Demon Pigeon

Dear Noel,

I am proud to hear that young OWENGRIEVE has evolved into a Pidgeotto, although not as proud as I am to hear of the way you dealt with Misty – exploiting her aquatic fetish with a grass Pokémon was a wise move. It sounds like you are both developing into fine beasts of war! I am eager to see how the two of you will continue to improve over the coming weeks.

Your observation regarding the Pewter museum is meritorious. As you have discovered, the road to Cerulean City is dominated by Mt. Moon, and all the dialogue in this region carries a distinct lunar theme. Chief among the topics of conversation is the old wives’ tale that Clefairies come from the moon, as you suspected. I don’t think there’s any solid proof that this is true, but it is strongly hinted at – they exhibit a strange reaction when exposed to Moon Stone, and in the second generation games there’s a weekly event – on Monday nights, if memory serves – where the Clefairies congregate in a secret moonlit clearing and do a magical, dainty dance.

It’s interesting how the mythology of the Pokémon world has Michael Bay’d over the years. In this first game you only hear a few local legends, but by the time you reach the fourth generation games there are full-blown religions dedicated to ‘god’ Pokémon. I really hate the way you can now fight battles with beings that are credited with creating the universe, because there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be able to explode your brain on sight. The mythos is much more compelling when it’s kept small and weird, in keeping with the folksy, rural attitude of the game.

The flipside of this is that you’re also exposed to a lot of serious science. As you’ve seen, there is an exhibit in the Pewter museum dedicated to the real-world Apollo 11 mission. I think it’s partly to create a sense of magical realism – which has been sadly choked off as the series has progressed – but also drills some knowledge into the young children who play these games. Your experiences with evolving Pokémon are a similar deal. Kakuna is a rubbish Pokémon, but the reason it exists is to illustrate the process by which a Weedle might metamorphose into a Beedrill. This links back to what I was saying last week about the game being inspired by insect collections – bug Pokémon are represented with a particular attention to detail.

But enough about Pewter City. As soon as you leave town, you bump into my favourite character in the game – the kid who barrels up to you on the mountain trail and says “Hi! I like shorts! They’re so comfy and easy to wear!” I think that kid is a true hero, and I’m happy to say that the developers agree; kid trainers in the sequels have been dropping obscure references to his infamous greeting ever since.

I don’t really have a lot to say about the actual trip through Mt. Moon. It’s a long, dull and cavernous place, most notable as the site of your first encounter with Team Rocket. You’re right that they look different in the anime series, which is how most fans know them. In the game they’re really a generic crime gang, responsible for pretty much every act of brazen malice within the Pokémon world. If you look around Cerulean City you might notice a house that has supposedly been raided by these goons, but they’re not just mindless thugs – the reason why they’re drawn to Mt. Moon is because one of their evil scientists wants to do a Jurassic Park on some ancient Pokémon fossils. Which fossil did you pick up, by the way? Since you’ve probably forgotten, you can find it somewhere in your item bag.

Cerulean City isn’t really as nice as the name suggests – actually, it’s probably one of my least favourite towns in the game, since it has such an impractical layout. Did you visit the cycling shop? You’ve surprised me again with your story about vising Bill’s lighthouse. When I got into town I barged straight into the gym and got crazy with my Pikachu – I had forgotten that it was possible to head north at this stage of the game. It’s never too late to capture your own little electric mouse if you decide you want one, although I’m not sure you’ll need one. Did you notice that cave opposite the broadwalk? It sure looks mysterious.

The Cerulean gym is led by pre-teen bikini babe Misty, which makes this an appropriate time to say a few words about the Pokémon anime and get all that out of the way. The TV series more or less follows the plot of the games, but with a few key differences – one of the biggest being that Brock and Misty leave their gyms and accompany the main character on his journey. I’m surprised their bosses at the Pokémon League turn a blind eye to them taking indefinite leave like that, but who am I to argue?

I wouldn’t say the anime has had an obvious impact on the games themselves (with the exception of Pokémon Yellow – a sort of director’s cut of Red/Blue which incorporated a lot of characters from the show), but it has a big effect on how the games are experienced by fans. You’ve noticed that the game characters are quite one-dimensional, but the anime fleshes them out with hour after hour of flashbacks and bad jokes and ‘being nice is great!’ moralising. To a young child who delves into this expanded universe every Saturday morning, the eccentric characterisations (such as Brock being a creepy sex pest) carry over into the games and help to compensate for the lack of detail within the game.

Misty’s CASCADEBADGE allows you to control Pokémon up to level 30. I’m not sure this is explained very well, but it only applies to Pokémon you receive in trades – Pokémon you have raised yourself will always obey you, but traded Pokémon will sometimes ignore you if they don’t respect you. We should try to meet up sometime and organise some trades and battles. I think we can do it over the internet, but for the sake of giving you the authentic experience we should try to meet up somewhere appropriate – say, the far end of a school playground.

You’ll need to pack your shorts and suncream next week, because we’re heading to the sunny port town of Vermillion City! We’ll go cruising with sailors, learn our first HM, and face off against the shock-and-awe tactics of Lt. Surge. I can tell you’re excited already.

Owen

PS: I am unaware of a suicide button, although there are some ethically contentious suicide bomber attacks to be learned. Keep your eyes peeled for Voltorbs and Electrodes!

Suicide bombing, EVILution, idolatry and Bible-defying science?? What has this animal cruelty simulator been teaching our children all these years?? To find out, join us next Friday for chapter III of The Pokémon Letters!

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This entry was posted on Friday, September 9th, 2011 at 11:22 and is filed under Games, Poop. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.