10 Reasons Pokemon Is The Greatest Franchise In Video Game History

1. It's Still Unique

While I've spent the better part of the last 3000 words comparing Pokemon's individual elements to other games, the franchise's greatest achievement is that, after nearly 20 years, there's still nothing that compares to it as a whole.

For every Mario there's a Sonic, for every FIFA there's a Pro Evo, for every COD there's a Battlefield, for every Elder Scrolls there's a Dragon Age, for every GTA there's a Saints Row. For every Pokemon, there's a... nope, still nothing. Nothing that offers the same experience, nothing that tries to steal the same audience, nothing that delivers a creature-driven adventure with micro-management, battles and collectables at the core of its gameplay.

A few games have tried - the initial launch at the turn of millennium saw pretty stiff competition from the subtly-titled Digimon - but the few titles that have gained any traction have fallen flat for a number of reasons. Enchanted Arms offered a lot of similar features, but failed to create the sort of world that would have been the platform for a long-running franchise, where as Dragomon, Battle of Beasts and Monster Squad have all attracted critical acclaim in the last few years but been restricted to comparably tiny audiences.

The key point here isn't that Pokemon is such a great franchise because it's got no competition, it's that Pokemon has no competition because it's such a great franchise.

For nearly 20 years now, as so many other great games have come, gone, become retro classics and then been revived and gone again, Pokemon's been a constant source of adventure and escapism for entire generations of gamers. Here's to many more, and (at least) another 20!

Let us know in the comments where you stand on Pokemon, and where you'd rank it in the rundown of the greatest games of all time!