Friday, November 30, 2012

Spotlight On Pokémon!

Hello!
Well, this post is for my school exam, a practical exam, by the way.
I'm gonna simply give out a few bits of my information...
My full name is Jason Knight Rumengan.
My school's Sekolah Budi Utama, in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
Here's the school's website, right here.
(Strangely, it's inactive when I posted this...)
I'd say that if you have a child, you can place this school as a candidate.
It is pretty good and has grabbed some moments of fame in the local newspaper.
So, well...go ahead and register your child to go to this school, if you'd like.
And it's time to get to the point, which is Pokémon.
Well, a few might say that Pokémon's a thing of the past, but really, it's a great franchise.
Like, seriously, an old Pokémon game (Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald, if I'm not mistaken) was the best-selling game for the Game Boy Advance, which is now discontinued and shifted out in favor of the Nintendo DS, which is still active up to now, but it could be discontinued in a few more years, considering that there's the Nintendo 3DS now.
Well, I guess I've shifted to talking about Nintendo handheld consoles...so I'll just go straight to the point.
I'd like to talk about Pokémon's history right here...
But this is all I know and I'd say that there are people who know more.
I remember that Pokémon started in 1996, so it's already about 16 years.
It all started from a person named Satoshi Tajiri.
Like, from what I remembered, it all sprouted from him seeing two boys playing two Game Boy console with a link cable.
(It's a historic console, so I guess this is just normal...)
He just imagined insects crawling from one cable to another or something like that, I think that would be the communication bit of Pokémon which is now a mandatory feature.
Like, he imagined insects because he likes them, or at least that's what I know...
So, from what I remembered, he gathered some friends and put some thought to it and made the first schemes for it.
It was called Capsule Monsters at that time.
Then, they showed it to Nintendo so it could be a game, but they refused the offer.
Afterwards, they didn't just give up. 
(Which is what most people do nowadays, and I'm the same...)
They revised the idea and made its name turn into Pocket Monsters.
Then, they showed Nintendo the revised ideas and it was accepted.
Nintendo became the publisher of the idea as a game.
It also does the same thing right now.
And so, Tajiri and his friends got to work.
This was when they made Game Freak, the company responsible for making Pokémon games.
Well, I actually forgot when they made Game Freak...
Was it made when Tajiri had the idea, or was it made when Nintendo green-lighted the idea for it?
Anyways, it wasn't all sugar, spice and everything nice on the whole production.
It was excruciatingly hard, like really hard. It took around six years for them to create the first Pokémon games.
Yep, they started out with two Pokémon games.
Not just one Pokémon game.
This decision was made to support the first idea which would be communicating with friends and trading Pokémon around and around.
They also made the games different in wild Pokémon distribution.
One game would have a certain Pokémon and another won't.
This made the need for players to trade, effectively supporting the idea of communication.
Anyways...like my first statement on top, these Pokémon games made their debut in 1996.
This is also the debut of the entire franchise.
Well, this franchise started in Japan, so it came there first.
Right afterwards, it came to the other continents.
They were called Pocket Monsters Red & Green.
When they wanted to send this over to America, they had a little problem.
(I'm probably underestimating the severity...)
There was another franchise that was called Monster in My Pocket.
See the similarity with Pocket Monsters?
This is what made the problem.
Because of this, they knew that they had to change the name.
They decided to make a portmanteau out of both words which would be the name we know right now -- Pokémon.
It should have been Pockemon, but I guess they stated that it didn't sound right.
Right now, even Japanese copies of Pokémon games don't use Pocket Monsters.
Oh yeah, I'd say something...
Because the first Pokémon games were in the Game Boy, they weren't that good.
Like, they had lots of glitches, like Vanellope of Wreck-It Ralph.
The most popular one would be the Missingno. glitch, shown here in a video.

Not only that, the quality of the game's graphics are terrible, which is shown in that video, but I'll add these extra pictures to support the fact.
Try and compare that with these pictures!
See the difference?
Well, anyways...
Now it's about the franchise, I'm just gonna step out of the whole run of history.
Well, the franchise isn't all about games, unlike The Legend of Zelda, a Nintendo franchise.
It would also have an anime that's currently active with many seasons and movies.
Not only that, there's a whole trading card game too!
This section of the franchise is also still active.
So you can say that the franchise has a lot of active sections.
There was a Trading Figure Game, but that got discontinued.
And also...there's a store dedicated to Pokémon!
It's called a Pokémon Center, much like the omnipresent building that can be found in the games...the Pokémon Center.
It has lots of Pokémon stuff in it...there are also distribution events too.
They're mostly in Japan, and I remember that there are a few Pokémon Centers in America too, but just a few...or they're simply vending machines for Pokémon things.
The vending machines do exist in America.
And for Pokémon fans that want to see them while travelling, then ANA's (All Nippon Airways, a Japanese airline) Pokémon Jets will be your favorite plane.
Like, everything there's all decorated with Pokémon.
Sometimes, ANA also holds distribution events.
They also show the Pokémon anime in the Pokémon Jet, but only special episodes are shown.
And those special episodes are only available for a limited time there...I don't think that they're doing that anymore.
There are about six Pokémon Jets.
Oh, and for America, they hold competitions there, known as the VGC (Video Game Championships).
They also have a competition for the Trading Card Game, but I forgot its name.
They also hold sweepstakes and distribution events, either through Wi-Fi or through game stores like Toys R Us or GameStop.
The same would go with Japan.
Well, right now, the franchise still stands tall, that's for sure.
It should last for a pretty long time.
It has just gotten a new set of games, Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 and Black 2 is in my hands.
Here's the trailer!

Well, I guess that's it for my whole explanation of Pokémon! Thanks, have a nice day and goodbye!
Oh, I just remembered something. The pictures that I posted are from Bulbapedia. Go on and visit it if you'd like to know lots about Pokémon!
And also...I just remembered.
There will be a new Pokémon movie!
I remembered that its name was something like Kyurem and the Swords of Justice...I'm gonna check and place the sneak peek videos. 
Uh, actually, it's Kyurem vs. The Sword of Justice, so I made a mistake.





Okay then...I guess this is the real goodbye. Goodbye, have a nice day, and thanks for reading!

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