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asanori's Pokemon Yellow (GBC)
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| [December 13, 2012 04:29:45 PM]
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Pokémon Yellow features upgradable characters, resource management, and exploration of an enormous map to find items, advance the story, and collect Pokémon. The designs of the caves in this game are reminiscent of those in Legend of Zelda games; they are designed to be puzzles for the player, with multiple levels and enemies hidden inside. My favorite part of this game is the highly variable emergent narrative that a person can experience; every time you play, different Pokémon will appear, you may get more or less lucky with the NPC’s moves, etc. I can replay a Pokémon game hundreds of times without getting bored; it’s never the same twice.
A unique feature of this game is that your starter, Pikachu, follows you around in the game outside of his/her Poke ball. (Gender differentiation of the Pokémon doesn’t happen until later versions of Pokémon games.) The player can gauge his/her performance in the game by interacting with Pikachu, who will make a face based on how much it likes you. This allows the player to mediate his/her playing style to be more accommodating; not letting Pikachu faint often is a good way to get back into its good graces. Throughout the game, Pikachu’s expressions can alert the player to changes in the environment. It gets frightened in dark or scary places, and at one point runs up to a man disguised as a Pokémon and shows confusion, which can tip the player off to something fishy about that “Pokémon”.
This game has no cut scenes, except in the very beginning when talking to Professor Oak; the narrative unfolds as the player completes tasks and visits different areas of the game world. NPC characters direct the player and reveal the story to the player through dialogue. The game rewards players for being “social” with the other people in the game; they often dispense advice, items, or clues to advance the game. This is probably foreshadowing Nintendo’s game-making trajectory of making gaming as social an experience as possible via the internet.
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asanori's Pokemon Yellow (GBC)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Wednesday 12 December, 2012
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