10 Reasons Pokemon Is The Greatest Franchise In Video Game History

9. It Revolutionised Multiplayer Gaming

Multiplayer gaming is big, big business now. Online modes of games have grown for a fun extra at parties, to now a core component of any major release. Some recent games have even been so obsessed with their multiplayer that they've upended their entire story modes into the toilet, kept at it with the plunger and then broken the flush forcing it round the bend.

Split-screens and co-ops have been a thing almost as long as gaming, but for most people the first true challenging multiplayer they experienced - ie, working on something yourself, and then testing it against others - was with the GameBoy's Link Cable and Pokemon battles in the playground. Developing rivalries, strategies, and pioneering all the elements of multiplayer in the late 90s that wouldn't become common place in gaming until XBox Live launched nearly 15 years later.

The game has since moved its multiplayer online, not requiring a subscription service a la Microsoft and Sony, but just letting you trade and battle over wifi for free. Crucially though, online play still includes a mechanism for evening out all the Pokemon used in a battle, scaling up and down to Level 50. The relevant strengths and weaknesses all remain, but there's no way for the players with the most spare time on their hands to dominate casuals with anything other and actual skill and planning.

Next time you've got an entire gang teabagging you on your favourite shooter, consider that you could be having a competitive battle of wits on Pokemon instead.