MISSED
THE UPDATE ON THAT, BECAUSE NOT ONLY WILL DIFFERENT SPECIES OF POKEMON BE PRESENT IN THE ENVIRONMENT YOU'RE IN (JUST LIKE WE HOPED), AND NOT ONLY WILL THERE BE
LIVE EVENTS THAT MULTIPLE PEOPLE IN THE AREA CAN GET IN ON (LIKE THE TRAILER SUGGESTED WITH THE MEWTWO THING), BUT THERE'LL EVEN BE
GYMS.
FUCKING.
GYMS.
YOU GET TO GO AND PHYSICALLY TRAVEL ACROSS THE LAND, SEARCHING FAR AND WIDE, LITERALLY EXPLORING NEW REAL-WORLD AREAS IN SEARCH FOR RARE SPECIES OF POKEMON; YOU GET TO BATTLE AND TRAIN THOSE LOVELY THINGS SO THEY GET STRONGER; YOU ARE ENCOURAGED TO TRADE WITH PEOPLE SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE
IT GIVES YOU A CHANCE TO OBTAIN SPECIES THAT WERE CAUGHT SOMEPLACE YOU'VE NEVER BEEN TO (*foams at the mouth*); AND THEN, WHEN YOU'RE READY TO PUT YOUR POKEMON SKILLS TO THE TEST,
YOU CAN CHALLENGE
ACTUAL. POKEMON. GYMS.
SO IF YOU WERE GETTING HYPED UP JUST THINKING ABOUT HOW THE 3DS PORTS OF GEN I ARE GONNA LET YOU EXPERIENCE THE TRUEST, PUREST SPIRIT OF POKEMON EXACTLY AS IT WAS MEANT TO BE EXPERIENCED, I JUST WANT YOU TO CONSIDER
THIS FUCKING APP -- BECAUSE I DON'T THINK
ANYTHING CAN MORE CLEARLY CAPTURE EVERYTHING THAT POKEMON WAS SUPPOSED TO FEEL LIKE, AND EVERYTHING THAT THOSE ORIGINAL GAME DEVELOPERS TRIED SO HARD TO INCORPORATE INTO THOSE FIRST FEW GAMES, EVEN THOUGH TECHNOLOGY AT THE TIME COULD ONLY DO SO MUCH, AND THE REST HAD TO BE FILLED IN WITH YOUR IMAGINATION.
BUT NOW WE HAVE
THIS, AND THE DREAM OF BEING A POKEMON MASTER HAS NEVER FELT MORE REAL.
2016 IS GONNA BE AN ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL YEAR. ;w;