10 Pokémon Games You've (Probably) Never Played

More than likely looking to jump on the trend of Tamagotchi’s and similar virtual pets while the Pokémon irons were hot, Nintendo released Hey You, Pikachu! For the Nintendo 64 a mere 2 weeks before Christmas of 1998 in Japan and then just under 2 years later in November of 2000 in North America.

The game is only one of two games that implemented the use of the N64’s Voice Recognition Unit (VRU) (the other being a train driving simulator called Densha de Go! 64) and revolved around the player helping Professor Oak test his device that allows humans to talk to Pokémon. The overall goal is to befriend and earn the trust of a wild Pikachu over the course of a year (with a mighty tear-jerker of an ending).

It may be a bit of stretch to call this a full “game”, but Hey You, Pikachu! Did have a database of over 250 words that the game could recognise and interpret. It unfortunately suffered at the hands of the peripheral, with reports being that the VRU was calibrated to primarily pick up vocal ranges with a higher pitch, more than likely adjusted for the tones of children’s voices rather than adults.