The Franchise: It's impossible to emphatically describe Pokémon without making yourself sound crazy. To beam about a series that centres around pitting elementally-enhanced animals against each other in turn-based combat, with the main aim to capture all the creatures in tiny balls your character, a ten year old boy, carries on his belt or stores in a computer doesn't sound childish or boring; it sounds dumb. It really is the sort of game that needs to be played to understood. And you probably have; the series is second only in sales figures to Mario (and likely only because that guy got a fifteen year head start). An absolute phenomenon, there's been twenty-three versions of the game, an expanded roster of 719 variations of creatures and so much tie-in merchandise George Lucas would go green with envy. Why The First Was Best: Like Doctor Who, with Pokémon you're always going to gravitate to the notion of the one you first experienced being the best. But we're pretty certain that the first one wins out. Red and Blue (TV show tie-in Yellow just wasn't as good) were easy to pick up and impossible to put down, with the main story at its core taking around fifty hours to finish. That's a fully complete game right there; between a story doled out that's simple enough for young gamers to follow and combat that can be tweaked in pretty complicated ways, there's little need for anything else. And while new features like breeding and dual duels have been added, the core gameplay of Pokémon has stayed much the same, with the world-size and number of monsters getting bigger under the idea that bigger is better. For a pure Pokémon experience, the original games are the way to go. Do you share our views on these games? Which series do you think peaked at the very start? Let us know how you feel down in the comments.
