A long time ago, I was a bright eyed child playing the biggest gaming craze to hit our shores on a teal colored game boy. While things have changed, I still hold fond memories of Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow all that time ago. So it was on a whim I bought Soul Silver and Black and began to prepare for the next pokemon generation that was soon to dawn. And as Pokemon X & Y draw ever close, I've noticed not all is well in the loveable world of Pocket Monsters. Here's my list of what I think can be improved for the next generation.
1. Who's That Pokemon?!
For me especially, coming back to pokemon after a huge break (stopping after Ruby, which I only played for a few days) was daunting. Playing Soul Silver was mostly easy as the first 250 pokemon were relatively familiar. After that, I was hazy. On top of that, generation IV really overhauled several of the moves and order in which they are learned. More times than not I asked myself, "What is this new pokemon? What is its type? What are its moves?" Then I had other questions about the pokemon I already owned. "When will it evolve? What moves will it learn? When will it learn this move? Can it learn certain things?"
Remember when the cartoon was all the rage? How the main character would pull out his trusty pokedex when he saw a new creature and the gadget would tell him the all the info he needed? That was so cool. In fact, I was so enthralled by that, I went out and bought an old school pokedex toy at K-mart. It was a huge waste of money and utterly useless, but it didn't matter. As a 9 year old kid, I'd totally unfold it and act like it was telling me all the info I needed to win a battle.
Sadly, in the games your pokedex is more or less dead weight. When you begin the game, you're given your little computer and it will catalog all the data of all the creatures you could want... after you capture them. Now, in 1998 technological limitations were evident. The game boy could barely pump out intricate 8-bit graphics and the actual cartridge had only a few bytes of free data left after the whole game was programmed. And, even in the original games it was said that pokemon were still a mystery and Oak entrusted you with the prototype pokedex.
That was then, this is now. The 3DS is an impressive machine and the games themselves are pretty striking. Yet, the pokedex is still an arbitrary record keeper. It's time for an upgrade.
With the new technological advancements, there's no reason we can't have a new tab to press in the battle screen that will bring up the pokedex with the target's info. Such an addition would really add a new layer of depth and meaning the first time through and be a great tool to use on multiple play throughs.
Basically this will eliminate my need to buy a strategy guide or go online every time the game throws a curve ball at me (for simple things at least).